Full text of "The complete works of Stephen Charnock"

OCT i 1 1988 j 



BX 9315 .CA27 186A v. 5 
Charnock, Stephen, 1628- 

1680. 
The complete works of 



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NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES. 

PUKITAN PERIOD. 



BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D., 

LINCOLN OOLLEGB ; HONOEART CANON OF WORCESTER ; RECTOR OF ST MARTl.Nf S, BIRMINGHAM. 



THE 



WORKS OF STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D. 

VOL. V. 



COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION. 



W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Cangregational 
Union, Edinburgh, 

JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh. 

THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, 
Edinburgh. 

D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church, 
Edinburgh. 

WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church 
History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh. 

ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby- 
terian Church, Edinburgh. 



©eneral ©Dttor. 
REV. THOMAS SMITH. M.A., Edinburgh. 



THE COMPLETE WORKS 



V 



STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D. 



Wiit\f |nlr0budioii 

BY REV. JAMES IM'COSH, LL.D., 

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS, QUEEN's COLLEGE, BELFAST. 



VOL. V. 

CONTAINING : 

MISCELLANEOUS DISCOURSES, INDEXES, do. 



EDINBURGH: JAMES ISICHOL. 

LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : G. HEEBERT. 



M.UCCC.LXYI, 



EDINBIUGH : 

PRINTED BY JOHN OKGIG ANLi SON 

OLD PHVSIC GAEDLNS. 




CONTENTS. 



DISCOURSES. 

A DXSCDURSE OF THE NECESSITY OF ChRISt's 

Death. ..... 

A Discourse of the Necessity of Christ'". 

Exaltation. .... 

A Discourse of Christ's Intercession. 
A Discourse of the Object of Faith. 
A Discourse of Afflictions. 
A Discourse of the Removal of the Gospel. 
A Discourse of Mercy Received. 
A Discourse of Mortification. 
A Discourse pROAaNO weak Grace Victorious. 
A Discourse of the Sinfulness and Cure of 

Thoughts. .... 

A Discourse of the Church's Stability. 
A Discourse upoj^ the Fifth of November. 
A Discourse of Delight in Prayer. . 
A Discourse of Mourning for other Men's 

Sins. ..... 

A Discourse for the Comfort of Child-Bear- 

iNG Women. .... 



Paok 



Luke XXTV. 26. 


8 


Luke XXIV. 26. 


49 


1 John II. 1. . 


91 


John XIV. 1. . 


145 


Heb. Xn. 5-11. 


178 


Rev. II. 5. 


190 


Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 


205 


Rom. VIII. 18. . 


214 


Mat. XII. 20. . 


225 



Gen. VI. 5. .. 288 

Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 817 

ExoD XV. 9, 10. 850 

Ps. XXXVII. 4. 870 



Ezek. IX. 4. 



1 Tim. IL 15. 



880 



898 



Taoe 
A Discourse of the Sins of the Uegenerate. 1 John III. 9. . 414 

A Discourse of the Pardon of Sin. . . Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 434 

Man's Enmity to God. . . . Rom. YIII. 7. . 459 

The Chief Sinners objects of the Choicest 

Mercy. . . . . .1 Tim. I. 15. . 526 



INDEX .567 

INDEX OF TEXTS. ... . .587 



DISCOURSES, 








A DISCOURSE OF THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S 
DEATH. 



OiujJit not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory f 
—Luke XXIV. 26. 

The words are an answer of our Saviour's to the discourse of two of the 
disciples who were going to Emmaus, ver. 13. He came incognito to them 
while they were discoursing together of the great news of that time, viz., the 
death of their master, whom they acknowledge ' a prophet mighty in deed 
and word before God and all the people,' ver. 19 ; confirmed by God to be 
so by miracles, and confessed to be so by the people. Yet they questioned 
whether he were the Messiah that should redeem Israel, and erect the kingdom 
so much promised and predicted in the Scripture. They could not tell how 
to reconcile the ignominy of his death with the grandeur of his office, and 
glory of a king. And though they had heard by the women of ' a vision of 
angels' that assured them ' he was alive,' yet they do not seem in their dis- 
course to give any credit to the report, but relate it as they heard it; though 
both by what they said before, ver. 21, that they had ' trusted that it was 
he that should have redeemed Israel,' and also by the sharp reproof Christ 
gives them, ver. 25, ' fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the pro- 
phets have spoken !' we may conclude that they thought it a mere illusion, 
or a groundless imagination of the women. Christ, to rectify their minds, 
begins with a reproof, and follows it with an instruction, that what they 
thought a ground to question the truth of his office, and the reality of his 
being the Messiah, was rather an argument to confirm and establish it, since 
that person characterised in the Old Testament to be the Messiah was to wade 
to his glory through a sea of blood, and such sufierings in every kind as 
cruel and shameful as that person in whom they thought they had been 
deceived, had sufi"ered three days before ; and afterwards discourseth from 
the Scripture that his death, and such a kind of death, did well agree with 
the predictions of the prophets ; and therefore, ' beginning at Moses and all 
the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things con- 
cerning himself.' He might well sum up in two or three hours' time 
(wherein we may suppose he was with them) most of those testimonies which 
did foretell his suflferings for the expiation of sin. The proposition which he 
maintains from Moses and the prophets, is in the text, ' Ought not Christ 



4 charnock's wokks. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

to have suffered those things ?' which is laid down by way of interrogation, 
bat equivalent to an affirmation ; and he backed, without question, his dis- 
course with many reasonings for the confirmation of it, to reduce them from 
the distrust they had to a full assent to the necessity of his death, in order 
to his own glory, and consequently theirs ; the foundation of his own exalta- 
tion, and the redemption of mankind, being laid in his being a sacrifice. 
OiKjht not ? 

1. It is not said, it is convenient or becoming. As it was said of his 
baptism, Matt. iii. 15, ' It becomes us to fulfil all righteousness.' His bap- 
tism had more of a convenience than necessity.* He might have been the 
Messiah without subjecting himself to the ceremonial law, or passing under 
the baptism of John. But it was impossible he should be a redeeming Christ 
without undergoing an accursed death. No sin was expiated merely by his 
submission to the yoke of legal rites, or the baptismal water of John ; all 
expiation of sin was founded only in his bloody baptism. 

2. It is said, he imght. Not an absolute, but a conditional ought ; not 
his original duty as the Son of God, but a voluntary duty as the redeemer 
of man. He voluntarily engaged at first in it, and voluntarily proceeded to 
the utmost execution, yet necessarily after his first engagement. Necessity 
there was, but not compulsion. All necessity doth not imply constraint, and 
exclude will. Paul must necessarily die by the law appointed to all men, 
but willingly he ' desires to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.' God is 
necessarily holy and true, yet not unwillingly so. Angels and glorified souls 
are necessarily holy by their confirmation in a gracious and glorious state, 
yet voluntarily so by a full and free inclination ; necessary by the decree 
and counsel of God, necessary by the engagement and promise of Christ, 
necessary by the predictions and prophecies of Scripture. f All which causes 
of necessity are linked together, because the restoration of man required such 
a suftering ; therefore it was from eternity decreed by God, embraced by 
Christ, published in Scripture. It was ordained in heaven, and set out in 
the manifesto of the Old Testament ; so that if this death had not been suf- 
fered, the counsel of God concerning redemption had been defeated, the 
word and promises of Christ violated, and the truth of God in the predic- 
tions of the prophets had fallen to the ground. The decree of God was de- 
clared in many prophecies before the execution ; and this will of God is an 
evidence of the necessity of it. + Why did he ordain it, if it were not neces- 
sary to so great an end ? Though the end, the redemption of man, was not 
necessary, yet, when the end was resolved on, this, as the means, was found 
necessary in the counsel of God. The natural inclination and will of Christ, 
as man, did startle at it, when he desired that this cup might pass from him. 
It was contrary to the reason and common sense of men. How, then, should 
that infinite \Yisdom, that wills nothing but what is unquestionably reasonable, 
have determined such a means, if it had not been necessary for his own 
glory and man's recovery ? But both the Father and the Son were moved 
to it by the height of that good will they bore to the fallen creature. 

These things, raZra. Every one of those severe and sharp circumstances. 
The whole system of those sufferings, not a dart that pierced him, not a 
reproach that grated upon him, but was ordained ; every step he took in blood 
and suffering was marked out to him. Since Christ was to die for the repar- 
ation of man, for the expiation of sin, it was necessary that his death should 
be attended with those particular sharpnesses that might render his love more 
admirable, the justice of God more dreadful, the evil of sin more abominable, 

* Daille, Serm. de Eesurrect. de Christ, p. 226. f Gerhard in loo. 

X Daille, Serm. de Eesurrect. de Christ, p. 226, 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 5 

and the satisfaction itself more valuable. The intenseness of his love had 
not been set off so amiably in a light and easy death, as in a painful and 
shameful suffering ; and though the greatness of his merit and the fulness 
of his satisfaction did principally arise from the dignity of the sufferiug 
person, yet some consideration might be also had of the greatness of his 
suffering. Not only his death, as he was considered equal with God, but his 
shameful death in the circumstance of the cross, is a mark of his obedience 
and a cause of his exaltation, Philip, ii. 8. Both were regarded in the crown 
of glory, and that high dignity wherein he was instated, so that the sum of 
Christ's speech amounts to this much : be not doubtful whether the person 
so lately suffering, whom you account so great a prophet, were the Messiah. 
You clearly may see in the prophets that nothing hath been inflicted on him 
but what was predicted of him ; so that it is not mei-ely the malice of man 
that hath caused those sufferings ; that was only a means God in his infinite 
wisdom used to bring about his own counsel. He was not forced to what 
he suffered, but willingly delivered up himself to perform the charge and 
office of a Redeemer, which could not else have been accomplished by him ; 
and that glory which you expected, was not by the order of God to be con- 
ferred upon him till he abased himself to such a passion. He will have a 
glory to your comfort, though not answering your carnal expectations. Be 
not dejected, but recover your hopes of redemption which you seem to have 
lost, and let them be rectified in the expectation, not of an earthly, but an 
heavenly, glory. 
Observe, 

1. The nature of Christ's sufferings, these things. 

2. The necessity. Ought not Christ to suffer ? 

3. The consequence, and to enter into his glory. 

There are two doctrines to be insisted on from these words : 

1. There was a necessity of Christ's death. 

2. Christ's exaltation was as necessary as his passion. 

For the first, there was a necessity of the death of Christ. It was neces- 
sary by the counsel of God, Acts ii. 23 ; ' Him being delivered by the deter- 
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Acts iv. 28. It was not a fruit 
of second causes, which God only suffered by a bare permission, but it was 
a decree of his will fixed and determined, and that before the world began, 
an irrevocable decree God made to deliver his Son to death for the sins of 
men, and according to this counsel he was in time delivered, and by the 
merit of his death hath reconciled to God all those that believe in him. 

In handling this doctrine, I shall shew, 

(1.) What kind of necessity this was. 

(2.) That it was necessary. 

(3.) The use. 

1. What kind of necessity this was. 

Prop. 1. His death was not absolutely necessary, but conditionally. 

(1.) It supposeth, first, the entrance of sin. There was no necessity 
that sin should enter into the world. There was no necessity on man's 
part to sin. Though he was created with a possibility of sinning, yet 
not with a necessity; he was created mutable, but not corruptible: 'God 
made man upright,' Eccles. vii. 29. His faculties, as bestowed upon him, 
stood right to God. He had an understanding to know what of God was fit 
for him to know, a will without any wrong bias to embrace him, and afiec- 
tions to love him. God permitted him to fall, the devil allured him to sin, 
but neither the one nor the other did immediately influence his will to the 
commission of his crime. There was no necessity on God's part that sin 



6 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

should enter ; though his wisdom thought good to permit it, yet there was 
DO absolute necessity that it should step up in the world. He might have 
fixed man, as well as the holy angels, in an eternal purity ; he might have 
enlightened the mind of man by a particular act of grace at the first proposal 
of the temptation by the devil, to discern his deceit and stratagem, and so 
might have prevented man's sin as well as permitted it. Had not sin entered, 
there had been no occasion for the death of the creature, much less for the 
death of Christ. The honour of God had not been invaded ; there had been 
no provoked justice to satisfy, nor any violated law to vindicate. Some in- 
deed there are* that think the incarnation of Christ had been necessary with- 
out the entrance of sin, because they consider God of so holy a nature that 
it had been impossible for him to be pleased with any creature, though the 
work of his own hands, so that neither angels nor men could have stood one 
moment in his sight without beholding him in the face of a mediator. Seve- 
ral had anciently imaginedf that if man had continued in obedience till the 
time appointed for his confirmation, then Christ would have been incarnate, 
and man have become one mystical person with him for his confirmation, as 
the angels were confirmed by him ; but none assert the death of Christ but 
upon supposition of sin. All sacrifices for sin imply the guilt of sin antece- 
dent to them ; but after man had transgressed the rule by his disobedience, 
and thereby made himself incapable of answering the terms of that righteous 
law which God had set him, the death of Christ became as necessary as his 
incarnation, for the righting the injured law and satisfying offended justice, 
and the conveyance of mercy to the creature, with the honour of God and 
preservation of his rights. As Christ's rejoicing from eternity, 'in the habit- 
able parts of the earth,' supposeth the creation of the world in the order of 
God's decree, Prov. viii. 31, so the eternal counsel of God, for the making 
his Son a sacrifice, supposeth the rise of sin and iniquity in the world. Had 
not man run cross to the preceptive will of God, he had enjoyed the presence 
of God without a sacrificed mediator, and would have had an everlasting 
communion with him in happiness ; but after sin entered upon the world, 
there was need of a propitiation for sin. An infinitely pure God could not 
have communion with an impure creature. It was not fit a sovereign ma- 
jesty should make himself savingly known to his creature without a propitia- 
tory. 

(2.) It supposeth death to be settled by God as the punishment of sin. 
Some question whether it were absolutely necessary that death should have 
been threatened upon the breach of the law. It is true, as the law depends 
upon the will of the lawgiver, so doth the punishment. And it is in his 
liberty, if you consider him as an absolute sovereign, to annex what penalty 
he pleaseth ; yet, as all laws are to spring from righteousness, so all punish- 
ments are to be regulated by righteousness and equity, that a punishment 
deserved by the greatest crime should not be ordered as the recompense of 
ofi'ences of a lighter nature. But in the case of transgressions against God, 
no penalty less than death, and eternal death, could, according to the rules 
of justice, have been appointed. It is certain sin doth naturally oblige to 
punishment : it is senseless to imagine that a law should be transgressed 
without some penalty incurred. A law is utterly insignificant without it, 
and it is inconsistent with the wisdom of a lawgiver to enact a precept 
without adding a penalty. If, therefore, a punishment be due to sin, it 
is requisite, according to the rules of justice and wisdom, to proportion 
the punishment to the greatness of the offence. I say this is the rule that 

* Bacon's Confession of Faith, at the end of his Eemains, pp. 117, 118- 
t Jackson, vol. ii. quart, p. 191. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 7 

righteousness requires. And it is as natural that a crime should be punished 
suitably to its demerit as that it should be punished at all. Why doth any 
fault deserve punishment, but because there is an unreasonableness in it, 
something against the nature of man, against the nature of a subject, against 
the authority of the lawgiver, against the order and good of a community ? 
The punishment therefore ought to be as great as the damage to authority 
by the crime. To order a punishment greater than the crime is tyranny ; 
to order it less than the crime is folly in the government : unrighteousness 
in both, because there is an inequality between the sin and the penalty. 
Now, such is the excellency of God's nature, and so inviolable with his crea- 
ture ought his authority to be, that the least offence against him deserves the 
highest punishment, because it is against the best and most sovereign being. 
It seems therefore to us that God had not acted like a righteous governor if 
he had not denounced death for the sins against him ; the oflfence being the 
highest, the punishment in the order of justice ought to be the highest. 
What could be supposed more just and reasonable than for God to deprive 
man of that life which he had given him, that life which man had received 
from the goodness of his Creator, and had employed against his authority 
and glory ? As his sin was against the supreme good, so the punishment 
ought to be the depriving man of his highest good. The vileness of the 
person offending, and the dignity of the person offended, always communi- 
cate an aggravation to the crime. The sin of man, being infinite, did, in the 
justice of God, merit an infinite punishment. And this is not only written 
upon the hearts of men by nature, that it is so, but that it is deservedly so, 
Rom. i. 32, ' that they are worthy of death.' The justice of God in in- 
flicting death for sin is as well known as his power and Godhead, and the 
justice of it is universally owned in the consciences of men when they are 
awakened. Adam, when he sinned, did not think the offence of so great 
a' weight, but his roused conscience presented him with those natural no- 
tions of the justice of God, and sunk him under the sense of it, till God 
had revived him by a promise. 

(3.) It supposeth that, after man's transgression, and thereby the demerit 
of death, God would recover and redeem man. There was no necessity 
incumbent upon God to restore man after his defection from him and rebellion 
against him. As God was not obliged to prevent man's fall, so he was not 
obliged to recover man fallen. When he did permit him to offend, he might 
have let him sink under the weight of his own crimes, and left him buried 
in the ruins of his fall. He might for ever have reserved him in those chains 
he had merited, and have let him feed upon the fruit of his own doings, 
without one thought of his delivery, or employing one finger of that power 
for his restoration, whereby he had brought him into being ; for the res- 
toration of man was no more necessary in itself than the first creation of 
him was. As God might have left him in his nothing without producing 
him into being, so he might have left him in his contracted misery without 
restoring him to happiness. Nor was it any ways more necessary than the 
reducing the fallen angels to their primitive obedience and felicity. The 
blessedness and happiness of God had no more been infringed by the eternal 
destruction of man, than it was by the everlasting ruin of devils. Upon the 
supposition that God would save sinners after his justice was so fully engaged 
to punish them, no way in the understanding of man can be thought of, but 
the sufferings of the creature, or some one for him, to preserve the justice of 
God from being injured. Though the thoughts of some differ in other things, 
yet not in this. All say it was not simply necessary that man should be 
freed from his fallen state. But since God would not hurl all men into the 



8 charnock's works, [Luke XXIV, 26. 

damnation they had deserved, and treat them as he did the devils in the 
rigours of his justice, this way of the death of his Son was the most con- 
venient way ; * and indeed necessary, not necessary by an antecedent 
necessity (for there is no such necessity in God respecting created things), 
but a consequent necessity upon a decree of his will, which being settled, 
something else must necessarily follow as a means for the execution of that 
decree ; as supposing God would create man to be Lord of the creature, and 
return him the glory of his works, it were then consequently necessary that 
he should create him with rational faculties, and fit for those ends for which 
he created him ; but the creation of man in such a frame is not of absolute 
necessity, but depends upon the antecedent decree of his will, of creating 
such a creature as should render him the tribute of his works. So it is not 
necessary that God should free man from the spot of sin, and the misery 
contracted thereby, and reduce him from damnation to felicity ; but since 
he determined the redemption of him after the violation of the law, which he 
had contii-med by the penalty of death, God could not without wrong to his 
justice and truth freely pardon man, because he is immutably righteous and 
true, and cannot lie ; and since he is so righteous a judge that he can no 
more absolve the guilty than he can condemn the innocent, Exod, xxxiv, 7, 
his justice was an invincible obstacle to the pardon of sin, though men had 
implored his mercy with the greatest ardency and affection, unless this justice 
had been satisfied with a satisfaction suitable to it, i. e. infinite as the divine 
justice is infinite ; and since neither man nor any other creature, being all 
of a finite nature, were able to give a full content to the justice of God, a 
necessity is then introduced of some infinite person to put himself in the 
place of the fallen creatures, clothe himself with their nature, and suffer in 
it the penalty they had merited, that they might be exempted from that 
which, by the transgression of the law, they had incurred. 

(4.) It supposeth Christ's voluntary engagement and undertaking of this 
affair first. There could be no necessity upon God to redeem, nor any 
necessity upon Christ to be the Redeemer ; but after his consent, which was 
wholly free, his promise engaged him to performance. He was free from all 
bonds till he entered into bond ; he was at liberty whether he would be our 
surety ; no compulsion could be used to him : John x. 18, he had ' power to 
lay down his life.' It impHes a liberty either of laying down his life or not ; 
a liberty of choice whether he would die for man or no. He had power if 
he pleased to avoid the cross, but he undertook it, * despising the shame,' 
Heb. xii. 2. And after having once undertaken this charge, it was necessary 
for him to suffer. As it is in the liberty of a man's choice whether he will 
engage himself in bonds for an insolvent debtor, yet when he is entered into 
suretyship, both his own honesty and the equity of the law necessitates him 
to stand to his engagements, and pay the money he is bound for, if the 
debtor be still insolvent;! so after Christ hath promised payment for bankrupt 
man, he could not retract both in regard of his truth, and in regard of the 
tenderness which first moved him to it. He could not violate his promise, nor 
deny his contract ; both the order of his Father and his own righteousness 
did not permit him to cast off this resolution. Though it was naturally 
voluntary, yet it was morally necessary ; and therefore often when he speaks 
of his sufferings to his disciples, he puts aw?(.s« to them : Mat. xvi. 21, John 
iii. 14 ' must suffer many things,' • must be lifted up.' And his prayer from 
a natural inclination of the human nature, that this cup might pass from 
him, if it icere possible, not being granted, shews it to be morally impossible, 

^ Petav. Theol. torn. iv. lib. ii. cap. 13, sect. 10. 

t Daille, Serm. de Resurrect, de Christ, p. 226. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 9 

after it was determined, that we could be saved any other way. God's not 
answering his own Son, manifests an impossibility to divert bis death without 
our eternal loss. Had not that promise been past, if Christ had been incar- 
nate, he might have lived in the world with glory and honour ; he might have 
come, not as a surety, but as a lawgiver and judge ; but after that promise 
made by him to his Father, and that the Father had by the covenant of 
redemption 'laid upon him the iniquities of us all,' and Christ on his part 
had covenanted to ' take upon him the form of a servant,' Philip, ii. 7, and to 
be ' made under the law,' Gal. iv. 4, he did owe to God an obedience as our 
surety according to the law of redemption, as well as an obedience to the 
moral law as a creature, by virtue of his incarnation. Had he been incarnate 
without such a promise of suffering, he had not been bound to suffer unless 
he had sinned ; for, having no spot, neither original nor actual, he had stood 
firm upon the basis of the first covenant. But the obligation to the obedience 
of sufiering was incumbent upon him by virtue of the compact between the 
Father and himself. Had he been incarnate without that precedent compact, 
he had owed an obedience to God in his humanity as a creature ; but as he 
was incarnate for such an end, and was, pursuant to the law of redemption, 
made under the moral law, he owed an obedience to both those laws, an 
obedience as a creature, an obedience as mediator, as a son owes obedience 
to a father by virtue of his relation of a son ; but if this son be bound 
apprentice to his father, he owes another obedience to him as a servant by 
virtue of the covenant between them ; the duty of obedience as a servant is 
superadded to that of a son ; so the necessity of obedience as a surety was 
added to the necessity of obedience as a creature in regard of Christ's 
humanity, so that this necessity is only consequent, and supposeth at first 
the voluntary engagement of Christ. For indeed his sufferings could not be 
of infinite merit for us except they had been voluntarily undertaken by him.* 
If his sufferings took their worth and value from his person, they must like- 
wise have their freedom and election from his person. Whatsoever punish- 
ment, reproach, and trouble the fury of wicked men brought upon him, 
was not sufi'ered by an absolute necessity, but conditional, after the engage- 
ment of his will. 

Prop. 2. All things preceding his death, and all circumstances in his death, 
did not fall under a necessity of the same kind. Upon the former sup- 
position, his death was necessary, and could not be avoided. Death was 
threatened by God as a sovereign ; it was merited by man as a malefactor, 
and was necessary to be inflicted by God as a judge and governor. And by 
virtue of this threatening, and his engagement in suretyship, it was necessary 
that he should suffer, not as an innocent person, but under the imputation of 
a sinner ; a reputed sinner, though he were perfectly innocent in his own 
nature : 1 Cor. v. 21, he was ' made sin for us.' Yet Christ, in his humilia- 
tion, did undergo some things which were not immediately necessary to our 
redemption. We might have been redeemed by him without his being 
hungry and weary. But this was mediately necessary to our redemption, in 
manifesting the truth and reality of his human nature. We might have been 
redeemed without the piercing of his side, and the letting out the water in 
the pericardium. But this was convenient to shew the truth of his death. 
These were necessary by virtue of God's decree, manifested in the prediction 
of the prophets, to be done unto him. But his incarnation and passion to 
death were immediately necessary to our recovery and the atonement of sin. 
We could not have been redeemed unless he had satisfied justice ; justice 
could not be satisfied but by sufiering ; suffering could not have been under- 
* Bilson on Christ's sufferings, p. 286. 



10 chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

gone unless he had been incarnate. A body he must have prepared for 
suflfering ; nor could he have suffered for us unless he had been incarnate in 
our nature. 

2, Thing. To demonstrate this necessity. Having declared what kind of 
necessity this is, we may now demonstrate this necessity. 

1. To suffer death was the immediate end of the interposition of Christ. 
The principal end of his undertaking was to right the honour of God, and 
glorify his attributes in the recovery of the creature ; but the immediate end 
was to suffer, because this was the only way to bring about that end which 
was principally aimed at in Christ's interposition, and God's determination 
concerning him. Death being denounced as the punishment of sin, Christ 
interposeth himself for our security, with a jDromise to bear that punish- 
ment in our stead for the procuring our exemption from it ; therefore, what 
punishment was of right to be inflicted on man for the breach of the law, was, 
by a gracious act of God, the governor of the world and guardian of his laws, 
transferred upon Christ, as putting himself in our stead. His first inter- 
position was for the same end with his death, but his death was evidently 
for our sins. It was for them ' he gave himself,' Gal. i. 4 ; they were our 
sins which ' he bare in his own body on the tree,' 1 Peter ii. 24 ; ' for our 
iniquities he was wounded, and for our transgressions he was bruised,' 
Isa. liii. 5 ; our health was procured by his stripes, and therefore intended 
by him in his first engagement. He offered his person in our stead, which 
was able to bear our sin, and afford us a righteousness which was able to 
justify our persons ; he offered himself to endure the curse of the law in his 
own body, and fulfil the righteousness of the law in his own person ; he 
would be united with us in our nature, that he might make the sins of our 
nature his own in suffering for them, and give to us what was his, by taking 
to himself what was ours ; he took our stripes that we might receive his 
medicine. This, therefore, being the end of his first undertaking, was ne- 
cessary to be performed; for Christ is not yea and nay, 2 Cor. i. 19, one 
time of one mind, and another time of another, but firm and uniform in all his 
proceedings, without any contradiction between his promise and performance. 

That this was the end of his first interposition is evident, 

(!•) -By the terms of the covenant of redemption incumbent on his part. 
What God demanded was complied with on the part of Christ. The demand 
of God was the offering of the soul, because upon that condition depends the 
promise of his exaltation and seeing his seed : Isa. liii. 10, ' When thou shalt 
make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed;' or as others, 
• When his soul is put an offering for sin.' The word DC'N is properly a sin- 
offering, and his soul is the matter of this offering, as well as the spring and 
principle of the offering himself to God. It was upon this condition only he 
was to see his seed ; he had had no seed, i. e. none had been saved by him 
according to this covenant, unless his soul had made itself an offering for 
sin. This death of Christ was the main article to be performed by him ; 
this was the eye of Christ fixed upon in the offering himself in the first 
transaction to do the will of God : Ps. xl. 6-8, ' Burnt-offering and sin- 
offering hast thou not required. Lo, I come ; I delight to do thy will,' 
Heb. x. 7, 8. The will of God for a satisfaction by sacrifice. The will of 
God was the demand of something above all legal sacrifices ; for he had no 
pleasure in those which were offered by the law, wherein Christ complies 
with God ; and it was something which was not to fall short of, but sur- 
mount those legal offerings. The denial of any pleasure or content in them 
implies a demand of a higher pleasure and content than all or any of them 
could afford. To this Christ gives his full consent, and offers himself, 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 11 

according to the will of God, to be a sacrifice, and puts himself in the place 
of those sin-ofFerings wherein God had no pleasure ; as if he should have 
said, A sin-offering. Lord, thou wilt have, and one proportionable to the 
greatness of the offence ; since none else can be suitable to an infinite 
majesty, I will be the sin-offering, and answer thy will in this ; and therefore 
the apostle infers, Heb. x. 10, that the offering the body of Christ for our 
sanctification, our restoration, was the particular will of God in this affair, 
which will Christ particularly promises in that eternal transaction to perform : 
Gal. i. 4, ' Who hath given himself for our sins, according to the will of 
God.' And, indeed, God could not have been said to enter into his rest at 
the foundation of the world without this transaction, as he is said to do, 
Heb. iv, ; for foreseeing that an universal stain and disorder would overspread 
the world by sin, that the glory which would naturally issue to him from the 
creatures would meet with an obstacle from it, and no way be left for the 
glorifying of any other attributes after sin but his power and justice in the 
due and righteous punishment of the creature, he could not take any plea- 
sure in the works of his hands, had not the second person stood up as a 
sacrifice of atonement to purify the bespotted world, rectify the disorder, and 
render a content to the justice of God, that all the other attributes of God in 
the creation might have their due glory perpetuated and elevated. It was in 
this one person, and that by his blood, that God found the best way and 
method to gather together those things which sin had scattered, Eph. i. 7, 10. 
And the first promise in paradise after the fall, of the bruising the ser- 
pent's head, in having the seed of the woman's heel bruised by the serpent, 
intending thereby his death (as is cleared up by considering the revelations 
of God afterwards), shews that this was fixed in him, since it is most likely 
it was the second person appeared to Adam and made that promise. This 
was the first promise to man, founded upon this covenant of redemption. 

(2.) The command that Christ received to die, manifests his interposition 
for this end. He was made under the law, and his death is called ' obedi- 
ence,' Philip, ii. 8."* Obedience implies a command as the rule of it. Obe- 
dience to the moral law engaged him not to die for us ; it had bound him 
over to death, had he been a transgressor of it ; but considered in itself, 
it obliged him not, being innocent, to suffer death for those that were 
delinquents. Obedience, therefore, in regard of his death, must answer to 
a particular command of God, flowing from some other act of his will than 
what was formally expressed in the moral law. Such a command he re- 
ceived from his Father, to lay down his life, John x. 18 ; which supposeth 
the free proffer of himself to a state of humiliation for such an end as dying. 
Had it not been obedience to a command, God had not been bound to accept 
his offering. Though in itself, and its own nature, upon the trial of God 
it would have been found sufficient, yet it had been a just exception, ' Who 
hath required this at your hands ?' If he had not offered himself to this 
purpose, he had not been God's voluntary servant ; and if he had not 
received a law in order to the performance of what he offered, he had not 
been God's ' righteous servant,' as he is called, Isa. liii. 11, there being no 
rule whereby to measure his righteousness in this act. The concurrence of 
both these made his death necessary and acceptable. Though, as I said 
before, this command of dying for us was not formally any command of the 
moral law, yet after once he had received this order, and obliged himself to 
the performance of it, the moral law obliged him to the highest manner of 
performing this, i. e. with the highest love to God and his neighbour, whose 
nature he had taken, and thereby became our kinsman. Since God was 
* Coco, de Feed. cap. v. p. 117. 



12 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

dishonoured and man damaged by sin, his love to the glory of God and the 
salvation of man were to be with the greatest intenseness ; and this the 
moral law enjoins in all acts we undertake for God. 

(3.) If he had not interposed himself for this end, he could not have 
suffered. Since God passed such a judgment on him, and laid upon him 
the iniquities of us all, there must be some precedent act of Christ for this 
end ; for it was nut just with God to force any to bear the punishment of 
another's sin. The justice of God, in his dealings with man, is regulated by 
his own law ; he inflicts nothing but what his law hath enjoined. To pun- 
ish without law, and a transgression of it, is injustice. No law of God ever 
threatened punishment to one in every respect innocent. Christ, by a free 
act of his own, put himself into the state of a reputed nocent, and by his 
interposition for us, as a surety, was counted by God as one person with us ; 
as a surety and a debtor are, in a legal and juridical account, as one person, 
and what the debtor is liable to in regard of that debt for which the surety 
is bound, whether it be a pecuniary or a criminal debt, the surety being con- 
sidered as one person with him, is to undergo. Christ's substituting him- 
self in our stead was to this end, that the sins of those that God had given 
him might be imputed to him ; for he proffered himself to make his soul an 
offering for sin. It could be no sin of his own ; sin he did not, sin he could 
not. It must be another's sin, transferred ^upon him in a juridical manner; 
transferred, I say, upon him, not by any transfusion of our sins into Christ 
by way of inherency, but by imputation, without which he could not be a 
sufferer. For what reason, what justice had there been to expose one to 
suffering, that was wholly innocent, and had no sin, neither by inherency 
nor imputation ? How could any be liable to punishment, that could not in 
any manner be regarded as guilty ? To be under judgment, supposeth a 
man's own crime, or the crimes of others. Since God, therefore, ' made 
him to be sin for us,' 2 Cor. v. 21, and could not in justice make him so 
without his own consent; his consent, then, in the first offer of his media- 
tion, was to be made sin for us, i. e. to bear our sins. He offered himself 
for the same end for which God accepted him, and for which God used him. 
Pursuant to this offer of himself, he was made under the law, and put into 
such a state and condition, by his investing himself with the human nature, 
as that the law might make its demands of him, and receive the penalties 
which were due by it for the offence. 

Add to this, the giving of some to Christ to save, John xvii. 18, vi. 39, 
which presupposeth the obligation of Christ to death ; for after sin, the law 
being to be vindicated, and justice glorified, God's committing some to him 
to save, presupposeth his engagement to satisfy the law and justice on their 
behalf.* It was for this end also he came to the hour of his death, John 
xii. 27 ; and his prayer to his Father, to ' save him from this hour,' had 
been groundless, if he had not passed his word to his Father to enter upon 
that hour. "What need he have prayed to his Father to save him, who 
might have saved himself, if there had been no antecedent obligation to 
undertake this task ? 

He thus interposing himself for this end, it was necessary he should die. 
For, 

[1.] Else none could have been saved from the foundation of the world. 
Some were saved before his actual death upon the cross. God was the God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; but ' God is the God of the living, not of 
the dead,' Mat. xxii. 32. They therefore lived in his sight before the actual 
oblation of Christ upon the cross ; but they could no more have been saved 
* Coco, de FcBd. cap. v. pp. 118. 119. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 13 

■without the credit of this death of Christ in our nature, than the fallen 
angels could have beeD saved. The reason they are not saved, is rendered 
by the apostle, Heb. ii. 16, because Christ took not their nature ; his taking 
our nature therefore, and dying in it, is the cause of any man's salvation 
that lived after his coming ; his promise of taking our nature, and dying in 
it, is the cause of the salvation of any that lived before. The apostle's rea- 
soning would not else stand good ; had Christ assumed the angels' nature, 
they would have been saved ; had not Christ then assumed our nature, we 
could not have been saved ; and had he not promised to assume our nature, 
none could have been saved. He could not have been called the Captain of 
the salvation of all the sons that are brought to glory, whereof many were 
before his coming, Eeb. ii. 10. They must have been saved upon the ac- 
count of that future death, or else there must be some other name besides 
that of Christ whereby they were saved ; but that there is not, Acts iv. 12. 
Faith had not always been the way of salvation. Christ had begun to be a 
mediator and redeemer at the time of his death, and not before; and so had 
not been in that relation ' the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' Had 
he not died, he could not have been set out with any good ground before his 
coming as an object of faith. The promises of him had wanted their due 
foundation, the predictions of him had been groundlesss; and, consequently, 
the faith and hope of the ancient believers had been in vain. It is certain, 
all that were saved, were saved upon the account of his death ; for the 
merit of his death might have an influence before it was suffered, it being a 
moral, not a natural, cause of salvation ; as many times a prisoner is de- 
Uvered upon the promise of a ransom before the actual payment of it. 

[2.] Since some were saved before upon the account of his future death, 
had he not died, God had been highly dishonoured. Had not Christ per- 
formed his promise of suffering, and thereby satisfying the justice of God, 
God, having saved many before his incarnation upon the credit of this pro- 
mise, had received a manifest wrong. It would have argued a weakness in 
him to lay such stress upon that which would not be full and secure, which 
would never have been accomplished. God had not been omniscient, but 
had been deceived in his foreknowledge, had his expectations been frustrated. 
For what was the reason God saved any before, but upon the credit of this 
ransom, which was promised to be paid in time, and his foreknowledge, that 
when the term came, the surety would not be wanting to discharge himself 
of his promise ? Had not, then, Christ really suffered, and accomphshed 
what he had promised, God had suffered in his honour, and all things could 
not have been said to be present to him ; he would have been deceived. As 
if a prisoner be delivered upon the promise of a ransom, and the ransom be 
not paid according to agreement, the person that hath delivered the prisoner 
suffers in point of wisdom in trusting a person that hath not been as good as 
his word, and is defeated of that which is in justice due to him. Again, 
since God had admitted some to happiness before the actual suffering of 
Christ, had not Christ performed what he had actually undertaken, God 
must have renounced either his justice or his mercy ; his justice, had he let 
sinners go unpunished, and then he had denied in part his own name, which 
is ' by no means to clear the guilty,' Exodus xxxiv. 7 ; or else he must have 
punished sin in the persons of those whom he had already brought to happi- 
ness ; and had he done so, how had the honour of his mercy suffered, in 
turning them out of that feUcity wherein he had always* placed them ! Some, 
therefore, make the remission of the sins past before the coming of Christ 
not to be properly a full pardon, bnt a passing by, the full remission not 
* Qu. ' already ' '?— Ed. 



14 charnock's woeks. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

being to be given till the actual payment was made ; and indeed the word 
the apostle useth in that place, Rom. iii. 25, is different, 'Trdesaig, a passing 
by, a word not used for pardon in all the New Testament, but aipsffig. Had 
not Christ suffered, there had been nothing of the righteousness of God 
manifested in the remission of sins which were past ; the end of God had 
been frustrated, it being his end, in the death of Christ, ' to declare his 
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, to declare at this time 
his righteousness,' i.e. what his righteousness was in passing by sins before 
committed, to declare that he pardoned no sins before, without an eye to 
this satisfactory death of his Son ; but that in all his former proceedings he 
kept close to the rules of his infinite justice. Now, had not Christ died 
according to his engagement, God had highly suffered in his honour, his 
omniscience had been defeated ; God had been deceived in the credit he 
gave, his righteousness had not been manifested, his justice had suffered, or 
his mercy to his poor creatures had been dammed up for ever from flowing 
out upon them. 

2. The veracity of God, in settling the penalty of death upon transgres- 
sion, made it necessary for redemption. God passed his word that death 
should be the punishment of sin. Gen. ii. 17 ; the veracity of God stood 
engaged to make this word good upon the conditions expressed. The sen- 
tence was immutable, and the word that went out of God's mouth must 
stand ; had it been revoked without inflicting the punishment, the faithful- 
ness and righteousness of God, in regard of his word, could not have been 
justified : ' God cannot lie, or deny himself,' Titus i. 2, 2 Tim. ii. 13 ; his 
truth is not a quality in him, but himself, his essence. Had he, then, after 
so solemnly pronouncing, without any reverse, that the wages of sin should 
be no less than death, been careless of his own word, and left sin unpunished, 
God had made a breach upon his own nature, and had infringed his own 
happiness ; for a lie or falsity is the fountain and original of all evil and 
misery. Supposing God had other ways to deal with man (though it is 
beyond the capacity of man to imagine any other way of God's government 
of him, or any intellectual and rational creatures, than by a law, and a 
penalty annexed to that law, which otherwise would have proved insignificant), 
yet after his Vt'isdom had settled this law, and the threatening had passed his 
royal and immutable word, it was no longer arbitrary, but necessary by the 
sovereign authority, that either the sinner himself, or some surety in his 
stead, should suffer the death the sinner had incurred by the violation of the 
precept ; we must either pay ourselves, or some other pay for us, what we 
stand bound in to the justice of God. Impunity had been an invasion of 
God's veracity, which is as immutable as his nature ; since, therefore, the 
inflicting of death upon transgression was the real intent of God, upon the 
commission of sin death must enter upon man, otherwise God would be a 
disregarder of himself, and his threatenings a mere scarecrow. 

(1.) Had God violated his word, he had rendered himself an unfit object 
of trust. He had exposed all the promises or threatenings he should have 
made after man's impunity to the mockery and contempt of the offender, and 
excluded his word from any credit with man. Had God set man right again 
by a mere act of mercy, without any regard to his word past, and inflicting 
any punishment upon the offender, though he had made man more glorious 
promises than at the fin-st, he would have had httle reason to trust God. If 
he had found God unfaithful to himself in the word of his threatening, he 
could not have concluded that he would have been true to the word of his 
promise, but might reasonably have suspected that he would falsify in that 
as he had done him in the other. Had his truth failed in the concerns of his 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death, 15 

justice, it had been of little value in those of his mercy. He might be as 
careless of the honour of the one as of that of the other. If a man fail of 
his word in one thing, there is little reason to believe him in another. The 
righteousness of God would as little have engaged him to fulfil his promise, 
as it did engage him to fulfil his threatening. God would have declared 
himself by such an act, not willing to be believed, not worthy to be trusted, 
feared, loved, because regardless of his truth and righteousness. And by the 
same reason that he denied himself fit to be trusted, he would deny himself 
to be a God, because he would thereby have acknowledged a weakness in- 
compatible to the nature of the Deity. How could any trust him who had 
denied himself, by restoring a life to him, without righteousness and truth 
on his part ? It had rather been an encouragement to them to disown him 
to be any fit object for their confidence, since the great ground of trust among 
men is their faithfulness to their word. Upon the supposition of God's 
restoring the creature, the doing it by the intervention of a satisfaction was 
veiy necessary to fix the creature's confidence in God ; for when he sees God 
so righteous and true that he will not do anything against the rules of his 
truth and justice, he hath the more ground to believe God after a satisfac- 
tion made, that he will preserve the honour of his wisdom in approving and 
accepting that satisfaction, and his truth in promising, declared upon it. 

(2.) Had God violated his word, he had justified the devil in his argument 
for man's rebellion. The devil's argument is a plain contradiction to God's 
threatening. God afiirms the certainty of death, the devil affirms the cer- 
tainty of life : Gen. iii. 4, * Ye shall not surely die.' Had no punishment 
been inflicted, the devil had not been a liar from the beginning. God would 
have honoured the tempter, and justified the charge he brought against him, 
and owned the envy the devil accused him of, and thereby have rendered the 
devil the fittest object for love and trust. As the devil charged God with a 
lie, so, had no punishment been inflicted, God would have condemned him- 
self, and declared Satan, instead of a lying tempter, to be the truest coun- 
seller. He had exposed himself to contempt, and advanced the credit of his 
enemy, and so set up the devil as a God instead of himself. It concerned 
God, therefore, to manifest himself true, and the devil a liar ; and acquaint 
the world that not himself, but the evil spirit, was their deceiver, and that 
he meant as he spake. 

(3.) Suppose God might have altered' his word, yet would it consist with 
his wisdom to do it at that time ? It was the first word of threatening that 
ever went out of his lips to man ; and had he wholly dispensed with it, after 
he had fenced his precept with such a penalty, and seen such a contradiction 
in his new created subject to his truth, authority, and righteousness, such a 
daring contempt of his rich and manifested goodness, he had emboldened the 
apostate creature in his sin, and encouraged him to a fresh rebellion as soon 
as ever he had been set right again by an infinite mercy, without any mark 
of his justice. Men would have thought God had either been mistaken in 
the reason of his threatening, and had settled a penalty too great for the 
ofi'ence, or had wanted power to maintain his authority in inflicting the due 
punishment, had he indulged man in this sin. What influence could any of 
his precepts have had upon the souls of men, if he had so lightly passed by 
the transgression of his law ? Would he not have been less secured in the 
rights of his authority for the future, than he had been for the time past ? 
Would not man have been encouraged to have run the same risk of disobedi- 
ence, in hopes of an easy pardon, and continued the attempt which he had 
begun in his first apostasy, to have freed himself from all the orders of the 
divine law, to have been his own rule ? How could a just sense and awe of 



16 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

God have been preserved in the minds of men, when they should have thought 
God like one of themselves, and as false to his own righteousness as they 
had been to his authority? Ps. 1. 21. This certainly would have been the 
issue, had man been set up in his former state without inflicting that punish- 
ment upon the human nature, which had been so righteously denounced, and 
so highly merited, by the disingenuity of man. Man had been more tempted 
by this to sin than he could have been by the devil, and when he had been 
brought to an account for his second transgression, he would have excused 
himself by God's indulgence to him for the first ; and, indeed, God's denial 
of his truth in this, would seem to be a sufficient apology for after oflences. 
(4.) Therefore God, for the preservation of his truth and righteousness, 
accepts of a surety to bear the just punishment for man. Since God had 
enacted, that if man sinned he should die, upon man's apostasy God must 
either eternally punish him to preserve his truth and justice, or neglect his 
own law, and change it to discover his mercy. These things were impossible 
to the nature of God ; he must be true. to his nature, and true to his word. 
If justice should destroy, what way was there to discover his mercy ? If 
mercy should absolutely pardon, without the due punishment, what way was 
there to preserve the honour of his truth ? The wisdom of God finds out a 
means to preserve the honour of his truth in the punishment, and discover 
the glory of his mercy in a pardon, not by changing the sentence against sin, 
but the person ; and laying that upon his Son, as a surety, which we in our 
own persons must have endured, had the rigour of the law been executed 
upon us, whereby his righteousness and veracity are preserved by the punish- 
ment due to the sinner, and the honour of mercy established by the merit of 
our Saviour. Death was threatened by the law, but there was no exclusion 
of a person by that law, that should offer himself to stand in man's stead 
under the punishment. Man had been for ever irrecoverably miserable, had 
such a clause been inserted, and would have been without hope as much as 
the devils. And therefore, saith a learned author of our own,^-' this accept- 
ance of a surety for us was not an abrogation of the law, for then there could 
be no execution of the sentence upon wicked men and unbelievers for their 
sins against it (where no law is, there is no transgression ; and where no 
transgression, no just execution) ; but it was a merciful relaxation or con- 
descension of the sovereign lawgiver, by his infinite goodness and wisdom, to 
find out an expedient for the good of the fallen creature, with the preserva- 
tion of the rights of those divine perfections engaged in the threatening. 
God was not prejudiced, or his immutabiUty impaired, by a change of the 
person suffering, as long as the penalty threatened was inflicted. Though 
there was a translation of the penalty, yet there was not a nulling of the 
penalty; the person was changed, not the punishment; death was threatened, 
death was inflicted. Death was threatened, not so much to the person of 
Adam, as the human nature, whereof he was the head, and regarded the 
descendants from him ; death was suffered by the human nature, though in 
another person ; death was threatened to Adam as the root of all in him ; 
death was suffered by Christ, as the mystical head of all in him by faith, so 
that, as in Adam sinning, all sinned that were in his loins as in their root, 
Kom. V. 12, 14, 18, so it may be said, that in Christ suffering all believers 
suffered, his sufferings being imputed to them by virtue of that union they 
have with him. Besides, God having created the world for the displaying 
his divine perfections in Christ, ' for whom all things were created,' Col. 
i. 16, had in his eternal counsel decreed the death of Christ as a surety for 
man ; and this threatening, as well as the creation, being pursuant to this 
* Burges of Justificat. part ii. p. 84. 



Luke XXIV. 26. j the necessity of Christ's death. 17 

eternal counsel, did not exclude, but rather include, the surety, though it be 
not expressed. 

3. The justice of God made the death of Christ necessary for our redemp- 
tion. Christ, in his coming, respected the glory of God's righteousness, for 
he substituted himself as a sin-otfering, instead of those insufficient ones 
under the law : Heb. x. 8, ' Sin-ofiering thou wouldst not ; lo, I come to do 
thy will,' /. e. the will of the divine justice as well as divine mercy, for in the 
legal sacrifices both were expressed; justice in the death of the beast, where- 
by man was taught what he had merited, and mercy in substituting the beast 
in his room. Christ came to do that in the room of a sin-offering, which 
the legal sin-offerings were not able to effect. The command of the Father 
did chiefly respect this satisfaction of justice. It principally required of him 
the laying down his life, and making his soul an offering for sin, John x. 18. 
And this it was which his obedience did principally respect, whence it is 
called an ' obedience to death,' Philip, ii. 8. Death is an act of justice. 
After the command was given, with the sanction of it, the authority of God 
in enacting it, and the justice of God in adding the penalty to it, were con- 
temned, and man could not well be reduced to his order without a reparation 
of the damage done to the authority and justice of God. How could God be 
the judge of all the earth, doing right. Gen. xviii. 25, had he suftered such a 
manifest wrong to himself to go unpunished ? Justice had as loud a cry 
for condemnation, as mercy could have for any stream of compassion. 
The sanction of the law was irrevocable, unless God had ceased to be im- 
mutable in his justice as well as his truth. God can do whatsoever he will, 
but he can will nothing against his goodness and righteousness.* God had 
derogated from his own righteousness, if he had not recompensed the sin of 
man. For as justice requires punishment, so it requires the greatest punish- 
ment for the greatest offence. Satisfaction must then be given in such a 
manner as the justice of God in the law required. It must be then by suf- 
fering that death it exacted as due to the crime, which must be done by the 
person sinning, or some other capable to do it in his stead, and answer the 
terms of the law, between whom and the sinner there might be such a strait 
union, as that there might be a mutual imputation of our sins to him, and 
his sufferings to us. That he might suffer, justice was to impute our sins to 
him ; that his sufferings might be advantageous, mercy and justice were to 
impute his sufferings to us. 

I shall lay down under this three propositions. 

(1.) It seems to be impossible but that justice should flame out against 
sin. There is the same reason of all God's attributes. It is impossible that 
the goodness of God should not embrace and kindly entertain an innocent 
creature, for then he would not be good. It is impossible his mercy in Christ 
should refuse a penitent believer ; then he would not be compassionate. It 
is impossible he should look upon sin with a pleasingf countenance ; then he 
would not be holy. It is impossible that he can be false to his word ; then 
he could not be true. It is impossible that he should not act wisely in what 
he doth ; then he would be foolish. Shall we deny the same rights to his 
justice, that we acknowledge to belong to the other perfections of his nature '? 
Why should not his justice be as unchangeable and inflexible as his good- 
ness, mercy, truth, and wisdom ? Shall we acknowledge him fii*m in the 
rest, and wavering in this ? Justice is as necessary a perfection pertaining 
to him as the governor of the world, as his wisdom, or any other glory of 
his nature. Had God acted the part of a just governor, if he had suffered 
* Dr Jackson. t Qu. ' pleased' ?— Ed. 

VOL. V. B 



18 chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

those laws to be broken with impunity, whereof he was the guardian as well 
as the enactor ? Is there not a double reason of punishment accruing to 
him, both as he is the ofl'ended party and the rector of the world ? And 
what is justice, but a giving to every one his due, reward to whom reward 
belongs, and punishment to whom punishment is due ? If God had pardoned 
where punishment was due, it had been an act of mercy, but what had become 
of his justice ? If God be not just in everything he doth, he is unjust in 
something, and then doth iniquity, which is utterly impossible for the divine 
nature ; he neither will nor can do iniquity, Zeph. iii. 5. This is an insepa- 
rable property of the divine nature. What should his creatures judge of 
him, if he were utterly careless of vindicating his law, and did totally abstain 
from evidencing his holiness to his rational creatures ? Is his holiness only 
to be manifested in precepts, and not demonstrated in punishments ? If 
his love to righteousness be essential to him, the exercise of that righteous- 
ness upon suitable objects is necessary. His love of righteousness flows 
fi-om his nature as righteous : Ps. xi. 7, ' The righteous Lord loveth right- 
eousness.' It is not only an act of his will, but of his nature ; it is not so 
natural to him as heat is to the fire, that doth necessarily scorch and burn, 
without any influence of a free and rational principle. There is a liberty of 
the divine will to order those acts of his justice in convenient seasons. God 
acts in all things according to his own nature, and cannot act below himself 
and the rectitude of it. The first foundation of all his actings towards his 
creatures is in his will. As upon the supposition that God would create 
man (which it was fi-ee for him to do or not to do, and so depended only 
upon his will), he could not, according to the rectitude of his own nature, 
but create him upright, otherwise he had denied his own holiness ; so, upon 
the supposition of man's sinning (the prevention or permission of which de- 
pended upon his will), he cannot but punish him, because otherwise he had 
denied his justice, and seemed to have approved of the disorder man had 
introduced into the world ; and if he had not punished it in the degree it 
merited, there had seemed to be some abatement of that hatred which was 
due to the umighteousness of it ; for so much as a punishment is lessened, 
so much less doth the detestation of the crime appear. The power of God 
is not limited hereby ; his own holiness and trath, and the righteousness of 
his nature, bound him.*' Doth any man deny the power of God, in saj'ing he 
cannot forget his creature ? Would it not be a weakness in him to be ca- 
pable of lying? Is it not an imperfection to be capable of doing any thing 
unjust ? And what would it be but injustice in the Judge of all the earth to 
let sin go unrevenged ? It is rather an argument of strength and virtue, 
whereby he cannot renounce the rectitude of his nature. f 

[1.] This seems to be a general and a natural notion in the minds of men. 
God hath settled it as an immutable and eternal law, and engraven it upon 
the hearts of men, that sin is to be punished with death. What other sen- 
timent could be expressed by the universal practice of sacrificing beasts, and, 
in some places, men, for the expiation of their sins, implying thereby a ne- 
cessity of vindictive justice, that God would not leave sin unpunished, without 
a compensation from the sinner himself, or some other in his stead ? And 
therefore they thought the blood of man, the best of the creatures, a means 
to avert the stroke they had merited from him themselves. What other 
foundation could there be of all those saciifices than a conscience of sin, and 
a settled notion of the vengeance of God ? For that which they principally, 
or only, respected in those sacrifices, was the justice of God. Upon this 
account it was probably that the apostle so positively asserts, Rom. i. 82, 
* Daille, de la Resurrect, de Christ, p. 358. t Turretin, de Satisfac. p- 300. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 19 

that they ' knew that they were worthy of death.' They sufficiently expressed 
it in subjecting other creatures to the stroke of death in their stead, to pacify 
the offended deity, acknowledging thereby, that he could not pardon sin 
without a satisfaction. This was learned by them in the school of nature, 
not by the revealed will of God ; or if it were handed to them by tradition 
from Adam, it had so near an alliance with an universal principle in their 
own consciences, that it met with no opposition or dispute, the practice of 
it being almost as universally spread, as the notion of the being of a God, 
since we scarce find a nation without the sacrificing animals for the appeas- 
ing the divinity they adored. 

[2.] The holiness of God seems necessarily to infer it. Since justice is 
nothing else but the testimony or expression of God's hatred of sin, it must 
be by consequence unavoidable, unless the sin committed can be wholly 
undone, which is impossible ; or his justice be appeased some way or other. 
If God did not punish sin, how could his hatred of it be manifest ? His 
creature could not discern any aversion in him from it, without the interpo- 
sition of vindictive justice ; for that perfection of God's nature, which requires 
that he should have an implacable detestation of sin, requires also that the 
sinner, remaining under guilt, should be perpetually punished. If God can- 
not but hate all the workers of iniquity (Ps. v. 5, ' Thou hatest all the workers 
of iniquity'), he cannot but punish them. The holiness of God is not only 
voluntary, but by necessity of nature ; were it only an act of his will, he 
might love iniquity if he pleased, as w'ell as hate it. How could it be said 
of him by the prophet, Hab. i. 13, that he is ' of purer eyes than to behold 
evil, and cannot look upon iniquity,' if his purity had been only from choice, 
and a determination of the indifferency of his will, and not from his nature? 
It is not said, He ivill not look on iniquity, i. e. with affection, but he cannot. 
God cannot but be holy, and therefore cannot but be just ; because injustice 
is a part of unholiness. And upon the holiness of God, Joshua asserts the 
Israelites' sins in themselves unpardonable: Josh. xxiv. 19, 'He is a holy 
God, he is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your 
sins.' He is jealous of the honour of his perfections ; his holiness and 
jealousy stand as bars against forgiveness, without some means for preserving 
the honour of them ; his holiness and jealousj^ whereby his justice and wrath 
are sometimes expressed, are hnked together, and are nothing else but the 
contrariety in the nature of God, which is infinitely good and righteous, to 
the nature of sin, which is evil and unrighteous, whereby he is inclined to 
detest it.* All hatred is a desire of revenge ; and the stronger the hatred, the 
more vehement the inclination to revenge. The loathing of sin being infinite 
in God, as he is the rector of the world, and so necessary a perfection of his 
nature, that without it he would not be God ; the inclination to punish it, 
and thereby highly manifest his hatred of it, necessarily follows that perfec- 
tion, A will to punish sin is always included in an hatred of it. Now, if 
the hatred of sin be as essential to God as his love to his glory, punishment 
must follow it. There is a certain connection between the one and the other. 
This hatred must necessarily be evidenced by some acts, according to the 
greatness of the evil. How shall it be testified, but by punishment ? If he 
doth not punish, how shall we certainly know but that it pleaseth him ? By 
his bare precept we cannot, if he suffers it to be violated at the pleasure of 
men without rebuke ; we may then judge him to be a negligent governor, 
and one that hath no regard to his own command, and cares not whether his 
creature observes it or no. Hatred cannot be discovered without some 
expressions of aversion. "What signs can those be, unless God's denying his 
* Amyraut, des Religions, p. 309. 



20 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

communications to his creature, and a positive inflicting of evil ? If a gover- 
nor hates a disorder never so much, if he expresseth it not, whereby the 
offending person may be sensible of his hatred, it is as much as no hatred ; 
for. Idem est non esse, et non apparere. "What would all his prohibitions of 
sin amount to, if he did not punish the commission of it ? He that cannot 
but prohibit sin, cannot but punish sin. God cannot but prohibit sin, because 
he cannot but hate it, it being contrary to his holy nature. The commands 
of God are not bare acts of his will, but of his wisdom and righteousness. 
If they proceeded from bare will, without any regulation by his wisdom and 
righteousness, he might command things contrary to the law of nature, and 
the necessary relation of a creature to himself. So neither is his hatred of 
sin only a free act of his will, but necessarily results from the rectitude of 
his nature. If it were only an act of his will, as the creation of the world, 
he might as well love sin as hate it ; as he might as well have neglected the 
creation of the world as performed it, and let the several creatures remain in 
their nothing, as well as have brought them into being. But it flows from 
tbe righteousness of his nature (Prov. xv. 9, ' The way of the wicked is an 
abomination to the Lord'), and consequently so doth his justice, which is an 
expression of this hatred, otherwise God would be unjust to his own hohness. 

(2.) Hence it follows, that this justice must be satisfied before man could 
be restored. The justice of God was the bar in the way, and must be re- 
moved by punishment. Christ could not have brought one sou to glory, had 
he not first been ' made perfect by sufiering,' Heb. ii. 10. The wrath of 
God for the violations of the law, was the flaming sword that guarded para- 
dise from being entered into by guilty man. This was becoming God as the 
governor of the world, in which capacity he is considered in punishment. 
It became not God to do anything unjustly or inordinately. It was an 
intolerable thing that the creature should despoil God of his honour, and 
withdraw itself from that indispensable subjection it owed to its creator. It 
became God to restore that order by punishment, which had been broken 
by sin. 

Let us consider, 

[l.J Justice had at least an equal plea with mercy. If mercy pleaded for 
pardon, justice as strongly solicited the punishment of the sinner. The 
remission of the ofience would appear more charitable ; but the vindicating 
the public laws, and punishing the offence, would appear more righteous. 
It was not convenient the creature should be utterly ruined as soon as ever 
God had displayed his power in creating it, nor was it convenient the crea- 
ture should be emboldened in sin by a free act of pardon, after so high and 
base an act of disingenuity. What could mercy plead on the behalf of the 
creature, that justice could not as strongly plead on the behalf of God ? If 
the ruin of the creature be argued to move compassion, the dishonour of 
God on the other side would be argued to excite indignation. If the nature 
of God, as love, 1 John iv. 8, be pleaded by mercy, the nature of God, as 
righteous and a consuming fire, Heb. xii. 29, would be opposed to it by 
justice. His mercy would plead, It were not for his honour to let his 
enemy run away, just after the creation, with the spoil of the best of his 
works. His justice would reply. It was fit the judge of the world should do 
right, and be the protector of his righteous law. If his mercy inclines him 
to will our salvation, justice would not permit him to leave sin unpunished, . 
and his laws trampled in the dust. Had mercy been discovered without 
preserving the rights of justice, when the whole nature of man fell, God 
had been but a half governor of the world, and exercised but one part of 
government. 



Luke XXIV. 26. J the necessity of cheist's death. 21 

[2, J Justice seems to have a stronger plea. (1.) The highest right falls 
on the side of justice. That had been declared and backed by his truth, when 
mercy was not yet published upon the stage of the creation. The righteous 
and just nature of God had been signified to man, and his veracity brought 
in to second it, Gen. ii. 17. No notion of pardoning mercy had yet been 
imprinted upon the mind of man, or revealed to him ; so that God was not 
so much concerned in horwur to shew mercy, which stood single, as I may 
say, and lay hid in the nature of God, without the appearance of any per- 
fection to back and support it. Had man stood, the veracity of God had 
stood on the side of his goodness (for we may suppose a promise of life 
implied, if man continued in obedience, as well as a threatening expressed, 
if he fell into rebellion). But when men broke the precept, the whole force 
of God's truth fell on the side of justice. There being not a syllable of par- 
doning grace uttered in any promise before the sin of man, the truth of God 
bad no part at that time to take with mercy ; so that there were greater 
engagements at that time, from the manifestation of God's nature, for the 
making good his justice, than for the demonstration of his mercy. 

(2.) Mercy could principally plead the good of the creature, justice prin- 
cipally insisted on the honour of God. Mercy might solicit the liberty of 
God's will, but justice might strongly challenge the holiness and rectitude of 
God's nature to support it. The creature was fallen under the hatred of 
God and penalty of the law, and rendered itself an unfit object of love 
by its rebellion and filthiness. 

(3.) Besides, the wits and consciences of men cannot frame so many 
arguments for the necessity of mercy, in regard of God, as for the necessity 
of his justice. Mercy is wholly a free act, but justice is a debt due to a 
sinful creature. The necessity of mercy to a fallen creature, in regard of 
God, cannot possibly be asserted with any reason. For it would then be 
asserted on the behalf of devils more than men. I say, the necessity, for 
perhaps something may be said for the congruity of God's shewing mercy to 
man rather than to devils. Justice respects merit caused by the righteous- 
ness or unrighteousness of men,* according to w^hich God immutably carries 
himself in rewarding or punishing of them, and never doth reward or punish 
any but according to their merit ; but the mercy of God doth not at all 
respect merit, or any work done by man, but is busied wholly in giving 
freely, and offering graciously to man those things he hath not deserved. 

(4.) Again, justice had stronger arguments from the rectitude of God's 
nature. Justice might argue, If God did righteously judge sinners to ever- 
lasting death, then if he had not judged them to everlasting death, he had 
done unjustly, being unmindful of the rectitude of his own nature. And if 
he should not now, after sin, inflict eternal death, but wholly lay aside his 
threatening, he would do unjustly ; for those being contrary acts, one of 
them must needs be unjust. Who could call that a righteous government, 
wherein laws should be made with the greatest wisdom, and be broken with 
the greatest impunity ? 

(5.) Again, consider, though mercy be essential to God, yet mercy must 
not be unjustly exercised. The fallen creature, indeed, was an object of 
both : as miserable, he was an object of mercy ; as criminal, he was an object 
of justice. But being first criminal before he was miserable, he was first 
the object of justice by his crime, before he was an object of mercy by his 
misery. Had he been miserable without being culpable (which was impos- 
sible, in regard of the goodness of God), he bad then been an object of com- 

* Zarnov. de satisfact. Chriati, part i. cap. ii. 



22 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

passion only. But falling under justice first, it was not fit mercy should 
wholly despoil justice of its rights. 

(6.) Again. Man, as miserable by the fall, is not the object of mercy. 
For what mercy could pardon an obstinate rebel ? And how could man 
have been otherwise, without some supernatural operation upon him ? Mercy 
could not challenge any footing to exercise itself about man, till he had con- 
fessed and bewailed his crime, and been sensible, not only of his misery, but 
of his offence. It is not honourable for God to exercise mercy upon those 
that continue in their enmity ; this seems to be clearly against the rectitude 
of the divine nature ; this had been a favouring of the crime as well as the 
criminal. Had he been sensible of and sorrowful for his misery, without a 
true grief for his offence, this had been an act of love to himself, but had had 
in it nothing of a true affection to God. After man had contracted in his 
nature an enmity against God, how could he have acquired a true repentance 
flowing from an affection to God ? Repentance for a fault against a prince, 
and enmity against a prince, are inconsistent. How should man have attained 
this quality of himself, any more than the devils have done, of whose repent- 
ance we read not one syllable in the Scripture, who are left to those habits 
of malice and aversion from God, which they had superinduced upon them- 
selves ? And if devils, who were creatures of greater understanding, and 
more sensible of their misery, because they fell from a greater happiness than 
man, were morally impotent to this, can we think that man had a stronger 
bias in his will after the revolt from God, to return again to God ? Besides, 
repentance is made a gift of God, 2 Tim. ii. 25 ; and the Spirit that gives 
repentance, is a fruit of Christ's death; and the repentance itself is made a 
fruit of Christ's exaltation, due to him upon his death. Acts v. 32. To 
strengthen this, it may be considered that when God came to examine Adam, 
as a judge, about his crime, there is not a syllable that savours of any 
true repentance issues from him. Gen. iii. 8-10, &c., whatsoever he might 
exercise after the promulgation of the gospel-promise. 

[3.] Consider, if there had not been a tempering of these two perfections 
towards man, one of them had remained undiscovered to the world. Justice 
only could have appeared in the creature's suffering, mercy only could have 
appeared in the creature's restoration. Mercy could not have been disco- 
vered by the condemnation of the creature, nor justice by the mere salvation 
of the creature. Had there been no punishment, or a light one below the 
demerit of the creature, there had been no demonstration of the highest glory 
of his holiness in the hatred of sin, or of the highest glory of his justice in 
the punishment of sin. Had the punishment due to the creature been inflicted 
upon him, the creature had been utterly destroyed, and mercy had been for 
ever obscured ;;and had mercy solely acted about the creature, justice had 
been wronged. Justice therefore must be one way or other righted, that the 
eti-eams of his grace might flow out to man, since, after man's fall, justice 
had stopped all commerce of God with man, because sin had rendered him 
unfit for the communications of God. As the nature of compassion must be 
satisfied in acting about a miserable creature, and the love God bore to man 
as his creature manifested ; so the nature of justice must be satisfied for the 
injury done, and the hatred of God to man as a sinner discovered. And this 
must be satisfied either by the creature's bearing the punishment, or com- 
pensating the injury, for that properly is satisfaction. God's justice could 
not have come off with honour without it ; for since he was engaged by his 
word to have sin punished, would not God have been unjust had he laid by 
all consideration of his justice and holiness in this case ? Had justice been 
glorified upon the person of the sinner, mercy would have lost the manifesta- 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 23 

tion of itself, and have had no objects to exercise itself about ; had mercy 
been glorified in bringing man to a happy state, without any punishment, 
after so base a breach of his law, where had been the demonstration of the 
unchangeable holiness of God, and the exactness of his justice ? God there- 
fore appointed a Mediator, in whom he might act as a righteous judge for the 
punishment of sin, according to his law, that his dreadful majesty might be 
more feared ; and a tender father according to the necessity of his creatures, 
that his love might be commended, as a wise governor tempering both to- 
gether. And therefore God, foreseeing the fall of man, elected some to eternal 
glory, but in Christ as the means, Eph. i. 4, not as the meritorious cause of 
election, but as the means and foundation of the execution of it, that the 
glory of his grace might issue out in the preservation of the rights of his 
justice, maintained by the blood of his Son, in whom we have redemption, 
ver. 6, 7, and without this way we cannot see how the glory of God had been 
preserved. God had made the world for his glory, and the communication 
of his goodness. After the world was polluted and disordered by sin, the 
justice of God, by annexing such a penalty to the law, stood as a bar in the 
way of any kindness to the creature, unless some way might be found out to 
preserve the honour of that justice. Shall God in a moment lose all the 
glory of his creation ? Did he make the creatures, whose fall he did foresee, 
only to punish and damn them ; and that the glory of his other perfections, 
save that of his justice and holiness, should be spoiled by it ? His glory 
therefore must be preserved ; that could not be if the glory of his justice or 
mercy were wholly lost. To preserve it, therefore, Christ is substituted in 
our room, and the Captain of salvation made perfect through sufferings, which 
was most becoming God, as he was Lord of all, and his glory the end of all, 
Heb. ii. 10. His love not permitting him to leave the world under the curse, 
nor his justice to leave sin without punishment, both those necessities are 
provided for by the wisdom of God ; a wonderful temperament wrought, 
whereby sin is punished in the surety, and impunity secured to the believing 
sinner.* 

[4. J This satisfaction must be by death, because death was threatened. 
Since it was the judgment of God that sin was worthy of death, God had 
contradicted his own judgment and holy wisdom, if he had remitted it with- 
out death, or punished it with less than death. God estabHshed our propi- 
tiation in the blood of Christ, ' to declare his justice,' Rom. iii. 25. f If 
justice had required less than death, it had been unjust to have demanded so 
much as death, for then he had demanded more than was due. Sin could 
not be expiated by a less punishment than it had merited, but that was death. 
Besides, the love of God to his Son would not have permitted him to expose 
him to a cursed and cruel death, merely to shew his justice implacable, had 
it not really been in itself implacable without it, as the most transcendent 
means to discover the incomprehensible purity of his nature. Certainly, that 
God who would not do the least injustice to the meanest of his creatures, 
would not have delivered up his Son to so shameful a death, and took so 
many counsels about it, and made it the principal work of his wisdom in all 
ages of the world, to order all things for the execution of it, if justice could 
have been contented with less than death, and remission of sin could have 
been granted by the pure mercy and bounty of God, at least after the threat- 
ening. Could justice have been satisfied at a lower rate than death, the 
Father would have answered the request of his Son when he prayed so ear- 
nestly that this cup might pass from him ; nor would death have been exacted 
of him, if a drop of his blood had been a sufficient payment to the demands 

* Daill6 sur iii. Jean, p. 330. t ^'i h'iuliv, for a demonstration of his justice. 



24 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

of justice. The suffering death had been superfluous, and the imposing 
death upon him had been an unrighteousness in God ; and his giving himself 
up to death, without any necessity, had been an injustice to himself. Could 
a few drops of blood have satisfied justice, it might have been satisfied with- 
out any blood at all, as well as with a punishment beneath what the law 
demanded. The efTusion of one drop of blood cannot pass for a punishment 
of sin. when death for it was required by the law, so that it could be no less 
than death. 

Fnrp. 3. None could satisfy the justice of God but the Son of God in- 
carnate. 

[1.] Let us remove those things that might be supposed capable to do it. 
Nether could man do it for himself, nor any intellectual or rational creature 
do it for him, nor any observances of God's institutions do it, so that it must 
necessarily fall upon some one above the rank of creatures. Some divine 
person only was capable to undertake it and efiect it. There is a necessity 
of satisfaction to the law, both by paying obedience to every tittle of it, and 
by enduring the penalty for the transgression of it. God stands so much 
upon the honour of his law, that the heavens shall be folded up, and the 
earth shaken out of its place, before one point of the law shall be disregarded, 
Mat. V. 18. Some one therefore must repair the breach made upon it, and 
restore the honour of it. Let us see if anything else could. 

(1.) Man was unable to do it for himself. It must be done either by active 
or passive obedience, by doing or suff'ering ; but was man capable of either 
as a full compensation to God ? Man by sin fell in his person, and with all 
that he had, under the curse of the law. Gal. iii. 10; and what was under 
the curse, and by sin was forfeited, could not remove the curse. Man may 
be considered as a sinful creature or a gracious creature. A sinful creature 
cannot satisfy; for being a sinner in that satisfaction, he doth offend the 
hohness of God, and heap new provocations before the eyes of his justice 
instead of pacifying it. A gracious creature cannot, for that supposeth 
satisfaction first, whereby justice is moved to take away the bar that locks 
up the treasures of grace from being dispensed to man. A man might be 
gracious after a satisfaction, but not before ; besides, grace is finite, for 
whatsoever is in a finite creature is finite ; its efi"ects therefore cannot be of 
an infinite value. 

(1.) Man could not effect it by offering something to God, or by doing 
something equivalent to the offence. 

1. Man had nothing to give. What was there he could call his own, since 
he was a creature, especially since as an offender he had forfeited what was 
his by right of creation ? Had man the world to give ? How came he by it ? 
Was it created by him or for him ? If not by him, it was none of his own ; he 
was but a steward to manage all for the use of his Lord and true proprietor. 
Can a steward recompense his lord for the wrong done to his honour, by 
offering to his master those goods which are his own already, and which the 
steward was only entrusted with ? The world was none of man's to give ; 
he never had it as an absolute lord by right of an independent propriety, nor 
was it possible he should, since he was not either the creator or preserver of 
it; and neither man, nor any other creature in the world, could possibly be 
brought into a state independent on God, so that man held as a feudatory 
in capite of God. But suppose it had been his own, he had forfeited all 
by his rebellion ; for his sake, for his sin, the earth was cursed by the sove- 
reign Lord of it. Gen. iii. 17 ; and a thing cursed in all the parts of it could 
not be fit for an oblation to the divine Majesty. 

2. Nor could his repentance be a compensation. Bare grief for an offence 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 25 

is not a compensation for an injury done to man, much less for an affront of 
so high a nature ofiered to God. But we find no such thing in man at the 
time wherein he fell from the top of his felicity to the gulf of misery. If he 
uho had a sense of the happy state he had lost, and the miserable condition 
he had contracted, was more for excuses than relentings, how can a penitent 
posture be found by nature in any of his descendants? Gen. iii. 9-13. If 
there were any blushes in him, they were occasioned more by the discovery 
of his crime than by the sense of the crime itself; and he was troubled more 
at his loss than at his offence, and so might relent that he was miserable, 
not that he was criminal ; and so it was a repentance as it respected himself, 
not as it respected the honour of his Lord ; and such a repentance is to be 
found in hell, but is unable to break those chains wherein they are held. 
How should man come by a repentance? Can he break himself into a true 
contrition ? What stone was ever heard to melt itself ? Is not captive man 
fond of his sin, in love with his chains ? And how can he by nature attain 
that which is so contrary to what he is by nature mightily delighted with ? 
The least spark of grace is above the power of corrupted nature. How should 
man, then, come by this repentance ? Must it not be a melting spark from 
heaven lighting upon his soul, that must produce so kindly a work in a for- 
saken creature ? Would it have consisted with the wisdom of divine justice 
to seize upon the foi'feiture, to withdraw from man supernatural grace, and 
presently to restore it without any regard to the vindication of the honour of 
that justice ? Besides, suppose man had been able to repent of himself, and 
had actually performed a repentance of the right stamp, what would this have 
signified, since no such thing was required as the condition the righteous- 
ness of God exacted in the law ? That demanded not repentance, because 
it gave not liberty to any crime. It challenged an exact and perfect obedience, 
complete in all circumstances, of man in his uprightness ; and, in case of 
failure, left man to the severity of the penalty he had incurred Not a drop 
of repentance was allow^ed as any part of legal obedience. That was intro- 
duced upon a change of the dispensation from legal to evangelical. ' The 
law is not of faith,' and as little of repentance, ' but the man that doth them 
shall hve in them,' Gal. iii. 12. Besides, if repentance and faith in the 
mercy of God could have razed out the sin of Adam, and broken in pieces 
the chains of eternal death, could we think that God should be at the expense 
of the blood of the promised seed ? What need had there been of a sacrifice 
to appease God, if he had been already appeased by the relentings of man ? 
What a vanity had that been, to go about the taking away that which the 
faith and repentance of Adam had already removed ! * The wisdom of God 
would not do anything useless and in vain. Faith and repentance could 
never change the nature of God's righteousness, but must first suppose some 
satisfaction made to justice, and then step in as conditions ; and the one as 
an instrument apprehending and applying mercy obtained by some other 
means, not the efficient or meritorious cause, no more than the looking upon 
the brazen serpent was the efficient or meritorious cause of the cure, but only 
the means. But how can we think man after his fall should have either faith 
in the mercy of God, or repentance, which flows from a sense of mercy, when 
no mercy had been revealed to him ? He found nothing of it in the law ; 
and though he might apprehend such a perfection in God by the considera- 
tion of his own nature, yet since he had never seen any miserable object to 
draw out such a perfection, it is a question whether he knew any such quality 
to be in himself or no, and therefore could not conclude any such perfection 
to be in God, since there was not the least revelation of it, and therefore could 
* Zarnov. de Sutisfact. part i. cap. iv. pp. 14, 15. 



26 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 2G. 

have no footing for any such exercise of faith and repentance till the discovery 
of mercy in the promised seed. 

3. Nor could any after obedience to the law be a compensation for the 
oflfence. For, 

(1.) Man had not power of himself after his fall to obey. He had by his 
revolt lost that original righteousness which enabled him to a conformity to 
the law : Gen, iii. 10, ' I was afraid, because I was naked.' His corporeal 
nakedness could be no more the cause of fear after, than it was before, his 
sin ; but he was naked, i. e. stripped of the image of God, and his primitive 
integrity. Man cannot now do any work commensurate to the precepts of 
the law. In everything he comes short of his duty ; and therefore, being de- 
fective in what he ought to do by the law of creation, cannot satisfy for the 
injury done to God in the state of corruption : ' How shall a man be just 
with God ? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a 
thousand,' Job ix. 2, 3. God requires an obedience to the law, not accord- 
ing to our measure, but according to his own righteousness, which is perfect ; 
and this no sinful creature can arise to of himself. If any man were able to 
oflfer God a spotless obedience, free from any defect the law could find in it ; 
by whose strength would he do it ? Not by his own ; for since he was a 
sinner, he hath been without strength. To be sinners, and to be xvitliont 
strength, are one and the same, Rom. v. 6, 8. From whom, then, should 
lie have this strength ? From the Creator ? How can he then satisfy God 
by that which is God's already ? It is as if when a man had wronged a 
prince, he should satisfy him for the injury by a sum taken out of the prince's 
exchequer. Indeed, man is not willing to obey any command of God ; there 
is nothing in his nature but an enmity against God and his law, Rom. viii. 7, 
and therefore no complete will to give God any satisfaction, or pay him any 
obedience. The will is naturally enslaved to sin, and under the power of 
vicious habits, sins always, never obeys perfectly, but in the moment of a 
material obedience offends God, comes short of what the law requires. Till 
the will of man be changed, he cannot be willing with a complete will to 
obey God ; and the will cannot be changed before a satisfaction be made, be- 
cause it is not reasonable that the punishment of sin, which was a spiritual 
as well as eternal death, and consisted in leaving the soul under the power 
of those ill habits it had contracted, which are indeed the death of the soul, 
as diseases are the death of the body, should be taken ofi" till some satisfac- 
tion were made. Man can no more free himself from this spiritual death, 
than he can free himself from the death of the body ; and we have no reason 
to think God would do it before a satisfaction, for then the law he had en- 
acted would be wronged by himself. Well, then, man hath not power to 
obey God : Job xiv. 4, ' Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? 
not one ;' i. e. saith Cocceius, Who can change an unclean thing into a 
clean ? Is there not one ? Yea, and but one ; Christ only can do it. 

(2.) Supposing man had power to obey the law, and that perfectly, yet 
this was due to God before the sin of man, and therefore cannot be a com- 
pensation for the sin of man. After obedience will not make amends for 
past crimes ; for obedience is a debt due of itself, and what is a debt of itself 
cannot be a compensation for another. What is a compensation, must be 
something that doth not fall under the notion or relation of a debt due before, 
but contracted by the injury done. Obedience was due from man if he had 
not sinned, and therefore is a debt as much due after sin as before it ; but 
a new debt cannot be satisfied by paying an old. As suppose you owe a man 
money upon a bond, and also abuse him in his reputation, or some other 
concern ; is there not a new debt contracted upon that trespass, a debt of 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 27 

reparation cf him in what you have wronged him ? The paying him the 
money you owe him upon bond, is not an amends for the injury you did him 
otherwise. They both in law fall under a different consideration. Or when 
a man rebels against a prince of whom he holds some land, will the payment 
of his quit-rent" be satisfactory for the crime of his rebellion ? So obedience 
to the law in our whole course was a debt upon us by our creation ; and 
this hath relation to the preceptive part of the law, and to God as a sove- 
reign : but upon sin a new debt of punishment was contracted, and the 
penalty of the law was to be satisfied by suffering, as well as the precepts of 
the law satisfied by observing them. And this was a debt relating to the 
justice of God, as well as the other to the sovereignty of God. Now, how 
can it be imagined that man, by paying the debt he was obliged to before, 
should satisfy the debt he hath newly contracted ? The debts are different : 
the one is a debt of observance, the other a debt of suffering, and contracted 
in two different states ; the debt of obedience in the state of creation, the 
debt of suffering in the state of corruption ; so that the payment of what was 
due from us as creatures, cannot satisfy for what was due from us as crimi- 
nals. All satisfaction is to be made in some way to which a person was not 
obliged before the offence was committed ; as men wronged in their honour, 
are satisfied by some acts not due to them before they were injured. So 
that all men taken together, yea, the creatures of ten thousand worlds, 
cannot, by obedience to the preceptive part of the law, satisfy for one trans- 
gression of it ; because, whatsoever they can do, is a debt due from themselves 
before. When men fell from God, and entered into league with the devil, 
they laid themselves at the foot of God's righteous wrath, and sunk them- 
selves into the desert of eternal death, and so stood in another relation to 
God than as subjects ; and God might require a reparation for the past 
disobedience, and security for obedience for the future ; unless man could 
perform this, he must lie bound in chains of darkness. What compensation 
could man make for what was past, or what security could he give for time 
to come ? Some other, therefore, must interpose, whose suretyship God 
would accept; who could give a satisfaction to God, as pleasing to him as sin 
had been displeasing, and offer to God what was not due to him before ; 
who was able to perform what he undertook, and whose security for what 
was due for the future, might be esteemed valid ; and therefore it must be 
some divine person, that was not bound in his own nature to those terms of 
obedience, which were necessary to this satisfaction. 

(3.) Supposing man had power after his fall to obey, and that obedience 
were not due before, yet could not his obedience be compensatory for the 
injury by sin. Because being a finite creature, whatsoever obedience he 
could pay could not be infinite, and so not proportioned to an infinite 
majesty. Since the sin of man is infinite, in regard of the person offended, 
who is an infinite and eternal Being, and thereby debased below the meanest 
of his creatures, in the reflection that every sin casts upon him, as being not 
worthy to be beloved and obeyed ; and that which doth satisfy must be as 
great as the demerit of the crime (for it must be proportionable to the dis- 
grace and damage accruing to God by sin) ; this a finite creature cannot do : 
for though obedience is an honour paid to an infinite person, as well as sin 
a contempt of an infinite person, yet the offence is always aggravated by the 
person offended, as an injury done to a pri#ce is by the dignity of his per- 
son and the greatness of his authority ; but the satisfaction is measured 
from the capacity of the subject offending, which is finite, and not commen- 
surate to the greatness of a wronged God. Nor can our obedience and holi- 
ness be counted infinite, because they are the fruits of an infinite Spirit in 



28 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

us ;* for by the same reason all creatures should be accounted infinite, 
because they are the works of an infinite power. The Spirit infuseth the 
habits of obedience and holiness, and excites them ; but the creature, and 
not the Spirit, exerciseth them, the soul doth obey and believe, &c., so 
that though they are the Spirit's efficiently, yet they are the creature's sub- 
jectively. Besides, though the Spirit dwells in believers, yet he is not hypo- 
statically united to them, as the divine nature of the second person was to 
the human. The Holy Ghost and the soul do not make one person ; if so, 
the acts of the new creature would be subjectively infinite, as the mediatory 
acts of Christ were, because his person, which was the subject of them, was 
infinite. So that our obedience cannot be infinite ; and, indeed, the best 
obedience any mere creature is able to pay, cannot be so honourable to God 
as sin is debasing, because by our obedience we honour him according to his 
nature, as far as our capacity reacheth, and give him no more than his due, 
and acknowledge him as he is the most excellent Being, the most rightful 
sovereign ; but in sin we prefer every thing before him, do what we can to 
ungod him, fight against his sovereignty, snarl at his holiness, dare his 
justice, and render him so vile, as if he were not fit to be ranked above, or 
with any of his creatures in our hearts ; and what rate of obedience is able 
to render God a satisfaction for so great a contempt and audaciousness ? 
All the obedience a subject can pay to a prince, can never be esteemed in 
value equal to the contempt, which an endeavour to destroy his person, and 
pull down his statues, and trample his picture in the dirt, doth cast upon him. 
Sin is of a higher order in the rank of evils, than theworks of righteousness 
are in the rank of good.f 

2. Nor could man give a full satisfaction by suffering, so as to obtain a 
restoration to happiness. He is as unable to sufier out his restoration, as 
he is to work it out. His sufferings would be as finite, in regard of the 
subject, as his obedience ; but the glory he had stained, and the justice he 
had wronged, were the glory of an infinite God ; and the sufferings of a 
finite creature, though lengthened out to eternity, could not be a compensa- 
tion to an infinite glory disgraced by sin. Alas ! the wrath of an incensed 
God is too fierce and heavy for the strength of a feeble man to break through. 
But suppose it were possible for a man that had committed but one crime 
against God, and afterwards repented of it, and i-etained no more afi"ection 
to that sin or any other, by sufi"ering torments for some millions of years, 
to make a compensation for that one sin ; yet how is it possible for men, 
whose natures are depraved, and have nothing of a divine purity in them, 
to satisfy by sufi'ering, since they suffer, not only for sin, but in a sinful 
state, and are increasing their sins while they are paying their satisfactions. 
No sufiering of any that retain theii' rebellious nature can be a satisfaction 
to the majesty of God, so as to free such a creatux^e from sufiering, while 
that nature remains, and he loves that sin for whicb he is punished, though 
he hath not opportunity to commit it. Besides, since man by nature is 
* enmity against God,' Rom. viii. 7, God's judicial power would not render 
him amiable to the sinner, nor suffering inspire him with a love to his judge ; 
if he should therefore sufier multitudes of years, without any certain hope 
of recovery, could he be without a hatred of God ? So, then, all the time 
he would be sufiering he would be highly sinning ; and still sinning would 
increase the debt of suffering iistead of diminishing it. A creature, v/hile 
a creature, in every state is bound to love God ; but no fallen creature can 
do it without a change of nature. Besides, if a man be not able to satisfy 
by suffering for one sin, how is he able to satisfy for numberless ? Every 
* Polhill of the Decrees, p. 188. t Lessius. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 29 

new sin increaseth our obnoxiousness to God, both in its own nature, and 
as it is a virtual approbation of all former sins, at least of the same kind ; 
now he that cannot pay a farthing, or a shilling, or make satisfaction for a 
small sum, is not able to make a recompence for millions. And though a 
man might begin his satisfaction by sufiering, where would he end ? Since 
he cannot give one infinite in value, he must give one infinite in time, and 
then he would be always paying, and never coming to a period of payment ; 
for when you have in your thoughts run along the line of eternity, you would 
have further to go than you have gone ; for in looking back you may find a 
beginning, but in looking forward you will never find an end ; the further 
you look, still more remains to come than is past. 

To conclude this. The church of old saw her utter inability any way to 
make a propitiation for sin but by God himself : Ps. Ixv. 3, ' Iniquities pre- 
vail against me ; as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away,' 
D"lQ3n. Our iniquities are too strong for us, we cannot make an atonement 
for them ; but thou shalt be the Messiah, thou shalt propitiate by the 
Messiah, who is typified by the legal propitiatory, and therefore the same 
name is given to Christ : Rom. iii. 25, ' a propitiation,' or the propitiatory 
for our sins. Since the first age of the world to this day, wherein so many 
ages are run out, there is not one man to be found that ever was his own 
ransomer, or paid a price for his own redemption. 

(2.) No creature is able to do it for us. AH creatures are nothing in their 
original ; there could be then nothing of dignity in a mere creature to answer 
the dignity of the person ofi'ended. The plaster would be too narrow for 
the wound. The whole creation of creatures was of a finite goodness, and 
nothing to the honour due to so great a majesty. If a creature could satisfy, 
it could not be by his own strength, but by a great deal of grace conferred 
upon him, so that he had not paid what was his own to God, but what was 
God's own already. No creature but must be sustained by the grace of God, 
that he may not fall into utter ruin while he is satisfying. Angels them- 
selves could not do it but by grace ; and the more any creature should do by 
the grace of God, the more he would be obliged by God, and the less com- 
pensate him. Again, it must be one creature, or a multitude of creatures. 
How one mere creature could satisfy for a numberless number of men, 
every one of them foully polluted, cannot well be conceived by common 
reason. One creature can only be supposed to be a sufficient ransom for one 
of the same kind. There could not be a dignity in any creature to answer 
the dignity and equal the value of all mankind. If a multitude of creatures 
were necessary, there must be as many creatures satisfying as were creatures 
sinning ; so God would lose one species of creature to restore another, or an 
equal number of creatures to them that were redeemed. But indeed no 
creature could satisfy if the wrong was infinite ; and by the rights of justice 
the satisfaction is to be proportioned to the greatness of the injury and the 
majesty of the person injured. Those being infinite, no creature was able to 
manage this affair and bring it to a happy period, because no creature but is 
finite, and cannot be otherwise than finite, infiniteness being the incommunicable 
property of the Deity ; therefore neither man nor any angel was able to effect it. 

1. Not man. This is clear. All men were sunk into the gulf of misery, 
and he that was unable to redeem himself, could not pretend to an ability 
to redeem another : Ps. xlvii. 7, ' None of them can by any means redeem 
his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.' All that a man hath is not 
of so much worth as the soul of man ; so tbat no man can pay a sufficient 
price for the redemption of his captive brother. All human nature could 
not have shewn a valuable sacrifice. Consider him as man, he is worse than 



30 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

nothing and vanity. How shall God have a satisfaction for an unexpres- 
sible evil, from that which is worse than nothing '? Can the drop of a bucket 
repair an infinite damage ? But consider him in a state of rupture with 
God, and you find him, by his unclcanness, much more unfit for so great a 
task. It had been too much a debasing the majesty of God, had one mere 
man been sacrificed for others as a sufficient price of redemption, as if he 
had been equal in dignity to the offended majesty of God. And what advan- 
tage could it have been to the rest of mankind, since the sacrifice would be 
as corrupt and unclean as those that needed it ? No such thing as an inno- 
cent mere man can be found, since Adam's revolt, in all those ages which 
have run out since ; all were sunk into the common gulf, all come short of 
the glory of God, Rom. iii. 23. All were destitute of the image of God, and 
become filthy; every one without exception, Ps. xiv. 3. And could the 
sacrifice of rebels redeem rebellious creatures ? Could anything morally 
impure content God, when a maimed beast was not thought fit for his altar ? 
A polluted sacrifice, overgrown with uncleanness and corrupt imaginations, 
would rather have provoked than pacified him. But suppose an innocent 
man could be found out, stored with all the holiness of men and angels ; yet 
how can we conceive that the holiness of that man should please God, as 
much as the sin of Adam displeased him ? Such a person in his obedience 
would only have given God his due ; whereas by sin, man robbed God of 
his holiness, more dear than many worlds, and unconceivable numbers of 
men and angels. 

2. Nor could angels be a sacrifice for us ; because they were not of the 
same nature with the oflfending person. And the apostle intimates that the 
redemption is to be made in the same nature that transgressed, when he ex- 
cludes the fallen angels from the happiness of redemption, because Christ 
took not upon him the angelical nature, Heb. ii. 17. Though the angels 
were innocent, yet they were creatures and finite ; nor were they the offend- 
ing nature. And though they transcend man, both in the dignity and holi- 
ness of their nature, yet they come infinitely short of the dignity of God, who 
was injured. They are not pure in his sight, with such a purity as is com- 
mensurate with the infinite holiness of their Creator: Job iv. 18, 'He chargeth 
his angels with folly.' They would fall and vanish from their glory if they 
were not supported by the grace of God. By angels is not meant prophets, 
messengers God sends to men ; for he speaks of persons distinct from them 
that dwell in houses of clay : but the prophets were of this latter number. 
And that he means the good angels is evident, by giving them the title of his 
angels, his servants, as peculiarly belonging to his service. He proves man 
not to be just and pure in God's sight, a majori, because he chargeth the 
angels with folly. There had been nothing in the argument to say, man is 
not more pure than his Maker, because the devils are not. Angels were 
creatures, and therefore had not a holiness adequate to the holiness of God. 
What proportion was there between a finite, mutable holiness, and that which 
is immutable ? Though angels were innocent, yet in their own nature they 
might cease to be so. They had not strength enough to bear and break 
through an infinite wrath ; they could not satisfy, so as to effect redemption, 
till their satisfaction had been completed, which could not have been even in 
an endless eternity. What is finite in nature, can never become infinite in 
nature ; one cannot pass into another. If one sunk a number of them into 
hell, how could one angel, or a number of them, answer for the multitude of 
sins charged upon the world ? So great also is the malignity of sin, and so 
great an injury to the majesty of God, that it cannot be compensated by all 
the services and sufferings of saints and angels. But suppose angels had 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's death. 31 

been capable to be sacrifices for us, and so our redeemers, it had not been 
agreeable to the wisdom of God to confer that honour upon a creature, to be 
the redeemer of souls, which would mount a step higher than the bare title 
of creator, and thereby glorify a creature above himself. 

To conclude this. The most excellent satisfaction and sacrifice becomes 
the dignity of an injured God, and such a satisfaction, that there cannot be 
imagined a greater by a creature ; but whatsoever satisfaction can be given 
by men or angels, is not so great as may be imagined and apprehended by a 
creature ; for such an one may be imagined as may proceed absolutely holy 
from the person offering, and be attended with an immutable innocence, without 
any possibility of a charge of folly, which is a condition above a created 
state. God was made lower than any creature by sin; and therefore such a 
satisfaction was suitable, as might render God infinitely higher than any 
creature, and demonstrate the highest and most glorious perfections of his 
nature. This was wrought by the death of the Son of God, and could not 
have been evidenced in that height by the death of any creature. 

3. Ceremonial sacrifices, under the law, could not be sufiicient for this 
affair. The Jews, indeed, did rest upon them ; thought that, if not by their 
own virtue, yet by the virtue of God's institution, they purged away their 
sin, Isa. i. 13, 14. But, 

[1.] This was against common reason. Common reason would conclude, 
that the sin of a soul could never be expiated by the blood of a beast, and 
that a nature so inferior could not be a compensation for the crime of a nature 
60 much superior to it. The prophet spake but the true reason of mankind 
when he asserted, that the Lord would not be pleased with thousands of 
rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil, nor the first-born of the body be a 
satisfaction for the sin of the soul, Micah vi. 6, 7. The first-born and fruit 
of a man's own body was too low, much more the first-born of a beast. The 
soul was the principal in sin, and what fitness had a corporeal blood to make 
amends for the crime of a spmtual nature ? A rational sacrifice only was 
fit to be an atonement for the sin of a rational being. The brutish nature 
was not the human, there was no agreement between the nature of man and 
that of a bullock. The transgressing nature was to sufier, the soul that 
sins, that shall die, Ezek. xviii. A beast had no communion in nature with 
man, whereby it might respect the sinner, nor any worth in itself, whereby 
it might respect God, nor any willingness or intention for such an end. Can 
any think sin so hght, as to be expiated by such pitiful mean blood ? The 
remedy ought to be suited to the disease and the party afilicted.* The sin 
consisted in rebellion and hatred of God ; the remedy then must consist in 
perfect righteousness, exact obedience, and intense love to God ; all which 
beasts were uncapable of. A man must put ofi" his own reason, and have 
veiy debasing apprehensions of the perfections of God, if he thinks infinite 
hohness scorned, infinite justice provoked, infinite glory rifled, can put up all 
upon the oflering brutish blood, that knows not why and to what end it is 
ofi"ered. It was too base a thing to be thought to bear a proportion to an 
infinite off'ended nature. What should the flesh and blood of goats signify 
to a spiritual nature, with which it had no agreement ? Ps. 1. 13. It was 
not agreeable to the wisdom of God. A wise earthly lawgiver would not 
think the life of a beast to be a fit recompence for the capital crime of a 
malefactor. The wisdom of God knew that they were unproportioned to the 
end of an expiatory sacrifice. And was it not inconsistent with this perfec- 
tion, for God to be contented with so vile a thing, after such terrible thunder- 
ings fi-om mount Sinai, and giving the law with so much solemnity ? What 
* Turrctin. de Satisfact., pp. 240, 241. 



32 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

a ridiculous thing would all that ado appear to be, if a beast's blood were 
powerful enough to quench the force of those flames, and put to silence the 
thunders of the divine fury, if the transgression of any part of it might be 
washed away by so cheap an ofiering ? Besides, the same wisdom surely 
would not let man, the most excellent creature, be beholden to brutes for 
the merit of righteousness, nor could they be agreeable to the justice of God 
in the law, which required the death of the party offending. If all the 
beasts of Lebanon were sacrificed, and the cedars cut down for wood for the 
burnt-offerings, all could not be a sweet-smelling savour before God. There 
is an infinite disproportion between this kind of satisfaction and the divine 
majesty. With God only is plenteous redemption, Ps. cxxx. 7, 8 ; with God, 
not in the blood of beasts, but in the true sacrifice, and ransomer ; yet with 
God, and not then manifested to the world. 

[2.] The repetition of those sacrifices shewed their imperfection and 
insufficiency. It is from this head the apostle argues their weakness and 
impossibility to take away sin, Heb. x. 1-4. There was after them a remem- 
brance of sin ; the ofierer was not so bettered by them, but still he had need 
of new ones to keep him right with God. Had any thing been perfected by 
them, they had ceased, only the new application of an old sacrifice had been 
required ; but there was no ground for an after application of a past sacrifice 
upon new sins, because the efiicacy of the blood ceased as soon as it was 
shed and sprinkled, so that multitudes of them could not constitute an inex- 
haustible treasure of reconciliation and merit. The variety of them mani- 
fested that there was nothing firm in them. As many medicines shew their 
own inefficacy, so the many sacrifices and purifications did evidence that a 
firm and efficacious propitiation was to be sought elsewhere. If the great 
annual sacrifice, the most solemn one in that whole institution (of which 
you may read, Levit. xvi. 29, xxiii. 27), could not effect it, much less could 
sacrifices of a lower dignity. It is from the repetition of this great sacrifice 
Paul argues the insufliciency of it. This was the most solemn sacrifice, 
because it was offered by the high priest himself, and for all the people, and 
the blood sprinkled in the holy of holies. A less sacrifice could not have a 
larger virtue than the greatest, yet the repetition of this shewed its imper- 
fection. 

[3.] God never intended them for the expiation of sin by any virtue of 
their own. The majesty of God, that sin fought against, was infinite ; the 
sacrifice then must be infinite ; but none of those sacrifices under the law 
were so. Why then did God constitute them ? Not with any intention to 
purge away the sin of the soul, but the ceremonial uncleanness of the flesh : 
Heb. ix. 13,14, ' The blood of bulls sanctifies to the purifying the flesh.' The 
apostle compares those and the sacrifice of Christ together, shewing that 
one purified only the flesh, the other the conscience. It was not a moral 
guilt they were intended to remove, but a ceremonial, as when one was 
defiled by touching a dead carcase or a leprous body, which was in estima- 
tion a defilement of the body, not of the soul. It was a guilt judged so by 
God, not by any law of nature, but a positive law, an arbitrary constitution, 
which punished it not with death, but with a suspension from communion 
till it were expiated by a sacrifice ; and therefore God might settle what com- 
pensation he pleased of a lower nature, for that which was not a moral 
guilt, for there was nothing in those ceremonial impurities which might waste 
the conscience, or be accounted a dead work, ver. 14, or infect the soul.* 
But as to moral crimes, they were rather the confessions than expiations of 
them. And, indeed, God often discovered their weakness, and that they 
* Turretin. de Satisfac, pp. 237, 238. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of chkist"s death. 33 

could not give him rest, or recompense the injury received by sin : Isa. 
Ixvi. 1, ' Where is the house that you build me, and where is the place of my 
rest ? For all those things have my hands made, and all those things have 
been', saith the Lord.' By the house or temple, is meant all the Jewish 
economy, and the lump of sacrifices ; all those things, though God appointed 
them, and though they had been used and performed, God had no rest in. 
They neither satisfied his justice, nor vindicated the honour of his law, nor 
could they ever take away sin, Heb. x. 11. And, therefore, the only wise 
God never instituted them for that end, unless we will say he was deceived 
in his expectations, and mistaken in the end of his appointments. God 
therefore rejected them, not only upon the hypocrisy of the oiferers (as 
sometimes he did), but upon the account of their own nature, being unable 
to attain the end of a propitiatory sacrifice, Heb. vii. 18. They were dis- 
annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness of them. Though they had 
been practised for so many ages, yet not one sin had been expiated by them 
in that long tract of time. 

[4.] God did therefore appoint them to prefigure a more excellent sacrifice, 
able to do it. The vileness and poorness of a beast appointed for sacrifice 
might admonish the Jews that such light things were insufficient for so great 
a work as the taking away of sin, the wrath of God, and eternal punishment, 
and redeeming the soul of man (more precious than all the beasts of the field 
or birds of the air) ; they must needs conceive sin was too foul to be washed 
away with such blood ; and this would naturally lead them to conceive that 
they prefigured a sacrifice more excellent and sufficient for those ends. They 
were but shadows, Heb. x. 1, and did typically respect a crucified, dying 
Christ as the substance ; and what virtue they had was not in and from them- 
selves, but from their typical relation to that which they shadowed. They 
signified the sacrifice of Christ, by whose blood, in the fulness of time, the 
sins that were past were to be expiated, Eom. iii. 25 ; and as shadows 
received what value they had from their substance. They did not as shadows 
purge away any sin, but represent that which should. The shadow of a 
man shews like a man, but hath not the virtue and power of a man, whose 
shadow it is, to act what he doth. They easily might collect from them that 
they were not able to expiate their sins themselves, that it must be done by 
death, and by the death of some other, not the off'ender, but of one too that 
was innocent, and whose sacrifice might be of perpetual virtue ; and this those 
shadows signified to any inquisitive mind.* And the Scripture evidenceth 
this, the will of God was the reparation of mankind ; and when those were 
insufiicient for it, Christ steps in as the great sacrifice wherein God had 
pleasure, to do this will of God, viz., man's restoration in a way congruous 
to the honour of God, Heb. x. 6-8. So that what pleasure God had in the 
institution of legal sacrifices, did not arise from anything in themselves, nor 
was terminated in them, but in this sacrifice, more excellent than the sacrifice 
of worlds of creatures. 

[2. J Since all these were insufficient, some other must be found out to 
effect it. And this was Christ only, the Son of God. To fancy a satisfac- 
tion below the demerit of the offence, and disproportioned to the injury 
committed, is to wrong the wisdom and justice of God, and to vilify God in 
such low thoughts of his nature. That only can be properly called a satis- 
faction, which is suited to the majesty of God, and is equivalent to the sin of 
man. Now, since none else were able to offer to God anything for the repa- 
ration of his glory, there must be something offered to God, which is greater 
* Mornfe, Cont. Inst. p. 168, &c. 

VOL. v. c 



34 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

than everything that was not God. There was therefore a necessity of some 
divine person to give that satisfaction which was necessary for the honour of 
God ; that, as a father saith, there might be as much humiliation in the ex- 
piation as there was presumption in the transgression. If God would have 
accepted a satisfaction less than infinite, he might as well have pardoned sin 
without a satisfaction at all. 

(1.) Christ was the fittest, and only capable of efiecting it. He was more 
excellent than all the creatures of the lowest and highest rank put together. 
There was none whose merit and dignity could equal the greatness and in- 
finiteness of the injury done to God by sin. None could compensate the 
blackness of the offence with such a greatness of satisfaction. And indeed 
we cannot imagine that God would expose his Son to so cruel a death, were 
it not necessary or highly convenient for his honour, or that the Son himself 
would have taken such a task upon his shoulders, to redeem man in a way 
of perfect justice. The death of Christ was necessary, our redemption could 
not else have been in the most perfect manner. None but a divine person 
could offer a price of redemption worthy of God. His person was infinite, 
and therefore was able to compensate an infinite injury. He was the prime 
male in the world, and therefore called the first-born of every creature. Col. 
i. 15, i. e. the basis and foundation of the whole creation.* He was innocent ; 
he was free from everything that might render him an unsavoury sacrifice. 
He was like us, and in that had what was necessary for a sacrifice, but sin 
excepted ; and in that he wanted what would have made him incapable of 
effecting our redemption. It was necessary that we should have such a 
surety and satisfier as was not only innocent, but immutably so, that could 
not by any means be bespotted by sin ; and that the apostle intimates, Heb. 
vii. 26, ' holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,' and from sin. Had 
he only been holy, without being immutably so, the election of God had not 
stood firm; for since God chose some to bring to glory, and that in Christ, 
it had been a tottering and uncertain resolution, had the perfecting the re- 
demption of his chosen ones depended upon the transactions of a mutable 
person, that could not eternally secure himself from ofiending. Had it been 
possible for the Kedeemer to sin, it had been possible for the absolute decree 
of God to become vain, and of no effect. He had also strength to do it; his 
own arm brought salvation, Isa. Ixiii. 5. He paid God that which he was 
not bound to pay; he paid an obedience as man, which was not due from 
him as God. He was made subject to the law. Gal. iv. 4 ; not, he was sub- 
ject to the law by his nature, but made so by his incarnation. He was the 
fittest, in regard of his being the second person in the Trinity. f It was not 
fit the Father should sufier, he is regarded as the Governor of the world ; 
who should then have been judge of the satisfaction, whether it had been suflli- 
cient or no ? Was it fit the Father should have appeared before the tribunal 
of the Son ? Nor was it so fit that the Spirit of God should undertake it ; 
because, as there was a necessity of satisfaction to content the justice of God, 
so there was a necessity of applying this satisfaction, and quickening the 
hearts of men to believe and accept it, that they might enjoy the fruits of 
this sacrifice. The order of the three persons had then been disturbed ; and 
that person whereby the Father and the Son execute all other things, had 
changed his operation. 

He was fit, in regard of both natures in union. | Since neither man nor 
angel could do this business, and there is no nature above theirs but the 

* Davenant in loc. 

t Amvrald. sur Heli. vi. p. 156, 158, much changed. 

X Feiii Orthod. Scholast. cap. xxii. sect. 3, p. 223. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 35 

divine, it must be the divine nature and human together : human, because 
man had sinned ; divine, because the satisfaction should equal the oifence. 
Here they are both in conjunction ; the substance of the satisfaction is made 
in the human nature suffering, and the value of the satisfaction is from the 
divine. Had he not been mortal, he could not have undergone the punish- 
ment sin had merited ; and had he not been divine, he could not have given 
a reparation equivalent to the damage by sin ; he was man to perform it, 
and God to be sufficient for it. 

(2.) The honour of God was most preserved and elevated thereby. This 
way mercy did not invade the rights of justice, nor justice trespass upon the 
bowels of mercy; both contain themselves in their own spheres. Mercy was 
preserved from being injured by seeing man solely punished, and justice was 
preserved from being wronged by seeing man solely pardoned. Thus was 
the nature of God glorified, without one attribute clashing against the other. 
Justice could not so well have been declared without the death of Christ, he 
was therefore set forth sig hSh^iv, Rom. iii. 25. To declare his righteous- 
ness, as an index of justice, to point to every head and part of it in the 
nature of God. In this way God saved us as a judge, a lawgiver, and a king, 
Isa. xxxiii. 22 ; as a judge in the manifestation of his righteousness, as a 
lawgiver in the vindication of his holiness, as a king in the demonstration of 
his sovereignty, in such a way as that his justice is cleared, his law righted, 
and his sovereignty acknowledged. His hatred of sin was more clearly 
manifested, and his truth in his threatenings made good and established, and 
sinners more obliged to God, and engaged upon the account of ingenuity to 
a greater abhorrency of sin, and a fear and love of God, which, by the suf- 
fering of any creature, could not have had so strong a foundation in them. 
God set a high value upon his law ; it was his royal law ; and had it been 
wholly neglected, the royalty of God had not only been violated, but his 
holiness and righteousness had been disparaged, which shone forth in the 
law, and made up the whole frame of it ; and since death was required by 
the law, death must be suffered, that there might be an agreement between 
the threatening and the suffering, the punishment and the justice of God, 
which required it. We may reasonably think it had been a greater act of wis- 
dom to make no law, than to let it be violated always, without preserving 
the honour of it. 

The doctrine of the death of Christ is the substance of the gospel.* Though 
there be many doctrines in it besides that, there is no comfort from any of 
them without the consideration of the cross of Christ ; for, though God be 
merciful in his own nature, yet since sin hath made a separation between 
God and his creature, it is impossible to renew any communion with him, 
without a propitiation for the offence. We see, then, Christ is the only 
meritorious cause of our justification ; nothing that we can do can satisfy 
God, we must be wholly off from ourselves and our own righteousness, as to 
any dependence on it, and act faith in the death of the Son of God, if we 
would be secure here in our consciences, or happy hereafter. 

As to suffer death was the immediate end of the interposition of Christ ; 
and the veracity of God in settling the penalty of death did require it ; and 
the justice of God made the death of Christ necessary for our redemption; so, 

4. It was necessary in regard of the offices of Christ. 

(1.) For his priestly office. The reason that he was to be made like his 
brethren, subject to the law, and the penalties and curse of it, with an ex- 
ception of sin in his own person, was, that he might be a faithful and merci- 
ful high priest. Heb. ii. 17, 18, ' Wherefore in all things it behoved him to 
* Amvraut, Sermons sur I'Evangile, Sermon 3. 



86 chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high 
priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the 
people ;' faithful to God for the expiation of the guilt of sin, merciful to men 
for the succouring them in their^ miseries by sin ; faithful to God in that 
trust committed to him, to satisfy God for the guilt of sin, that his anger 
might be averted, and the sinner received into favour, and therefore he was 
made like to them in the curse, though not in the sin ; which was necessary 
for his being a merciful high priest. This qualification of compassion could 
not result in such a high manner from anything so well as from an experi- 
mental knowledge of the miseries we had contracted ; and this must be by a 
sense and feeling of them. No man is so affected with the wretched state 
of men in a shipwreck by beholding it in a picture, as when he sees the ship 
dashed against the rocks, and hears the cries, and beholds the strugglings of 
the passengers for life ; nor is any man so deeply affected with them upon 
sight, as upon feeling the same miseries in his own person. That makes a 
man's compassions more readily excited upon seeing or hearing of others in 
the like state. Now, had not Christ run through the chief miseries of 
human life, and the punishment of death, he had not had that experimental 
compassion which was necessary to qualify him for this priesthood. It was 
by being made perfect through sufferings that he became the author of eternal 
salvation, Heb. v. 10. It was a thing becoming God as a just and righteous 
sovereign, in bringing many sons in glory, to make the Captain of their sal- 
vation perfect through sufl'erings, Heb. ii. 10 ; 'it became him, by whom 
and for whom are all things.' It became God, as the sovereign of all 
things, to have his justice vindicated, and, as the end of all things, to have 
the glory of his attributes exalted. Had not Christ suffered, he had not 
been a perfect Saviour, neither faithful to God nor merciful to man, because 
without blood justice had not been satisfied, and so sin, the great hindrance 
of salvation, had not been expiated. If he were a priest, he must have a 
sacrifice. A priest and a sacrifice are relatives. A priest is not properly a 
priest without a sacrifice, nor a sacrifice properly a sacrifice without a priest. 
Being settled a perpetual priest, Ps. ex. 4, he must have a perpetual sacrifice. 
Now, having nothing worthy of God's regard but himself, he sacrificed him- 
self. No other sacrifice could have been perpetual in its efiicacy, and conse- 
quently without a perpetual sacrifice he could not have been a perpetual 
priest. He as a priest purged our sins, but by himself as a sacrifice : Heb. 
i. 9, by his own blood as an offering, he entered into the holiest as a priest, 
Heb. ix. 12. He could not have entered into heaven to act as a priest there 
without blood, and no blood was fit to be brought in there but his own. 
There had been else no analogy between him and the legal priests, who were 
to enter into the most holy place with blood, and never without it. He 
could not have been an interceding priest unless he had been a sacrificing 
priest, because his sacrifice is the ground of his intercession. His inter- 
cession is not a bare supplication, but a supplication with unanswerable argu- 
ments, a presenting his atoning blood, which he carried with him into the 
holy place when he went to appear in the presence of God for us ; whence 
the apostle, speaking of his advocacy, joins it with his propitiation, 1 John 
ii. 1, 2. His propitiation on earth and his advocacy in heaven complete him 
a priest for ever. The one is the foundation of the other. Without it, 
Christ had been a bare petitioner in heaven, and would have had no ground 
for any plea against the demands of justice. 

(2.) For his kingly office. The first thing he was to do for our reconcilia- 
tion, was the oflering his soul for sin, Isa. liii. 10. Upon this article did all 
the promises of his mediatory exaltation depend ; so that nothing of the 



Luke XXIV. 26. j the necessity of Christ's death. 37 

dignity promised could be rightly claimed, or reasonably expected, by him, 
without the performance of this main and necessary condition, which himself 
had consented to in the first agreement. For consenting to this undertaking, 
upon the condition of the promise of his exaltation, he implied that he would 
not expect any exaltation, unless he perfoi-med the condition required on his 
part, of making his soul an offering for sin ; and therefore, without such an 
oblation, could not justly demand the making good the promise to him. 
There was an oiuiht to die, and then to enter into glory by the way of death, 
as a price to be paid for the restoration of our nature to that happiness from 
whence it fell ; his obedience to death was to precede, his exaltation to a 
throne and dominion was to follow ; he was not to sit down on the right hand 
of the Majesty on high till he had purged our sins by himself, Heb. i. 3 ; 
nor had he been Lord of the dead and living unless he had died, Rom. xiv. 9. 
The royalty, not only over those whom he had redeemed from sin, but over 
the good angels, was granted him as a recompence for his sufierings, Philip, 
ii. 8, 9, and the conquest of the e-sil angels was by his death ; for in his 
cross he triumphed over principalities and powers. Col. ii. 15. The change 
of laws in the church, which is a part of royalty, was to follow this sacrifice 
of himself, which is understood in Cant. iv. 6, 'Until the day break, and the 
shadows fly away, I will get me to the mountains of myrrh.' The re- 
moving the shadows of the law was to follow his being upon the mount 
Moriah, the place of his sufi'erings, there being an allusion in the word "HO, 
myrrh, or Moriah. Nor had the Spirit been sent into the world, unless his 
death had preceded : John vii. 39, ' The Holy Ghost was not yet given, 
because Jesus was not yet gloiified.' This rich treasure could not be dis- 
pensed till the acceptation of this sacrifice, till his glorification ; and he 
could not have a mediatory glory till he had offered his mediatory sacrifice. 
It is the Lamb slain that hath seven eyes and seven spirits, Eev. v. 6 ; power 
to prefer his people, and power to send the Spirit to them for their supply. 
Besides, the Spirit could not have come as a comforter without it, because 
the consolations he shoots into the soul are drawn out of this quiver. With- 
out his death, we had not had a propitiation for sin, the mysteries of divine 
love had lain undiscerned in darkness ; since we cannot be renewed without 
the Spirit (because the nature of man was depraved by his fall, whereupon 
justice denied the restoration of original righteousness), justice must be 
satisfied, and God reconciled, before mercy could restore it. Justice must 
be appeased, before it would consent to the return of that favour which had 
devolved into its hands by forfeiture ; so great a gift as the Spirit, the author 
of renewing grace, was not like to be bestowed upon us by God, while he 
remained an enemy. The gift of the Spu-it is therefore ascribed to the pur- 
chase of Christ's death. 

(3.) There was some necessity of it for his prophetical office. His death 
was the highest confirmation of his doctrine. This was not indeed the only 
cause, nor the principal cause, of his death ; if it were, his death would difier 
little in the end of it from the death of martyrs. Besides, if he had sufiered 
death chiefly for this, what need was there of his undergoing the curse, and 
groaning under the desertion of his Father ? There was no absolute neces- 
sity of his death for the confirmation of his doctrine, since the miracles he 
performed were a divine seal to assure us of its heavenly original ; therefore 
he directs the Jews to his works, as a means of believing him to be from 
heaven, John x. 38. Yet in his death he set forth a perpetual pattern of 
that obedience, meekness, love to God and man, and trust in his Father, 
above what any creature had ever been able to propose to us. He taught 
us in his life by the words of his mouth, and in his death instructed us by 



38 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

the exemplary exercise of bis graces, and the voice of his blood, 1 Peter ii. 21. 
He taught us the highest part of obedience to the utroost, by performing the 
exactest and sublimest part of obedience to his Father ; and, therefore, after 
he had discoursed to his disciples of his death and departure, he adds the 
reason of it, ' That the world may know that I love the Father ; and as the 
Father gave me commandment, even so I do,' John xiv, 31 ; that the world 
might know that he loved the glory of the Father, who was so merciful as 
to be willing to remit sin, yet so just, as not to remit it without a sacrifice. 

5. The death of Christ was necessary upon the account of the predictions 
and types of it in the Scripture. Had not Christ sufiered, all the predictions 
had been false, and the types to no purpose. In this the veracity of God 
was engaged, not only in making good the threatening of death discovered 
to the first man, in inflicting what was threatened, but in the way of redemp- 
tion by his Son. This was not only truth to his own resolve, as he had 
determined it, but truth to his word, as he had published it. God having 
decreed and declared the redemption of mankind, and the death of the 
Messiah as the medium, could not appoint then another way, because his 
counsel had not only pitched upon redemption as the end, but the death of 
Christ as the means ; and there could be no change in God. Had there 
been a change in the end, and had God altered his purpose for man's re- 
demption, he had obscured and lost the glory of all those attributes which 
sparkled in it. There could be none in the means ; if so, it must have been 
for the better or worse. The better it could not be ; for no way of so great 
a sufficiency could be found out as this, nor could any sacrifice of a higher 
value be thought of. Nor could it be worse ; for he could not have pitched 
upon any deficient way but he would have testified himself weary of, and 
changed in, his end for which he appointed those means. This necessity of 
his death, Christ, in his discourse with his staggering disciples, confirms by 
the exposition of all the Scriptures, which contained the things concerning 
himself, beginning at Moses, i. e. at the books of Moses, and all the prophets, 
Luke xxiv. 27 ; which he testifies again, ver. 43, naming the Psalms also as 
particularly containing things that concerned his person and death. Moses 
discovered it by types, as he was the minister of settling them, and by pro- 
phecies, as he was the amanuensis to write some of them. The prophets 
declared it in express words, they spake it all with one mouth ; and their 
chief prophecies centred in this, that Christ should suffer : Acts xxvi. 22, 23, 
' Saying none other things than what Moses and the prophets did say should 
come ; that Christ should suffer.' And the apostle Peter excludes none of 
the prophets from speaking of those things which were to be don^ in the 
latter days. Acts iii. 21 ; and that this was the design of the Spirit in them, 
to testify of the sufi'erings of Christ, 1 Peter i. 11. 

(1.) Predictions. We shall speak of a few. 

[l.J The first promise : Gen. iii. 15, ' It shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel ;' speaking to the serpent of the seed of the woman, 
which was to defeat all his devices. The Messiah here, as the seed of the 
woman, was promised to Adam to break the serpent's head, i. e. to take away 
sin and eternal death from man, which the devil had introduced, by the subtle 
contrivances of his head, into the world ; for he was to take away the strength, 
power, and wisdom of the devil, signified by the head. The way whereby he 
was to do it was by having his heel bruised, viz., the heel of his humanity, 
by sufiering. For as he was the seed of the woman, having human nature, 
he was to be bruised, he was to feel the power of the devil (now, the power 
of the devil was the power of death, Heb. ii. 14), yet so to feel the power of 
the devil as not utterly to sink under it ; for not his head, but his heel, was 



Luke XXIV. 2G.j the necessity of Christ's death. 39 

to be bruised, i. e. bis flesb, not bis wisdom and cbief design for tbe redemp- 
tion of man. He was only to be bruised, not destroyed, or to see corrup- 
tion ; so that bis deatb and resurrection are here predicted. And by suffer- 
ing bis beel to be bruised by tbe serpent, be was to break tbe serpent's bead, 
i.e. tbrougb deatb to destroy him that had tbe power of deatb, Heb. ii. 14, 
And we know the death of Christ was tbe conquest of tbe devil. Sufferings 
are necessary ;* for there can be no conquest of the devil but by a satisfaction 
performed to the righteousness of the law ; for bis wbole empire consisted in 
tbe curse of the law ; and tbe law, after sin, required deatb, called therefore 
a ' law of sin and death,' Kom. viii. 2. The devil was tbe jailor, having the 
power of deatb ; the law must be satisfied before the prisoner be freed from 
the jailor's power. The value of those suff'erings is declared,! because his 
bruise cannot wholly destroy tbe seed, nor binder him fi-om bruising tbe 
serpent's bead. He could not by sufiering bruise tbe serpent's bead, unless 
he had been innocent, and from his innocence derived a dignity and wortb to 
bis sufferings ; and this no fallen creature could do. Again, be must be 
ianocent ; for if be had been under the power of the devil, be could not bave 
bruised his head. And since be was to overcome tbe devil by having bis 
heel bruised, it signifies bis suffering for those sins which were tbe founda- 
tion of the empire and dominion of the devil, Adam might well understand 
this conquest of tbe devil to be tbe deatb of tbe seed, because after tbis pro- 
mise he was taught to sacrifice ; and the sacrifices, he was presently taught 
(as may be well conjectured by tbe skins of beasts, viz., of sacrificed beasts, 
wherewith God clothed him), as a comment upon tbis promise, shewed him 
in their death what be had deserved, and in what manner he was to expect 
his redemption, so lately promised him. And surely the wisdom and good- 
ness of God would not teach him the way of sacrificing, without acquainting 
him with tbe reason and end of sacrifices, which the Scripture mentions as a 
means to make man accepted with God, Gen. iv, 7 ; to purge away sin, 
1 Sam. iii. 14 ; and to make reconciliation for it, Ezek, xlv. 17. And Adam, 
having more natural knowledge after his fall than all his posterity have had 
since, might easily know by reason that tbe blood of beasts was too weak and 
vile to make an atonement for his late ofience, which had brought so much 
misery upon him, and thereby was manifested to be infinitely offensive to 
God, and therefore more ofi'ensive to him than the blood of beasts could be 
pleasing. This he could not but know, that those sacrifices ' could not make 
him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience,' as the ex- 
pression is in Heb, ix. 9, And Adam, being the high priest, as head of all, 
could not but know that those sacrifices were ofi"ered for sin ; because this was 
the end of the appointment of a priest, and the chief part of his office, as well 
as the end of the sacrifice : Heb, v. 1, ' Every high priest is ordained for men 
in things pertaining to God, that he may offer sacrifices for sin.' Let us 
further consider. The end of this promise was to defeat tbe devil, and to 
comfort Adam after his revolt from God, and thereby his falling under the 
vindictive justice of God, and to cheer him up before he should hear his 
own sentence, which was pronounced, Gen. iii, 17-19, So that Adam could 
not reasonably understand this promise any other way for his comfort, than 
that this promised seed should take away sin and the death threatened for it ; 
otherwise it bad been but little comfort to Adam to see himself ruined beyond 
any hopes of recovery, and to hear only of the destruction of bis enemy. But 
in this promise Adam saw the sentence of death respited, because the seed 
of the woman was promised, which necessarily included the continuance of 
his life, else there could have been no seed of the woman. Tbis also signifies 
* Cocc. in Gen. iii. 15. + Cocc. in Gen. iii- 15- 



40 chaknock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

to us that the suflferings of Christ were intended for a satisfaction of the vio- 
lated law and provoked justice ; for if sin and death were to be taken away 
by Adam's imitation of this promised seed when he should appear, Adam 
could take no comfort in the promise, unless he had been sure to live to see 
this promised seed in the flesh. How could he imitate as an example the 
promised seed whom he was never to see in the world, but was to return to 
dust loDg before the appearance of it in the world ? And it was necessary 
Adam should behold this seed in the flesh, if the breaking of the fetters of 
sin and hell were to be brought about only by his imitation of this seed. 
Again, to bruise the serpent's head cannot reasonably be understood of a 
confirmation only of the promised mercy (which some make the end of the 
death of Christ). There was no need of bruising the heel barely for a con- 
firmation of this mercy ; for that was confirmed by the unalterable promise 
and will of God. And no question but Adam thought it sufficiently vaKd, 
since he received it from the mouth of God himself, and had so late an ex- 
perience how true God was to the word of threatening. There is no other 
thing left, then, as the end of this bruising the heel, but to render mercy 
triumphant without any wrong to justice, and to vindicate the honour of the 
law, and, in a way of righteousness, not only of sovereign dominion, to defeat 
the serpent and restore the fallen creature. 

[2.] Another prediction is Psalm xxii. All the circumstances of his pas- 
sion are here enumerated : sufferings, revilings, contempt by men, the 
desertion of God, his agonies, the parting his garments ; and, at last, the 
propagation of the gospel and the calling of the gentiles are here predicted. 
The Jews understood it of the body of the Jewish nation ; * but the design 
of the psalmist is to set forth a particular person, who is distinguished from 
the wicked crew that oppressed him, and from those that favoured him, 
whom he calls his brethren, and distinguisheth himself from the congregation 
wherein he would praise God, ver. 23 ; and upon the death of this person 
the world was to be gathered in to God : ver. 27, ' All the ends of the world 
shall remember, and turn unto the Lord ; ' agreeable to the prediction of our 
Saviour, that when he should be lifted up, he would draw all men after him. 
Here is the prediction of the very words he spake upon the cross, when he 
lay under the imputation of our sins, and cried out, under the sense of his 
Father's wrath, ver. 1, ' My God, my God,' &c. The miserable condition he 
was brought to, ver. 6, as a worm and no man, exposed to such a state of 
misery, and to be of no more account than the most contemptible animal, a 
worm. The word icormf comes of ^710, which signifies the grain which 
gave a scarlet dye, because the colour proceeded from a worm enclosed in 
that grain. Our Saviour was as a worm crushed to tincture others with his 
blood. The very gesture of the people when they reviled him, wagging their 
heads, ver. 7, and Mat. xxvii. 29 ; the reproaches they beJched out against 
him, ver. 8, Mat. xxvii. 43, 'He trusted in God, let him deliver him;' the 
sharpness of his death, ver. 14, ' I am poured out hke water, all my bones are 
out of joint ; ' a distortion and racking of all his bones, efl'usion of his blood, 
dissolution of his vital vigour (like wax melted) under the sense of God's 
wrath, an expression used, Ps. Ixviii. 2, to shew the greatness of God's wrath 
against sin and sinners ; his extreme thirst, ver. 15, * My tongue cleaveth to 
my jaws;' the manner of his death by crucifixion, ver. 16, by piercing his 
hands and his feet, shewing it to be a hngering and painful death, which 
manner of death is also prophesied, Zech. xii. 10, ' They shall look upon me 
whom they have pierced,' which the ancient Jews understood of the Messiah, 

* Dr Owen on Heb., vol. i. Exercit. pp. 217, 218. 
t ny?in. Vermillion colour is derived of vermis. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 41 

and is a proof that the Messiah was to be pierced or digged into. And this 
place is cited as a prediction of the death of Christ, John xix. 37, Rev. i. 7 ; 
and as the manner of his death, so the excellency of his person is described 
there. The same person is a God to pour out the Spmt, and a man to be 
pierced ; he works wonders as God, and sutlers wonders as man. 

[3.] The whole 53d of Isaiah is a prediction of this. He was to be 
rejected of men, wounded for our transgressions, to have our sins laid upon 
him by God, to bear iniquity, to be led as a sheep to the slaughter, to 
make his soul an offering for sin. This is so plain that the Jews anciently 
understood it of the Messiah ;* but the latter Jews, to evade it, have fancied a 
double Messiah, one a sufferer, another a triumpher, the sufferer of the tribe 
of Ephraim, the triumpher of the tribe of Judah; but where doth the Scrip- 
ture mention a Messiah of the tribe of Ephraim ? It always fixeth his descent 
from the house of David, of the tribe of Judah. 

Many other prophecies there are of this : Zech. xiii. 7, ' I will smite the 
shepherd,' and Dan. ix. 24, the ' Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself;' 
he shall be counted the wickedest man, and put to death as the greatest 
malefactor, who hath no crime of his own to merit death, but his death shall 
be for the good of mankind. And the ends of it are expressed, ver. 24, to 
finish transgression, and make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for 
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision 
and prophecy; to finish transgression, or restrain it; to abolish sin in regard 
of the guilt of it, and restrain it from accusing us before God, and procuring 
the condemnation of us ; to make an end of sin, or seal up sin, covering it, 
that it shall no more appear against us, as the writings of the Jews were 
rolled up, and sealed on the back side, that the writing could no more be 
seen ; to make reconciliation for iniquity, to expiate iniquity (a word belong- 
ing to sacrifices), to take away the obligation of sin (and it is observable, 
that all the words used in Scripture to signify sin, are here put in, V^-'D, 
])]}, nxton, to shew the universal removal of them, as to any guilt, by the death 
of Christ), and to bring in everlasting righteousness. As righteousness was 
lost by the first Adam, so it was to be restored by the second, to make us 
for ever accepted before God. And to seal up the vision and prophecy, to 
accomplish all the visions and prophecies in the appearance of his person, 
and performance of his work. All prophecies pointed to him, and centered 
in him ; and the end of his coming and excision was to deliver us from sin, 
and introduce such a righteousness as might be valuable for us before God^ 
And then he was to be a prince, when he had been a sacrifice, and cut off 
for the sins of the people. As the time approached for the coming of this 
promised seed, God made clearer revelations of the death of the Messiah, 
and his chief design in it. And this is such a testimony of a dying Messiah, 
by the hands of violence, and for those great ends which the Christian reli- 
gion affirms, that the Jews, with all their evasions and obstinacy, know not 
how to get over it. 

(2.) The second thing is the types. There were several types of Christ 
in the Old Testament, both in the persons of men and the ceremonies of the 
law. Ko one type, no, nor all together, could fully signify this great sacrifice. 
The figure hath not what the truth hath.t The image of a king represents 
not all that the king hath or is. Moses was a type of the Messiah, who was 
to be raised up like to Moses, Deut. xviii. 15. Moses, put into an ark, was 
exposed to the mercy of the Egyptians on the land, and the crocodiles in 
the river, and after that advanced to be chief governor of Israel ; Jonah, 

* Pugio fidei. part iii. distinct, i. cap. x. § 4, 5, and distinct, iii. cap. xvi. 
I Theodoret. 



42 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

buried three days in the belly of the whale ; Noah, penned up in an ark, to 
become the father of a second generation ; Joseph, cruelly put into a pit, 
and sold by his brethren, and afterwards lifted up to a throne, to be the pre- 
server of his spiteful brethren, — these, it is likely, had all some relation, as 
types, to Christ. It would be endless to mention all ; let us consider in 
general. 

[1.] Sacrifices. These were practised by all nations, as well Gentiles as 
Jews, and from a notion that they did pacify their offended deities. Heathen 
authors give us a full account of their sentiments in this case ; and the 
Philistines, neighbours to the Jews, declare this as their sense in their tres- 
pass offering, they would return to God after they had felt his hand, 1 Sam. 
vi. 3-5. The common notion of all heathens was, that they were offered to 
God for a propitiation for sin, and either for preventing the judgments they 
feared, or removing the judgments they felt. 

(1.) These sacrifices could not arise from the Hght of nature. Being 
universally practised, they must arise from the light of nature, common to 
all men, or from some particular institution derived to all men by tradition. 
The light of nature could not be any ground for the framing such an imagi- 
nation in men's minds, that God should be appeased by the blood of 
irrational creatures. The disproportion of them both to the offence, the 
offender, and the offended person, hath been seen and spoken of by the 
wiser sort of the heathens themselves. Natural light would rather have 
dictated to them that their devout prayers, deep repentance, and hearty re- 
formation would have been more efiicacious to avert the anger of God than 
the cutting the throat of a bullock or lamb, and pouring out the blood at 
the foot of their altars. They could no more suppose that such offerings 
should appease an offended God, than the cutting off a dog's neck, or the 
crushing a fly before the statue of a prince would have appeased the anger 
of their injured sovereign. And none could think but the killing a worm, 
and offering it to the prince, had been as well or more sufficient to have 
mitigated his wrath, than the killing a thousand cattle had been to allay the 
Avrath of God, in regard of the proportionableness of a worm to the one, 
greater than that of all the beasts in the world to the other. The light of 
nature would not instruct the heathens barbarously to take away the lives of 
men, and offer them for the expiation of their sins. For that teacheth us to 
love one another, as being descended from one root, and being of the same 
stamp. Besides, had any law of nature obliged men at any time to bloody 
sacrifices in such a nature, it would have obliged them still. No law of 
nature is razed out by the gospel, but more cleared ; and whatsoever is due 
to God by the law of nature is more improved by the Christian religion. 
Natural light would be able to make more objections for the forbearance of 
such a practice, than arguments for the preserving it in the world. 

(2.) They must be therefore from institution. And since the practice 
hath been so universal, and the head of it can less be traced than the head 
of the river Nilus, it must be supposed to descend from the first man by 
tradition, and carried by his posterity to all the places which they first 
peopled, and so continued by their descendants. Bloody sacrifices seem to 
be instituted just after the fall. How should Adam be clothed with the 
skins of beasts ? Gen. iii. 21. If it be meant that God only taught him to 
clothe himself with the skins of beasts, it implies a giving him order to slay 
beasts, and most probably first in sacrifice, and ordering him to take the 
skins for clothing, which in the Levitical service were appropriated to the 
priests. For food it is probable they were not killed ; the food then ap- 
pointed was the herb of the field, even after the fall. Gen. iii. 18. And the 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's death. 43 

objection against this, that there were but two of a kind, male and female, 
created, and therefore if two beasts of the same kind had been slain, a species 
had been destroyed, is of no vaUdity. For the story of the creation men- 
tions not such a parsimonious creation, nay, it is more probable there 
were more than two of a sort created. However, sacrifices began early. 
Abel is the first we plainly read of, Gen. iv. 4. He brought of the firstlings 
of his flock, and Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an ofiering to the 
Lord. They may not be out of the way who think that there was a crime 
in the matter of Cain's sacrifice, it not being a bloody one. No doubt but 
he had seen his father ofier to God the fruits of the earth, as well as the 
bodies of beasts, and might think that the ofiering those fruits of the ground 
(the tilling whereof was his proper employment) was suflicient, that there 
was no need of blood for the expiation of his sin. He seems to stand upon 
his own righteousness, and offer only what was an acknowledgment of God's 
dominion and lordship over the whole world, as if he had only been his 
creature, and not an ofiending creature. It was not inconsistent with a state 
of innocence for a man to make such acknowledgments to God, as the Lord 
of creation and the Benefactor of man. But after the fall there was not 
only the dominion of God, but his justice, to be acknowledged, which was 
best signified in a way that might represent to man the demerit of his ofience 
and the justice due to him, which could not be by the offering of fruits, but 
by the shedding of blood, without which there is no remission, 

(3.) If then they were from the special institution of God, they must be 
figures of something else intended. For since we find an universal senti- 
ment in the practisers of them among the Gentiles, that they were for ex- 
piation, and that common reason could not find ground enough to fortify 
such an opinion in them ; and that the Scripture, the ancientest book in 
the world, gives us an account of their ancient practice and divine institu- 
tion ; they could not be instituted by God, as the prime means of appeasing 
him, for that could not be congruous to the nature of God. There w^as 
no proportion between the justice of God and them, nor between them 
and the sin of man. But the most reasonable conclusion would be, that 
they were ordained to signify some other thing or sacrifice intended for the 
expiation of sin ; that they were typical of the death of some one able to 
bear the punishment and purge the transgression. Since they could not 
purge the conscience, they must be concluded to be types of something that 
should have a sufiiciency and an actual efiicacy to this end. And this the 
heathens might have guessed from reason and the universal practice, that 
they were shadows of something else, though they could not have imagined 
the true person they were shadows of. 

To sum up, therefore, the account the Scripture gives us of them, we must 
consider *^ that after Adam's revolt, and contracting death and the curses of 
the law by that apostasy, there was a necessity of maintaining the honour 
of the law, and God's own veracity in the commination, and satisfying his 
provoked justice, which must be done by that nature which had ofi'ended. 
Upon this account, and for this end, the second person, the Son of God, 
voluntarily exposed himself, and stood as a screen between the consuming 
fire and the combustible creature. Hereupon the sufferings of the Son of 
God were mutually agreed upon, the particular suff"erings appointed and de- 
termined, and the time when he should be incarnate, and expose himself to 
that which the criminal should have endured, was settled, and the redemp- 
tion, the design of those suff'erings, declared by promise ; and because the 
time would be long before his coming to suffer, and the faith of men might 
* Owen, Hob. vol. ii. Exercit. p. Gl. 



44 chaknock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

languish, God kept it up by lively representations of those sufferings, and 
the end of them, in the death of sacrificed beasts. Not that they should resrt 
upon them, but use those shadows as props to their faith in the promised 
seed, till the fulness of time should come. All those sacrifices were a rude 
draught, or initial elements or rudiments, to teach the world what was to be 
done with a full efiicacy by the person appointed to it. Whence the apostle 
calls them ' the rudiments of the world,' Col. ii. 20. And so they were a 
copy of what was resolved in heaven from eternity, to be fulfilled in time, 
for the expiation of sin. They all had relation to Christ. They were to be 
without blemish, and dedicated wholly to God, as things that were to perish 
for his glory ; and being burnt, and the smoke ascending to heaven, God 
might, as it were, partake of the oblation, as the Scripture testifies : Gen. 
viii. 21, ' And God smelled a sweet savour,' viz., from Noah's sacrifice. So 
Christ offered himself as a holocaust to the Father, as the antitype of those 
victims that were wholly to be consumed by fire. And this blood speaks 
better things than the blood of Abel's sacrifice, or the blood of all the sacri- 
fices shed from the very fii-st ; for this pacifies an angry God, purges a guilty 
conscience, and breaks the chains of hell and damnation. There is no ques- 
tion to be made, but the believers among the Jews did apprehend! the heel of 
the promised seed bruised in every sacrifice ; they could not else offer them 
in faith. As mathematicians measure the greatness of the stars, which are 
above their reach, by the shadows of the earth, which are within their com- 
pass, so did they, upon the view of those sacrifice-shadows, apprehend the 
virtue and efficacy of the grand obktion.* As those that did understand 
Christ in the manna did also eat Christ in the manna, 1 Cor. x. 3, 4, so 
those that did apprehend Christ in the legal sacrifices, were also sprinkled 
with the blood of Christ. Thus was Christ a lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world, not only by purpose and decree, but significatively and typically 
in all the ancient sacrifices. I might here instance in the two anniversary 
goats, Levit. xvi., one offered, the other devoted to the wilderness ; in the 
red heifer. Num. xix., burnt upon the day of expiations, both eminent types 
of the death of Christ ; as also in the passover or paschal lamb, the blood 
whereof sprinkled upon the posts was of no necessity in itself for the Israelites' 
preservation from the destroying angel, nor had any intrinsic virtue in it to 
procure their security. The angel, no doubt, had acuteness of sight enough 
to discern the houses and persons of the Israelites from those of the Egyp- 
tians.! We cannot justify the wisdom of God in this conduct, if we refer it 
not to Christ, as a representation of that great miracle of redemption to be 
wrought by him for the true Israelites, when he should come to free man 
from a bondage worse than Egyptian. This is the true Lamb of God, that 
hath the virtue and vigour of all that whereof the paschal lambs had but the 
image and shadow. Let me add the observation of one, J the command of 
God, that the bones of the paschal lamb should not be broken, signified that 
the redeemer of the world should die such a death wherein the breaking of 
bones was usual. Yet that that circumstance should not be used in his 
death, and therefore that that order of not breaking the bones of the paschal 
Iamb, is cited by John, as if it had been literally meant of him and not of the 
lamb : John xix. 36, ' That the Scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of him 
shall not be broken.' I might also instance in that eminent type of the 
blood of Christ, the blood of the sacrifice sprinkled upon the altar, book of 
the law, vessels of the sanctuary ; after which the elders of Israel ate and 

* Mares, contra Volkel. lib iii. cap. xxxiii. p. 389. 
t Daille sur 1 Cor. v. 7. Serm, xx. p. 381. 
j Pearson on the Creed, p. 408. 



Luke XXIY. 26.] the xecessity of Christ's death. 45 

drunk in the presence of God, no longer exposed unto his anger, Exod. xxiv. ; 
commented upon by the apostle, Heb. ix. 19, 20. 

[2.] Isaac's death was a type of the death of Christ. Of his death ; for 
he was, in the purpose of his Father, upon the command of God, cut ofi'. 
And Isaac, bearing the wood, did prefigure the manner of the death of 
Christ, viz., such a death wherein the bearing the wood was customary.* 
As in crucifying, the ofienders bore the cross to the place of execution, and 
Christ did his. And a type also of the resurrection of Christ ; for it was 
the third day from the command of ofi"ering him that Abraham received him 
to life as new bom, and raised from the dead. Gen. xxii. 4, and that in a 
figure of some nobler sacrifice and resui-rection, Heb. xi. 19. Moriah was 
the place appointed by God where Abraham was to oflfer his son. Gen. xxii. 
2, in one part whereof was the temple and the tower of David ; another part of 
the mount was without Jerusalem, and was called Calvary, upon which Isaac 
was to be sacrificed, as Jerome tells us from the Jemsh tradition. Now, 
upon Abraham's readiness to ofi'er his son Isaac, God binds himself by an 
oath, that in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Gen. xxii. 
16-18. In his seed, as dying, and to be offered up, and rising again, as 
Isaac did in figure. God now binds himself by an oath to do that to Abra- 
ham which he had before promised to Adam ; the intent of which oath the 
apostle, Heb. vi. 13, 19, 20, refers to the settling of Christ as redeemer, and 
more positively affirms this seed to be Christ, Gal. iii. 10. This oath to 
Abraham was pursuant to that promise to Adam, which expressed the bruis- 
ing of the seed of the woman ; and now God by oath appropriates this seed 
to Abraham (as being singled out from the rest of the world), from whom 
the Messiah should descend, God obliged himself to bless the world by one 
of the seed of Abraham to be ofi"ered up really, as Isaac was in figure. And 
by his hindering him from sacrificing Isaac, and shewing him a ram, he inti- 
mates that there would be some interval of time before the blessed seed 
should be offered. And the words which Abraham speaks. Gen. xxii. 8, 
' God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-ofi"ering,' seem to be a pro- 
phetic speech of the death of this great sacrifice, though Abraham might not 
at that time know the true meaning of that speech, no more than many of 
the prophets knew what they prophesied of, 1 Peter i. 11 ; and the mount 
Moriah is concluded by that prophecy, ver. 14, ' In the mount of the Lord 
it shall be seen,' to be the place of the appearance of this seed : in the mount 
the Lord Jehovah shall be seen, the particle o/ not being in the Hebrew 
text, which was the place afterwards of the sufierings of Christ, 

1. Let us here see the evil of sin. Nothing more fit to shew the 
baseness of sin, and the greatness of the misery by it, than the satisfaction 
due for it ; as the greatness of a distemper is seen by the force of the medi- 
cine, and the value of the commodity by the greatness of the price it cost, f 
The sufierings of Christ express the evil of sin, far above the severest judg- 
ments upon any creature, both in regard of the greatness of the person, and 
the bitterness of the sufiering. The dying groans of Christ shew the horrible 
nature of sin in the eye of God ; as he was greater than the world, so his 
sufierings declare sin to be the greatest evil in the world. How evil is that 
sin that must make God bleed to cure it ! To see the Son of God haled to 
death for sin, is the greatest piece of justice that ever God executed. The 
earth trembled under the weight of God's wrath when he punished Christ, 
and the heavens were dark as though they were shut to him, and he cries 
and groans, and no relief appears ; nothing but sin was the procuring meri- 
torious cause of this. The Son of God was slain by the sin of the lapsed 
* Pearson on the Creed, y. 416. f Cbarron. 



46 chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

creature ; had there been any other way to expiate so great an evil, had it 
stood with the honour of God, who is inclined to pardon, to remit sin with- 
out a compensation by death, we cannot think he would have consented that 
his Son should undergo so great a suffering. Not all the powers in heaven 
and earth could bring us into favour again, without the death of some great 
sacrifice to preserve the honour of God's veracity and justice ; not the gra- 
cious interposition of Christ, without becoming mortal, and drinking in the 
vials of -RTath, could allay divine justice ; not his intercessions, without en- 
during the strokes due to us, could remove the misery of the fallen creature. 
All the holiness of Christ's life, his innocence and good works, did not re- 
deem us without death. It was by this he made an atonement for our sins, 
satisfied the revenging justice of his Father, and recovered us from a spiritual 
and inevitable death. How great were our crimes, that could not be wiped 
off by the works of a pure creature, or the holiness of Christ's life, but re- 
quired the effusion of the blood of the Son of God for the discharge of them ! 
Christ in his dying was dealt with by God as a sinner, as one standing in 
our stead, otherwise he could not have been subject to death. For he had 
no sin of his own, and ' death is the wages of sin,' Rom. vi. 23. It had 
not consisted with the goodness and righteousness of God as Creator, to afflict 
any creature without a cause, nor with his infinite love to his Son to bruise 
him for nothing. Some moral evil must therefore be the cause; for no phy- 
sical evil is inflicted without some moral evil preceding. Death, being a 
punishment, supposeth a fault. Christ, having no crime of his own, must then 
be a sufferer for ours : ' Our sins were laid upon him,' Isa. liii. 6, or trans- 
ferred upon him. We see then how hateful sin is to God, and therefore it 
should be abominable to us. We should view sin in the sufferings of the 
Redeemer, and then think it amiable if we can. Shall we then nourish sin 
in our hearts ? This is to make much of the nails that pierced his hands, 
and the thorns that pricked his head, and make his dying groans the matter 
of our pleasure. It is to pull down a Christ that hath suffered, to suffer 
again; a Chi-ist that is raised, and ascended, sitting at the right hand of God, 
again to the earth ; to lift him upon another cross, and overwhelm him in a 
second grave. Our hearts should break at the consideration of the necessity 
of his death. We should open the heart of our sins by repentance, as the 
heart of Christ was opened by the spear. This doth an Ought not Christ to 
die? teach us. 

2. Let us not set up our rest in anything in ourselves, not in anything 
below a dying Christ ; not in repentance or reformation. Repentance is a 
condition of pardon, not a satisfaction of justice ; it sometimes moves the 
divine goodness to turn away judgment, but it is no compensation to divine 
justice. There is not that good in repentance as there is wrong in the sin 
repented of, and satisfaction must have something of equality, both to the 
injury and the person injured ; the satisfaction that is enough for a private 
person wronged is not enough for a justly offended prince ; for the greatness 
of the wrong mounts by the dignity of the person. None can be greater than 
God, and therefore no offence can be so full of evil as offences against God ; 
and shall a few tears be sufficient in any one's thoughts to wipe them off ? 
The wrong done to God by sin is of a higher degree than to be compensated 
by all the good works of creatures, though of the highest elevation. Is the 
repentance of any soul so perfect as to be able to answer the punishment the 
justice of God requires in the law ? And what if the grace of God help us in 
our repentance ? It cannot be concluded from thence that our pardon is 
formally procured by repentance, but that we are disposed by it to receive 
and value a pardon. It is not congruous to the wisdom and righteousness 



LUEE XXIV. 26.] THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST's DEATH. 47 

of God to bestow pardons upon obstinate rebels. Repentance is nowhere 
said to expiate sin ; a ' broken heart is called a sacrifice,' Ps. li. 17, but not 
a propitiatory one. David's sin was expiated before he penned that psalm, 
2 Sam. xii. 13. Though a man could weep as many tears as there are drops 
of water contained in the ocean, send up as many volleys of prayers as there 
have been groans issuing from any creature since the foundation of the world ; 
though he could bleed as many drops from his heart as have been poured out 
from the veins of sacrificed beasts, both in Judea and all other parts of the 
world ; though he were able, and did actually bestow in charity all the metals 
in the mines of Peru : yet could not this absolve him from the least guilt, nor 
cleanse him from the least filth, nor procure the pardon of the least crime by 
any intrinsic value in the acts themselves ; the very acts, as well as the per- 
sons, might fall under the censure of consuming justice. The death of Christ 
only procures us life. The blood of Christ only doth quench that just fire 
sin had kindled in the breast of God against us. To aim at any other way 
for the appeasing of God, than the death of Christ, is to make the cross of 
Christ of no efiect. This we are to learn from an Ought not Christ to die? 

3. Therefore, let us be sensible of the necessity of an interest in the 
Redeemer's death. Let us not think to drink the waters of salvation out of 
our own cisterns, but out of Christ's wounds. Not to draw life out of our 
own dead duties, but Christ's dying groans. We have guilt, can we expiate 
it ourselves ? We are under justice. Can we appease it hj any thing we 
can do ? There is an enmity between God and us. Can we offer him any- 
thing worthy to gain his friendship ? Our natures are corrupted, can we 
heal them ? Our services are polluted, can we cleanse them ? There is as 
great a necessity for us to apply the death of Christ for all those, as there 
was for him to undergo it. The leper was not cleansed and cured by the 
shedding the blood of the sacrifice for him, but the sprinkling the blood of 
the sacrifice upon him, Lev. xiv. 7. As the death of Christ was foretold as 
the meritorious cause, so the sprinkling of his blood was foretold as the for- 
mal cause of our happiness, Isa. lii. 15. By his own blood he entered into 
heaven and glory, and by nothing but his blood can we have the boldness to 
expect it, or the confidence to attain it, Heb. x. 19. The whole doctrine of 
the gospel is Christ crucified, 1 Cor. i. 23, and the whole confidence of a 
Christian should be Christ crucified. God would not have mercy exercised 
with a neglect of justice by man, though to a miserable client: Lev. xix. 15, 
' Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor in judgment.' Shall God, 
who is infinitely just, neglect the rule himself ? No man is an object of 
mercy till he presents a satisfaction to justice. As there is a perfection in 
God, which we call mercy, which exacts faith and repentance of his creature 
before he will bestow a pardon, so there is another perfection of vindictive 
justice that requires a satisfaction. If the creature thinks its own misery a 
motive to the displaying the perfection of mercy, it must consider that the 
honour of God requires also the content of his justice. The fallen angels, 
therefore, have no mercy granted to them, because none ever satisfied the 
justice of God for them. Let us not, therefore, coin new ways of procuring 
pardon, and false modes of appeasing the justice of God. What can we find 
besides this, able to contend against everlasting burnings ? What refuge can 
there be besides this to shelter us from the fierceness of divine wrath ? Can 
our tears and prayers be more prevalent than the cries and tears of Christ, 
who could not, by all the strength of them, divert death from himself, with- 
out our eternal loss ? No way but faith in his blood. God in the gospel 
sends us to Christ, and Christ by the gospel brings us to God. 

4. Let us value this Redeemer, and redemption by his death. Since God 



48 charnock's works, [Luke XXIV. 26. 

was resolved to see bis Sou plunged into an estate of disgraceful emptiness, 
clothed with the form of a servant, and exposed to the sufferings of a pain- 
ful cross, rather than leave sin unpunished, we should never think of it with- 
out thankful returns, hoth to the judge and the sacrifice. What was he 
afflicted for, but to procure our peace ? bruised for, but to heal our wounds ? 
brought before an earthly judge to be condemned, but that we might be 
brought before a heavenly judge to be absolved ? fell under the pains of 
death, but to knock off from us the shackles of hell ? and became accursed 
in death, but that we might be blessed with eternal life ? Without this our 
misery had been irreparable, our distance from God perpetual. What com- 
merce could we have had with God, while we were separated from him by crimes 
on our part, and justice on his ? The wall must be broken down, death 
must be suffered, that justice might be silenced, and the goodness of God 
be again communicative to us. This was the wonder of divine love, to be 
pleased with the sufferings of his only Son, that he might be pleased with us 
upon the account of those sufferings. Our redemption in such a way, as by 
the death and blood of Christ, was not a bare grace. It had been so, had 
it been only redemption ; but being a redemption by the blood of God, it 
deserves from the apostle no less a title than riches of grace, Eph, i. 7. 
And it deserves and expects no less from us than such high acknowledg- 
ments. This we may learn from Ought not Christ to die? 



A DISCOURSE OF THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S 
EXALTATION. 



Ought not Christ to have suffered these thinqs, and to enter into his glory ? — 
Luke XXIV. 26. 

We have already spoken to the first part of this scripture, and from thence 
declared the necessity of Christ's death ; the next is his exaltation. His 
sufferings were necessary for the expiation of our sin, and his exaltation 
necessary for the application of the merits of his death. Some add the par- 
ticle so, and so to enter into his glory ; but that is not in the Greek, though 
it may be implied, for the entrance of Christ into his glory was to be by the 
way of suffering. 

Observe by the way, the great grace of God, that makes often the diffi- 
dence of his people an occasion of a further clearing up of the choicest truths 
to them. Never did those disciples hear so excellent an exposition of the 
Scriptures concerning the Messiah from the mouth of their Master, as when 
their distrust of him had prevailed so far. Glory he was to enter into. By 
this glory is not meant only his resurrection; that was not his glory, but the 
beginning of his exaltation, a causa sine qua non ; it freed him from mortality, 
and invested him with immortality, but was not the term, but a necessary 
means of his glory (as the fetching Joseph from prison was a necessary- 
antecedent to his elevation on a throne ; he could not be a governor while he 
was a prisoner). By his resurrection, he was prepared for it ; by his ascen- 
sion, he was possessed of it ; his resurrection was an entrance into his glory, 
but not the consummation of his felicity. His glory. It is called his as dis- 
tinguished from the glory belonging to any other ; thus he distinguisheth a 
glory peculiarly his own from the glory of his Father, and the glory of the 
holy angels, when he mentions his coming to judgment in all those glories : 
Luke ix. 20, ' When he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, 
and of the holy angels ;'* in the mediatory glory, in the glory of the Father, 
the glory of his Godhead, as he is equal with God ; in the glory of the 
whole creation, the angels being the top of it ; or in the glory of all the ad- 
ministrations of God, the glory of God as Creator, creation being attributed 
to the Father ; the glory of the holy angels, by whose disposition the law 
* Sterry of the Will, p. 244. 

VOL. V. D 



50 chaknock's works. [Luke XXIV. 2G. 

was given, in the glory of the legal administration ; in his own glory, the 
glory of the gospel administration, as judging men according to those several 
degrees of light they were under, the Hght of nature, that of the law, and the 
more glorious of the gospel, his glory, 

(1.) As having a peculiar right to it. 

[l.J In regard of his designation to it by his Father. He calls it a glory 
given by God, John xvii. 24. His glory, as promised him by the Father, 
and covenanted for by himself. He was to be the first-born, higher than the 
kings of the earth, Ps. Ixxxix. 29. His glory, as by gift he was to have 
'dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. They 
that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him ; and his enemies shall 
lick the dust. For he shall redeem the soul of the needy from deceit and 
violence. His name shall endure for ever : men shall be blessed in him ; 
and the whole earth was to be filled with his glory,' Ps. Ixxii. 8, 9, 14, 17, 19. 

[2. J In regard of his purchase of it, all this was his glory. It is generally 
said that Christ had a title to gloiy, by virtue of the union of the divine 
nature to the human. It is true, had Christ been only incarnate for no other 
end but to take our flesh, glory had of right belonged to him from the be- 
ginning, by virtue of that union ; but in regard of that economy of God for 
redemption by blood, and the covenant passed between them consisting of 
such articles, it was not his incarnation, but his passion invested him with 
a right to claim it ; he was to fulfil his charge before he was to have the 
fruition of his reward. His glory was promised to him, not as assuming our 
flesh, but as sufiering in our flesh, and making his soul an offering for sin, 
and being incarnate for this end. Glory belonged not to him till his death 
had been actually suffered, and declared valid in the sight of God. The 
satisfaction of his Father by him was to precede his Father's satisfaction of 
him, Isa. liii. 11. His obedience to death gave a ukerefore to his exalta- 
tion : Philip, ii. 9, ' Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.' The right 
to it may be measured by the order of conferring it ; it was not conferred 
till he ' had purged our sins,' Heb. i. 3, and therefore the right to claim it 
was not till he had performed what was due to his Father. 

(2.) As being the first subject of glory, as being the spring of glory to all 
that were to be glorified. As Adam, the head of mankind, was the first 
subject of God's rich gifts to his reasonable creature, so was Christ the first 
subject of God's glorious grace, and gifts to and for his redeemed creature. 
Others have a glory from him as private persons, Christ hath this glory as a 
public person, as a second Adam, and so it is his glory peculiar to him, and 
incommunicable to any else, as being the only and singular head, the one 
and only public person in the charge of redemption. As his sufferings were 
peculiarly his, wherein neither men nor angels could be partners with him, 
so is the glory peculiarly his. As he trod the wine-press alone, so he alone 
hath right to the crown, and whoever else wears a laurel wears it as his 
member, not as a head. 

Let us consider the connection : ' Ought not Christ to suffer those things, 
and to enter into his glory ?' It is argued whether there was a meritorious 
connection between the sufferings of Christ, and his glory, /. e. whether this 
glory was merited by his suffering. 

1. Some say his suflerings were not meritorious of his own glory ; though 
his exaltation followed upon his passion, yet it was not merited by it. His 
cross was the way to his crown, but not the deserving cause of his crown ; 
he merited by his sufferings a glory for us, but not for himself; and the act 
of God whereby it was conferred, is expressed by a word, i-xa^iGaro, Philip, 
ii. 9, ' given him,' or freely given him, ' a name which is above every name,' 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's exaltation. 51 

which signifies an act of grace and not of debt. As he did not fulfil the law 
for himself, but for us, that he might redeem us from under the curse of the 
law, by being made a curse for us ; and therefore is said to be given to us, 
Isa. ix. 6, or for our sakes, not to himself or for his own sake ; so he ac- 
quired nothing for himself by his death but what he had possession of before, 
quoad divinituteni and quoad Immanitatem ; for all power both in heaven 
and earth was conferred upon him before his death, Mat. x'. 27. All glory,* 
say they, would have flowed down upon his humanity at the instant of his 
conception, as the glory of the husband is conferred upon the spouse at the 
first moment of marriage ; but God, by a special dispensation, detained it 
till he had accomplished his work in thfe lowest degree of his humiliation ; 
God suspended his concourse, as he did to the fire, which hindered it from 
exercising its proper quality of burning upon the three children ; but this 
work being performed, and the suspension taken off, his glory could not but 
naturally fill his humanity, as the quality of fire would return to its natural 
course upon removing the stops ; and therefore, to assert any merit for him- 
self, is a disparagement of, and an impeachment to, his glorious union ; and 
for those places w^hich are alleged for his merit of it, as Philip, ii. 8, 9, Heb. 
i. 9, and also the text, they shew the order of conferring it, rather than the 
merit of it, that his glory followed his passion, not that his passion merited 
his glory ;f his glory rather seemed to be a necessary consequent of God's 
acceptation of his death, and a testimony of heaven's approbation of it. As 
the occasion of his death was the fall of man, so the moving cause of his 
death was the redemption of man, not the exaltation of the name of Christ 
primarily and immediately. For our sakes he slid down from heaven into our 
nature ; for our sakes he bore that burden the law and wrath of God had 
cast upon him ; it was for us that he combated with death, and forced our 
enemies out of their fortresses. And so by this voluntary submission and 
humiliation, he came to his former dignity ; for if he came to an higher dig- 
nity than he had before, it had been evident that he was obedient for him- 
self, not for others. 

2. Others say, Christ did merit this glory for himself. The oil of 
gladness was poured upon his humanity, wherein he had fellows, because he 
had loved righteousness, Heb. i. 9. Therefore is a causal particle, not only 
of the final cause, but the moral, efiicient, or meritorious cause. He did by 
this merit an exaltation at the right hand of God, above all the choirs of 
angels. It was indeed due upon his suffering, yet called grace, | because the 
whole design of redemption, in the pitching upon Christ, and the sending 
him, was an act of free grace in God to us ; as it was grace to accept his 
interposition for us, so it was grace to promise him this glory, and set this 
joy before him for his encouragement in his sufferings ;§ and as it was free 
grace to unite the flesh to the person of the Son of God, so it was of gi-ace 
that there was a continuation of demonstrating the glory of the Deity in the 
same flesh. Yet, after his sufferings, the glory of Christ may be said to be 
a merited reward, because his glory was not improportionable to his suffer- 
ings ; he merited the dispossession of the devil, and merited therefore the 
transferring that power upon himself, to manage for the honour of God, 
which the devil had usurped over man in rebellion against God. A man 
may have a double title to an inheritance, by birth and by some signal ser- 
vices done, whereby what was due to him by birth may be due to him by 
merit ; as when a province flies into rebellion against the lawful prince, he 

* Donn, vol. i. p. 108. Alvarez de Incarnat. t Suarez. 

X As was note'l before in the word ix^^'uraTo, Philip ii. 0. 
^ Coccei. de Foedere, sect. cvi. 



52 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

sends his eldest son with an army to quell those tumults ; his arms prove 
successful, and the rebels are reduced to obedience. Doth he not merit a 
title to that inheritance by his sword, which was due to him by his birth ? 
Indeed, Christ did not merit his first mission, no more than the prince's 
son merited his being sent for the reduction of the rebels ; nor did he merit 
his first unction and habitual grace. This belonged to the perfection of the 
soul of Christ, and fitted him for his mediatory work in our nature ; he 
could not have wanted this without prejudice to the work of redemption, and 
to our salvation, which was the end of it, though this was necessarily conse- 
quent upon an admission of Christ's mediation, and a necessary article in 
the covenant of redemption, yet it was the act of God's free grace. Nor must 
we think that this glory was the motive to Christ to engage him first in this 
undertaking, but pure grace to us ; for what attractives could there be in our 
nature to make this divine person assume it ? Or what glory could be con- 
ferred upon the humanity, that could allure the Deity to embody itself in it ? 
Could the promise of an honour to be conferred upon an angel, if he would 
enclose himself in the body of a fly or other insect, move him to link his 
own nature with that for ever, since he enjoyed before a higher honour in 
his own nature than could be conferred upon him upon such a conjunction ? 
It was the grace of Christ that moved him when he was rich to become 
poor, not that he might be the richer by that poverty, but we : 2 Cor. 
viii. 9, ' For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he 
was rich, for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might 
be rich.' Yet Christ may be said to merit this mediatory glory for himself; 
the Holy Ghost was a meritorious fruit of the sufi'erings of Christ, and why 
not that glory then which was necessary to the sending the Holy Ghost, 
whose coming he had purchased ? The very sending the Holy Ghost was a 
great part of his glory ; and we must remember, that whatsoever was merited 
by Christ, was not merited by virtue of his humanity singly considered, but 
as having the Deity in conjunction with it ; and why might not so great a 
person merit at the hands of God ? 

3. Let this be as it will, yet the sufi'erings of Christ were a cause of his 
glory, or a way to his glory, by mediatory compact. For as he was by that 
bound to pay an obedience he was not obliged to before, so was the Father 
by that obliged to give him a glory proportionable to his work, and a glory 
distinct from the glory of the Deity. The waters were to come into his soul, 
Ps. Ixix. 2 ; he was to drink of the brook in the way, therefore should he lift 
up his head, Ps. ex. 7. This order did God require for the exalting of him, 
combat before triumph. This glory could not be conferred upon him before 
his sufiering. If he had enjoyed it from the beginning, by virtue of the hypo- 
statical union, his body had been impassible, incapable of sufi"ering, and so 
could not have been a sacrifice for our sins. His triumphant laurel grew upon 
the thorns of his cross, and received a verdure from his dying tears. The 
palms spread in his way at his entrance into Jerusalem, a little before his 
suffering, are by some regarded as an emblem of this, it being the nature of 
that plant to grow higher by the weights which are hung upon it, for so did 
our Saviour rise more glorious by his pressures. There was a worthiness in 
his death to entitle him to the fruition of glory : Kev. v. 12, ' Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honour, and glory, and blessing.' Worthy to receive power for silencing 
the oracles of the devil, power to conquer his enemies ; riches, to pour out 
upon his friends ; wisdom, to govern his empire ; strength, to execute his 
orders; worthy to be honoured, adored, blessed by all. And this glory he 
challenged as due by virtue of his sufi'erings, John xvii. 1. It was fit he 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 53 

should be lifted up above death after he had so obediently suffered, and be 
instated in the empire of the world after he had so magnificently redeemed 
it. The necessity of his sufferings is here described, and also the necessity 
of his glory. Ourjht not is to be referred to both, — ought he not to suffer, 
ought he not upon those sufferings to enter into glory ? How did he suffer ? 
As man. He entered into glory as man ; as man he suffered, as man he was 
glorified. His divine nature was impassible, and also unglorifiable by any 
addition of glory to it. His death was necessary for us, so was his glory. 
He died in a public capacity as a surety for mankind ; he was exalted in a 
pubHc capacity as the head of those he died for. As he offered himself to 
God for us upon the cross, so he entered into heaven to appear in the pre- 
sence of God for us upon his throne, Heb. ix. 24. 

The doctrine to be hence observed is this, 

Boct. The exaltation of Christ was as necessary as his passion. 

As it was necessary for him to reconcile us by his death, so it was necessary 
for him to reinstate us in happiness by his life, Kom. v. 10. Keconciliation is 
ascribed to his death, salvation to his life in glory. He could not have been a 
Saviour without being a sacrifice ; he could not have applied that salvation 
without being a king ; he was to descend from heaven clothed with our infirmi- 
ties, to suffer for our crimes. He was to ascend to heaven, invested with immor- 
tality, to present our persons before God, and prepare a glory for every believer. 

In the handling this doctrine I shall shew, 

I. The necessity of this glory. 

II. The nature of it. 

III. The ends of it. 

IV. The use. 

I. The necessity of this glory. 

First, Upon the account of God. 

1. In regard of his truth, the truth of his promise ; his promise to him, his 
promises of him. 

(1.) His promise to him, to Christ. God's truth was engaged for his glory, 
as the Mediator's truth was engaged for his suffering; and therefore that was 
as necessarily to be conferred upon him, as the other was to be endured by 
him. As the ignominy of the cross was an article on his part, so the honour 
of a crown was an article on God's part. Upon the making his soul an offer- 
ing for sin, did depend all the promises made to him of his headship over the 
church, dominion over the world, manifestation of his Deity, propagation of 
his kingdom, and subjection of his enemies. Without the performance of what 
he promised, he could not claim one ; and upon the performance of what he 
promised, he could claim all, and his claim could meet with no demur in the 
court of heaven, so long as God was true to his word. Christ was to sur- 
render himself as a surety for man to the wrath of God, and God was to 
surrender the government of the world into the hands of Christ. His visage 
was to be marred, and he was to sprinkle many nations by his blood, Isa. lii. 
14, 15; and then kings should shut their mouths at him. Kings in power, 
kings in wisdom, should be astonished at his growth, and submit to his 
sceptre. As he was to suffer for many nations, so he was to judge among 
many nations, Micah iv. 3. He was not to see corruption, his soul was not 
to be left in hell, Ps. xvi. 10, 11 ; ' Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, 
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption,' &c.. Acts ii. 
27, 28. Christ articled with God to go into the state of the dead, but not 
to be left there ; he was to pass into the grave, but not to be invaded by 
the rottenness of it; he was to be shewn the paths of life, i.e. to be restored 



54 chaknock's woeks. [Luke XXIV. 2G. 

to another life, to be possessed of a fulness of joy, that was to follow his 
resurrection, after the ignominy of liis death and the agonies of his spirit. 
As he was to have a fulness of spirit in the world, so he was to have a ful- 
ness of joy in his glory. As his grace was to be so great as not to be mea- 
sured, so his glory was to be so great as not to be bounded ; and as his death 
was to be of a short duration, not fully the term of three days, so his plea- 
sures were to be of an endless duration, pleasures for evermore. And all 
this glory was to flow from the presence of God, whom his human soul was 
for ever to behold and converse with, with infinite pleasure : ' In thy presence 
is fulness of joy.' His whole exaltation, which consisted principally in a 
manifestion of his Deity and Sonship, was passed by a decree of God, and 
published to him as Mediator : Ps. ii. 7, ' I will declare the decree, the Lord 
hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ;' which 
is interpreted of his resurrection. Acts xiii. 33, which was the first powerful 
declaration God issued out to the world of his being his Son, Rom. i. 4. 
Upon which account Peter tells us he was foreordained, both to his suffer- 
ings and glory, before the foundation of the w^orld, 1 Peter i. 20, 21 ; he was 
to inherit the spoils of his enemies, and take for his own what was before 
Satan's prey as a reward ; and that for the pouring out his soul to death, 
Isa. liii. 12, he was to see his seed upon the making his soul an oft'ering for 
sin, Isa. liii. 10; then also his days were to be prolonged. What! to a 
miserable and infirm life ? No, but to such a one as should endure to eter- 
nity, wherein is included, not only his resurrection, but his glorious state. 
How could he see his seed, if he remained in the fetters of death ? or behold 
them with comfort, if he should enjoy an immortality in as infirm a body as 
he had in the time of his humihation ? The sight of his seed was to follow 
his investiture in glory, and was a part of it ; then it was that nations should 
run unto him, Isa. Iv. 6. All those promises were made to him as incar- 
nate, and making himself an oblation ; for, as God, he was not the subject 
of any promise. He was to bear our iniquities on the cross, and then to 
live triumphantly upon a throne. Christ pleads this, John xvii. 1, ' The 
hour is come ; Father, glorify thy Son ;' the hour of my passion, the hour 
of thy promise. I am willing to undergo the one, and just now ready to 
drink of the brook in the way ; be thou ready, Father, according to thy 
promise and oath, wherein thou stoodest obhged to perform the other part, . 
my glorification ; and particularly the manifestation of my deity, upon which 
all the other parts of my exaltation depend. Ver. 5, ' And now, Father, 
glorify me with thy own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the 
world was ;' which was not the glory of his humanity (which was not in 
being before the world was), but the glory of his divinity in the full unveil- 
ing of it, that it might shine brighter before the eyes of men. It had indeed 
before been obscured in the form of a servant in the time of his life, in the 
repute of a criminal at the time of his death ; but now he prays that he might 
be manifested to be what he really was, a person that had a glorious existence 
before the world was, and that had no need to come down and take the 
nature of man for any advantage to himself. Now, as God promised him a 
glory, and Christ pleads the promise, so God performed it ; and therefore 
his ascension is expressed by God's receiving him up into glory, as well as 
by his own act of entering into it : 1 Tim. iii. 16, ' received up into glory,' 
' AvsXriipSTj, recovered again unto glory ; for it was impossible God should be 
false to his eternal purpose, and his repeated promise. 

(2.) His promises or predictions of him. So that his exaltation was 
necessary to justify the prophecies of it, which were not the predictions of 
one or two of the most eminent of the prophets, but that which all of them, 



Luke XXIV. 2G.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 55 

one way or other, spake of ever since the world began, Acts iii. 21. Isaiah 
is the plainest of all, and many things to this purpose are inserted in his 
prophecy : Isa. iv. 2, ' In that "day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful 
and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely.' As 
he is the fruit of the earth, he shall be excellent in his humanity ; and as he 
is the branch of the Lord, he shall be acknowledged in his divinity ; or, as 
he is the branch of the Lord in his conception by the Holy Ghost, and the 
fruit of the earth in his birth of the virgin, he shall be glorious in the world. 
And this was to be for his service, and as the servant of God : Isa. Hi. 13, 
' My servant shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high ;' which rela- 
tion of service he had not in the divine nature, but his mediatory function ; 
and so glorious was his life to be, and so long the duration of it, after he 
should be taken from prison and from judgment, that it should be past the 
declaration of any creature : Isa. liii. 8, ' Who shall declare his generation ?' 
And it is very clear, in Ezek. xvii. 22, * I will also take of the highest branch 
of the high cedar, and will set it ; I will crop off from the top of his young 
twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon a high mountain and eminent,' 
&c. This is not meant of Zerubbabel, under whom the people had not such 
a signal rest, nor did his empire extend so far as to shadow the fowl of every 
wing, the people of every nation. Christ was a plant of his Father's setting, 
a young twig in his humbled, a tall cedar in his exalted, state ; planted in 
the highest mountains, eminent above all the rest ; /. e. even he was to be 
cut off, but not for himself, Dan. ix. 26 ; not to himself, say some ; "' his 
cutting off shall not be without a second springing up in a resurrection. And 
when he is the iSon of man, he was to be brought with the clouds of heaven, 
with the angels which attended him at his ascension, before the Ancient of days, 
and that near to him ; and so welcome he was to be upon his approach, as 
to be presented with the dominion of the whole world, Dan. vii. 13, 14, 
which is not to be understood of his coming at the day of judgment, but his 
coming after his oblation. He comes not, here to judge man, but to be 
judged by his Father; and upon being found to have performed the part of 
the Son of man, he hath a kingdom both extensive and everlasting bestowed 
upon him, which should not be destroyed by the subtleties or force of his 
enemies ; a present only worthy of the Son of God. Again, he received not 
his power at the day of jadgment, but upon his resurrection and ascension 
after his death ; but this expresseth the first investiture of this power in him. 
This glory was prophesied of a thousand years before the accomplishment :t 
Ps. Ixviii. 17, 18, ' Thou hast ascended on high.' The whole design of the 
psalm manifests it, as well as the citation of it by the apostle, Eph. iv. 8. 
Joseph was not taken from prison to live his former life of slavery, but a 
princely life upon a throne, and rule the whole kingdom next to the sovereign 
prince ; so Clorist was not to live the same life after his resurrection that he 
had done before in his sweats and combats, and to endure the contradictions 
of sinners against himself; but was to be advanced to a place suitable to his 
greatness, upon the right hand and throne of his Father. 

2. Upon the account of righteousness and goodness. 

(1.) In regard of his innocence, he was a real innocent, though a reputed 
criminal ; innocent in himself, guilty only as standing in our stead ; holy, 
harmless, undeliled, separate from sinners, Heb. vii. 20, as if there were not 
words enough to express his purity, he being most holy and undefiled. It 
doth not seem to consist with the justice of God for him so to give his life for 
us as never to reassume it. He was a person more excellent than the whole 
* Scnnert. fie Irliotis. linguar. orient., canon xxviii. p. 25. 
t Daille de I'Ascension, p. 431. 



56 chaenock's wobks. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

world of men and angels. He being a divine person, his life was incom- 
parably more excellent than the lives of all mankind. Surely God, that 
loved him so dearly, would not have given so glorious a life for the salvation 
of men,- to be swallowed up in the grave without a happy restoration of it. 
It doth not seem to consist with the wisdom, love, or justice of God to give 
so excellent a life for the saving ours, if it were not again to spring up to a glo- 
rious state out of the ashes of mortahty. Was not his death the fruit of his 
innocence ? Was it equal that he should be held in the bands of that, or 
walk in the world under the load and burden of a mortal body, any longer 
than the expiation of our sins required ? * If this had been, had not a fun- 
damental law of God, which orders immortality and happiness to perfect 
holiness, been violated, which is impossible ? 

(2.) In regard of the near alliance to himself. Did it consist with equity 
to let that person who was equal with himself in regard of the divine nature ; 
that person who was in the form of God, as well as in the form of a servant, 
Philip, ii, 6, 7 ; that nature which was so gloriously united to a nature infi- 
nitely above the angehcal, to corrupt in the grave and crumble to dirt and 
filth ? to be a banquet for worms that had been a fragrant sacrifice to God ? 
Or could it be counted equity to have raised him to no better a life than 
that miserable one he led before, his agonies in the garden, and his gaspings 
on the cross ? Had it not been an unrighteousness to himself, as well as 
to his Son ? Surely that a flesh which had the honour to be the temple of 
God, a branch of the Lord, the powerful conception of the Holy Ghost, that 
had the glory to be personally united to the Son of God, to live and subsist 
in him, should not be glorified after it was raised again, seems to be against 
all the laws and rules of goodness and righteousness. 

(3.) In regard of the M-ork he had performed. How could justice forbear 
to deliver the surety, after he had paid so much that it was impossible, upon 
an exact scrutiny, to find a farthing wanting "? How could it be agreeable 
to goodness to continue a person under the chains of death, or the lighter 
fetters of an infirm and earthly life, who was not liable to more punishment, 
nor capable of performing a greater service in this world than what he had 
already done ? It was the interest of satisfied justice to raise him from 
death ; and was it not as well the interest of remunerative righteousness to 
exalt him to be the head of that church he had so dearly purchased ? Could 
goodness continue him a little lower than the angels, who had performed a 
task that would have broke the back and cracked the heart of the whole 
angelical nature to accomplish ? If God rewards as a righteous judge, 
2 Tim. iv., a reward below an exaltation above all the angels had been dis- 
proportioned to so deep a humiliation, to so punctual, and in all respects a 
voluntary and unconstrained, obedience. Was it congruous to the goodness 
of God to let 60 signal an obedience, more excellent than the obedience of 
millions of worlds of angels, pass away without as signal a reward ? That 
so sharp a cross, endured by an innocent with so much afliiction and freeness, 
should not be succeeded by a crown as glorious as the cross was ignominious ? 
In equity he was to be placed far above principalities and powers, the re- 
volted rabble of devils, and their companions bad men, since be had so 
gloriously conquered and routed those armies of hell, Col. ii. 15, and above 
the corporations of the standing angels, since he had so graciously confirmed 
them, Eph. i. 10, by whom those blessed spmts commenced masters of a 
greater knowledge of the perfections of God than they had by the whole 
creation for four thousand years. There was all the reason that so incom- 
parable a victory should be attended with as glorious a triumph. 
* Daille sur Eesurrect. de Christ, p. 361. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 57 

(4.) In regard of the glory which redounded to God from this work. All 
that was done tended to the restoring of God's honoui* in the casting out 
the prince of the world from his usurpation, demolishing idolatry, and re- 
storing the worship of God upon pure and spiritual principles. God received 
more glory by his mediation than by all the works of his hands, the glory of 
his grace in his mission, the glory of his justice in his sufferings, and the 
glory of his wisdom in the whole dispensation, which was a new glory that 
never accrued to him before, nor could ever be brought into his exchequer 
by any other way than this. By this the bar to God's resting and rejoicing 
in his work was removed, the bands of sin were broken off, a carnal Adam 
changed into a spiritual, the defaced image of God restored, the world formed 
into a second and more noble creation, and the kingdom of God estabhshed 
in the world by the conquest and spoiling of the revolted spirits. If God 
were glorious by creating a world, he was more glorious in the redemption 
of the world. It was reasonable Christ should be advanced to the highest 
pitch of glory, suitable to that degree of emptiness to which he had abased 
himself for this end,* that he should triumphantly be settled in the most 
glorious and majestic place of the empire of God, and have not only the 
highest place of residence, but the greatest height of authority over men and 
angels, having made peace between God and the creation, and between one 
part of the creation and another ; that as he died once with a pure zeal for 
the glory of God, he might live in a new state to a further exaltation of him ; 
for so he doth : Rom. vi. 10, ' In that he lives, he lives unto God,' to gather 
his people, to glorify them, and be glorified by them. As there was a glory 
brought to God by Christ in his low estate, so there was a further glory to 
be brought to him in his exalted estate, according to the voice of the Father 
to him : John xii. 28, * I have both glorified my name, and will glorify it 
again.' As he had glorified it in the doctrine and miracles of Christ, so he 
would glorify it again by his passion and resurrection, sending the Spirit, 
propagating the gospel, and setting him upon the throne as the judge of the 
world. This glorifying God was the argument Christ pleaded for his assist- 
ance and exaltation in the prophet (Ps. Ixix. 7, ' Because for thy sake I have 
borne reproach, shame hath covered my face'), that the faith of the saints in 
the divine promises might not be enfeebled by any carelessness of God to- 
wards him, ver. 6. And near the time of his death he pleads it in his own 
person, that he might be in a state to carry on that glory he had begun to bring 
to God, to the highest degree : John i. 17, ' Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also 
may glorify thee.' Christ was to do more service for God in heaven than he 
did on earth, and glorify his Father after his Father had glorified him, i. e. 
by a particular application of his death to men, by the virtue of his inter- 
cession, though indeed the foundation of all that glory was laid upon the cross 
by his satisfaction. Had God been good to the Redeemer, if he had given 
him less than a crown for a cross, a reward for the work effected by his suf- 
fering ? And had he been righteous and good to himself, if he had put Christ 
into a state below that which should capacitate him to perfect the remains 
of that honour of his name, which were further to be extant in the world ? 
"What capacity could we imagine him to have if he had lain under the feet 
of death, or sat languishing on the footstool of the earth in a feeble immor- 
tality ? A throne was due for tbe glory he had gained, and a throne was fit 
for the glory he was yet to effect. 

3. Upon the account of love to Christ. His paternal affection to his Son 
required not only a deliverance of him from the jaws of death, but the putting 
such a crown upon his head, by which he might be known by all to be his 
* Faucheur, in Acts ii. 9, p. 109. 



58 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

Son, whom he embraced with an ardent affection.* God would not love his 
Son according to his own greatness, if he did not manifest it to the world 
with the most signal marks and ensigns of authorit3\ And surely after he 
had vanquished his Father's wrath, and triumphed over the enemies of his 
honour, he could expect no other than the strong effluxes of his Father's love 
in the highest expressions of it. What could hinder him from resting in his 
bosom, when all the wrath excited by the transgressions of the law was calmed, 
and the Redeemer came out victorious from that furnace of wrath wherein he 
had been enclosed. Wrath thus being quenched by bis sufferings, there was 
no room for the exercise of any other affection to him than that of love ; and 
no testimony could be given proportionably to such an affection, but the 
highest degree of honour conferred upon him. The Father loved him because 
he laid down his life, John x. 17; and the same affections would be more 
strongly manifested after he had laid it down, and prompt him to shew him 
greater works than those which had been wrought in the world, that the world 
might marvel, John v. 20. He would manifest him to be the partaker of 
all his counsels, that nothing of authority should be denied him, nothing of 
knowledge concealed from him. These were the signal demonstrations of 
the Father's love, expected by our Saviour. 

Secondly, It was necessary on the account of Christ himself. 

(1.) In regard of his nature. 

[1.] As it was of an heavenly original : He came down from heaven. Job 
iii. 13. He was that holy thing born of the virgin, but as overshadowed by 
the power of the highest, Luke i. 35. He was not born by the force of flesh 
and blood, according to the law of creation settled in old Adam ; he was an 
heavenly man, or the Lord from heaven, 1 Cor. xv. 47, and therefore was 
immortal in the true and original constitution of his nature. f And though he 
lived in a veiled condition to fulfil the charge which he undertook, and which 
could not otherwise be accomplished, yet, after the completing of it, he 
could not be retained in the bands of death, but must necessarily return by 
the law of his own nature to his true and original condition, and lead an 
heavenly and glorious hfe, suitable to the principle whereby he was formed. + 
All things are ordered by God in places suitable to their nature ; heavy 
things are placed lowest, hghter things highest ; and if for the good of the 
universe they remove out of their proper place contrary to their natures, as 
soon as ever the occasion which obliged them to such a motion is over, they 
return to the place of their former settlement proportionable to their nature. 
As air, whose place is above the earth, when it is enclosed in the bowels of 
the earth, and there increased by vapours, will find its way out by an earth- 
quake, to that place which God hath settled for it; stones descend, and water 
flows down to its proper place, as soon as the let is removed ; so, though 
Christ, for the good of mankind, stepped into the world, yet when he had effected 
that business, he must necessarily take his flight to heaven, his proper place. 
When that which obliged him to come upon the earth was ceased, and he 
had no more to do here, upon that occasion of the expiation of our sin, heaven, 
that was the principle of his original, was to be that of his rest and abode. 
As earth was assigned to the first man, who was earthly, for an habitation, 
so heaven was the proper element of repose for the second man, who was 
heavenly. It was most convenient that an earthly man should be lodged in 
the earth, and the Son of God have his seat where the throne of his Father 
was. § It was not fit that any creature should be above the person of the 

* Amyrald, Symbol. Apostol. p. 169. f Daille, Melan. part ii. p. 631. 

J Daille sur TAscens. de Christ, p. 434, somewhat changed. 
Faucheur, in Act. i. 9, p. loQ. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of cheist's exaltation. 69 

Son of God, what nature soever he had assumed, and therefore his exaltation 
above the angels was due also upon that account. 

[2.] As his body was changed by the resurrection. Since after his resur- 
rection his body was made immortal, and had. new qualities conferred upon 
it, whereby it had acquired an incorruptible life ;'^' as our bodies shall at the 
resurrection be incorruptible and spiritual, 1 Cor. xv. 42, 44 ; it was not fit 
it should make any long stay in a place of corniption and misery ; and that 
so excellent a person should have an habitation in a world of men and beasts. 
A corrupted place was not convenient for an immortal body ; nor an earth, 
cursed by God, suitable to an unstained nature, that had nothing further to 
do here by himself. But seeing it was the most perfect body, it was con- 
venient it should be taken up into the most perfect place, and ascend above 
all bodies.! Indeed, while he had a body of such a mould as ours, and fur- 
nished with the same earthly qualities and infirmities with ours, his abode 
in the world was somewhat suited to his body as well as to his work ; but 
when he had put off his grave-clothes, and was stripped of that old furniture, 
and enriched with new and heavenly qualities, heaven was the most proper 
place for his residence. Again, had the earth been a proper place for him, 
it was not fit the Divinity should stoop to reside in the proper place of the 
humanity, but the humanity be fetched up to the proper place of the Deity, 
where the Deity doth manifest itself in the glory of its nature. The lesser 
should wait upon the greater, and the younger serve the elder. 

[3.] As the greatest part of his exaltation consisted in the manifestation 
of his Deity. It was not fit so great a conqueror and Redeemer, who was 
God as well as man, should have his deity still under the veil of our flesh, 
after he had accomplished so great a work. Indeed, he hath our flesh united 
in heaven to his divine nature, but his divine nature is not veiled by it, as 
it was here. Now, had his deity been manifested here below in that vast 
brightness and splendour which was proper for it, the sons of men had been 
undone, and met with their ruin instead of their recovery ; for who can see God 
and live ? Exod. xxxiii. 20, ' No man can see my face and live.' Heaven was 
therefore the only place where this could be manifested in that illustrious 
manner which it ought to be, though earth was the place for the powerful 
effects of it. I say, then, it was not fit the glory of his deity should have 
been longer overshadowed by the veil of his humanity ; and it could not have 
broken out in its clearness without not only dazzling our eyes, but consuming 
our beings, in that state we are. The brightness of an angel is too great an 
object for weak man, without the shadow of some assumed body, much more 
the brightness of the Son of God; and what need was there of his being 
veiled for us still, when he had done all that was necessary to be eflected in 
that veil of infirmity he had wrapped himself in ? 

(2.) It was necessary upon the account of Christ, in regard of his offices. 
Had not Christ been glorified, the offices conferred upon him by his Father 
could not have been executed ; his prophetical, priestly, and royal functions 
could not have been exercised, to which he was chosen by God, and without 
which he could not have been a Saviour to us. He had been a sacrifice, 
without being a priest ; a king, without possessing a throne ; a prophet, 
without a chair to teach in ; at least none of these offices could have been 
managed in a way worthy of himself, unless he had been in a glorious condi- 
tion, and his humanity in a glorious place. 

[1.] It was necessary for his prophetical office. As he did but begin to 
exercise his priestly office in his death, and began to execute his royal func- 
* Fauchrur. in Act. i. 0, p. 109. 
t Savonarola, Triumph, cruc. lib. iii. cap. 19. 



CO chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

tion in his miracles, so he did but begin to manage his prophetical office in 
his life : Heb. ii. 3, ' Salvation began to be spoken by the Lord.' His death 
was a consecration to a further exercise of his priestly office, his signs and 
wonders the first essays of his kingly, and his own teachings the first rudi- 
ments of prophecy. After his ascension he did, as the Sun of righteousness, 
spread the wings of his grace, and flew about the world in the illuminations 
of hearts, Mai. iv. 2. As it is with the sun, so was it with Christ, the nearer 
the earth in the winter of his humiliation, the less force he had for the pro- 
duction of fruits, but the higher he mounted in heaven the more vigorous. 
The beams of the sun shot from heaven make us distinguish those things 
which we mistook in the dark, and the rays of Christ, after his ascension, 
manifested the difference between truth and error. Then the living waters 
of the sanctuary grew high, Ezek. xlvii. 3-5, and what was before but a drop 
of knowledge in Christ's beginning to teach, became an unfathomable sea of 
knowledge in Christ's effusion of the Spirit at his ascension. 

[1.] Without this ascension, his doctrine had not had a perfect confirma- 
tion. As his divine Sonship was declared in part in his resurrection, Rom. 
i. 4, so his doctrine met with a confirmation in that manifestation of him to 
be the Son of God ; but as that was but the first step to a manifestation of 
his person, so it was but the first degree of the manifestation of his doctrine. 
The more complete justification of his doctrine was cleared by his elevation 
to heaven ; it then appeared that he did (as he said himself) declare the 
words of God ; that as his humiliation discovered him to be a man, his exal- 
tation and the fruits of it discovered him to be a divine prophet of a greater 
dignity and richer influence than all that went before him. He had been 
unjustly charged, in the delivery of his doctrine, with the crime of blasphemy, 
and very few were persuaded either of the divinity of his person or the hea- 
venliness of his doctrine. By his ascension God declared him to be a pro- 
phet sent by him, and that prophet whereof Moses spake, Acts xxi. 22; he 
acknowledged him to be really what he reported himself to be, one with the 
Father, having a perfect knowledge of the Father, one speaking the words of 
God, and acting according to the order of God. Had what he asserted of 
himself been false, he had been so far from being advanced to heaven, that 
he had been hurled down to the bottomless pit for his imposture. God 
would not by any act, much less by the conferring so great a glory, have 
contributed credit to a lie. But God hath decided the controversy between 
him and the Jews, his accusers, and cast them by, owning him in the quality 
of his Son, and the great prophet, whereby he had entitled himself among 
them. What greater testimony can there be than God's putting all power 
into his hands, giving him the keys of death and hell, the power of opening 
the seals, and slaying by the words of his mouth ? Thus God recommended 
his doctrine, and by lifting him up to heaven, set him there as a Sun to free 
the world from the blackness of error, wherewith the night had filled it. 

[2.] Without this the apostles could not have been furnished with gifts for 
the propagation of his doctrine. Those weak men could not have gone about 
so great a work without a mighty furniture and magazine of divine eloquence 
and vigorous courage ; to give this was not his immediate work as Mediator, 
and in the economy of the divine persons pertained to the Holy Ghost. It 
was necessary, therefore, that he should, as high priest, enter into the holy 
place, and appear before (ilod with the blood of his eternal sacrifice, that the 
treasures of the Spirit might be opened, and that that divine flame might 
issue out from thence to inspire them with abilities for so great an under- 
taking. This he had not had power to do, unless he had been glorified, 
John vii. 34, ' The Holy Ghost ^Yas not yet given, because Jesus was not yet 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 61 

glorified.' He could not before invest his officers with a transcendent power, 
because he was not mounted to a full execution of his own office. It was 
after this he erected the Christian church among the Gentiles as well as Jews, 
completed the rule of faith in the writings of the apostles, which was to en- 
dure to the end of the world. Without this glorification, he had not been the 
universal teacher of the mysteries of salvation, nor qualified the apostles for 
the propagation of his doctrice. But by this means he exercised his office, 
not only among the Jews, as the minister of the circumcision, but amoncr all 
nations of the Gentiles, as the chief doctor and prophet of the world, by the 
publication of the gospel and the gi-ace of the Spirit. 

[3.] Nor could the apostles without this have had any success. They had 
nothing of a worldly stamp and beauty that could persuade people to an 
entertainment of their doctrine. They had not the wealth and grandeurs of 
the world to ofier them, nor could allure them by earthly empires and con- 
quests, as Mahomet did his followers. To preach a crucified God would be 
justly thought an extravagance and the fruits of a frenzy ; but when they 
should hear not only of his resurrection, but the possession of a glory, from 
so many witnesses upon whom they could fasten nothing of distemper, an end 
would be put to their astonishment. "^^ His crucifixion could not appear so 
irrational to them, as the news of an exaltation, whereby the ignominy of the 
cross was changed into the glory of a crown, would appear amazing. Since 
the Spirit could not come unless Christ were glorified, it was impossible that 
without this glorification of the Redeemer, and consequently the effusion of 
the Spirit, that those delegates of Christ could pubhsh the gospel with such 
power, resist such violences, triumph over such oppositions ; and impossible 
for men to have believed or regarded what they said, since their doctrines 
were so contrary to the common maxims of the world, which had been so 
long strengthened by education and custom, the strongest chains next to cor- 
rupt nature. As the ascension of Christ gave the apostles (the spectators of 
it) courage to publish the greatness of our Saviour with boldness, as before 
they had denied him with cowardice in his humihation, so it made way for 
the entrance of his doctrine into the belief of the hearers, which otherwise 
they would have been ashamed to entertain, had it not been backed with so 
great an argument, and testified by such witnesses, and seconded by such 
miracles, against which they could have no exception. Without this, those 
main truths of the gospel upon which the Christian religion depended, and 
which are the life and soul of it, as the redemption of man, the justification 
of believers by the blood of his sacrifice, bad wanted a ground for the mani- 
festation of them, and all the comforts of the gospel been frustrate. Men 
could have had no apprehension of such things without an accomplishment 
of his glory. Hence it was that so often Christ assured his disciples while 
he was instructing them, in the time of bis life, of the great works they should 
perform, and the success they should meet with after his departure. His 
doctrine had been more obscure, and lost much of its clearness, had he stayed 
below. 

[4.] Heaven alone was a fit seat for him wherein to exercise this office. It 
was no more convenient for him to be placed on earth, who was to disperse 
his light into the understandings of men, and scatter ignorance in all parts of 
the world, than for the sun to have been placed on the earth for the spread- 
ing its beams into all climates of the world. An earthly seat was fit for an 
earthly prophet ; but was it fit for him who was constituted by God, not only 
a prophet to the Jews, but to all the nations and tribes of mankind ; whose 
doctrine was not to be confined to the narrow limits of Jerusalem or Judea, 
* Amyraut. in Tim. p. 224. 



62 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

but extend to all parts of the world ?* "What though the dusty earth bore 
bis body in the days of his humiliation, while he was laying the foundation 
of those truths which were to sound in every quarter ! Yet when he came 
to be installed the sole doctor and teacher of the whole world, it was not fit 
he should be placed in any sphere lower than that of heaven, whence he 
might make his voice known both to heaven and earth, to men and angels, 
and convey his instructions to those blessed spirits who were yet to learn 
more of the mysteries of divine wisdom, Eph. iii. 10, and also to the multi- 
tudes of the Gentiles, as well as to the small number of the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel. 

(2.) Necessary it was for his priestly office. Though he was a priest by 
authority in the days of his humiliation, yet he was not fully installed in the 
perpetual exercise of this office, till his ' sitting at the right hand of God,' 
Ps. ex. 1,4; and when he was declared harmless, and undefiled, and sepa- 
rate from sinners, though sacrificed for them, and thereupon made higher 
than the heavens, and by that declared to be the Son of God, then he was as 
his Son consecrated a ' priest for evermore,' Heb. vii. 26, 28. 

[l.j He had not done the whole work of a priest had he remained upon 
the earth. As the legal high priest had not been a complete high priest, and 
fulfilled every part of his office, had he not entered into the holy of holies, so 
neither had Christ performed the whole work of a priest had he remained 
upon earth and not entered into the heavenly sanctuary, to appear or be 
manifested in the presence of God for us, Heb. ix. 24. It was not enough 
for the legal high priest to cut the throat and pour out the blood of the sacrifice 
in the outward tabernacle, and offer it upon the altar on the day of the annual 
expiation, t but he was to pass within the veil, to present the blood of the victim 
to the Lord, and sprinkle it towards the propitiatory. Lev. xvi., and upon his 
return to publish the atonement and reconciliation to the people ; so that there 
had been no analogy between the type and antitype, if our Saviour after his 
oblation on earth had not in the quality of a priest passed into the heavens, 
as through the veil which separated the heavenly sanctuary from the outward 
court. It was necessary therefore that the true high priest should advance 
into the true sanctuary, into heaven itself (figured by that legal place), where 
Grod hath his residence among the true cherubim s and angels of glory ; that 
he should sprinkle this mercy-seat, and present before the throne that blood 
which he had shed upon the cross, till the time that, the number of his elect 
being completed, he is to return out of the sanctuary, i. e. descend from 
heaven to earth to pronounce the sentence of their general absolution, and 
gather them to himself in the glory of his kingdom. By his own blood he 
entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us, Heb. 
ix. 12, This entering into the holy place with the blood of the sacrifice was 
the main end of the sacrifice, and a necessary act of the high priest, and 
appropriate to him alone. The end why it was offered in the temple was, 
that it might be presented in the sanctuary ; so while Christ disposed himself 
to those sufterings which he was to undergo for the expiation of our sins, 
it was necessary he should be upon the earth ; but after he had offered 
himself a sacrifice upon the cross, it was no less necessary for him to ascend 
in person, and carry the treasures of his blood with him, to be laid up in that 
repository, to be sprinkled in the heavenly places, and remain for ever as a 
mark in the true sanctuary, as a treasure of perpetual merit. The legal 
priest was also to burn inceuse in the holy place. By incense in Scripture 
is frequently meant prayer. If Christ be not then an intercessor in heaven, 

* Daille sur rAscension de Christ, p. 435, somewhat changed, 
t Faucheur in Acts, vol. i. p. 111. 



Luke XXIV. 26. J the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 63 

there is no analogy between the type and the antitype. This intercession, 
a gi*eat part of his priestly othce, could no more have been managed but in 
heaven than the oblation, the first part of his office, could have been per- 
formed anywhere but on earth. Had he therefore remained upon the earth 
after the shedding of his blood, he had not fully executed his office, but had 
performed it by halves, and that which he had performed on earth had been 
without strength, without performing the other in heaven ; for then it was 
that he was made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, Heb. 
vi. 20 and a minister of the sanctuary, Heb. viii. 1,2. He is hence called 
the high priest of our profession, Heb. iii. 1, as performing all the duties, 
and enjoying all the privileges really, which the legal high priest did perform 
and ecjoy figuratively. Without this glorious translation, he could not really 
in his own person have carried his blood into the sanctuary, nor appeared in 
the presence of God for us, nor have opened heaven for those that are his 
followers. 

[2.] Heaven only was fit to be the residence of so great a priest. As he 
was a priest, it was fit he should have a sanctuary ; as he was the great 
priest, it was fit he should have the highest sanctuary ; as he was the ever- 
lasting priest, it was fit he should have an everlasting sanctuary ; as he was 
an undefiled priest, it was fit he should have an undefiled sanctuary ; as he 
was a priest constituted and consecrated in a special manner by God, and not 
by man, as Aaron and his posterity were, it was fit he should have a special 
sanctuary, which Aaron and his posterity had not ; as he was to appear in 
the presence of God for us, it was fit it should be in a place where God doth 
manifest himself in the glory of his deity. Now, no place but heaven can 
challenge all those quahties. It was very convenient and necessary that he 
who was the high priest according to the order of Melchisedec, a blessing as 
well as a sacrificing priest, distributing spiritual and heavenly blessings to 
his people, should not be seated in an orb inferior to that place whence those 
blessings were to receive their original, and flow down upon the world. And 
since he was a priest not designed for one particular nation, nor consecrated 
only for such a spot of land as Judea, but for the whole world, it was neces- 
f-ary that he should be in such a place where all may address themselves to 
him that stand in need of the exercise of his office, and from whence he may 
behold all with those compassions which are annexed to his priesthood. It 
was necessary also that he that made the reconciliation for men should reside 
with God (who had been offended, and now was reconciled) to preserve it 
firm and stedfast, since while the world doth last there are daily so many 
breaches made to forfeit it. 

[3. J It was necessary for his kingly office. It was fit that he that had done 
so great a work, and had merited so great a crown, that was exalted to be a 
prince and a saviour, and had received an heavenly authority and power to 
give repentance and forgiveness of sins. Acts viii. 31, should also be received 
into heaven till the time of the restitution of all things, Acts iii. 31, till all 
things be restored to their due order. 

[1.] It was necessary for his triumph. Indeed, for the beginning of the 
exercise of his prophetical charge, there was a necessity of his residence 
among men for the divulging some truths and counsels of his Father ; and 
while he was to conflict with his enemies with sweat and blood, it could not 
well be but in the field of battle wherein the enemies were ; but when he 
'Came off with victory, he could not conveniently triumph in the place of battle, 
or reign as a king suitably to his gi-andeur upon the dunghill of the earth.* 
It was fit he should sit in triumph at the right hand of his Father, to end 
* Amyraut. in Tim. p. 213. 



64 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

and complete the fruits of his victory : Ps. ex. 1, * Sit thou at my right hand, 
till I make thine enemies thy footstool.' As he had not been in a capacity 
to reign had he continued as a subject under the dominion of death, so he 
could not exercise the office of a king so commendably as upon the throne of 
his Father. Heaven only was a palace fit for the residence of the King of 
kings. 

[2.] It was necessary for his government. As heaven is the fountain 
of providence, so it was fit that the king, into ' whose hands God com- 
mitted all judgment, the power and government of the world, should sit upon 
a throne in heaven ; and it was not congruous that he that was made the 
head of principalities and powers, the governor of the angelical spirits, should 
have a meaner dwelUng than the greatest of his subjects, and as low as the 
vilest of his vassals. The wisdom of God hath disposed all causes in an 
order superior to those eflfects which depend upon them ;* the heavens are 
above the earth, because the earth is influenced by them ; and the sun above 
the earth, because the earth is enlightened by it. It was no less necessary, 
according to the order of God's wisdom, that he who was made by God his 
viceroy both in heaven and earth, and had the management of all things 
conferred upon him, should be lodged in a place superior to those things he 
was to govern, from whence he might send forth his directions to all his 
subjects. And though he had by his death given his enemies a mortal 
wound, and stripped the devil of the right he had acquired by the sin of man, 
yet, in the order of divine wisdom, the possession he had of the world was 
not to be taken away, and men reduced to the sceptre of this great king, but 
in a way convenient to the nature of man. Those gifts, therefore, which were 
necessary for the reduction of him, could only be dispensed from heaven ; 
it was therefore necessary for Christ in person to ascend thither, to give out 
his commission, and enable his servants with gifts, whereby to * wound the 
head of his enemy,' Ps. Isviii. 18, 21. It was fit that an eternal King 
should have an everlasting palace ; that a King constituted in a special 
manner by God, should have a palace not made with hands ; that he 
who was put into the possession of all nations, Ps. ii. 8, and had a grant of 
all the kintrdoms of the world to be his own. Rev. xi. 15, that was not to rule 
in a corner of the earth, and sway the sceptre in places that could be in- 
cluded in a map, should have his throne fixed in any part of the world but 
the glorious heaven. An earth defiled by that sin he hated, and an earth 
yet too much filled with those enemies he had conquered, was not a place 
convenient for the perpetual residence of so great a monarch. It was most fit 
also that he who was ordained the Judge of the whole world, and confirmed 
in that office by his being raised from the dead, Acts xvii. 31, should be 
taken up into that sovereign court of heaven, and come in majesty from thence 
to execute that charge. All the ends of his government and triumph could 
not have been answered without this glory ; he could not have reigned in the 
midst of his enemies unless he had been placed above them, nor conducted 
his church to an happy immortality, unless he had had a possession of that 
heaven he was to conduct them to. 

3. As this glory was necessary on the account of God, and on the 
account of Christ, so it was necessary on our account also, 

(1.) That God's choice acceptance of his sacrifice for us might be mani- 
fested. The acceptance of it by God was in part manifested by his resur- 
rection ; but the infinite pleasure he took in it, and the fragrancy of that 
savour he smelt from it, had not been testified to the world had he given him 
only the recompence of an earthly life and glory. Indeed, his resurrection 
* Daille, vingt Serm. p. 435. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 65 

is an attestiition of the truth and fulness of his satisfaction, for he rose again 
for our justification, Rom. iv. 24. He cannot be considered as our pro- 
pitiation but in the state of his resurrection. No man is freed legally and 
justly from prison till he hath paid his debts ; so then the resurrection of 
Christ is an argument that his payment was commensurate to the debt ; but 
the glorious exaltation of Christ is an argument of the high acceptableness of 
it to God. Who can doubt of his satisfaction after his resurrection ? and 
who can doubt of the infinite content God took in his obedience after he had 
crowned him with so immense a glory, and established him a prince and a 
priest for ever at his right hand ? God hath not only declared himself 
satisfied, but satisfied with an incomparable pleasure. God made a diligent 
search into him, to see whether he was without spot, and perfect in his person 
and works : Dan. vii. 13, ' And they brought him near before him,' i. e. the 
Son of man before the Ancient of days. As persons and things are brought near 
to be tried and diligently inspected, so was Christ brought near to God in a 
judicial way, that God may pass a judgment upon him and his work ; and 
upon a strict view he was so ravished with his obedience, that he conferred 
upon him a dominion, glory, kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages 
should serve him, an everlasting dominion, a dominion that passes not away, 
&c., ver. 14. Such a multitude of expressions used in this donation do 
signify the mighty pleasure of God in him, as if (to speak after the manner 
of men) God had been grieved that there was not more to confer upon him. 
As by the resurrection of Christ God declared himself by the title of a God 
of peace, Heb. xiii. 20, so in the ascension of Christ he declared himself a 
God of ail grace to us, 1 Pet. v. 10, He declared himself reconciled to us by 
raising Christ from the dead, and he hath declared himself a)God of all grace 
in calling us to an eternal glory by Christ, because the glory Christ hath is a 
pledge of that glory believers shall have as a fruit of God's high acceptance 
of him. This is the cordial Christ gives his disciples, and assures them they 
had reason to rejoice in the midst of their worldly calamities at his going to 
his Father, if they well understood it, John xiv. 28. It is indeed a clear 
evidence that God hath an inconceivable pleasure in him ; he would not 
otherwise have suffered him to enter heaven, but would have thrust him back 
again upon the earth. In his death there is a satisfaction, and in his glory 
the highest testimony of it. Without a glorious entrance into heaven, his 
resurrection with his continuance upon earth had not been so clear a witness 
of God's high value of his sufierings ; but now by his glorified state it must 
be concluded that his death was not the common fate of mankind, but highly 
meritorious, since God hath rewarded him with so great an honour as the 
government of men and angels ; I say it must be concluded, not only that 
it was a death proportionable to what the justice of God required, but an 
infinite purchase of whatsoever happiness the creature wanted. 

(2.) That the Spirit might have a ground to comfort us. Since the end 
of the Spirit's coming is to comfort us, and the principal argument whereby 
he comforts us is the high value of his death with God, and the acceptance 
he meets with in heaven, there had been little or no ground for him to build 
his comfort upon without the ascension of Christ to glory. How doth the 
Spirit demonstrate the sufficiency of Christ's righteousness ? Not because 
he was raised, but because he goes to his Father, and is seen no more here : 
John xvi. 10, ' He shall convince the world of righteousness, because I go to 
the Father, and you see me no more.' His resurrection is the first corner 
stone of comfort, because it was a necessary antecedent to his glory. But 
had he been only raised to an earthly life, our joy had been but a twilight 

VOL. V. E 



6G chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

mixed with darkness, and the arguings of the Spirit for our cheering been 
somewhat disputable, and wanted much of that efficacy which now they have. 
This going to the Father, which includes a glory, was the spring whence the 
Spirit was to draw those waters of consolations he was to pour into our souls. 
Had Christ remained upon the earth, the Spirit had not come ; but if he 
had, the breasts of consolation had been very lank, and little could have been 
drawn out by us. Some jealousies would have remained, we could not 
have fully answered the accusations of our sins, our own consciences would 
have had some racks, and we should have felt sometimes some griping doubts. 
If God had appeared reconciled by the raising him, yet he would not have 
appeared highly pleased with us without his glorious translation. We might 
have had some comfort in peace with him, but seen no appearance of favour- 
able and gracious smiles in his countenance. Our Saviour lays a stress upon 
that of seeing him no more here, viz., in that state wherein he was before, or 
in a state without a glory. This, in his account, was a sufficient argument 
of the value of his death with God. Could we behold him here in the flesh, 
we might discard all our hopes of standing before God in a glorious eternity 
as vain imaginations ; but when ye shall see me go to my Father, and main- 
tain my interest in his favour, you may conclude that God is not only paci- 
fied, but hath lofty thoughts of grace towards you. Without this his going 
to the Father, the cordials of the Spirit would have wanted their due temper, 
and had not found any relish in our guilty consciences. 

(3.) That there might be an irresistible ground of faith. If the Spirit had 
wanted a ground of comfort, our faith had wanted a ground of reliance. As 
faith respects the person of Christ, it had been subject to staggering; it 
could have had no assurance that ho had truly the dignity of the Son of 
God if he had remained in the condition of a man upon the earth.* As faith 
respects the death of Christ, though it might have concluded an expiation of 
the crimes, yet not a fulness of merit to procure a complete felicity, if he 
had had no other sphere but the rude earth to spend his immortal Hfe in. 
And less confidence still had belonged to faith as it respects the word and 
promise of Christ ,' for how could we imagine he could prepare mansions for 
us in heaven, if he had never stepped from the earth ? or restore us to para- 
dise, a place of bliss, that could not find the way back to that heaven from 
whence he said he descended to redeem us ? We could not have concluded 
that his death had been a ransom if his word had been false ; and his word 
had had no credit with us if he had not returned to that heaven to which he 
affirmed he always had a right. He could never bring us to that place to 
which he could not restore himself. Had he not risen, we should have 
thought him no higher than a mere man ; nay, an impostor, and his death a 
punishment of his own crime. Had he not risen, we should have regarded 
him as no other than a conquered captive of death among the rest of man- 
kind ; and had he, after his resurrection, resided in the corrupted earth with 
our flesh, could we have imagined it to be the flesh of God, any more than 
we could have conceived it so had it remained under the power of death ? 
His glory hath given assurance and courage to our faith, which had been 
very languishing, or rather nothing at all, had he stayed on earth ; nor could 
we have had any hopes ever to have attained the happy vision of God in 
heaven. Had the Kedeemer abode on this side that place of glory, we had 
been \Yithout a pledge of so great a felicity ; nor could our souls have been 
carried out with those noble aff'ections suitable to the extraction of them. 
Our love to Christ had been directed b}^ a knowledge of him after the flesh, 
1 Cor. v. 16, and therefore had mounted no higher than a carnal aff'ection. 
* Daille Melan. part i. p. 143, &c. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 67 

We should have had no ground for those refined and spiritual affections, and 
lifting our hearts to heaven, which are the ennoblement of our spiritual 
natures. Without this entrance into glory, there had bfeen no foundation for 
the superstructure and exercise of any grace in a lively and delightful manner ; 
and without it, and the acknowledgment of it, all falls to the ground. 

But now there is a ground for all, since, 

[1.] Satisfaction is declared to he full. The validity of the price is not to 
be scrupled, since we are assured of the weight of his glory. Shall we doubt 
of the sufficiency of that, after the assurance of so many jewels in his crown ? 
What is all his glory but a return of his blood, and an approbation of the 
value of it for the ends for which it was shed ? His appearance in heaven 
could not have been glorious, had not his oblation on earth been satisfactory. 
For our sins being in the nature of debts, Mat. vi. 12, and the justice of God 
in the law in the nature of a creditor, to which we are responsible. Gal. 
iii. 10, his death was the payment, his resurrection the acquittance, but his 
glory the fullest testimony that God can give that he is satisfied, and remains 
so. So that there is no room for any doubt of eternal redemption purchased, 
since his entrance into the holy place, with the blood of his sacrifice, Heb. 
ix. 12. His exaltation assures man that he hath appeased God. 

[2.] And therefore all enemies are removed out of the way. His triumph 
had not been just if his victory had not been full. The law would have 
resisted his elevation, and stopped his way to the throne, if it had anything 
to object against him. This glory manifests that all the enemies which stood 
with drawn weapons between him and his throne are removed out of the way, 
the obligation against us cancelled, the devil disarmed by the taking away 
sin, upon which his power was founded ; ' principalities and powers' spoiled 
of their prey. Col. ii. 14, 15 ; justice appeased, the law fulfilled, sin expi- 
ated, death vanquished ; all those arc sealed to us by his entrance into glory, 
and God's hanging ' the keys of death and hell' at his girdle, Kev. i. 18. 

[3.] Heaven is assured. As our bond against us is evidenced to be can- 
celled, so God hath entered into a bond by this act towards Christ, whereby 
he doth acknowledge that he, as it were, owes heaven to every believer upon 
the account of the surety, and hath manifested his reality by beginning the 
payment of it in the glory of his person. For in setting Christ ' at his right 
hand in heavenly places,' all believers were virtually set there, Eph. ii. 6. 
As his resurrection assures us of the fulness of the payment of our debt, so 
his glory assures us of the fulness of the merit of our happiness. Had he 
lain in the grave, our hopes would have remained wrapped up with him, 
and mouldered to dust with his body ; or, after his resurrection, had he 
remained on the earth, our hopes had aspired no higher than the place of his 
residence.* But when we do not only see him rising victoriously from the 
horrors and corruptions of the grave, but mounted into an incorruptible glory, 
we have reason to believe we shall, by his power, enjoy that glory we be- 
lievers breathe after. For as he did not rise to live for himself, and expose 
his members to a perpetual captivity under death, so he hath not received his 
glory to reign for himself, and leave his members grovelling in the mire of 
the earth ; but both the intention of God in conferring it, and the design of 
Christ in receiving it, was, that all united to him in grace might be joined 
with him in glory, to see and enjoy, according to their measures, the glory 
God hath given him* John xvii. 24. Now had Christ stayed in a miserable 
world, though he had not lain in a corrupting grave, we could not have con- 
cluded our debt to have been paid to divine justice, nor expected the benefits 
he had promised, nor upon any ground elevated our hopes, hearts, or affec- 
* Faucber in Act. vol. i. p. 62, 



68 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

tions tojbeaven; there had not been those comfortable encouragements to 
dutj', nor those dehghlful motives to any acts of rehgion. But now his ad- 
mission into glory spirits our faith, erects our hopes, expels our fears, stifles 
our jealousies and doubts, and fixes wings to a spiritual love, by giving us 
not only a demonstration of the fulness of his satisfaction, but the overflow- 
ing redundancy of his merits for our happiness, and a pledge of an eternal 
and glorious life. 

To sum up all, and in that the whole 'scheme of the Christian religion 
and doctrine in short, let us consider, since it was the common condition of 
the SODS of Adam to have rebelled against God, and, after that revolt, were 
no more able to stand in the presence of God's consuming justice than straw 
and stubble before the fury of a flame, there was a necessity for some other 
person to make way for our return by appeasing that justice which was ex- 
asperated against us. Though this person were found out, and kindly and 
courageously undertook, and as faithfully, and to a full content of justice, 
performed it in the most perfect manner, yet there could be no assurance of 
it without some signal testimony of the gratefulness of the person and the 
accomplishment of the undertaking. His continuance in the world would 
have nourished rather some jealousies of the imperfection of his person and 
passion, than assurances of their acceptation with God. His exaltation, 
therefore, was a necessary sign that he had fulfilled righteousness and dis- 
armed justice, conquered death and hell, and opened the gates of heaven. 
Since he suffered as our surety, his glory would manifestly be conferred on 
him because he so suffered, and therefore it would respect our interest ; and 
though by the efficacy of his death, had he only risen again, we had been 
freed from those torments that remain after death, yet had he not been 
glorified in heaven, we could not have been restored to the happiness of that 
paradise we had lost, no more than our bodies could have been delivered 
from the darkness of the grave, had he himself remained under the chains of 
death. We should have wandered about the earth without a supreme felicity, 
though without a smarting punishment. ]3ut by his glory we have a certain 
evidence that we are not only freed from the dominion of death, but made 
heirs of life, and have a pledge in our hands that we shall enjoy it. If we 
have a union with him by faith, and a communion with him in the power of 
his death, there is no doubt but we shall have a communion with him in the 
felicities of his heavenly glory ; and to such a confirmation of our faith and 
hope was an entrance into his glory necessary. This doctrine is the highest 
comfort in the Christian religion ; and without this, and a share in it, what 
comfort can we expect in the deplorable, and, I may say, stupefying dispen- 
sation we are now under ? 

Second thing. The nature of this glory. It was a great glory. As he 
was filled with the Spirit without measure above all the prophets, for the 
performing his mediatory function, so he was instated in a glory without 
stint above all the angels for the application of the fruits of his mediation ; 
as great a glory as a creature united to the person of the Son of God was 
capable of receiving. As he had the Spirit without measure, so he had a 
glory without end. God did super-exalt him, as the word signifies, Philip, 
ii. 9, uTTspi v)/w(re, as he was set at the right hand of Go^, which was granted 
to no mere creature, and had a name above every name. Christ consisted of 
two natures, divine and human ; let us see how these were glorified. 

1. His deity was glorified. 

(1.) This could not properly have any addition of intrinsecal glory. To 
enter into glory doth suppose a temporary exclusion or absence from glory, 



Luke XXIV. 2G.J the necessity of cheist's ex-vltation. 69 

as to be advanced supposeth some meaner state, as the term from whence 
that advancement is. Now, the Deity was never empty of any essential 
glory ; nor could that be advanced, because it, being infinite, was not capable 
of any higher degree, but was above all alteration. The substance and pro- 
perties of that nature, which always remain the same, are incapable of 
abasement and elevation. We may as well conclude a diminution of the 
essence of God, as a decrease of the essential glory of God. The divine 
nature cannot ascend, any more than it can descend, because of its filling all 
places by its immensity ; so neither can it be humbled or exalted ; but the 
person that consists of both natures may be said to descend and ascend, to 
be humbled and exalted, because that person which was glorious in heaven 
manifested himself on earth by the assumption of our nature, and ascended 
to manifest himself in heaven in our nature, which he had assumed on earth. 
The Deity then had no new glory by the entrance of Christ into heaven, as 
it had no essential disgrace by his humiliation on earth ; for that nature is 
immutable and infinite, free from any change. If the divine nature might 
be essentially less than it was, it might wholly cease to be what it was ; all 
diminution is a degree of destruction. 

(2.) There was a manifestation of the glory of this divine nature of Christ. 
The divine nature, while it was wrapped up in the rags of our infirm flesh, wanted 
that reputation which was due to it from man ; and in this respect Christ is 
said to ' empty himself,' as the word v/.'-vi/iCi, which we render ' made him- 
self of no reputation,' signifies, Philip, ii. 7. He that was sovereign became a 
subject, as the seed of the woman, to the law of nature, subject as an Israelite 
to the law of Moses, subject as a man and our surety to the penal infirmities 
belonging to the human nature, as weariness, hunger, thirst, death. And as 
the divine nature seemed to be humbled in being obscured under the veil of 
our flesh, so it is glorified in breaking out with most resplendent rays in the 
Son. As he was humbled in the form of a servant, so he was exalted in 
appearing in the form of God." ' In the same sense that we say Christ as 
God was humbled, in the same sense we may say Christ as God is glorified ; 
but it is certain that Christ, who was equal in 'regard of his deity with his 
Father, did humble himself to the form of a servant', PhiUp. ii. 7, 8.*-' As 
the divine nature may be said to be humbled by sufi'ering an eclipse, so it 
may be said to be glorified by emerging out of it, as the sun may in a sort 
be said to enter into a glory, or reassume its glory, when it scatters a dark 
cloud which muffled it, and strikes its warm and clear beams through the air. 
There is nothing here of a glory added to the sun, but a glory exerted by the 
sun, which before lay in obscurity, under a thick mist ; and when God is said 
to be glorified by men, we must not conceive any addition of intrinsic glory 
to God, but an acknowledgment of that glory he displays in his works of 
creation, providence, and redemption. So the exaltation of Christ was not 
the conferring a new glory upon the divine nature, but the outshinings of it 
in the sacred vessel of his humanity, and surmounting those mists where- 
with before it had been clouded. It was then a manifestation of him as the 
Son of God, and a discovery of that relation he had to the Father from 
eternity, which was not only clouded in the days of his flesh, but all the time 
of the Old Testament, and was not known, at least in such a measure and 
clearness, as in the discovery of the gospel. Therefore he prays, John xvii. 1, 
' Father, glorify thy Son ;' discover this prerogative of Sonship, that I am the 
only begotten of the Father, of the same essence with thee, and not a mere 
man, as the world accounts me. Therefore the resurrection of Christ, which 
was the first step to his glory, is called a new nativity of him as the Son of 
* Jackson, vol. iii. fol. 314. 



70 chabnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

God in regard of his manifestation : Acts iii. 33, ' In that he hath raised 
Christ from the dead, as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee ;' as his resurrection was a confirmation 
of his eternal generation, and consequently of his deity, and therefore Christ 
adds in his prayer, John xvii. 5, ' Glorify me with thy own self,' i. e. in a 
way of equality with thyself. As the Father did not in the |^time of his 
humiliation treat him as a son, but as a servant, as a sinner, as one he was 
angry with, he was exposed to the violences of men, as if he had been utterly 
neglected and abandoned by his Father ; he desires therefore that he might 
have that glory he had with God before the world was, that he might be 
treated and declared to be the Son of God, equal to the Father in power 
and majesty ; and that this might be manifested both in heaven and earth, 
in heaven to the angels, and in earth to Jews and Gentiles. And thus he 

* sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,' as ' the brightness of 
the Father's glory, and the express image of his person, '••' all which is not 
an addition of glory, but a manifestation of glory ; for Christ, John xvii. 1, 
desires the Father to glorify himself as his Son, that he might glorify him 
as his Father. Now the glory Christ brought to God was not a new acces- 
sion of any glory to the nature of God, but a displaying the glorious perfec- 
tions of his nature to the sons of men. So the glory of Christ's deity is the 
springing of it out of that obscurity wherewith it was masked, and a breaking 
out from under the cloud of his humanity in a glorious lustre. And after 
he was clothed with ' a vesture dipped in blood,' his name',was manifested to 
be ' the Word of God,' Rev. xix. 13, i. e. he was manifested to be the Word 
of God, after and upon the account of his death, and his glory was sensible 
as the glory of the only begotten Son of God. 

(3.) There was a manifestation of the glory of his deity in and through 
his humanity. As it had been obscured in the humanity while he was 
humbled, so it breaks out in the humanity when that nature is glorified, as 
a candle in a dark lantern doth through the transparent horn or crystal, when 
the obscuring plate is drawn aside. This glory he prayed for : John xvii. 5, 

• Glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the world was.' The 
glory he had as God before the world was, was not impaired, and therefore 
is not that which he here desires ; his humanity was not glorified before the 
world was, that had no existence till it was formed in the womb of a virgin. 
We must therefore understand it of the glory of his deity, to be extended to 
his humanity, to capacitate it for those ofiices which were to be performed 
in it. He was to be the guardian of his church as Mediator, and the Judge of 
the world ; but his humanity could not know the names of all his people he 
was to guide, unless informed by his divinity. As man, he is to execute 
judgment, John v. 27, which he could not do unless he knew the inwards 
of men, and viewed their thoughts ; nor could his humanity do this, unless 
instructed by his divinity. This knowledge is not originally from the human 
nature, but by revelation from the divine ; the government of the world, of 
angels, and men, could not be managed by him as the Son of man, unless 
his humanity were enlivened, and thoroughly influenced by the divinity as 
he was the Son of God ; so that Christ here desires another manner of 
glory in regard of manifestation than was before, a derivation of that glory 
to his humanity. He doth not say. Glorify me vith that glonj which my 
humanity had nith thee he/ore the icorld was ; but which /, my divine person, 
had with thee : that that glory which I had with thee from eternity, accord- 
ing to my divine nature, may be derived upon the human nature, to fashion it 
for those great ends for which it is designed. I see no reason to understand 

* For so Camero refers the word sat down to the a-reiuyocfffnx, Heb. i. 3. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 71 

it of the glory of his humanity, which he had before the world was, by the 
predestinating decree of God ; for then there would be no peculiarity in Christ's 
prayer to himself, for every assured believer may pray the same, Lord, give 
me that glory which I had with thee before the world was, viz., in thy 
decree. But no such expression fell from the lips of Moses, David, Paul, 
or any of those most triumphant in the assurances of everlasting happiness. 
It must be some expression of glory peculiar to the Son of God, and there- 
fore a manifestation of the glory of the deity in his humanity in another 
manner than before, since that person that was the Son of God was now 
also the Son of man. Now this was no addition of glory to his deity, but a 
new mode of manifesting that glory which the human nature had before the 
world was, which never was exerted in such a manner before. It was a real 
addition of glory to his humanity, but a new way, or manner of manifesta- 
tion of his divinity. 

2. His humanity was really and intrinsecally glorified. There was a glory 
conferred upon his humanity by the grace of union with the second person 
in the blessed trinity ; this was at the first conception in the womb of the 
blessed virgin. A greater glory than this can no creature have, to be 
' called the Son of God,' Luke i. 35. There was also a glory bestowed upon 
it by the communication of unmatchable perfections to his soul, a fulness of 
the Spirit, a spotless sanctification, and an infallible knowledge of God, and 
of those truths he was to reveal. But now his humanity did ascend up 
where his person was before, and our nature was carried up to sit with him 
in the same court, where he had been glorious before in his deity. ' He 
ascended far above the highest heavens,' Eph. iv. 10, into that place where 
God represents himself in the greatest majesty to angels and glorified spirits. 
He descended to assume our nature, he ascended to glorify our nature. 
The humanity was taken into perpetual society and conjunction with the 
deity at the first assumption of it ; but by his exaltation the eternal subsist- 
ence of it in the deity was confirmed ; and by the translating it to heaven, 
assurance was given that it should never be laid aside, but be for ever pre- 
served in that marriage knot with the divinity. It was so enlarged and 
spirituaHsed, as to be a convenient habitation for the fulness of his deity to 
reside in, and exert its proper operations : Col. ii. 9, ' In him dwells all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily ;' not dwelling as if imprisoned, but to break 
forth in all its glories and graces ; not formerly dwelling in it, but now dwells. 
There is a way of the presence of the deity with the humanity above all those 
manners of the presence of God with angels and men ; it dwells in it, and 
acts in it, as a soul in its own body it is clothed with, so that the humanity 
is the humanity of the Son of God, and heightened to be the sacred vessel 
of the fulness of the Godhead. That nature wherein the person of the 
Son of God was ' made lower than the angels, was crowned with glory and 
honour,' Heb. ii. 7. That nature wherein he was raised, was set ' at God's 
right hand in heavenly places,' Eph. i. 20, and in that nature, as well as in the 
divine, the person of the Son of God had a sovereign authority granted to 
him. Thus the humanity was glorified above all the reach of any human 
understanding. The glory of the saints is not to be fathomed by the con- 
ceptions of men, much less the glory of Christ, the exemplar of all the glory 
they are to have. 

The humanity of Christ, consisting of two principal parts, body and soul ; 
bo;h were glorified. 

(1.) His body. As his sufferings were in order to his glory, so the part 
wherein he suffered was to enjoy a glory. ' Enter into his glory,' i. e. a glory 
due to him for his sufferings, therefore due to every part wherein he suffered. 



72 charnock's woeks. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

This being an essential part of the human nature, is not laid aside ; the knot 
between this and his deity remains for ever indissoluble ; it remains still as 
to its substance, though enriched with new qualities, being stripped of the 
mutability and mortality to which it was subject on earth. As in his descent 
the deity was emptied of the manifestation of its glory, so in his exaltation, 
his body of its natural infirmities. The image of the first Adam, except the 
substance, was razed out, and was actually framed in the second Adam ; 
there was not a destruction of the body, but a transfiguration of it, and his 
body is no more changed in regard of the substance by its translation into 
heaven, than it was in his transfiguration on the mount ; nor changed in its 
lineaments, but in its qualities: Mat. xvii. 2, 'His face did jhine as the sun;' 
the substance remained, but changed into a glorious appearance; he had the 
same lineaments in Tabor as he had at the foot of the mount. Peter could 
not else have distinguished him from Moses and Elias. Had he not been 
stripped of his infirmities, he had still, even in heaven, been in some sort 
lower than the angels, which he was designed to be only for a time, Hcb. 
ii. 7, /Sfap/u ri, ' a little while,' a short space, in the time of his humihation. 

[1.] His body is therefore of a spiritual nature, in opposition to infirm fliesh. 
Flesh in Scripture is sometimes taken so : Ps. Ixxviii. 39, ' He remembered 
that they were but flesh,' i. e. infirm and perishing flesh. The natural bodies 
of the saints shall, at the resurrection, be changed into spiritual, 1 Cor. xv. 
44 ; much more is the body of Christ in glory, since it is the pattern accord- 
ing to which the body of the saints shall be copied and fashioned, Philip, 
iii. 21. His state in the world is called ' the day of his flesh,' Heb. v. 7 ; 
his state above is a spii'itual state, as being free from the infirmities and clogs 
of the flesh. Flesh he hath still, but more suited to that heaven which was 
his original ; an heavenly, no longer an earthly, image, 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49 ; 
like turf or wood, that loses its drossy and foggy qualities, when heightened 
into a pure flame, or minerals heightened into spirits. His body was spi- 
ritual after his resurrection, it could pass in a short moment from one place 
to another, Luke xxiv. 3L As his body rose, so it ascended, and remains a 
spiritual body, or as one calls it, organized light. 

[2.j It is therefore bright and glorious. If the righteous are to ' shine as 
the sun in the kingdom of their Father,' Mat. xiii. 43, the head of the right- 
eous shines with a splendour above that of the sun, for he hath a glory upon 
his body, not only fi-om the glory, of his soul (as the saints shall have), but 
from the glory of his divinity in conjunction with it. The glory of his divinity 
redounds upon his humanity, like a beam of the sun, that conveys a dazzling 
brightness to a piece of crystal. There was an interruption of this glory 
while he was in the world, though the human nature then was united with 
the divine. But this interruption was necessary for those acts which he was 
to perform in our stead, for the satisfaction of God and the discharge of his 
office. Had the glory of the divinity broke out upon his body, he had not 
been capable of suflering. What mortal could have stood before him, much 
less laid hands on him ? What mortal durst have accounted him a blas- 
phemer, an impostor, and have exercised any violence against him, had his 
divinity so fashioned his humanity ? But now it is, as it was in his transfi- 
guration. Mat. xvii. 2; the glory he had then ??( transitu wrought an alteration 
not only in his body, but in his garments, which could not be of the most 
splendid, as not suiting his present state of humiliation, yet they ' became 
shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller upon earth can white them,' 
Mark ix. 3 ; much more must that firm and perpetual glory in heaven have 
the same influence upon his refined body, that hath cast off' those corruptible 
qualities which hung upon it on earth, and doth more excel in glory that body 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 73 

he had on earth, than the glory of the sun surpasseth that of a glow-worm. 
It is such a glory as would dazzle mortals to behold it ; for if his glory upon 
mount Tabor cast Peter into an ecstasy, what effect would his glory upon his 
throne work upon a moral nature ? Whence it follows that there must be a 
mighty change of the bodies of the glorified saints, to capacitate them for the 
beholding this glory of Christ, the intent views whereof are part of their hap- 
piness, John xvii. 24. 

[3. J His body is immortal. His body now lives, and 'shall Hve for ever- 
more: Rev. i. 18, ' I am he that lives, and was dead ; and behold, I am alive 
for evermore, Amen ; ' which is confirmed by him with a solemn Amen. A 
corruptible body is not fit to be admitted to sit down upon the throne of the 
Father in heaven. The promise that secured to him, in the state of his 
humiliation, a speedy resurrection from the grave, and an impossibility of 
seeing corruption, Ps. xvi. 10, is as valid as ever. That body that was not 
dissolved to dust by the power of the grave, cannot sink into nothing in the 
glories of heaven. The union of the Godhead to it preserved it here, and 
the perpetual confirmation of that union preserves it for ever above. His 
body lives an indissoluble life, death shall never more lay hands on it; he 
hath no more sufl'erings to endure, or satisfactions to make to the demands 
of the law. Men and devils cannot touch him in his person, though they do 
in his mystical body. He is above the reach of all temptations, all wrath 
from his Father, all violences from men, and therefore his glorious body is 
not in such a state as to be ground between the teeth of communicants, or 
eaten by rats and mice, or in any part of it dropped upon the gi'ound, and 
buried again in the dust or mire, as the bread in the supper may. If that 
were really the body of Christ, the body of Christ would be then so treated, 
as consisted not with the glory it is now possessed of. 

(2.) As his body, so his soul, the principal part of the humanity, was glo- 
rified. That suffered in agonies and sorrows : ' His soul was sorrowful, even 
to the death,' Mat. xxvi. 38. That also enters into glory; and indeed the 
body cannot be rightly glorified without the glory of the soul ; for the glory 
of the body is but the reflection of the glory of the soul in any creature. 

[1.] He hath an unspeakable joy in his soul. Ps. xvi. 11, ' Thou wilt 
shew me the path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right 
hand are pleasures for evernaore.' It is Christ's triumphing in the considera- 
tion of his exaltation, and taking pleasure in the fruits of his sufferings; 
' thou wilt shew me the paths of life.' God hath now opened the way to 
paradise, which was stopped up by a flaming sword, and made the path plain 
by admitting into heaven the head of the believing world. This is a part of 
the joy of the soul of Christ; he hath now a fulness of joy, a satisfying de- 
light instead of an overwhelming sorrow; a 'fulness of joy,' not only some 
sparks and drops, as he had now and then in his debased condition ; and that 
in the presence of his Father. His soul is fed and nourished with a perpetual 
vision of God, in whose face he beholds no more frowns, no more designs of 
treating him as a servant, but such smiles that shall give a perpetual succes- 
sion of joy to him, and fill his soul with fresh and pure flames. Pleasures 
they are, pleasantness in comparison whereof the greatest joys in this life are 
anguish and horrors. His soul hath joys without mixture, pleasures without 
number, a fulness without want, a constancy without interruption, and a per- 
petuity without end. And having a fulness of joy, he hath a fulness of 
knowledge in his soul ; he increased in wisdom in his soul, as he did in 
stature, and that as really in the one as he did in the other, Luke ii. 40 ; 
his humanity had not the knowledge of all things in his humiliation, his soul 
had one thing revealed to it after another. But in his exaltation his soul is 



74 chaenock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

endowed with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He knows now 
the time of judgment, since he is constituted the Judge of the world, whereof 
his resurrection was an assurance to men, and no less an assurance to him- 
self, Acts xvii. 31, since by his resurrection, the first step of his exaltation, 
God judged him a righteous person, and acknowledged him his Son with 
power, that had redeemed a world, whereby there was an evidence also that 
by him he would judge the world. Among other infirmities of his nature, 
his soul hath put off that of ignorance. Nothing that is a treasure of know- 
ledge is concealed from it ; he hath the knowledge of God's decrees concern- 
ing his people: Eev. i, 1, God gave the revelation of all to him; no other 
person opens the book, or is acquainted with the counsel of it. Rev. v. 5-7. 
This knowledge he hath in his humanity, as he is the lion of the tribe of 
Judah, and the root of David. This revelation is to him as Mediator, in his 
human nature, distinct from that knowledge he had as God. As his media- 
tory glory is distinct from that essential glory he had as God, so there is a 
revealed knowledge to him, distinct from that knowledge he had as God. 
There was a necessity that Christ, in his human nature, should understand 
the secrets of God, since he was in that nature to be the executor of the 
counsels of God ; and this is another part of the glory of his soul. 

(3.) His person was glorified. His divine nature being glorified in a mani- 
festation, and a new manner of manifestation, and his human nature being 
glorified by an accession of new qualities to it, his person then was glorified. 
As his person was the prime subject of humiliation in taking upon him the 
form a servant, so it was the prime subject of exaltation and glory. His 
person was the siihjectwn quod, and his human nature the suhjechmi quo. In 
regard of his person he is glorified, as in regard of his person he was humbled ; 
the same person ' that was rich became poor,' 2 Cor. viii. 9. He that was 
rich and he that was poor was one and the same person. Howsoever riches 
and poverty were distinct conditions, and divinity and humanity were distinct 
natures, yet they were the conditions and they were the natures of one and 
the same person, who is both rich and poor in regard of different states, as 
well as immortal and mortal, existing from eternity and born in time in re- 
gard of diflerent natures, eternal as God and born as man, above all suffering 
and violence as God, exposed to suffering and violence as man. The person 
that was crucified was the Lord of glory, 1 Cor. ii. 8 ; the person that was 
crucified and suffered entered into glory ; it was the person of Christ there- 
fore wherein this glorious exaltation did terminate. As the deity was not 
emptied, nor could be, but obscured in the assuming our flesh and investing 
himself in the form of a servant for the performance of those mediatory acts 
in his humiliation which were necessary for our redemption, so the deity could 
not be exalted but by displaying itself, and discharging that disguise of infir- 
mities wherewith it was clouded. Nor could the exaltation of his human nature, 
simply considered, be for the happiness and comfort of his people, for as man 
barely considered he could not be the king of angels and governor of the 
church ; he could not, as man barely considered, direct the angels in their 
needful messages, or relieve the church in her great distresses ; for the huma- 
nity was neither omniscient nor omnipotent, nor could be. It is impossible 
humanity can become a deity, and a creature inherit the incommunicable per- 
fections of the Creator; but as the deity is in conjunction with the humanity, 
and doth make use of the humanity, and act in and by it, he is capable of 
performing those things which were necessary, as Lord of the world and 
head of the church. The actions Christ doth perform, as sitting at the right 
hand of God, are the acts of him as man ; but the principle of those acts is 
his divine nature as he is God. The glorious exaltation of Christ is there- 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 75 

fore the exaltation of his person, for those ends which were necessary for 
the good of the believing world. 

(4.) This glory which Christ entered into was a mediatory glory. The 
glory Christ was advanced to was not the essential glory of God, for this he 
always possessed ; this was communicated to him in the communication of 
the essence, and inseparable from him. As being God, he had all the pre- 
rogatives of God ; but it was a mediatory glory conferred upon his person, 
as the first-born of every creature ; such a glory as the humanity, so dig- 
nified by the divine nature's assumption of it, was capable of. The humanity 
being a creature, was not capable of a divine and uncreated glory. The glory 
Christ hath as God is the same with the glory of the Father, but the glory 
Christ hath as mediator is pecuHar to him as a person consisting of a divine 
and a human nature ; therefore it is in the text called his glory, in a way of 
peculiarity belonging to him as a sufferer ; for the divine nature was not 
capable of an addition of glory, nor the human nature capable of the infinite 
perfections of the divine. In regard of his essential glory, he was the Son 
begotten ; in regard of his mediatory glory, he was the heir appointed, Heb. 
i. 2. He is appointed heir in order after his sufferings, as he was appointed 
mediator in order to his sufferings, Heb. iii. 2. He was mediator by a 
voluntary designation, so he was heir by a voluntary donation. His glory 
was given to him upon condition of suffering, and conferred upon him after 
his suffering ; but he was from eternity the Lord of glory, and Son of God 
by a natural generation. The one belonged to him by birth, the mediatory 
by office ; the one is natural to his person, the other is the reward of his 
sufferings : Philip, ii. 8, 9, ' Wherefore God hath exalted him,' viz., because 
of his obedience to death. In the essential glory, he is one with the Father ; 
in his mediatory glory, he is lower than the Father, as being his deputy and 
substitute. His essential glory is absolute, his mediatory glory is delegated, 
judgment is committed to him, John v. 22. The essential glory is alto- 
gether free, and hath no obligation upon it ; the mediatory glory hath a 
charge annexed to it (for he is ' ascended far above the heavens, that he may 
fill all things,' Ephes. iv. 10), an office of priesthood to intercede, and a 
royal office to gather and govern those that are given to him by his Father. 
His essential glory he would have enjoyed, if he had never undertaken to be 
our ransom ; yet without his sufferings for us, he had never had the glorious 
title of the Redeemer of the world. As God had been essentially glorious in 
himself, if he had never created a world ; but he had not then been so manifest 
under the title of Creator. This glory was, nevertheless, properly neither 
divine nor human ; not divine, because, considered as man [hej was a creature, 
and a divine glory is incommunicable to any creature ; considered as God, there 
could be no addition of glory to him.* This is said to be given him as that 
which he had not before ; not a human glory, for as man only he was below 
it, and was not a subject capable of it. A mere man was unable to govern and 
judge the world. To be head of the church, and judge of the universe, are 
titles that belong to God, and none else ; but it was a mediatory glory proper 
to the person of Christ, and both natures as joined by the grace of union for 
the work of mediation. Now though Christ, in regard of his divine nature, was 
'equal with his Father,' PhiHp. ii, 6, yet in the state of mediator and surety 
for man, his Father was ' greater than he,' John xiv. 28; and in this state he 
was capable of a gift and glory from the Father, as from one that was superior to 
him in that condition ; as it hath been recorded in history, that a king equal, 
nay, superior, to another prince, hath put himself under the ensigns of that 
prince inferior to him, and received his pay ; as he puts himself in such a 
* Piivet in Ps. ex. p. 300, col. 1 chauged. 



76 chaknock's works.' [Luke XXIV. 26. 

military state, he is inferior to that prince he serves as his general. And 
what military honour may be conferred upon him for his valour and service, 
is an honour distinct from that royal dignity he had before as a sovereign in 
his own territories. So is this name given to Christ ' above every name,' 
Philip, ii. 9, i. e. a glory surpassing that of all creatures, the potentates of the 
earth, or seraphims of heaven, which was a' distinct glory from that which he 
had, as one with the Father, before his incarnation and passion, and had 
possessed if he had never sufiered. But this glory mentioned by the apostle 
was given him upon his sufferings. It was not therefore a name in regard 
of his eternal generation, as some interpret it;* for the particle Wter^/ore, in 
the beginning of ver. 9, puts a par to any such interpretation, it referring 
this glory as a consequent upon his humiliation to the death of the cross. 
It was therefore a mediatory glory, whereby the authority of God was con- 
ferred upon him, not absolutely and formally, as though he were then made 
God, but as to the exercise of it as mediator in that human nature which he 
had so obediently subjected to the cross for the glory of the Father and the 
good of the creature. 

(5.) This mediatory glory consisted in a power over all creatures ; for it 
was such a ' name as was above every name, so that at the name of Jesus 
every knee shall bow, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,' Philip, ii. 10, 11. He had the same 
power committed to him which the Father hath ; his throne is the highest, 
being the same with that whereon the Father sat, Kev. iii. 21, a throne of 
government and dominion. His commission is extensive, a power as large 
as the confines of heaven and earth : Mat. xxviii. 18, ' All power is given 
me both in heaven and earth. A power over hell is also put into the patent : 
Rev. i. 18, ' And have the keys of hell and death.' His right to this was 
conditionally conferred upon him at the first striking of the agreement be- 
tween the Father and himself, Isa. liii. 10-12. He promised upon his obla- 
tion for sin, to * divide him a portion with the great,' and he should ' divide 
the spoil with the strong.' This was acknowledged due to him upon his re- 
surrection, which, being an owning of the validity of his performance, was an 
acknowledgment of the justice of his claim ; and to this that in Mat. xxviii. 
18, refers, ' All power is given to me.' But the solemn investiture was not 
given him till his ascension. God put the sceptre in his hands when he 
used that form of words, Ps. ex. 1, ' Sit thou at my right hand till I make 
thy enemies thy footstool ;' for in the apostle's sense, to sit at the right hand 
of God and to reign, are one and the same ; for what is ' sitting at the right 
hand of God till his enemies be made his footstool,' is ' reigning till all 
enemies be put under his feet,' 1 Cor. xv. 25. At his resurrection he was 
stripped of his servile garb, at his ascension he put on his royal robes, at his 
session on the right hand of God he was crowned, and began the exercise of 
his royal dignity. 

[l.J He hatii all power in heaven. Power in the treasures of heaven, 
power over the inhabitants of heaven. 

(1.) Power in the treasures of heaven, of sending the Comforter : John 
XV. 26, ' The Comforter whom I will send,' which was sent in his name, 
John xiv. 26. His power was first in heaven, then in earth ; his power on 
earth could not have been manifested without a power first in heaven ; by 
his power in heaven he gathered his people on earth. "When God had given 
us the greatest gift, his Son, for the honour of his mercy, he gives the greatest 
gift next to him, viz., that of the Spirit, for the honour of his Son's media- 
tion. As Christ, in the evangehc economy, acted for the honour of the 
* Ambrose. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 77 

Father, so doth the Spirit in the same economy for the honour of Christ : 
John xvi. 14, 'He shall glorify me.' He is therefore called the Spirit of 
Christ. He is also said to have 'the seven spirits of God,' Rev. iii. 1. 
Seven is a scriptural number of perfection ; he hath the full power of the 
gifts and graces of the Spirit to bestow upon the church, and fill his mystical 
body with. By this it was evident that as a mediator he had a mighty power 
•with God, since the first fruits of his exaltation was the effusion of a comforter 
for us, a second advocate on earth. This being the fruit of his mediation, 
and given to him as mediator, was a full confirmation not only of the virtue 
of his death, but the powerful continuance of it still in heaven, not only that 
it was accepted for us, but that the virtues and fruits of it should be per- 
petually distributed to us. This power of the Spirit was given to Christ im- 
mediately upon his ascension, as the purchase of his sufferings, and the 
reward of his conquests : Ps. Ixviii. 18, * Thou hast ascended on high, thou 
hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men.' By his solemn 
investiture, he was settled in a power over the treasures of God, and gave out 
that in abundance which before was communicated in some few drops ; the 
heavens are opened, and a golden shower comes down upon the world. In 
a sensible and apparent manner, he received this Spirit before for himself, for 
he had it without measure, he received it before, when he entered upon his 
office, to fit him for his mediation, he now receives this power as mediator 
upon his ascension, and as a steward for his people, to distribute this rich 
revenue of God for the greatening of his church ; upon his ascension he re- 
ceived it to give out to those he had left behind him in the world, Ps. Ixviii. 
18. ' Received gifts for men,' Eph. iv. 8 ; it was then the donative of the 
Father to Christ, that it might be Christ's donative to us. 

By the way, we may take notice of another argument for the necessity of 
the exaltation of Christ in heaven, since the Spirit being an heavenly gift, it 
was not fit he should be sent by a person that was not possessed of heaven ; 
and it being the purchase of the mediator, and to be sent in his name, it was 
convenient the mediator should be in heaven, and have a more glorious 
residence than in the earth, before the mission of so great a gift. 

(2.) Power over the inhabitants of heaven. In his incarnation, in the 
days of his flesh, he was lower than the angels ; in his ascension, he is made 
higher by the shoulders than the loftiest of them, and this in regard of his 
office as mediator, for as God he had an essential superiority above them be- 
fore ; the superiority over them as he was God he had by nature, the supe- 
riority over them after his humiliation he had upon the execution of his 
mediatory office. The angels that had their residence in heaven were to 
bow to him, yield obedience to him, as he was God-man, for so he was 
exalted as Jesus, as one that had ' suffered death,' Philip, ii. 9. They were 
to give him an adoration which pertained to God, and, according to this 
divine order, they pay him actual adorations before his throne as ' the Lamb 
of God,' Rev. v. 11-13, and they are put in subjection to him as their head, 
not only for a time but for ever, in this world and that which is to come, 
Eph. i. 21, to order, direct, and commission them for the ends of his media- 
tion, according to that compassionate sense he hath in his glory, of the in- 
firmities and distresses of his people. He is Lord of all of them to this 
purpose ; one hath not the privilege to stand before God, and another sub- 
ject to run upon his errands in the world, but all are subjected to the sceptre 
of Christ, to be used by him at his pleasure in his service. And in this re- 
spect he received all power, first in heaven, then in earth; 'things in heaven ' 
are first gathered, after that ' things on earth,' Eph. i. 10. The holy angels 
were all eubjected to him upon bis exaltation by one entire donation, the 



78 chaknock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

promise of making him their bead was fully accomplished ; whereas there is 
to be a revolution of time to the end of the world, before things in earth shall 
be gathered to him, before all bis elect shall submit to his sceptre, and his 
enemies be debased to his footstool. But upon his advancement, as there 
was an actual donation of them by bis Father, so there was an entire sub- 
mission of them in one body to him. The whole corporation of those blessed 
spirits waited upon him in his entrance into heaven to his coronation, accord- 
ing to the will of their God, and his God, who had given them a precept to 
'worship him,' Ps. Ixviii. 17, 18, and that in a military posture as their 
general, noted by the word chariots, which were used chiefly in war and war- 
like triumphs. 

[2.] Power in earth over all creatures : ' There is nothing left that is 
not put under him,' Heb. ii. 8. All things are given him by God, to be 
in subjection either voluntary or constrained. He is Lord of all the crea- 
tures as God-man, because all the creatures were made for man ; and Christ 
being the Lord of all mankind, is also the Lord of all the creatures that 
were made for the use and benefit of man.* He is therefore ' the first-born 
of every creature,' Col. i. 15 ; the right of primogeniture is conferred upon 
him, and so he became Lord of all ; as Adam, in regard of his dominion over 
all earthly creatures, might be said to be the first-born of them, though him- 
self is created after them. His power upon earth consisteth in this, that all 
the worship of God is to be done in his name ; our supplications for the 
supply of our wants, our acknowledgments for the receipt of his blessings, 
must be presented ' in his name,' John xvi. 26, Eph. v. 20. He is made 
a priest to ofi'er our sacrifices and incense of prayers ; he is the channel 
through which God conveys all the marks of his kindness to us ; he hath 
power" as a prince ' to give repentance ' as the means, and ' remission of sin' 
as the privilege of those that are given to him, Acts v. 31. He hath a name 
above every name in the earth ; no person was ever so famous, none ever 
was adored by so many worshippers, none worshipped with so much fer- 
vency, none ever had so many lives sacrificed for his glory, and acknowledg- 
ment of his mediation and person. His glory hath extended one time or 
other over the whole world. It is a power that hath given check to the 
power of kings, and silenced the reason of philosophers ; it bath put to flight 
the armies of hell, and been celebrated by the songs of angels ; no name was 
ever so glorious, no power ever so great. 

The third thing I should come to is, 

III. The end of his glory. As his sufferings were necessary for us, so 
was his glory ; as it was needful he should die to redeem us, so it was need- 
ful he should enter into glory to bless us. There are two great things accrue 
to us by Christ, acqumtion of redemption, and appUcaiion of redemption ; the 
one is wrought by his death, the other by his hfe ; the one by his elevation 
on the cross, the other by his advancement on his throne. It is there he 
hears us, and from thence he purifies us ; had not Christ entered into glory, 
we had wanted the application of the fruits of his death, and so his incarna- 
tion and passion had been fruitless. 

I shall name only two, one consequent upon the other. 

1. The sending the Spirit. Indeed, since there could be no grace and 
sanctification without the Spirit, we must suppose that the Spirit was given 
before the coming of Christ. In the old world, the Spirit did strive with 
men, and the Spirit of God was in and upon the prophets, and the holy men 
in the Old Testament ; but it was communicated in weaker measures, in 
* Sabund. Tit. 263, 550. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 79 

scanty drops, not in that abundance till the instalment of Christ ; it was 
then shed abundantly through Jesus Christ, Titus iii. 6, whence our Saviour 
is said, after his ascension, not to drop upon persons, but to ' fill all things, ' 
viz., by his Spirit, Eph. iv, 10. The Spirit was in the world before, as light 
was upon the face of the creation the three first days, but not so sparkling 
and darting out full beams till the fourth day of the creation of the world. 
The full effusion of the Holy Ghost was reserved for the time and honour of 
Christ. He was communicated to the Jews anciently for working miracles 
and uttering prophecies ; but the Jews tell us, that after the death of Zecha- 
riah and Malachi, the Spirit of God departed from Israel, and went up. So 
that afterwards miracles were very rare among them, and therefore, when the 
disciples at Ephesus, of the Jewish race. Acts ix. 2, said they had not heard 
whether there were any Holy Ghost or no, it is not to be understood that they 
had not heard that there was such a person, for that they believed, but theV 
knew not whether the Holy Ghost, which departed away after the death of 
Malachi, was restored again in the gift of prophecy and miracles. The 
golden shower of the Spirit for grace and gifts was not to be rained down 
upon the world in so full and sensible a manner till the coronation of Christ, 
as only at some public solemnities of princes the conduits use to run with wine. 
Hence Christ flatly tells his disciples, that it was expedient for him to go, 
that the Comforter might come, which was not to come till after his departure ; 
and particularly by his mission : John xvi. 7, ' Nevertheless, I tell you the 
truth, it is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Com- 
forter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send him to you ;' and this 
he avers as a certain truth. Indeed, Christ received the Spirit for himself 
at the first inauguration and entrance into the exercise of his oSice at his 
baptism, but not fully to convey it to his people, but upon his coronation, 
and full investiture with all power. Then he received ' the promise of the 
Spirit,' Acts ii. 33, i. e. he obtained the full execution of the promise in the 
full effusion of the Holy Ghost, when he had entered into the sanctuary not 
made with hands. The purchase of it was a fruit of his death, but the mis- 
sion of it was consequent upon his exaltation ; by his death, in satisfying the 
justice of God, he removed that bar which had been upon those treasures, 
and broke the seal from the fountain, that the waters of divine grace miwht 
be poured out upon men ; by his death he merited it, by his glory he pos- 
sessed it, and then made the effusion of it, and that for the good of his 
people.* ' It is expedient for j^ou :' it was not only for his honour that he 
went to heaven, but for our advantage, that our faith might be perfected, our 
hope elevated, and every grace strengthened and refined. Now the Spirit was 
sent to this end, to carry on the work of Christ in the world, and to apply 
the redemption he had wrought. He was to ' bring things to remembrance, 
whatsoever Christ had said to them,' John xiv. 26 ; he was ' not to speak of 
himself,' John xvi, 13. He was not to be the author of a new doctrine in the 
church, but to impress upon men what Christ had taught, and what he had 
wrought by his passion. He is therefore called ' the Spirit of truth,' i.e. 
teaching and clearing up to the minds of men, that truth which Christ had 
taught and confirmed by his blood, and to raise the superstructure upon that 
foundation Christ had already laid. He was to declare only what he heard, 
John xvi. 13, 14 ; to act the part of a minister to Christ, as Christ had acted 
the part of a minister to his Father ; to glorify Christ, i. e. to manifest the 
fulness of his merit, and the benefits of his purchase ; for he was to receive 
of Christ's, i. e. the things of Christ, his truth and grace, and manifest them 
to their souls, and imprint upon them the comfort of both. This Spirit being 
* Pont, part v. Mcdit. xvii. p. 324. 



80 chaenock's wokks. [Luke XXIV. 2G. 

then a fruit of the glory of Christ, is an abiding Spirit for those ends for 
which he was first sent, John xiv. 16. The permanency of the Spirit is 
as durable as his glory. Christ must be degraded from his exaltation, be- 
fore the Spirit shall cease from performing the acts of a comforter and advo- 
cate on earth. 

2. Consequent upon this was the communication of gifts for the propaga- 
tion and preservation of the gospel. Christ was to raise a gospel church 
among the Gentiles, to apply the fruits of his death. This he could not do 
without receiving gifts to bestow upon men. These gifts were not to be 
received by him, till his finishing his work ; and this work could not be de- 
clared to be completely finished without his advancement to the right hand 
of his Father, Ps. Ixviii. 17. He received them with one hand, and distri- 
buted them with the other ; he handed them to the world, as they were con- 
veyed to him by his Father in his glory. ' He ascended up far above all 
heavens, that he might fill all things,' Eph. iv. 10 ; all the world with the 
knowledge of himself, all kinds of men wdth gifts ; ofiicers with abilities ; 
private Christians with graces. His glory is the foundation of all Christian- 
ity ; by those gifts of the Spirit to men, he rescues men from a spiritual 
death, and plants them as living trees in the garden of God. By those we 
find our hearts linked to him in love, panting after him with desires, and 
aspiring to the happiness of heaven, where he is. All the channels through 
which he pours the waters of life upon the world, were cut and framed by 
his hands. The Spirit is called the seven spirits in the hand of Christ, and 
joined with the seven stars, Eev. iii. 1, as being distributed by him in the 
seven states and periods of the church, to the end of the world. 

There might be more named, but they may come in in the Use, to which 
we may now proceed. 

IV. Use. 

I. Of information. 

1. How groundless is the doctrine of transubstantiation. ' And to enter 
into his glory,' after his suffering. Had there been such a thing as his daily 
descent to earth in the sacrifice of the mass, it had been a very proper 
season to have intimated such a notion to his disciples in this discourse ; he 
might have had a very fair occasion to say. Wonder not at the sufierings 
of your Redeemer ; he ought not only to sufi'er those things, but you shall 
see him every day a sufferer in the sacramental wafer. As often as a priest 
shall be the consecrator, you shall crush his body between your teeth, and see 
him suffer a thousand times, not by the hands of violent men, but between 
the teeth, and in the stomachs of impure creatures. No such thing is here 
spoken of; it is ' enter into his glory.' He was to be a sufferer but once, 
and then be received into glory ; his glory was to follow his sufferings. By 
this doctrine his daily sufferings would follow his glory, would be together 
with his glory. He would be a sufferer on earth, while he were glorified in 
heaven ; and while he sits at the right hand of his Father, his body would 
be corrupted in the foul stomachs of some men, as bad as devils, at one and 
the same time. Is this a glory his human body entered into, to be frequently 
degraded to a lodging in an impure stomach, among the dregs of the last 
nourishment which was taken in, to pass from thence to the draught, and be 
condemned to the dungeon of putrefying jakes ? Would not this be worse 
than bis sufierings on the cross, which were but temporary, and more loath- 
some and ignominious than all the reproaches he suffered on earth ? This 
is a dealing with the Mediator as the heathens did with God, in changing 
his glory into a corruptible image. This is inconsistent with that glory he 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 81 

is entered into after his sufferings ; there is a repugnancy between his sitting 
upon a throne, and being subject to the accidents of material things on 
earth. As Christ was silent in any such doctrine, so were the angels at his 
ascension (Acts i. 10, 11, ' This same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him taken up 
into heaven'), when they had a fit occasion to mention it ; especially when they 
mention his coming so again for the comfort of the disciples that were spec- 
tators of it. They mention, not a coming every day in body and soul in the 
wafer, into their mouths, but only of a visible and glorious coming again in 
the same manner as he ascended. As he hath entered into glory, so the- 
heavens receive him, and contain him, till the time of the restitution of all 
things. His body is too glorious to pass into the mouths and stomachs of. 
man, and undergo those various changes with their nourishments. 

2. How greatly is our nature dignified ! He is entered into glory with our 
nature, and hath lifted up our flesh above the heavens, and hath in this glori- 
fied our very dust. In that nature wherein he suffered, in the same nature 
he hath ascended into the most glorious part of the creation of God, above 
the highest heavens. The humanity of Christ, and in that our nature, was 
not taken up for a time, but for ever. It was debased for a short space : 
Heb. ii. 7, ' Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ;' or, ' Thou hast 
made him lower than the angels for a short time.' But he is advanced for 
ever : * Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.' The Redeemer is 
always to wear our nature; it is never to be out of fashion with him. How 
glorious is this for us, that the Son of God should take our nature, our dusty 
humanity, all our infirmities except sinful, to clear our natures from all penal 
infirmities, to transform our clay (if I may so- say) into virgin wax, and 
wear it as a pledge that the members of his body shall at length be brought 
to him ! Our nature now hath, by Christ's assumption of it, an affinity with 
the divine, which that of the glorious angels hath not in such a manner. 
Our nature, not theirs, was assumed, and remains united to the person of the 
Son of God. It is advanced to the right hand of God, sits upon the throne 
wuth God. The angelical nature is below the throne, stands about it, but is 
not advanced to sit upon it. Our nature hath not only now a dominion over 
the beasts, as at the first creation, but a principality above and over the angels, 
Eph. i. 21. By creation we were made a little lower than the angels ; by 
this union of the divine, and the exaltation of the human nature of the Son 
of God, our nature is mounted above theirs. It was then made as low as 
earth, it is now advanced as high as heaven ; yea, above the heavens. Our 
nature was before at the foot of the world, the world is now at the foot of our 
nature. 

3. How pleasing to God is the redemption of man ! Christ's glorious 
advancement speaks a fragrancy in his satisfaction to God, as well as a ful- 
ness of merit for men. There was a good pleasure in his mission, there was 
a sweet savour in his passion ; for since he is crowned with glory upon a 
throne, that so lately suffered ignominiously upon a cross, what can the con- 
sequence be but that his obedience to death was highly agreeable to the mind 
of God, and afforded him a ravishing delight ! For without his receiving an 
infinite content by it, it is not possible to imagine he should bestow so glori- 
ous a recompence for it. We have his word for a testimony of his delight 
in the service he designed: Isa. xlii. 1, 'Behold my servant, in whom my 
soul delights.' We have his deed for an evidence of the pleasure he took in 
the service he performed, by putting the government into the hands of the 
Mediator, and giving him power over the angels, and setting him at his right 
hand as his Son. Ho hath testified what a ravishing sense he hath of the 

VOL. V, F 



82 chaenock's woeks. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

redemption he ■wrought, and of that death •whereby he completed it. He 
took more pleasure in him as the Redeemer than in all the angels in heaven. 
The apostle challengeth all to produce any one angel to whom God spake so 
magnificent a word, ' Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thy enemies thy 
footstool,' Heb. i. 13. 'To which of the angels said he so at any time?' 
He is proclaimed to the angels as an object of worship as he is brought into 
the world, Heb. i. 6, as he is the heir appointed as well as he is the heir 
begotten ; as * he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they.' He hath now a glorious empire over the angels, as Mediator in his 
humanity, which he had before in his deity, as God blessed for ever. He 
.enters into his glory as Adam into the possession of a world, with a dominion 
over all the works of God. Had not every part of his work in the world ad- 
ministered a mighty pleasure to God, there had not been a hand reached out 
to have lifted him to glory ; but he went up 'with a shout,' Ps. xlvii. 5, — 
with the applause of God and acclamations of angels. No shouting had been 
in heaven, no chariot sent from thence to fetch him, no attribute of God had 
bid him welcome, had any been disgraced by him. There had been a gloomi- 
ness and disorder instead of a jubilee, nor could he ever have sat down upon 
the throne of the divine holiness, had not the holiness of God, the most esti- 
mable perfection of his nature, been highly glorified by him. 

4. How terrible should the consideration of the glory of Christ be to the 
unregenerate and unbelievers ! The greatness of God's pleasure in the re- 
demption performed by our Saviour, testified by this his exaltation, argues a 
wrath as terrible against those that lightly esteem him. What greater pro- 
vocation than to set our judgment against the judgment of God, and to think 
him not worth glory by our disesteem, who hath deservedly entered into a 
glory above all creatures. It is far worse to despise a Saviour in his robes 
than to crucify him in his rags. An afiront is more criminal to a prince upon 
his throne, than when he is disguised like a subject and masked in the clothes 
of his servant. Christ is entered into glory after his sufierings ; all that are 
his enemies must enter into misery after their prosperity. As there is the 
greatest contrariety in their affections, so there will be the gi-eatest distance 
in theii" conditions. Such cannot be with him where he is in glory, because 
they are contrary to him. What prince upon his throne and in his majesty 
would admit into his presence base and unworthy criminals, but to punish 
them, not to cherish them ? Impure persons are not fit to stand before a 
prince's throne. The sight of Christ in glory is the happiness of believers, 
not to be communicated to the wicked. Those that will not bow to him must 
bend to him ; if they will not bend to him in his glory, they must fall under 
his wrath, and be parts of his conquest in his anger, if they will not surrender 
to him upon his summons from his throne of grace. What a folly is it to 
kick against that person, before whom, one time or other, all knees must bow, 
either voluntarily or by constraint, and render him an active or a passive 
honour ! PhiHp. ii. 10, 11. Since he had a power joined with his glory, that 
power will as much be exercised against his enemies as for his friends. As 
the one are to sit upon his throne, so the other are to be made his footstool ; 
and whosoever will not be ruled by his golden sceptre, shall be crushed by 
his iron rod. 

Use 2 is of comfort. The great ground of almost all discomfort is a wrong 
and imperfect notion of the death, and especially of the exaltation, of Christ, 
and his sitting at the right hand of God. Sorrow filled the disciples' hearts, 
because they apprehended not the reason and ends of Christ's departure from 
them, John xvi. 5, 6. Had they considered whither he was to go, and for 
what, they would not have been dejected. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 83 

(1.) By his glory the justification of believers is secured. As all believers 
did make a satisfaction to God in the death of Christ, so they are all dis- 
charged by God in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Christ having 
a full discharge by his entering into glory as a common person, all those whose 
sins he bore have a fundamental discharge in that security of his person from 
any more suffering. As he bore the sins of many as a common person in the 
oflering himself, and thereby satisfied for their guilt, so he receives an abso- 
lution as a common Head for all those whose guilt he bore in his sufterings. 
The glory he entered into secures him from any further lying under the 
burden of our sins, or enduring any more the penalties of the law for them; 
for as he suffered, so he was acquitted, and entered into glory as our surety 
and representative : Heb. ix. 27, ' As it is appointed unto all men once to 
die, and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered for the sins of many ; 
and unto them that look for him, shall he appear without sin unto salvation.' 
As judgment is appointed for all men as well as death, and they receive their 
final and irreversible judgment after death, so Christ, by his exaltation, is 
judged perfect, fully answering the will and ends of God ; and shall not appear 
any more as a sacrifice in a weak and mangled body, but in a glorious body, 
as a manifestation of his justification, fitted for the comfort of those that look 
for him. Upon the score of this judgment passed upon him by God in our 
behalf, he is to appear at length for salvation. If he suflered for us, his 
sufiierings are imputed to us ; and if his exaltation be an approbation of his 
sufierings for us, then the validity of his sufferings for our justification is 
acknowledged by God's receiving him into glory; for as in his death all 
believers were virtually crucified, so in his justification (whereof his exalta- 
tion is an assurance) all believers have a fundamental justification. It was 
for the purging, not his own but our sins, that he ' sat down at the right hand 
of the throne of the Majesty on high,' Heb. i. 3 ; and therefore he sat down 
as justified for us. The reason of his advancement was the expiation performed 
by him. As long therefore as the glory of Christ holds, the reason of that 
glory holds, i.e. the stability of his expiation, and consequently the security 
of our justification upon faith. The glory Christ is dignified with adds no 
value to his sufferings, but declares the value of them; as the stamp on bullion 
declares it to be of such a current value, but adds no intrinsic value to what 
it had before. In Christ's death, the nature of his sacrifice is declared ; in his 
resurrection, the validity and perfection of his sacrifice is manifested; in his 
glorious ascension, the everlasting virtue of that sacrifice is testified. All 
three, eyed by faith in conjunction, secure our justification, and render a 
perpetual repose to the conscience. His throne being for ever and ever, the 
virtue of his sacrifice, upon the account of which he was placed in that thi-one, 
is incorruptible ; and therefore there is no room for dejection and jealousies 
of the sufiiciency of the ransom, after so illustrious a recompence received by 
him. Had he not indeed entered into glory, we had but a weak assurance 
of a discharge from the Judge. 

(2.) Hence there is a perpetual bar against the charge our sins and Satan 
may bring against us. As Christ sufiered for us, so he entered into glory for 
us. He sufiered in the notion of a redeemer, and he is ascended up into 
heaven under the notion of an advocate. He sits not there as a useless 
spectator, but as an industrious and powerful intercessor. The end of his 
being with the Father is to be an advocate : 1 John ii. 1, ' We have au 
advocate with the Father ;' and the office of an advocate is to plead the cause 
of a client against a false and unjust suit. He drew up the answer upon the 
cross to the bill sin had put in against us, and in his glory he pleads and 
makes good that answer. He merited on the cross, and improves that merit 



84 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

on his throne, and diffuseth his righteousness to shame the accusations of 
sin. It was through the blood of the covenant he rose ; it was through and 
with the blood of the covenant he entered into the holy place, to carry the 
merit of his death as a standing monument into heaven. He fixes the sight 
of it always in the eye of God, and the savour of it is in his nostrils, so that 
as the world, after the savour of Noah's sacrifice, should no more sink under 
the deluge, so a believer in Christ should no more groan under the curses of 
the law, though he may smart in this world under the correction of a Father. 
We have gi-eat enemies : the devil tempts us, and corruptions haunt us, and 
both accuse us. To whom do they present their accusations, but to that 
Majesty, at whose right hand the Redeemer hath his residence ? Whence 
must the vengeance they call for ensue, but from that Majesty, upon whose 
throne a sufl'ering Saviour sits in triumph to answer the charge, and stop the 
revenge ? Since he sufiered to tear the indictment, hath he entered into glory 
to have it pieced together again and renewed ? As he bowed down his 
head upon the cross to expiate our sins, so he hath lifted it up upon the throne 
to obviate any charge they can bring against us. This is a mighty comfort to a 
good and clear conscience in the midst of infii-mities, that Christ is ascended 
into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, angels, authorities, and powers, 
evil ones as well as good, being made subject to him ; evil ones by force, 
and good ones voluntarily ; and therefore secures those from any charge of 
evil angels that are baptized into his death, and have ' the stipulation of a 
good conscience towards God,' which is the apostle's reasoning, 1 Peter 
iii. 21, 22. 

(3.) The destruction of sin in a perfect sanctification is hereby assured, 
since his glory is a pledge of the glory of believers. It is an earnest also of 
all the preparations necessary to the enjoyment of that glory, but a perfect 
holiness is the only highway to happiness. A Redeemer in glory will at 
length ' present to himself a glorious church,' Eph. v. 27 ; glorious without 
spot, smooth without wrinkles, sound, without blemish, like to himself. The 
resurrection of Christ, the beginning of his exaltation, is the foundation 
of the sanctification of every believer. The power which raised him, and set 
him in heaven, was an earnest of the power that was to be exerted to raise 
and work in those that were to be his members, and fix them in the like 
condition, Eph. i. 19, 20. Christ being risen and exalted for their justifi- 
cation, was an assurance that the same power should be employed for doing 
all works necessary in a justified person. As in his death they were crucified 
with him, and by virtue of his resurrection raised from their spiritual death, 
so by virtue of his exaltation they shall at last cast ofi" their grave-clothes, 
and, like EHjah, be wholly separated from a dusty mantle. All that are 
chosen by God shall pass into a conformity to the image of his Son, Rom. 
viii. 29. What did Christ enter into glory for, and receive a power, but to 
destroy the strength of that in the heart, the guilt whereof he expiated by his 
blood, that as he appeased the anger of God and vindicated the honour of the 
law by removing the guilt, he might fully content the holiness of God by 
cleansing away the filth ? As he had a body prepared him to accomplish the 
one, so he hath a glory conferred upon him to perfect the other, that as there 
is no guilt shall be left to provoke the justice of God, so there shall be no 
defilement left to ofi'eud his hohness. The first-fruits of this glory therefore 
was the mission of the Holy Ghost, whose proper title is a ' Spirit of holiness,' 
in regard of his operation as well as his nature, and whose proper work is to 
quicken the soul to a newness of life, and mortify by his grace the enemies of 
oar nature. He is not entered into glory to b? unfaithful in his office, 
unmindful of his honour, negligent of improving the vu-tue of his blood in 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity op chrisi's exaltation. 85 

purging the souls that need it and desire it. No doubt but Father, sanclij'j 
them tlirough thy truth, sounds as loud from his lips upon his illustrious throne 
as it did upon earth, when he was approaching towards the confines of it, 
John xvii. 17. He did not utter those words upon the borders of his kingdom, 
to forget them when he was instated in it. What he prayed for in his 
humiliation, he hath power to act in his exaltation ; and therefore, since his 
desires for the sanctification of his people were so strong then, his pursuit 
of those desires, and his diligence to obtain them, will not languish now in 
his present state. His peremptory desire, John xvii. 24, that all his people 
might be with him, implies a desii-e for the perfection of that gi-ace which 
may fit them to be with him. 

(4.) An assurance from hence of an holy assistance in, and an honourable 
success of, all afilictions and temptations. He entered into glory, but after his 
suffering, and therefore went not into glory without a sense of his sufferings. 
He entered into glory in the same relation as he suffered : he was a sufferer 
for us, and therefore ascended into heaven for us. He hath therefore a sense 
of what sufferings he endured for us, as well as of what glory he enjoys for 
us. The sense he bears in him still is therefore for our sakes. It is that 
human nature wherein the expiation was made on earth that is now crowned 
with glory in heaven ; that human nature, with all the compassions inherent 
in it, with the same affections wherewith he endured the cross and despised 
the shame, with the same earnestness to relieve us as he had to die for us ; 
with the same desire to supply our wants as he had to redeem our persons. 
He forgets not in his glory what he was in his humihation, nor is unmindful 
of them in their misery whom he intends to bring to glory. He remembers 
his own sufferings, and for what he suffered, and how he hath left a suffering 
people behind him. He cannot mark out a mansion in heaven for any one 
remaining upon earth, but he remembers what condition he left them in, and 
what present misery attends them. To that end he went to heaven to prepare 
a place, and order the mansions for reception, John xiv. 2. His head is not 
more gloriously crowned than his heart is gloriously compassionate. His 
passion was temporary, but his compassions are as durable as his glory. 
While he left the infirmities of his body behind him, he took his pitying 
nature with him to wear upon his throne : he is ' touched with a feeling of 
our infirmities,' Heb. iv. 15. Indeed, he cannot but be touched with them, 
because before his glorious entrance he felt them. To think there is a glorified 
head in heaven, is a refreshment to every suffering member on earth ; and 
such a glorified head that can as soon forget his own glory as any part of his 
suffering body. And as to temptation from the devil, this glory gives an 
assurance of a complete victory over him at last. That devil that was 
repulsed by him in the wilderness, wounded by him on the cross, chained by 
him at his resurrection, and triumphed over at his ascension, cannot expect 
to prevail. He that could not overpower our Head, while he was covered 
with the infirmities of the flesh, cannot master him, since all power is delivered 
to him in heaven and earth ; and while the head is in glory, it will protect 
and conduct the members. He that wanted not wisdom and strength in the 
form of a servant to defeat him, doth not want it upon the throne of a con- 
queror to outwit and crush him. He can, and will, in due season, as well 
silence the storms of hell, as in the days of his infirm flesh he did the waves 
of the sea and the winds of the air. The members cannot be drowned while 
the head is above water. 

(5.) An assurance of the making good all the promises of the covenant 
accrues from hence. If he suffered death to confirm them, he will not enjoy 
his glory but to perform them. ' The sure mercies of David' were established 



86 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

at his resnrrection, and at his ascension put into his hands to be distributed 
by him ; by those (though his resurrection is only named as being the begin- 
ning of his exaltation) God assures us that he shall die no more, but live to 
dispense those blessings he hath purchased, and accomplish those covenant 
promises in his glory, which he sealed by his blood, which are sure mercies, 
declared sure by his seal, and by his possession. The end of his exaltation 
is not cross, but pursuant to the end of his passion. It is upon the account 
of his being a ' faithful witness,' that he is the ' prince of the kings of the 
earth,' Rev. i. 5. It is a strong argument that he will be exact in his glori- 
ous condition to honour the truth of God in the performance of his pro- 
mises, since he hath been so exact in the ignominious part of his work, to 
remove that which barred the way to the accomplishment of them, viz., 
satisfying that justice which protected the covenant of works, that mercy 
might act by a covenant of grace towards men. 

(6.) Hence there is an assurance of the resurrection of our bodies ; he 
began to enter into glory when he was raised, and his resurrection was in 
order to his further glorification. He was exalted to bring death, among the 
rest of his enemies, under his feet, and therefore his entrance into glory com- 
pletes the conquest of it, 1 Cor. xv. 25, 26. It is not so much an enemy 
to his person now, since he hath surmounted it, but an enemy to his mystical 
body, and therefore is to be conquered in it. As Adam in his fall was the 
spring of death to all that descend from him, so Christ in his advancement 
is the fountain of life to all that believe in him. Hence is he called ' a 
quickening Spirit,' 1 Cor. xv. 45, so that he hath the same efficacy to give 
life, as Adam had to transmit death to his posterity, ver. 20-22. As it was 
not only the soul of Christ, but the body, was exalted, so our bodies shall be 
raised, since they are sanctified by Christ as well as our souls. He redeemed 
not one part of us, but our persons, which consist both of body and soul. 
There is no ground to imagine that when the head is raised, the members 
should always remain crumbled to dust, and covered with grave-clothes. He 
rose as our head, otherwise we could not be said by the apostle to ' rise with 
him,' Col. ii. 12. The glorious resurrection of Christ, indeed, is not the 
meritorious cause of our resurrection (for all the merit pertains to his humilia- 
tion), but the seal and earnest and infallible argument of it. He did not 
only rise for himself, but for his members, and their justification, Rom. 
iv. 25, and therefore for their resurrection ; for there is no reason death, the 
punishment, should remain, if guilt, the meritorious cause of it, be removed. 
He rose for our justification declaratively, i.e. his resurrection was a declara- 
tion of our fundamental justification, because justice was thereby declared 
to be satisfied, which would else have shut us in the grave, and locked the 
chains of death for ever upon us. It is by this, the first step of his entrance 
into glory, we have an assurance that the graves shall open, bodies stand 
up, and death be swallowed up in victory. 

(7.) Hence ariseth an assurance of a perfect glorification of every believer. 
The heavens receive him till, and therefore in order to, ' the restitution of all 
things,' Acts iii. 21, the full restoration of all things into due order, and 
therefore a full freedom of the regenerate man from sin and misery. As the 
apostle argues in the case of the resurrection, ' if Christ be risen, we shall 
rise,' 1 Cor. xv. 13; so it may upon the same reason be concluded, that if 
Christ entered into glory, believers shall enter into glory ; for as from the 
fulness of his grace we receive grace for grace, so from the fulness of his 
glory we shall receive glory for glory ; and the reason is, because he entered 
into glory as the head, to take livery and seizin of it for every one that 
belongs to him. He entered as a forerunner, to prepare a place for those 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 87 

that were to follow him, and was crowned with glory as he is the Captain of 
salvation, Heb. ii. 9; so that this glory was not possessed by him merely for 
himself (for he was glorious in his deity before), but to communicate to our 
nature which he bore in his exaltation. As immortahty was given to Adam, 
not only for himself, but to derive to his posterity, had he persisted in a 
state of innocence ; so the second Adam is clothed with a glorious immor- 
tality, as the communicative principle to all believers. As God, in creating 
Adam the root of mankind, did virtually create us all, so in raising and 
glorifying Christ, the root of spiritual generation, he did virtually raise and 
glorify all that were his seed, though their actual appearances in the world, 
either as men or believers, were afterwards. As the resurrection of Christ 
was an acquittance of the principal debtors in their surety, so the advance- 
ment of Christ was the glorification of his seed in the root. When the head 
is crowned with a triumphant laurel, the whole body partakes of the honour 
of the head ; and a whole kingdom has a share in a new succession of honour 
to the prince. As those that believe in Christ shall sit with him upon his 
throne, Rev. iii. 21, so they shall be crowned with his glory ; not that they 
shall possess the same glory that Christ hath (for his personal glory as the 
Son of God, and his mediatory glory as the head of the church, are incom- 
municable, it hath an authority to govern joined with it, which the highest 
believer is uncapable of), but they shall partake of his glory according to their 
capacity, which he signifies by his desire and will : John xvii. 24, ' That 
they may be with him where he is, and behold his glory ; ' not only with him 
where he is, for so in a sense devils are, because, as God, he is everywhere, 
but in a fellowship and communion with him in glory. He is exalted as our 
head, whereby we have an assurance upon faith of being glorified with him. 
Had he stayed upon earth, we could have had no higher hopes than of an 
earthly felicity, but his advancement to heaven is a pledge that his members 
shall mount to the same place, and follow their Captain; in which sense his 
people are said to ' sit together with him,' Eph. ii. 6. And herein is the 
difiierence between the translation of Enoch into heaven, the rapture of Elias 
in a fieiy chariot, and the ascension of Christ : they were taken as single 
persons, he as a common person. Those translations might give men occa- 
sion to aspire to the same felicity, and some hopes to attain it upon an holy 
life, but no assurance to enjoy it upon faith, as the ascension of Christ afi'ords 
to his members. And further, the glory of Christ seems not to be complete 
till the glorification of his members ; his absolute will is not perfectly con- 
tented, till his desire of having his people with him be satisfied, John 
xvii. 24. The departed saints are happy, yet they have their desires as well as 
fruitions, they long for the full perfection of that part of the family which is 
upon earth. Christ himself is happy in his glory, yet the same desires he 
had upon earth to see his believing people with him in glory, very probably 
do mount up in his soul in heaven ; and though he fills all in all, and hath 
himself a fulness of the beatific vision, yet there is the fulness of the body 
mystical, which he still wants, and still desires. The church, which is his 
body, is called ' his fulness,' Eph. i. 23. It is then his glory is in a meridian 
height, when he ' comes to be glorified in all his saints' about him, 2 Thes. 
i. 10. The elevation then of the Head, is a pledge of the advancement of 
believers in their persons, and a transporting them from this vale of misery 
to the heavenly sanctuary. His death opened heaven, and his exaltation 
prepares a mansion in it ; his death purchased the right, and his glory 
assures the possession. 

Use 3. Of exhortation. 

Meditate upon the glory of Christ, Without a due and frequent reflection 



88 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

upon it, we can never have a spirit of thankfulness for our great redemption, 
because we cannot else have sound impressions of the magnificent grace of 
God in Christ. It is the least we can do, to give him a room in our 
thoughts, who hath been a forerunner in glory, to make room for us in an 
happy world.* As the ancient Israelites linked their devotion to the temple 
and ark at Jerusalem, the visible sign God had given them of his presence, 
ought we not also to fix our eyes and hearts on the holy place which contains 
our ark, the body of the Lord Jesus ? The meditation on this glory will 
keep us in acts of faith on him, obedience to him, ' lively hope' of enjoying 
blessedness by him, 1 Peter i. 21. If we did believe him dignified with 
power at the right hand of his Father, it would be the strongest motive to 
encourage and quicken our obedience, and fill us with hopes of being with 
him, since he is gone up in triumph as our head ; it would make us highly 
bless God for the glory of Christ, since it is the day of our triumph, and 
the assurance of our liberty. 

(1.) It will establish our faith. We shall esteem Christ fit to be relied 
upon, and never question that righteousness, which hath so great an advance- 
ment to bear witness to the sufiiciency of it. Since his obedience to death 
was to precede the possession of his glory, that being now conferred, evi- 
denceth his obedience to be unblemished. It gives us also a prospect of 
that glory which shall follow our sufierings for him, which is very necessary 
for the support and perfection of our faith. 

(2.) It will inspire us not only with a patience, but a courage, in sufiering 
for the gospel. By this the apostle encourageth Timothy to endure hard- 
ness : 2 Tim. ii. 8, ' Eemember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was 
raised from the dead,' The elevation of Christ is a full confirmation of the 
gospel, and all the doctrines contained therein. Who can faint under sufi"er- 
ings for that, that seriously reflects, and sees the ignominy of the cross 
turned into the honour of a crown ? If his humiliation was succeeded by 
an exaltation, the members may expect the same methods God used to the 
head. What shame can it be to confess, yea, and die, for one that is so 
highly advanced, especially when, in that advancement, we have a communion 
with him ? A conformit}^ to him in suffering, will issue in an honour in the 
same place. If he entered as a forerunner, then all that are to follow him 
must go the same way, to mount to a like honour. 

(3.) It will encourage us in prayer. From this topic Christ himself 
raised the disciples' hopes of speeding in their petitions : John xiv. 12, 13, 
* Because I go to the Father, whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I 
do ;' for so some join the words. He was glorified as a priest, not only 
because he was one, but that he might be in a better capacity to exercise the 
remaining part of his ofiice. The perpetuity of his priesthood is a great 
part of his glory ; and it is a part of this office to receive and present the 
prayers of his people, Kev. viii. 3. How cheerfully may we come to him, 
who is entered into the holy of holies for us, if we had sensible apprehen- 
sions of his present state ! A dull frame is neither fit for that God that hath 
glorified Christ, nor fit for that Christ that is glorified by him. 

(4.) It would form us to obedience. Since the humanity is in authority 
next to the deity, it would engage our obedience to him, to whom the angels 
are subject. The angels, in beholding his glory, eye him to receive his 
commands ; and we, in meditation on it, should be framed to the same 
posture. Christ, by his death, acquired over us a right of lordship, and 
hath laid upon us the strongest obligation to serve him. He made himself 

* Daille vingt serm. p. 443. 



Luke XXIV. 26.] the necessity of Christ's exaltation. 89 

a sacrifice, that we might perform a service to him : Rom. xiv. 9, ' He both 
died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and 
living.' By his reviving to a new state and condition of hfe, his right to our 
obedience is strengthened. There is no creature exempt from his authority, 
and therefore no creature can be exempt from obedience to him. Who 
would not be loyal to him who hath already received a power to protect 
them, and a glory to reward them ? 

(5.) It would ahenate our affections from the world, and pitch them upon 
heaven. The thoughts of his glory would put our low and sordid souls to 
the blush, and shame our base and unworthy affections, so unsuitable to the 
glory of our head. If we looked upon Christ in heaven, our ' conversation' 
would be more there, Philip, iii. 20, 21; our hearts would 'seek' more 
' the things which are above,' Col. iii. 1 ; we should loathe everything 
where we do not find him, and think on that heaven where only we can fully 
enjoy him. It would make us have heavenly pan tings after the glory of 
another world, and disjoint our affections from the mud and dirt of this. 
This would elevate our hearts from the cross to the throne, from the grave 
to his glory, from his winding-sheet to his robes. If we think on him 
mounted to heaven, why should we have affections grovelling upon the earth ? 
It is not fit our hearts should be where Christ would not vouchsafe to reside 
himself after his work was done. If he would have had our souls tied to 
the earth, he would have made earth his habitation ; but going up to the 
higher world, he taught us that we should follow him in heart, till he fetched 
our souls and bodies thither to be with him in person. 

(6.) It would quicken our desires to be with Christ. How did the apostle 
long to be a stranger to the body, that he might be in the arms of his trium- 
phant Lord ! Philip, i. 23. How did Jacob ardently desire to see Joseph, 
when he heard he was not only living, but in honour in Egypt ! And should 
not we, upon the meditation of this glory, be enflamed with a longing to 
behold it, since we have the prayer of Christ himself to encom-age our beUef 
that it shall be so ? What spouse would not desire to be with her husband 
in that glory she hears he is in ? AVhat loving member hath not an appe- 
tite to be joined to the head ? There is a natural appetite in the several 
parts of some animals, as serpents, &c., to join themselves together again. 
No nature so strongly desirous to join the several parts, as the same spirit 
of glory in Christ, and of grace in his members, is to join head and members 
together. The thoughts of his glory would blow up desires for this conjunc- 
tion, that we may be free from that sin which hinders his full communica- 
tions to us, and by pure crystal glasses receive the reflections of his glory 
upon us. 

(7.) It would encourage those at a distance from him to come to him, and 
believe in him. What need we fear, since he is entered into glory, and sat 
down upon a throne of grace ? If our sins are great, shall we despair, if 
we do believe in him, and endeavour to obey him ? This is not only to set 
light by his blood, but to think him unworthy of the glory he is possessed 
of, in imagining any guilt so great that it cannot be expiated, or any stain 
so deep that it cannot be purified by him. A nation should run to him 
because he is glorified, Isa. Iv. 5. The most condescending affections that 
ever he discovered, the most gracious invitations that ever he made, were at 
those times when he had a sense of this glory in a particular manner, to shew 
his intention in his possessing it. When he spake of all things delivered to 
him by his Father, an invitation of men to come unto him is the use he 
makes of it. Mat. xi. 27, 28. If this be the use he makes of his glory to 
invite us, it should be the use we should make of the thoughts of it to accept 



90 charnock's works. [Luke XXIV. 26. 

his proffer. "Well, then, let us be frequent in the believing reviews of it. 
"When Elisha fixed his eyes upon his master, Elijah, ascending into heaven, 
he had a double portion of his spirit. If we would exercise our understand- 
ings by faith on the ascension and glory of the Redeemer, and our hearts 
accompany him in his sitting down upon the throne of his Father, we might 
receive from him fuller showers, be revived with more fresh and vigorous 
communications of the Spirit ; for thus he bestows grace and gifts upon 
men. 



A DISCOURSE OF CHRIST'S INTERCESSION. 



My little children, these things I write unto yon, that ye sin not. If any man 
sin, u-e have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 
—1 John II. 1. 

The apostle having, in the latter verses of the former chapter, spoken of the 
extensiveness of pardon, ver. 7, 9, subjoins, ver. 8, 10, that yet the relics 
of sin do remain in God's people. But though all sin that was pardoned, 
was pardoned upon the account of the blood of Christ, which had a property 
to cleanse from all sin, and that confession of sin was a means to attain this 
forgiveness purchased by our Saviour's blood, yet men might suck in the 
poisonous doctrine of licentiousness, believing that upon their confession they 
should presently have forgiveness, though they walked on in the ways of 
their own hearts. And, on the other side, many good men might be de- 
jected at the consideration of the relics of sin in them, which the apostle 
asserts, 1 John i. 8, 10, that no man was free from in this Hfe. In this verse, 
therefore, the apostle prevents those two mistakes, which men might infer 
from the former doctrine, that we may not presume by the news of grace, 
nor despond by a reflection on our sin. 

I. Presumption, on the one hand, in these words, * My little children, 
these things write I unto you, that you sin not.' Though I have told you 
that forgiveness of sin is to be had upon confession, yet the intent of my 
writing is not to encourage a voluntary commission. 

II. Dejection and despair, in these words, ' If any man sin, we have an 
advocate with the Father.' If you do commit sin, you must not be so much 
cast down, as if the door of mercy were clapped against you ; no, there is an 
agent above to keep it open for every one that repents and believes. Here, 
then, the apostle treats of the remedy God had provided for the sins of be- 
lievers, viz., the advocacy of Christ, who having laid the foundation of our 
redemption in the satisfaction made to God by his blood, resides in heaven 
as an advocate to plead it on our behalf. This, saith one,- is the sum and 
scope of the whole gospel ; he that believes this can never despair ; he that 
believes it not, is ignorant of Christ, though he hath the whole doctrine of 
the gospel in his memory. The word UasdxXrirog signifies an advocate, 
comforter, or exhorter ; it is only in this place used of Christ, but of the 
Spirit it is used, Jolin xiv. 16, John xvi. 7, and in both places rendered 

* Ferus in loc. 



02 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

Comforter. And '7ra^uy.7.r,Gic, a word of affinity to this from the same root, is 
rendered, 1 Thes. ii. 3, exhortation. Some'^-' tell us, that because the advo- 
cates among the Romans and Greeks were the most eloquent orators, there- 
fore the Jews commonly called the most eminent doctors among them 
paracletes. The word is used by the Jews,f who derived it from the Greeks, 
for one that intercedes with a prince, either to introduce or restore a person 
to his favour. The Syriac uses the same word NL:"''?p"lS, derived from the 
Greek word, though it seems to have some affinity with the word P"13, which 
signifies to redeem or deliver. The word is used to express an advocate by 
another author,;]: where he tells us, that it is necessary for him that would 
be consecrated to the Father of the world, to make use of his Son, the most 
perfect advocate, both for the remission of our sins, and the communication 
of happiness to us ; where the w'ord TagaxX'/jrog cannot be taken for a com- 
forter, but an advocate or solicitor, because the Son of God procures the 
not remembering of sins, as well as the supplying of us with all good. And 
the same author, in another place, ascribes the purging of sin to the Xoyoi 
^£oD, a term whereby Christ is signified in Scripture. § The same word which, 
when serving to express the Holy Ghost, is translated comforter, is here, 
when used of Christ, translated advocate. The Spirit is a persuasive advo- 
cate for God among men, as Christ is an eloquent advocate by the rhetoric 
of his wounds with God for men. Christ is both an advocate and a com- 
forter. He owns himself a comforter, as well as the Spirit : John xiv. 16, 
' I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,' implying 
that he was a comforter as well as the Spirit. He is a comforter of man in 
the name of God, and advocate with God in the behalf of man. 

Let us consider the words distinctly ; we, we apostles, we believers. 

1. Not only ice apostles. The intercession of Christ is not so narrowed. 
He sits not in heaven only to plead the cause of twelve men ; he doth in- 
deed manage their concern ; and if they which are specially commissioned 
by him, and are to judge the world, need him in this relation, much more do 
others. 

2. But u-e believers. It is the same ice he speaks of in the first chapter ; 
u-e that have our sins pardoned, ice that have fellowship with God, we, as 
distinguished from all the world : ver. 2, ' Who is a propitiation for our sins, 
and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world ;' where the we 
(the apostle speaks of) that have an interest in this advocate, are difi'erenced 
from the world. His propitiation belongs in some sort to the world, his inter- 
cession to his church, to those that are children new begotten by the Spirit. 
Upon the cross as a man he prayed for his murderers ; but in his media- 
tory prayer, John xvii. 9, he prays ' not for the world,' but those given him 
out of it. 

3. We in particular. Every one who hath the like precious faith hath the 
like powerful advocate ; he means the children he writes to, and every one 
of them. It had not been any preservative against dejection, had not this 
advocate belonged to them, and every one of them. ' If any man sin,' let 
him be what he will, rich or poor, high or low, one as well as another be- 
longs to this advocate. Every believer is his client ; he makes intercession 
for them ' that come unto God by him,' Heb. vii. 25, and therefore for every 
one of those comers. 

We have, not had, as if it were only a thing past ; nor shall have, as if it 
were a thing to come, and expected, but have, iyjiix,i\i, in the present tense, 
which notes duration and a continued act. We have an advocate, i. e. we 

* Mede, Fragment. Sacra, p. 104. % Pliilo Judse, vita Mosis. 

T Camero. p. 179. § Critica, p. 158, Christus, >.'oyo;. 



1 John II. 1,] Christ's intercession. 93 

constantly have ; we have him as long as his life endures. And another 
apostle tell us, ' he ever lives to make intercession.' He is at' present an 
advocate, always an advocate ; and in particular, for every one that comes 
to God by him ; and for every one of them, he is an advocate as long as he 
lives, which is for ever; we have him not to seek, but we have him this 
instant in the court, with the Judge, before the tribunal where we are to be 
tried. 

An advocate. It is a metaphor taken from the Komans and Greeks. The 
proper office of an advocate is to defend the innocency of an accused person 
against his adversary."''* In that notion doth the apostle take it here ; he 
mentions Christ as an advocate in the cause of sin, which is a charge of the 
law. An advocate stands in opposition to an accuser, and his work is in 
opposition to the charge of the accuser. Satan is the accuser, sin the charge. 
Christ stands by to answer the accusation, and wipe off the charge by way of 
plea, as the office of an advocate is to do. 

Advocate. It is not advocates. It seems John was ignorant of the inter- 
cession of saints and angels. This was a doctrine unknown in the primitive 
time. John knew but one, but the Eomanists have made a new discovery of 
many more. Multitudes of saints and angels in this office for them ; and 
they never canonise a saint but they give him his commission for an advocate, 
as if they mistrusted themselves since their apostasy, or feared the affection 
or the skill of him the primitive Christians trusted their cause to. It had 
been as easy a matter for the apostle to have wrote advocates as advocate ; it 
had been but the change of a letter or two, and the cause had been carried. 
This apostle, to whose care Christ bequeathed the blessed virgin when he was 
upon the cross, would not have waived her right had there been a just claim 
for her. We find them urging the distinction of mediators of redemption and 
mediators of intercession ; they acknowledge the sole honour of the first to 
belong to Christ, but link colleagues with him in the second. The Holy 
Ghost here nulls any title but his to either, since the same person who is 
called our Advocate in the text is called our Propitiation in the next verse. 
As there is but one Redeemer, so there is but one Intercessor ; and the right 
of his intercessory power flows from the sufficiency of his propitiatory pas- 
sion. The intercession of this one advocate, Jesus Christ, brought all the 
glorified saints to heaven ; and he can by the same office secure every be- 
liever to the end of the world, without needing the interposition of any that 
he hath introduced before them. He is not yet tired in his office, nor are the 
multitude of his clients too numerous for his memory to carry, so that he 
should need to turn any of them over to weaker heads. 

With the Father. As the first person in order, and the conservator of the 
rights of the Deity, not only with God, where God is, but with God as the 
object of his intercession, and with God as a Father. ' With the Father.' 

(1.) Not with an enemy. Little hopes then that he should succeed in his 
suit. An enemy may lay aside his anger, and he may retain it. The press- 
ing an enemy with importunities many times makes his fury seven times 
hotter. But it is with the Father, one reconciled to us by the price of the 
Redeemer's blood. No, nor with a judge, a term as affrighting as that of a 
father is refreshing. Thus Christ phrased it before his departure : John 
xiv. 16, ' I will pray the Father;' not I will pray the Judge. The apostle 
puts it in the same term Christ had done before him. 

(2.) It is not said with his Father. It is no mean advantage for the son 
of an offended prince to espouse the suit of a rebel. The affection of the 
father might encourage the solicitation of the son ; but this had not been a 
* TertuUian, Apolog. cap. ii. p. 23. 



94 chaknock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

sufficient cordial. The relation of a son might make him acceptable to his 
father for himself, but not for the criminal. Christ might have been dear to 
God in the place of a Son, but we might have still been hateful to him upon 
the account of our rebellions. 

(3.) Nor is it said, with your Father. Had God been only our Father, 
and an angry Father, and standing in no such relation to the advocate, we 
might have had reason to hang the wing. The title of a father is often 
without the bowels of a father. 

(4.) But with the Father, a father both to the advocate and client. To 
the advocate, by an unspeakable generation ; to the client, by an evangelical 
creation ; a Father in all respects, not only by general creation, but special 
adoption and spiritual regeneration ; one of paternal tenderness as well as 
title, and possessing the compassions as well as the relation of a father. 
The Father respects both. As Christ ascended to God as his Father and 
our Father, John xx. 17, so he intercedes with him as standing in such a 
capacity both to him and us. Christ treats not with him as a Judge only, 
but as a Father. As a Judge, God's justice was satisfied by the death of 
Christ ; but the end of his advocacy is upon the account of this satisfaction, 
to excite the paternal bowels of God towards his people. The object of the 
oblation w^as God as a judge or governor ; the object of intercession is God 
as a Father, an advocate with the Father. The first was a payment to 
justice, and the other is the solicitation of mercy. This title of Father 
assures us of the success of his intercession. 

Jesus Christ the righteous. Now he specifies this advocate, together with 
his necessary qualification. The words righteous and righteousness, both in 
the Hebrew and Greek [A'lxaiog, Aixaioavvrj ; P^"I^, "^P"!^), are sometimes 
taken for mercy and charitableness. The words following may favour the 
interpretation of righteous in this sense, for it was the compassion of Christ 
that moved him to be our propitiation, and his charitable temper is not 
diminished by the things that he sufi'ered ; but I would rather take huaiog in 
the proper sense, for just. Mercy without righteousness in the world is but 
a foolish pity, and may support a world of unrighteousness. The honesty 
and righteousness of an advocate upon earth is of more value and efficacy for 
his client with a just judge than all his compassion. In this sense of holy 
or righteous doth Peter use the word : Acts iii. 14, * You have denied the 
Holy One and the Just,' where just is opposite to an unrighteous murderer; 
and 1 Peter iii. 18, ' Christ also hath once sufi'ered for sin, the just for the 
unjust,' where the righteousness of the surety is opposed to the unrighteous- 
ness of the criminal for whom he suffered. This is the comfort, that he is 
as righteous for an advocate as the Father is for a judge, that he is as holy 
as we are unholy. Our sin rendered us hateful, but the righteousness of the 
advocate renders him such as it became him to be for us, whose advocate he 
is, Heb. vii. 26. 

He may be said to be righteous ; — 

(1.) In regard of his admission to this office. He was righteously settled 
in it. Every man cannot thrust himself into a court to be an advocate in 
another's cause ; it is not enough to be entertained by the client, but there 
must be a legal admission to that station in the court. Christ was legally 
admitted into this office ; he had God's order for it : Ps. ii. 8, * Ask of me.' 

(2.) In regard of the ground of his admission, which was his loving 
righteousness : Heb. i. 9, ' Thou hast loved righteousness,' &c., ' therefore 
God, even thy God;' thy God and thy Father, whom thou didst serve, and 
rely upon in the office of mediation, ' hath anointed thee,' or inaugurated 
thee in the chief office of trust ' above thy fellows.' Unction was a solemn 



1 JoHX II. 1.] cheist's intercession. 95 

investiture of the high priests among the Jews in that honour and function. 
This anointing of Christ to the perpetual office of high priest (whereof this 
of his intercession is a considerable part, and the top-stone) was upon the 
account of the vindicating the rights of God, the honour of his law by his 
death. He loved righteousness above his fellows, and therefore is advanced 
to the highest office above his fellows. He is such an one who hath made a 
complete satisfaction, and hath upon that account been entertained by God, 
and settled ' an high priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec' He 
was anointed as being most holy in finishing transgression, making recon- 
ciliation for iniquity, and bringing in everlasting righteousness,' Dan. ix. 24. 
His holiness, manifested in all these, preceded his unction to that unchange- 
able priesthood which is exercised in heaven solely in his intercession, 
Heb. vii. 24, 25, 28. 

(3.) In regard of his person. No exception against his person or his 
carriage, to weaken any motion he should make. The known unrighteousness 
of an earthly advocate is rather a ruin than support to the client's cause 
managed by him. Christ is righteous, therefore the Father cannot be 
jealous of his intruding upon his honour, or presenting any unbecoming suit 
to him ; and because righteous, therefore fit to be trusted by us with our 
concerns. He can neither wrong the Father nor his people ; righteous 
towards God, in preserving his honour, righteous towards us in managing 
our cause; And this righteousness was manifested in his being a propitia- 
tion for sin, whereby the righteousness of God was glorified, and the right- 
eousness of the creature restored. This being without sin rendered him fit 
to be a sacrifice, 1 John iii. 5, which also renders him fit to be an intei'cessor. 
A guilty person is not a proper advocate for a criminal, nor can he well sue 
for another who needs one to sue for himself. 

(4.) In respect of the cause he pleads, viz. the pardon of sin; which, upon 
the account of his being a propitiation for sin, he may rightly lay claim to. 
It is a just thing for him to plead, and a just thing for God to grant: 1 John 
i. 9, he is 'just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness.' Remission and sanctification, the great matters of Christ's plea, are 
righteous suits. He hath a sufficient price with him, whereby he may claim 
what he desires ; and a price so large, that is not only a sufficient compen- 
sation to God for what he doth desire for his people, but is equivalent to a 
world of sins. 

(5.) Upon the account of his righteousness in all these respects, he must 
needs prevail with God. This the apostle implies ; he represents him as an 
Advocate, and as righteous, for the comfort of believers that through a temp- 
tation fall into sin, which could be none at all if the efficacy of his interces- 
sion were not included in this of his righteousness. Because he is righteous 
in his admission, in the foundation of his office, in his person, and the matter 
of his plea, he is worthy to be heard by God in his pleas ; and since he 
wants nothing to qualify him for this office, he will not want entertainment 
with the Father in any suit he makes. And since his propitiation is sufficient 
for the sins of the whole world, we need not question the prevalency of his in- 
tercession for them that believe. If it hath a sufficiency for such multitudes, 
it must have an efficacy for those few that do comply with the terms of enjoy- 
ing the benefit of it. The righteousness of the person of our Advocate, ren- 
ders his intercession grateful to God and successful for us. 

The foundation of this discourse, or the reason of it, is, ver. 2, ' He is the 
propitiation for our sins ; not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole 
world.' He hath expiated our sins, and appeased the wrath of God which 
flamed against us. 



96 chaknock's woeks. [1 John II. 1. 

[1.] Not only for our sins who now live, but for the sins of all believers in 
the past and succeeding ages of the world, as well as the present. His pro- 
pitiation, in the virtue and efficacy of it, looks back upon all believers, in 
every age since the foundation of the world ; and looks forward to every 
believer to the last period of time. The apostle's following discourse in this 
chapter evinceth that he restrains the efficacy of this expiation to believers, 
that manifest their faith by their holiness, and walk in his commands. 

[2. J Or he is the propitiation, not only for the sins of us Jews, but for the 
Gentiles also. 

[3.] Or he is a propitiation for the whole world in point of the sufficiency 
of the sacrifice and infinite value of his blood. The malignity of them that 
refuse it doth not diminish the value of the price, nor the bounty and grace 
that offers to them the benefits of it upon believing. 

We may now thus paraphase the whole : 

These things I write to you, not that you should sin upon a presumption 
of pardon after the confession of your crimes, and from God's readiness to 
forgive imagine you have a grant of liberty to offend him with the greater 
security. No; but that you should, out of an ingenuous principle, fly from 
all occasions of off'ending a God of such boundless mercy. Yet if any of you 
that walk in communion with God do fall through the infirmities of the flesh, 
and the strength of a temptation, be not so dejected as to despair, no, though 
the sin may happen to be very heinous ; but let them consider that they have 
a gracious and righteous Advocate with the Father in heaven, even with that 
Father whom they have offended, to plead their cause, and sue out a pardon 
for them. And remember also that this Advocate is the very same person 
who, in the days of his flesh, did expiate sin and reconcile God by his bloody 
passion, and made so full an atonement as that it was sufficient not only for 
the sins of the present age, but of the whole world ; and hath been efficacious 
for the blotting out the sins of all former believers before his coming. And 
to this Advocate you must address yourselves by faith, for you must know 
him, i.e. believe in him, which is implied in verse the third. 

We see here a description of the office of Christ in heaven : 

1. The office itself, an office oi advocacy. 

2. The officer, Jesus Christ the righteous, described, 

(1.) In his person and inauguration, Jesus Christ. The Messiah, the 
Anointed, to this as well as any other part of his work. 

(2.) Qualification, righteous. Kighteous in his person, office, actions, cause. 

3. The court wherein he exerciseth this office, in heaven ivith the Father. 
His Father, our Father, a Father by affection as well as creation. 

4. The persons for whom, vw. Us believers, us sinners after believing, 
every one of us : if any man sin. 

5. The plea itself, propitiation. 

6. The efficacy of this plea, from the extensiveness of this propitiation, /or 
the whole ivorld. 

Several observations may be drawn hence : 

1. The doctrine of the gospel indulgeth no liberty to sin : ' These things 
write I unto you, that you sin not.' Not that sin should not reign in you, 
but that sin should not be committed by you. Some understand that not the 
act of sin, but the dominion of sin, is here chiefly intended by the apostle.* 
But the contrary is manifest; the term sin must be taken in the same sense 
in the whole sentence. But when he saith, ' if any man sin,' he means it 
of an act of sin, or a fall into sin ; and therefore the former words, ' I write 
unto you, that you sin not,' must be understood in the same sense. For if 
* Mestrezat, 1 Jean ii. 1, 2, p. 237. 



1 John II. l.J Christ's intercession. 97 

any man be under the empire of sin, and gives the reins to lusts of his own 
heart, he is not the subject of Christ's intercession. Christ is an advocate 
for none but those that are in communion with him, and walk in the light, 
as appears by the connection of this with the former chapter. If any such 
person fall into a sin, Christ is an advocate for him : *if any man sin,' i.e. 
any man of these I have before described, 1 John i. 7. No sin must be in- 
dulged ; it is the breath of the devil, the filth of the man. One sin brought 
death upon mankind, violated the divine law, deformed the face of the crea- 
tion, wrecked the soul, inflamed the wrath of God ; evei-y sin is of this nature, 
and therefore must not be practised by us. Not to hate sin, not to resolve 
against it, not to exercise ourselves in an endeavour to avoid every act of it, 
is inconsistent with a believer. It is not to receive, but to abuse and pro- 
fane, the gospel. 

2. Believers, while in the world, are liable to acts of sin. If any man; he 
supposeth that grace may be so weak, temptation so strong, that a believer 
may fall into a gi-ievous sin. While men are in the flesh, there are indwell- 
ing sins and invading temptations ; there is a body of death within them, 
and snares about them. The apostle excludes not himself; for putting 
himself, by the term ive, into the number of those that want the remedy, he 
supposeth himself liable to the disease : ' We have an advocate with the 
Father.' 

3. Though behevers do, through the strength of the flesh, subtlety of the 
tempter, power of a temptation, and weakness of grace, fall into sin, yet they 
should not despair of succour and pardon : * If any man sin, we have an ad- 
vocate.' Such a total despondency would utterly ruin them ; despair would 
bind their sins upon them. Be not only cast down under the consideration 
of the curses and threatenings of the law, but be erected by the promises of 
the gospel, and the standing ofiice of Christ in heaven. 

4. Faith in Christ must be exercised as often as we sin : ' If any man sin, 
we have an advocate.' What is it to us there is an advocate, unless we put 
our cause into his hand ? Though we have a faithful attorney in our worldly 
affairs, yet upon any emergency we must entertain him, let him know our 
cause, if we expect relief. Though Christ, being omniscient, knows and 
compassionates our case, yet he will be solicited ; as, though God knows our 
wants, he will be supplicated to for the supplies of our necessities. Though 
he understands our case, he would have us understand it too, that we may 
value his ofiice. Faith ought therefore to be exercised, because by reason of 
our daily sins we stand in need of a daily intercession. If any man sin; it 
implies that every man ought to make refiections on his conscience, lament 
his condition, turn his eye to his great Advocate, acquaint him with his state, 
and entertain him afresh in his cause. Though he lives for ever to make 
intercession, it is only for ' those that come to God by him' as their agent 
and solicitor, for those that come to the judge, but first come to him as their 
attorney. 

5. Christ is not an advocate for all men, but only for them that believe, 
and strive, and watch against sin ; for those that are invaded by it, not for 
those that are affected to it ; for those that slip and stumble into sin, not for 
those that lie wallowing in the mire. He doth not say simply, ' If any man 
sin,' as holding up in that expression every man in the world; but ' And if 
any man sin,' by that copulative particle linking the present sentence with 
the former chapter, signifying that he intends not this comfort for all, but 
for those that are in fellowship with God, and strive against temptation. 
Intercession, being the application of the propitiation, impHes the accepting 



98 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

the propitiation first. Christ in his mediatory prayer excludes all unhelievers : 
John xvii. 9, ' I pray for them ; I pray not for the world.' For them ! For 
whom ? For those that ' have beheved that thou didst send me,' ver. 8. 
He ' lives for ever to make intercession for those that come to God by him ; ' 
so that the coming to God by him is previous to the intercession he makes 
for them. 

6. The proper intendment of this office of Christ is for sins after a state of 
faith. He was a priest in his propitiation to bring God and man together ; 
he is a priest in his intercession, to keep God and man together. His pro- 
pitiation is the foundation of his intercession, but his intercession is an act 
distinct from the other. That was done by his death ; this is managed in his 
life. His death was for our reconciliation, but his life is for the perpetuat- 
ing that reconciliation : Rom. v. 10, ' If any man sin, we have an advocate.' 
If any man sin that hath entered into a state of communion with God, let 
him know that this office was erected in heaven to keep him right in the 
favour of the Judge of all the world. We should quickly mar all, and be as 
miserable the next minute after regeneration and justification as before, if 
provision were not in this way made for us. In the first acts, faith eyes the 
propitiation of Christ, and pitches upon his death. Christ, as dying, is the 
great support of a soul new come out of the gulf of misery and terrors of 
conscience. In after acts, it eyes the life of Christ, as well as the death, 
taking in both his propitiation and intercession together. 

7. No man can possibly be justified by his own works. We have an ad- 
vocate, Jesus Christ the righteous. He directs them not to any pleas from 
their former walking in the light. If our justification be not continued by 
virtue of our own works after conversion (for though they are works proceed- 
ing from renewed principles, and are the fruits of the operation of the Holy 
Ghost, spring from a root of faith and love, and are directed in the aim of 
them to the glory of God, yet one flaw spoils the efficacy of all in the matter 
of justification) ; I say, if our justification be not continued by works after 
conversion, which have so rich a tincture on them, much less is it procured by 
works before conversion, wherein there is not a mite of grace. Our justifi- 
cation, in the first sentence of it, and also in the securing and perpetuating 
our standing before God, depends not in the least upon ourselves, but upon 
the mediation of Christ for us. If justification and pardon owe their con- 
tinuance to Christ, they much more owe their first grant solely to the media- 
tion of Christ. 

8. Therefore observe further, that nothing of our own righteousness, or 
graces, or privileges, are to be set up by us as joint advocates with Christ 
before the tribunal of God in case of sin. The apostle saith not. If any man 
sin, let him plead his former obedience, let him plead his habitual grace, let 
him iDlead his adoption, and by that challenge the renewing of God's paternal 
afiection. Let him plead his present repentance. He strikes ofi" our hands 
from all these by that one word, ' We have an advocate, Jesus Christ the 
righteous.' We must enter no plea but what Christ doth enter, and that is 
only his propitiation. The apostle hints not any matter of the plea of this 
advocate but this one. Those that set up their own satisfactions, peniten- 
tial acts, their humiliation, remorse, or their other glittering graces, mightily 
intrench upon the honour of Christ, and his standing office in heaven. They 
may be of some use in the accusations of our own consciences, but not before 
God's tribunal. It is certain our own righteousness sticks as close to us as 
our enmity to God. Nay, a secret confidence in it is the great citadel and 
chiefest fort and strength wherein our enmity against God and his righteous- 
ness lies. There is no man but is more willing to part with his sin than to 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 99 

part with his righteousness ; and there is nothing we find more starting up 
in us in the actings of grace than the motions of spiritual pride. We would 
be eking out the merits of Christ, and be our own advocates. We would 
not let him manage the cause upon his own account, and by this we spiri- 
tually injure Christ in the work of mediation, as much as the papists do in 
setting up glorified saints and angels with him ; may I not say, worse, since 
an unspotted angel and a perfected saint is a more meet mate for him than 
a spotted righteousness and grace ? 

9. Christ is a person in the Godhead distinct from the Father : advocate 
with the Father. The Father and the advocate are here distinct. A judge 
and an advocate are difierent persons, have different offices, are exercised in 
different acts. The Father is considered as the governor, and the advocate 
as a pleader. 

10. How divine is the gospel I ' Sin not.' ' If any man sin.' It gives 
us comfort against the demerit of sin, without encouraging the acts of sin. 
It teaches us an exact conformity to God in holiness, and provides for our 
full security in Christ, a powerful advocate. No religion is so pure for the 
honour of God, nor any so cordial for the refreshment of the creature. 

The doctrine I shall handle is this : Christ is an advocate with the Father 
in heaven, continually managing the concerns of believers, and effectually 
prevailing for their full remission and salvation upon the account of the pro- 
pitiation made by his death. We shall see, 

I, That Christ is an advocate, in some general propositions. 
II. What kind of advocate he is. 

III. How he doth manage this advocacy and intercession. 

IV. That he doth perpetually manage it. 
V. That he doth effectually manage it. 

VI. That he doth manage it for every believer. 
VII. The use. 

I. In general, Christ is as much an advocate as he is a sacrifice, as God 
is as much a governor as he was a creator. As we say of providence, it is 
a continued creation, so of intercession, it is a continued oblation. As pro- 
vidence is a maintaining the creation, so this intercession is a maintaining 
the expiation, and therefore is by some called a presentatlve oblation. The 
heathens had some notice of the necessity of some mediator or intercessor, 
either by tradition from Adam, from whom the notion of a mediator might 
as well be transmitted as the notion of expiation of guilt by bloody sacrifices. 
But while they retained the carcase, they lost the spirit of it ; and while they 
preserved the sentiment of the necessity of an advocate, they framed many 
wrong and unserviceable ones. They dubbed their heroes, and men that had 
been benefactors to them in the world, with this title after their death, and 
elevated them to be intermediate powers between God and them. Some of 
those demons are fancied to carry up their prayers to God, and back their 
prayers with new supplications ; * others brought gifts from God. Some 
handed their petitions and pleaded for them ; others brought the answers of 
their prayers and relieved them, which the apostle alludes to : 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6, 
' For though there be that are called gods, as there be gods many, and lords 
many ; but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, 
and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we 
by him.' As they had many gods, so they had many mediators between 
themselves and those particular gods ; but, saith he, ' To us there is but one 
God,' the principal cause, ' and one Lord Jesus Christ,' the procuring cause 
* Apuleius de Deo Socratis, p. 426. 



100 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

of all things, by wbose suit we are what we are, and enjoy what we have. 
This intercession of Christ was ancient ; it is as ancient as his first under- 
taking our suretyship, by virtue of which the vengeance the sinner had 
merited was deferred. He ' upholds all things by the word of bis power,' 
Heb. i. 3, or his powerful or prevailing word, when they were ready to sink ; 
not only as God by the word of providence, but as mediator by his word of 
intercession, that the guilty sinner might not be dealt with by the rigours of 
justice, but in the tenderness of mercy. As he was fore-ordained a sacrifice, 
so he was fore- ordained an advocate ; as he was a lamb slain, so he was an 
advocate entertained, from the foundation of the world. His sacrifice, though 
not performed, could not have a credit with God, as it had, but his pleas 
upon the credit of that sacrifice must be admitted also. Thus were believers 
of old saved by him, and redeemed in his pity, as he was ' the angel of the 
presence' of God, Isa. Ixiii. 9, i.e. in the phrase of the New Testament, 
' appearing in the presence of God for them,' Heb. ix. 24, noting the manner 
of his intercession. He did, as an undertaker for them, interpose for their 
salvation; he 'bare them, and carried them all the days of old,' alluding, I 
guess, to Aaron the high priest bearing the names of the twelve tribes in the 
breast-plate of judgment upon his heart when he went into the holy place to 
intercede for the people, Exod. xxviii. 29. He was an advocate for them to 
whom the credit of his propitiation did extend ; but that did extend to those 
that believed before his coming in the flesh ; to them therefore his intercession 
extended also. It was then indeed an intercession upon credit ; it is now an 
intercession by demand, since the actual ofi'ering himself a victim. 

1. This office of advocacy belongs to him as a priest, and it is a part of 
his priestly office. The high priest was not only to slay and offer the sacri- 
fice in the outer part of the tabernacle, on the anniversary day of expiation, 
but to enter with the fresh blood into the sanctuary, and sprinkle it seven 
times, to shew the perfection of that expiating blood which was figured by it, 
Lev. xvi. 14. In the blood was the expiatoiy virtue : Lev. xvii. 11, * It is 
the blood that makes an atonement for the soul;' yet the high priest did not 
perform his office complete, till he had sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice 
with his finger on the mercy seat ; he was also to bring a censer full of burn- 
ing coals from off the altar, and incense in his hands, and put it upon the 
fire before the Lord, within the veil, that the cloud in the incense might cover 
the mercy seat, Lev. xvi. 12, 13. As the high priest going into the holy of 
holies after the sacrifice, was a type of Christ's ascension after his passion 
on the cross ; so the blood he was to sprinkle was a type of that blood, and 
the incense he was to kindle, a figure of the prayers of Christ after his enter- 
ing into heaven.'^' Incense in Scripture frequently signifies prayer, and prayer 
is compared to incense. As the high priest's oflice was to enter into the 
sanctuary with this blood and incense to intercede for the people, and obtain 
a blessing for them, so it pertained to the office of Christ, as a priest, not 
only to enter with his own blood, but with the incense of his prayers, as a 
cloud about the mercy-seat, to preserve by his life the salvation he had me- 
rited by his death. Christ entered into heaven as a priest, and in that capa- 
city ' sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,' 
Heb. viii. 1, and was settled ' an high priest for ever,' by a solemn oath, 
Ps. ex. 4. There is therefore some priestly act, which he hath a capacity 
and an obligation, by virtue of his office, to perform for ever, all the time he 
stays in heaven, till his second appearing (as the high priest, all the time he 
was in the holy of holies, was performing a sacerdotal act), which is not the 
act of sacrificing, that was done by him on earth (as the sacrifice was slain 
* Amyraut sur Heb. ix. p. 74. 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 101 

without the veil). Nothing but intercession can answer to that type, which is 
called an appearing for us, as a proxy or attorney, in the presence of God, 
Heb. ix. 24, otherwise there is no priestly act for him to do ; and so his 
being a priest would be an empty title, a name without an office. God's 
oath would be insignificant, if there were not some priestly act to be per- 
formed by him, as well as a priestly office vested in him. Being a priest, 
therefore, he must have something to ofier, even in heaven ; which cannot 
be a new sacrifice, for that was but once to be done. It must be therefore 
the presenting his old, his body wounded, which is nothing else but this 
which we call intercession ; a presenting to God this sacrifice of himself, 
and pleading the virtue of it in every time of need. The apostle tells us 
our salvation depends upon his intercession, and his intercession upon his 
priesthood, Heb. vii. 24, 25. Our salvation depends not simply upon his living 
for ever, for that he had done if he had never come upon the earth to redeem 
us, but upon his Uving for ever in an unchangeable priesthood ; the end of 
which unchangeable and everlasting priesthood is intercession. As our sal- 
vation depends not upon God's living for.ever, for God had Uved for ever had 
we been damned ; but upon God's living for ever as a reconciled God, and 
entered into covenant. As he was a priest upon the cross to make an expia- 
tion for us, so he is our priest in the court of heaven, to plead this atonement, 
both before the tribunal of justice and the throne of mercy, against the curses 
of the law, the accusations of Satan, the indictments of sin, and to keep off 
the punishment which our guilt had merited. 

2. This, therefore, was the end of his ascension, and sitting down at 
the right hand of God. In his incarnation, he came from the Father to 
acquaint us with his gracious purposes, and how far he had agreed with God 
on our behalf; and at his ascension he went from us to the Father, to sue 
out the benefits he had so dearly purchased. He drew up an answer upon 
the cross to the bill, that sin by virtue of the law had drawn against us, and 
ascended to heaven as an advocate to plead that answer upon his throne, and 
rejoin to all the replies against it. "When his offering was accepted, he went 
to heaven to the supreme Judge, to improve this acceptation of his sacrifice, 
by a negotiation which holds and continues to this day. Heb. ix. 24, ' Christ 
is entered into heaven ;' for what end ? * To appear in the presence of God 
for us ;' but may he not appear for us at first, and afterwards cease from it ? 
No : now to appear for us. He entered into heaven long since, but he ap- 
pears for us this instant. Now, as if the apostle should have said, while I am 
writing, and you are reading, in this, in that instant, NDv, is he appearing 
for us as a public person. Though there be a change in his condition, 
from a state of humiliation to a state of exaltation, yet there is no change 
in his office : Heb. viii. 1,2,' He is set down as a priest on the right 
hand of God,' ' a minister of the sanctuary,' or of holy things, Xurouoyh: 
ruiv aylMv, as a performer of a divine office for men. As Moses, forty 
days after his conducting the Israelites out of Egypt (the type of our 
redemption), ascended the mount, while his redeemed people were in a con- 
flict with Amalek, to pray for them as a type of Christ, so Christ himself, 
forty days after his resurrection, which was an evidence of our deliverance 
from spiritual slavery, ascended up into heaven, to lift up his head there as 
oar advocate, for assistance to be granted to us against our spiritual enemies. 
As this intercession is the true design of his eternal life as a priest ; and 
since the apostle lays it down as a manifest truth, witnessed by all the pro- 
phets. Acts iii. 21, that there is to be a restitution of all things, and that the 
heavens receive Christ till that restitution ; it will follow that he sits there 
.n order to that restitution ; not as an idle spectator, but a promoter of it by 



102 chabnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

the efficacy of his mediation ; and no other order did he receive from his 
Father after his resurrection, being declared the begotten Son by his resur- 
rection, but to ask, for that follows just upon the declaration of his 
being his Son, Ps. ii. 7, 8, which is interpreted in the New Testament of 
bis resurrection. Asking was all required of him for the enjoying his reward, 
of which the advantage of his people in enjoying the fruits of his death, is 
none of the meanest part in his own account, since it was ' the joy set before 
him.' His mediation kept the world from ruin after man's fall, and his inter- 
cession promotes the world's restoration after his own passion. 

3. This advocacy is founded upon his oblation. He is our advocate, be- 
cause he was our propitiation ; the efficacy of his plea depends upon the 
value and purity of his sacrifice. He is an intercessor in the virtue of his 
blood. The apostle, therefore, speaking of his intercession, Heb. vii. 24, 
considers it with a respect to his sacrifice : ver. 27, he could not have inter- 
ceded as a priest, if he had not offered. As the high priest could not enter 
into the holy of holies, till, by the slaying of the sacrifice, he had blood to 
carry with him, so the true High Priest was not to be admitted to solicit at 
the throne of grace, till he had satisfied the tribunal of justice ; so that a 
propitiation and his advocacy are not one and the same thing (as the Soci- 
nians affirm), but distinct : the one is the payment, the other the plea ; one 
was made on earth, the other is managed in heaven ; the one was by his 
death, the other by his life ; the one was done but once, the other per- 
formed perpetually; the first is the foundation of the second. Because 
he paid the debt as our surety, he was fit to plead the payment as our attor- 
ney ; what he finished on earth, he continually presents in heaven. By 
shedding his blood, he makes expiation ; by presenting his blood, he makes 
intercession ; in the one he prepares the remedy, and in the other he applies 
it. They are not the same acts, but the first act is the foundation of the 
second, and the second hath a connection with the first. 

4. The nature of this advocacy differs from that intercession or advocacy 
which is ascribed to the Spirit. The Spirit is said to ' make intercession for 
us,' Rom. viii. 26; and he is in a way of excellency called the Comforter, 
which we heard is the same word in the Greek with this word which is here 
translated advocate. Christ is an advocate with God /or us, and the Spirit 
is an advocate with God in us, John xiv. 17. Christ is our advocate, plead- 
ing for us in his own name ; the Spirit is an advocate, assisting us to plead 
for ourselves in Christ's name. Christ pleads for us in the presence of God, 
the Spirit directs us to such arguments as may be used for pleas for ourselves. 
The Spirit doth not groan himself, but excites in us strong groans, by 
affecting us with our condition, and putting an edge upon our petitions, and 
strengthening us in the inward man, Eph. iii. 16. The Spirit is an advocate 
to indite our petitions, and Christ is an advocate to present them. Some 
distinguish them that Christ is an advocate by way of office, and the Spirit 
by way of assistance ; but certainly the Spirit is an advocate by way of office 
to counsel us, as Christ is an advocate by way of office to plead for us ; and 
the Spirit is as much sent to do the one in our hearts, as Christ was called 
back to heaven to do the other for our persons. The Spirit is an intercessor 
on earth, and Christ is an intercessor in heaven. Again, as there are two 
courts we are summoned to appear in, the court of the supreme Judge and 
the court of the Judge's deputy, our own consciences, Christ clears us by his 
plea at God's bar, and sets us right with the offended Father. The Spirit, 
as Christ's deputy, being sent in his name, clears us at the bar of our own 
consciences. Christ answers the charge of the law in the court of God's 
justice, and the Spirit answers the accusations of sin in the court of God' 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 103 

deputy. The one pleads for our discharge above, the other pleads for our 
peace below ; and the voice of God's Spirit is as mighty in us, as the voice 
of Christ's blood is mighty for us. 

II. Thing. What kind of advocate Christ is. 

1. An authoritative advocate. He intercedes not without a commission 
and without a command. God owns himself as the cause of his drawing near 
and approach to him : Jer. xxx. 21, ' I will cause him to draw near, and he 
shall approach unto me,' both in his first mediation and his following inter- 
cessions. He manages not an intercession merely in a way of charity, but 
in a way of authority, as a person entrusted by God, and dignified to this 
end ; not only as our friend, but as a divine officer ; as an attorney may 
manage the suit of his kinsman, but not only as being related to his client, 
but as being admitted by the court into such an office. Christ is not only 
admitted as one of kin to us, but commissioned as mediator for us. This 
was promised, that he should be ' a priest upon his throne,' Zech. vi. 13. 
The commission takes date from the day of his resurrection; when he was 
declared to be the begotten Son of God, he had an order to ask, Ps. ii. 8. 
This charge was given him at his solemn inauguration, and was to precede 
all the magnificent fruits of it. God settles Christ a priest and intercessor, 
while he commands him to ask the heathen for his inheritance ; which con- 
nection the apostle confirms : Hek v. 5, ' Christ glorified not himself to be 
made an high priest, but he that said unto him. Thou art my Son.' But the 
priesthood doth not appear to be settled upon Christ by any other expression 
than this, ' Ask of me.'* The psalm speaks of his investiture in his kingly 
office; the apostle refers this to his priesthood, his commission, for both 
took date at the same time ; both bestowed, both confirmed, by the same 
authority. The office of asking is grounded upon the same authority, as the 
honour of king. Ruling belonged to his royal office, asking to his priestly. 
After his resurrection, the Father gives him a power and command of asking, 
and obligeth himself to a grant of what he should ask. The same power that 
admits him to be an advocate, assures him he should be a prevailing one ; 
the obligation to give is as strong as his order to ask. As his death was the 
end of his incarnation, so his intercession was the end of his ascension; his 
dignity in heaven was given him for the exercise of this particular office, Heb. 
vii. 25. As he had his life from God, so he had it for this end, to make in- 
tercession. He had a command to be a sufferer, and a body prepared him for 
that purpose ; so he had likewise a command to be an advocate, and a life 
given him, and a throne prepared for him at the right hand of God to that 
end. The like commission is mentioned Ps. Ixxxix. 26, ' He shall cry unto 
me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation;' and this 
after his exaltation, ver. 24, 25. Yet for the full completing of it, ver. 27, 
the matter of his plea is there mentioned, ' Thou art the rock of my salva- 
tion,' the foundation, the first cause, of all thy salvation I have wrought in 
the world, being the first mover of it, and promising the acceptance of me 
in the performance of what was necessary for it. As he hath authority to 
cry to God, so he hath an assurance of the prevalency of his cry, in regard 
of the stability of the covenant, the covenant of mediation, which shall stand 
fast with him, or be faithful to him : ' and my mercy I will keep for him for 
evermore,' ver. 27. The treasures of my mercy are reserved only to be 
opened and dispensed by him ; and the enjoying of his spiritual seed for ever, 
and the establishing of his own throne thereby, is the promised fruit of this 
cry, ver. 28. Christ indeed was a surety by authority, but by a greater right 
* Rivet, in Ps. ii. 8. 



104 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

an advocate. That he was accepted in the capacity of a surety, was pure 
mercy ; it was at God's liberty whether he would accept a surety for us, or 
accept Christ for our surety ; but after he had accepted him, upon the doing 
of his part in the work of redemption, he hath a right to the appHcation of 
redemption, and consequently to the office of advocate, to see right done us, 
to see our debts discharged, and to put justice in mind of the full payment 
he hath made. He hath a right to it, a commission for it, a command to 
discharge it ; he is as much bound to intercede as he was to sacrifice, for it 
is as much belonging to his priestly office as the other. 

2. He is a wise and skilful advocate. Every advocate must understand 
the law of the state and the cause of his client, that he may manage it to the 
best advantage. This advocate hath an infinite knowledge as God, and a full 
and sufficient knowledge as man. His deity communicates the knowledge 
of our cause to his humanity, and excites the compassion of his nature. He 
knows the sincerity of his clients' hearts, their inward groans and breathings 
which cannot be expressed. He knows our cause better than we do ourselves, 
he needs not the representing our own cause from ourselves : ' He needs 
not that any should testify of man, he knows what is in man,' John ii. 25. 
He understands the best and the worst of our cause ; he hath a clear view 
of all the flaws in it better than they are visible to ourselves. If he had no 
more skill and knowledge of us than what our outward expressions might 
furnish him with, he might mistake the business of a stammering spirit, and 
on the other side be imposed upon by the voluble expressions and flourish- 
ing gifts of others ; he might be cheated by the hypocrisy of some, and mis- 
take the concerns of his own people, who often mistake themselves, and are 
not able to express their own wants ; but it cannot be so with him ; ' he 
knows all things,' he knows those that love him and those that hate him, 
John xxi. 17. He understands our cause, he understands the law according 
to which he is to plead, the articles of agreement between the Father and 
himself, and he understands the fulness and redundancy of his own merit. 
He uses arguments proper to the cause he pleads, and drawn from the nature 
of the person he applies himself to. When he meets with the church in 
weakness and distress by potent adversaries, and would have the Jews 
delivered and the temple rebuilt, he solicits God as the Lord of hosts, Zech. 
i. 12. When he finds his people in danger of sin and temptation, he peti- 
tions God under the title of holy, John xvii. 11. When he would have pro- 
mises performed to them, he appeals to the rir/hteomness of the Father, John 
xvii. 25 ; it being part of his righteousness to fulfil that word which he hath 
passed, and make good the grant which so great a redeemer merited. He 
pleads the respects he had to the divine will in the exercise of every part of 
his office, both of priest and prophet : Ps. xl. 9, 10, a prophetic psalm of 
Christ, ' I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart, I have declared 
thy faithfulness, and thy salvation ; I have not concealed thy loving-kindness 
and thy truth from the great congregation.' The adding thy to every one of 
them is emphatical : it was thy righteousness I had commission to declare, 
thy faithfulness I had order to proclaim, thy mercy I had a charge to publish ; 
thou wert as much interested in all that I did as I myself was. I shall be 
counted false and a liar, thou wilt be cosnted unjust and cruel, if all be not 
fulfilled as I have spoken. Since it was thy rule I observed, and thy glory 
I aimed at in declaring it, disgrace not thyself and me in refusing the peti- 
tion of such a supplicant, who believes in my word which I gave out by thy 
authority. Surely as Christ observed the will of God upon earth, so he is 
wise to intercede for nothing but according to those rules he observed in his 
humiliation, which was whatsoever might honour and manifest the righteous- 



1 John II. l.j Christ's intercession. 105 

ness, faithfulness, salvation, truth, and loving-kindness of the Father. This 
is a part of his wisdom, to plead for nothing but what he hath the nature of 
God to subscribe to his petitions, and back him in them. It is not for the 
honour of an advocate to undertake a cause he cannot bring to pass, nor will 
any wise man engage in a suit which he hath not some strong probability to 
effect. Our Lord, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know- 
ledge, stands more upon his honour than to undertake a cause he cannot 
accomplish. 

3. He is a righteous and faithful advocate. He is as righteous in his 
advocacy as he was in his suffering. His being without sin rendered him fit 
to bear our sins on the cross : 1 John iii. 5, ' He was manifested to take 
away our sins, and in him is no sin ;' and it renders him fit to plead for the 
pardon of our sins upon his throne. As he was manifested to destroy the 
works of the devil, so he is exalted to perfect the conquest by his interces- 
sion. If he had sin, he could not be in heaven, much less a pleader there. 
God tried him, and found him faithful in all his house, in all his own con- 
cerns, and the concerns of his people, which are his spiritual temple. The 
altar of incense, which was overlaid with pure gold all about the sides of it, 
Exod. xxxvii. 26, and set before the ark of the testimony, Exod. xl. 5, sig- ' 
nified the purity of his soul, and his freedom from any kind of corruption in 
those pleas he makes in the holy of holies above, where ' he ever lives to 
make intercession for those that come to God,' Heb. vii. 25. But in what 
state ? Ver. 26, an high priest, ' holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin- 
ners.' He lives in heaven a pure person, fitted by his purity to such an office. 
The words refer not to Christ's life in the world,*' but to his life in heaven ; 

' separate from sinners' in regard of communion in their sins, but not in 
regard of compassion to their miseries. He hath nothing of his own concerns 
to divert him from our business ; as he had no sin of his own to suffer for 
in the world, so he hath no sin of his own to solicit the pardon of in heaven. 
He having an incomparably righteous nature, will be exactly righteous in 
his office. After Christ's resurrection, when he had finished his work on 
earth, and was to begin it in heaven, God saluted him with a great deal of 
kindness : Ps. ii. 7, ' This day have I begotten thee.'f God regarded him 
as his only begotten Son, of the same holy and righteous nature with him- 
self; justified him as his righteous servant, and thereupon gives him a power 
of asking ; so that the prevalency of his intercession depends upon the 
righteousness of his person, and the righteousness of his cause ; he pleadeth 
his own righteousness, which carries with it a necessity of having sin par- 
doned ; which the righteousness of God is as ready to remit, as the righteous- 
ness of Christ was to purchase the remission of it. Whatsoever Christ 
intercedes for is righteous ; if it were unrighteous, it were not fit to be 
moved to God ; this would be to endeavour to persuade him to an unworthy 
act, contrary to his nature. If any proposal of his were unrighteous, Christ 
would be false to God, and his own principles, in making and defending such 
a motion. This would be to destroy all the ends of his coming, and design 
of his death, which was to declare the righteousness of God, advance it in 
the world, and in the souls of men. If Christ should undertake an unright- 
eous cause, what ground of confidence and security could any righteous man 
have in him ? 

4. He is a compassionate advocate. His compassion to us is joined with 
his faithfulness to God in his priestly office, Heb. ii. 17 ; so that, if he be 
not tender to believers in misery, he is not faithful to God in the exercise of 

* As Crellius well notes. 

f Upon which the Chaldee hath this note, Purus es acsi hac die creiviasem te. 



106 charnock's woeks. [1 John II. 1. 

his office. His intercession springs from the same tenderness towards us as 
his oblation, and both are but the displaying of his excessive charity. His 
compassion to us was a lesson he learned, together with obedience to God, 
by his sufferings, Heb. v. 8. He learned how necessary obedience was to 
God, and how grievous the misery of man was ; and being instructed in one 
as well as the other, his pity to us had as deep an impression as his sense 
of obedience to the divine will. And since one part of his obedience was to 
make way for the opening the treasures of his mercy, he cannot be obedient 
to his Father without being merciful to us. He was exposed to such a con- 
dition as wrested from him strong cries for himself, that he might send up 
strong cries for us in our misery. He was a man of sorrows, that he 
might be a man of compassions. He indeed had pity of old ; for with such 
an affection he redeemed the Israelites, Isa. Ixiii. 9. His compassions are 
not lessened by an assumption of our humanity, but an experimental com- 
passion gained in his human nature, which the divine was not capable of, 
because of the perfection of impassibility. By a reflection upon his own 
condition in the world, he is able to move our cause with such a tender feel- 
mg of it, as if he had the smart of it present in his own heart and bowels. 
The greatest pity must reside in him, since the greatest misery was endured 
by him in our nature ; what he had a real feehng of on earth, he must have 
a memorative feeling of in heaven. He cannot forget above what he experi- 
mented below, since one part of his priestly office, in suffering, was to fit 
him for a more faithful and merciful exercise of the other part in his inter- 
cession ; not an affliction was laid upon him but was intended to compose 
his heart to a sympathising frame with his people : Heb. iv. 15, ' We have 
not an high priestwhich cannot be touched' ; (two negatives affirm it strongly). 
Not a taste of bitterness in any temptation he endured, but was more deeply 
to engrave in his heart a tenderness to us ; nor can those compassions in 
him be equalled by any creature ; no angel nor man can be touched with 
such a sense as he is, because no angel nor man ever smarted under such 
extremity as he did. Our pity to ourselves cannot enter into comparison 
with his pity to us. With what a sense of his disciples' condition did he 
pray for them upon earth J John xvii. The glory of heaven hath made no 
change in his judgment and affections ; he hath the same will in heaven that 
he had on earth ; the same human will, and th-erefore the same human com- 
passions in league with his divine. He was God-man on earth, man to 
suffer for us, and God to render that suffering valuable ; he is God-man in 
heaven, man to pity us, and God to render that compassion efficacious for 
us. This fits him for a zealous prosecution of our cause in heaven. His 
intercession receives a sharper edge from the things which he suffered ; the 
taste that he had of the infirmities of men, and the wrath they are obnoxious 
unto, warms his heart, and strengthens his pleas, and makes him a more 
zealous solicitor at the throne of divine grace ; as an earthly advocate that 
had drank deep of the same cup, and had had the same suit for himself as 
he hath for his client, better understands the cause, and is able to manage 
it with a deeper sense, than if he had never felt the like misery. Our advo- 
cate was framed in the same mould with us in regard of his nature, and was 
cast into the same furnace of wrath which we had merited ; and thus know- 
ing the miseries of man, not by a bare report, but experience of the heavi- 
ness of the burden, is more careful to solicit the liberty and absolution of 
every comer to God by him from the sentence that hangs over them ; and 
the greater their miseries are, the more are his compassions exercised. The 
more deplorable the misery is, the greater object of pity the person is that 
feels it ; and to exercise compassion, when the object stands most in need 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 107 

of it, is very agreeable to a compassionate nature, such as Christ's is ; and 
therefore, if he had so much pity to procure the redemption of the IsraeUtes 
from a temporal and bodily captivity, much more will he be careful to free 
believers from the spiritual captivity they groan under, since in that condi- 
tion they are more suitable objects of compassion than any man can be under 
a mere bodily and temporal affliction. And therefore, whenever the know- 
ledge of our condition comes to his humanity by the assistance of his divinity, 
we cannot have a more powerful solicitor than the experimental sense he 
hath in his own breast and bowels. To conclude, he is a compassionate 
intercessor, because he was a great sufierer, as compassionate to us as he is 
valuable with God ; his merit for us is not greater than his pity to us. 

5. He is ready and diligent. He is never out of the way when the cause 
should be heard ; he always sits at the right hand of the Father, who is the 
judge of the world, and is never out of his presence. When Stephen, Acts 
vii. 55, ' saw the heavens opened, he saw Christ standing at the right hand 
of God,' in the posture of an advocate and protector, as sitting is the pos- 
ture of a prince and a judge. He times his intercession for the church 
according to the providential state of the world, Zech. i. 11, 12. He had 
sent out his messengers to view the state of the earth, who, upon their 
return, brought him word that it was in peace and rest ; upon which news 
he petitions for the restoiing of Jerusalem. He would not let slip the op- 
portunity of such an argument, that the church, the seat of the divine glory 
on earth, should be in misery, when the world, wherein God did less concern 
himself, flourished in peace and prosperity. Shall the enemies of the church 
be in a better condition than the people thou hast entrusted with thy law ? 
His messengers brought him an exact account of things, and he is diligent to 
take hold of the first occasion to soHcit the security or restoration of his 
people. Now that the princes of the earth have nothing of war to hinder 
them, put it. into their hearts to deliver thy people and rebuild thy temple. 
It is one property of Christ to be ' of quick understanding in the fear of the 
Lord,' Isa. xi. 3 ; to be sensible of anything that may promote the honour 
and worship of God, or may obstruct and lessen it. His sense is as quick 
as his understanding, and readily interposeth for whatsoever may conduce to 
the manifestation of the attributes of God, which is the foundation of his fear 
in the world. He is ready to put in a plea for us to the Father, and is more 
studious of our welfare, and to bring us off, than we are ourselves. In the 
midst of his dolours he gave us an evidence of it. Though his disciples were 
so careless and senseless of his present condition that they fell asleep, when 
they had most need to watch both for him and themselves ; yet, after his 
reproof for their negligence, he frames an excuse for them from the con- 
sideration of their weakness, before they could apologise for themselves : 
Mat. xxvi. 41, ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He lays it 
upon the infirmities of their flesh, though it was also the security of their 
spirits, as appears by his reproof. Is he not as ready to plead the same for 
us in his glory ? He is always ready at the throne of grace to give out grace 
and mercy in a time of need, Heb. iv. 16. We have no reason to fear his 
absence from that throne of grace we solicit in our necessities. He is passed 
into the heaven, seated there in a perpetual exercise of this ofiice, to enter- 
tain all comers at all times ; and can no more be sleepy than he can be cruel, 
no more cease to be diligent than he can be bereaved of his compassions. 

6. He is an earnest and pressing advocate. When an advocate hath 
much business for himself, it will cool him in the affairs of his client : Christ 
hath once offered up himself, and being thereupon advanced, has no need to 
ofi"er up himself again. He is secure from any further suffering in his per- 



108 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

son. He bath nothing to do for himself; but all his ardency is employed 
for bis people, which is the reason rendered why he * lives to make interces- 
sion for the comers to God by him,' Heb. vii. 25, compared with ver. 27, 
' He needeth not daily, as those high priests, to ofier up sacrifice, first for 
bis own sin, and then for the people's ; for this he did once, when be ofi"ered 
up himself.' He needs not any sohcitousness for himself, as before the time 
of bis death ; be bath nothing now to blemish bis happiness, and divert his 
afi'ections from the concerns of bis people. He hath no strong cries now to 
put up for himself. All his affections run in another channel. His whole 
soul is put to pawn in the business, as the word signifies in Jer. xxx. 21, 
' He hath engaged bis heart to approach unto me, saith the Lord.' He hath 
undertaken it with the greatest cordialness of spirit. His expostulation 
speaks his earnestness of old : Zech. i. 12, ' Lord of hosts, how long wilt 
thou not have mercy on Jerusalem ? ' Like an expression we use when we 
would rouse a drowsy person in a time of danger, and snatch him out of the 
fire ; as if Christ thought the mercy of God too sleepy, and earnestly jogs it 
to awaken it, and spurs it on to manifest itself. ' How long wilt thou ; ' 
thou who hast an afiection to the captives, an affection to me, then- solicitor ; 
thou who bast mercy to pity them, and power to rescue them ; thou who 
knoM-est that the set time of their captivity is at an end, and bast faithfulness 
to be as good as thy word ? The seventeenth of John is a map of bis car- 
riage in heaven, how he presses his Father for bis people. When he prayed 
for himself, it is ' Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me.' It is 
then ' Not as I ivill, but as thou wilt;' but for bis disciples' glory and salva- 
tion it is, I will, ver. 24, as though he were more a judge than an advocate, 
and bad more a right to a sovereign dominion than that of a plea. What 
did the censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar,* wbich the high 
priest was to carry within the veil, into the holy of holies. Lev. xvi. 12, 13, 
represent, but the ardency of the affections in the soul of Christ, when he 
presents the incense of our prayers to his Father in heaven ? The names of 
the tribes of Israel were to be not only upon the high priest's shoulders, 
Exod. xxviii. 12, but also upon bis breastplate, ver. 29 ; near bis heart 
when his face is towards them, and as near bis heart when, in desertion, his 
back is turned upon them. They are next his heart all the time be is in the 
holy of holies. Great affections cannot be without earnestness in their 
cause. He desired not more earnestly to be baptized with bis bloody bap- 
tism on earth than to complete all the fruits of it in heaven. He was not 
more vehement to shed his blood than be is to plead it. No man is more 
solicitous to increase the honour and grandeur of bis family, than Christ is 
to secure the happiness of bis people. Our prayers for ourselves, when 
tinctured with the greatest affection, cannot be so fervent as his pleas for 
our souls are at the right band of bis Father ; for to what purpose did be 
carry up those human affections to heaven, but to express and act them in 
their liveliness and vigour for us and to us ? 

7. He is a joyful and cheerful advocate. He hath not a sour kind of ear- 
nestness, as is common among men ; but an earnestness with a jo}', as being 
the delight of his heart. When be prayed in the garden for himself, he was 
in an agony ; but in bis mediatory prayer, a model of bis intercession in 
heaven, he was in a cheerful frame, John xvii, ; for it was his prayer after 
the most comfortable sermon be ever preached to bis disciples, wherein be 
had heaped up all the considerations that might be capable to elevate their 
hearts ; and he makes this use of it in the end, John xvi. 33, that they should 
' be of good cheer' at his victory, because be bath ' overcome the world.' 
* Arayraut sur Heb. ix. p. 83. 



1 John II. l.j Christ's intercession. 109 

And in this frame he puts up this mediatory prayer immediately, to signify 
to them both the matter and manner of his intercessions in heaven for therii, 
and that he doth rejoice in putting up these requests above, as well as he did 
■when he presented them at times before, as is intimated : ver, 13, ' These 
things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in them- 
selves ;' that they might have such a joy in the considerations of it, and in 
the receiving thy favour, as I have in the petitioning for them. Certainly 
he doth as well rejoice in the habitable parts of the earth, since he hath laid 
so great an obligation upon it, as he did formerly in the prospect of what he 
was to do for it. His death was sweet to him after his resurrection ; the 
very remembrance of it was a pleasure, in which sense some understand that : 
Jer. xxxi. 25, 26, * I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished 
every sorrowful soul. Upon this I awaked, and beheld ; and my sleep was 
sweet unto me.' It is certain some passages in that chapter are applied to 
Christ's time, as ver. 15, the weeping at Kamah was a prediction of the 
slaying of infants by Herod, Mat. ii. 17, 18 ; and ver. 22, the ' creating a new 
thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man,' is generally understood 
of the conception and incarnation of Christ. And the expression in ver. 25 
seems to be too magnificent to be understood of any other prophet than that 
in whom the weary find rest ; and the consideration of the success of his 
incarnation and passion make his sleep, i. e. his death, pleasant to him at 
his awaking or resurrection. His pleading, therefore, for the fruit of his 
death cannot be bitter or distasteful to him ; he delights as much in the exer- 
cise of this office as he did in the first undertaking of it and consecration to it. 
Since he accounted his priesthood an honour when God called him to it, he 
will not think it disgraceful when his people own it, and desire the exercise 
of it in their behalf. 

8. He is an acceptable advocate. He hath an active joy in his interces- 
sion, a passive joy in his acceptation. He is the favourite of the court 
wherein he pleads, acceptable to the judge in his person, acceptable to him 
in his office, acceptable to him in the suits he manages. His intercession is 
nothing else but the presenting to God the sacrifice which restored to him 
the pleasure of his creation, gave him a rest, and continues it. The savour 
of that sacrifice in heaven which was offered on earth is grateful to the judge 
of the world. It is as sweet to God as the Levitical incense, the type of it, 
can be to man, mentioned Exod. xxx. 34-36, and reserved for the service 
of the temple, a composition of the sweetest and most aromatic simples. 
How much sweeter is the advocacy of Christ to God than the most fragrant 
scents can be to us ! In the presence of God he meets with a fulness of joy : 
Ps. xvi. 11, ' Thou wilt shew me the paths of life, and shew me in thy pre- 
sence a fulness of joy, and pleasures at thy right hand for evermore.' So 
Cocceius reads it. It is to be understood of his mediatory pleasure he hath 
in his being in the presence of God, or appearing in the presence of God for 
us, Heb, ix. 24. You know that psalm is to be understood of Christ, which 
is evidenced by ver. 10, applied to him Acts ii. 31, Acts xiii. 35. ' Thou 
wilt shew me the path of life ; ' thou wilt bring me into glory, as the head of 
the believing world, of those saints and excellent ones in whom my delight 
hath been ; in this presence I shall have fulness of joy, in the reflections upon 
my obedience, and the plentiful efi"usions of thy grace upon the account of it. 
Pleasures flow with a full and perpetual torrent from the right hand of God 
by the mediation of Christ. It is as if he should have said, I shall have a 
fulness of joy after my bitter passion, in the contemplation of thy pleased 
countenance to the sons of men; and thy right hand shall communicate 
spiritual blessings upon the account of this passion, which "shall be the delight 



110 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

of my soul. All this thou wilt shew me after my resurrection, to testify how 
acceptable my mediation hath been to thee. Since God constituted him a 
priest by an irreversible oath, an oath he would never repent of, Heb. vii. 21, 
and thereby confirmed him in an ' unchangeable priesthood,' ver. 24, as he 
hath an unchangeable office, so he hath an endless acceptation. He that 
never will repent of fixing him in it, will never repent of his exercising of 
it. As God is infinitely pleased with this office, so he is infinitely pleased 
with the execution of the charge ; and the presenting his death for any soul 
is inexpressibly grateful to the reconciled judge. His deity adds a value and 
efficacy to his intercessions in heaven, as it did to his passion on earth. 

9. He is the sole advocate. Those of Kome distinguish between mediators 
of redemption and mediators of intercession ; the first they appropriate to 
Christ, in the other they make angels and saints his companions, and thereby 
snatch the glory from Christ to confer it upon a creature. But since our 
High Priest alone hath the honour to sit at the right hand of God, he alone 
hath the honour of this office of advocacy. ' To which of the angels,' or 
saints, ' did he at any time say. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen 
for thine inheritance ?' The office and power of asking belongs to him who 
is the begotten Son. Since Christ trod the wine-press alone, he solicits our 
cause alone, intercession being founded upon propitiation ; he, therefore, that 
is the sole propitiator, is the sole intercessor. He only hath the right to 
plead for us, who had the right to purchase us. As God never gave any 
commission to redeem us to any othei*, so he never gave a commission to any 
other to appear for us in that court. The entering into the holy of holies 
with the perfuming incense, was annexed to the honour of the chief priest- 
hood, which had any of the inferior priests, or any soul alive, usurped, they 
had incurred the pains of death. It is a disparagement to Christ to interest 
any creature in it, as though he wanted some other favourite to give him a 
full credit with the Father, and some monitors to excite his affections to us; 
or as though the suits he had to manage were so numerous, that he wanted 
a multitude of clerks to draw up for him the petitions he had to present. It 
is our Saviour's prerogative to be ' the first and the last,' Rev. i. 11 ; as he 
was the first that stepped up to keep the world from perishing by the hand 
of justice, so he will be the last in securing it ; as he was the first in pur- 
chasing, so he will be the last in completing, that the whole work of redemp- 
tion may be ascribed to him alone. As he is the sole author of it by his 
passion, so he will be the sole finisher of it by his intercession. 

III. Thing. How Christ doth mannge this advocacy and intercession. 

In general. Christ as God, essentially considered, doth not intercede in 
heaven. He that intercedes by way of petition, wants the blessing of that 
person he intercedes with, and in that respect is inferior to him. He no 
more intercedes in heaven as God, than he prayed on earth as God. His 
intercession as well as his passion belongs indeed to his person ; and as his 
Deity is in personal union with his humanity, so his prayers and interces- 
sions may be called the intercessions of God, as well as his blood was called 
the blood of God. As the human nature suffered, and the divine nature 
made it valuable, so the human nature intercedes by way of motion, and the 
divine nature makes it prevalent. The person of the Son of God suffered, 
but only in the human nature, the divine not being passible ; so may we not 
say the person of the Son of God intercedes, but the human nature only 
supplicates ? He is our advocate, as he was our propitiation. 

1. Christ is not an advocate in heaven in such a supplicating manner as 
he prayed in the world. This servile way of praying, as they call it, because 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. Ill 

it was performed by Christ in the form of a servant, is not agreeable to his 
present glorious estate. It is as unsuitable to his state in heaven, as his 
prayers with strong cries were suitable to his condition on earth. Such 
' prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears,' belong only to ' the 
days of his flesh,' Heb. v. 7, i. e. the state of humiUation, wherein he was 
encompassed with the infirmities of the flesh ; but such a posture becomes 
him not in heaven, where he is stripped of all those natural infirmities and 
marks of indigence. Though such a kind of petitioning is not inconsistent 
with his humanity as joined to his divinity, and making one person (if it 
were, he could not then have supplicated in the world, as he did in the gar- 
den ; for his humanity was joined to his divinity in that humbled, as well as 
in his exalted state. He was God in the days of his flesh when he lived 
amongst mortals, as well as now in the days of his glory) ; yet his praying 
with so deep a humiliation as he did in this lower region of the earth, is in- 
consistent with his glorified state in heaven ; for if the glory of heaven wipes 
tears from the eyes of his members, it doth certainly from the eyes of the Head. 
Nor is it a supplication in the gesture of kneeling, for he is an advocate at 
the right hand of God, where he is always expressed as sitting, and but once 
(as I remember) as standing, and that was in the case of Stephen, Acts 
vii. 55. This some of the fathers and others call a servile manner of pray- 
ing, and say that it was not convenient for the Father to require it of Christ 
in his elevated state, nor for the Son to perform it. 

2. Yet it may be a kind of petition, an expressing his desires in a suppli- 
catory manner. Though he be a king upon his throne, yet being settled in 
that royal authority by his Father, as his delegate, he is in regard of that 
inferior to the Father, and likewise in the economy of mediator. And also 
as his human nature is a creature, he may be a petitioner without any de- 
basement to himself, to that power, by whose authority he is settled in his 
dignity, constituted in his mediatory office, and was both made and continues 
a creature. Though God ' hath put all things under him,' yet he did not 
put himself under him, but remains in his full authority, 1 Cor. xv. 27. His 
divine nature in union with his human, is no argument against it, for then 
he should not have petitioned on earth. He was then the same person in 
his disguise that he is now in glory. There are promises made to him which 
are not yet accomplished ; enemies to be made his footstool, which are not 
yet brought into that lowest degree of subjection. Divine promises are to 
be turned into petitions ; the heathen are promised to be his inheritance, but 
asking was ordered to precede the performance. Ps. ii. 8, 7N't^ signifies to 
desire and wish, as weir as to ask. There are some things still of want, 
though not in Christ personal, yet in Christ mystical, till the church be 
fully completed. He is an high priest in heaven, and it is the office of a high 
priest to pray for those for whom he hath offered the sacrifice. Why should 
asking, by way of desire or petition, be more uncomely when there is yet 
something of indigence, than praising after supplies, which Christ doth in 
heaven ; if we understand those words of Christ, Ps. Ixix. 30, ' I will praise 
the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving,' after 
he should be set on high ? And Ps. xxii. 25, ' My praise shall be of thee in 
the great congregation, and I will pay my vows before them that fear him.' 
Both which psalms, upon perusal, you will find prophetic of Christ. And 
himself expresseth, that what he was to do in heaven for the accomplishment 
of the promise of the Spirit which he had made to them, was to be by way 
of prayer : John xiv. 10, ' I will pray the Father, and he shall give you an- 
other Comforter.' He speaks of an asking or praying (for the word signi- 
fies both the one and the other), not in this life, but after his ascension, for 



112 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

the first and necessary fruit of his death, viz., the Comforter. He e^vi- 
denceth hereby, that his glory should not cloud his mercy, and the cares of 
their concerns ; his love should be stronger than death or glory, and he 
would not rest till he had obtained of infinite goodness what was necessary 
for them. This he would do by way of asking, which inclines to a petitionary 
way when a boon is desired. 

3. It is such a petition as is in the nature of a claim or demand. It is not 
a petition for that which is at the liberty of the petitioned person to grant or 
refuse, but for that which the petitioner hath a right to by way of purchase, 
and the pereon petitioned to cannot in justice deny. An advocate is an officer 
in a court of judicature, demanding audience and sentence in a judicial way. 
So that this intercession of Christ is not a bare precarious intercession;* 
for as when he was in the world he taught as one having authority, and not 
as the scribes. Mat. vii. 29, so in heaven he intercedes as one having autho- 
rity by virtue of his mediatory power, and not as an ordinary supplicant. 
He hath a right to demand. On earth, indeed, he had only promises of 
assistance to put in suit ; but in heaven he pleads the conditions performed 
on his part, upon which the promises made to Christ become due to him. 
It is now, ' Father, I have glorified thee upon the earth ; now glorify me 
with thy own self,' John xvii. 4, 5. He pleads for his people as they are the 
gift of his Father, and as they have received his words, ver. 8. He pleads 
his own commission as one sent, ver. 23. He minds the Father of the 
covenant between them both, as God gave him a command what he should 
do in the world, which was no other but an icjunction to perform those con- 
ditions which had been agreed upon, and that will of God expressed in the 
covenant of redemption, which is called the will of God, Heb. x. 7. Christ, 
having done this will, mediates for the performance of the conditions God was 
bound to by this covenant, and claims the performance of them jure pacti, 
as a debt due to his meritorious obedience on the cross ; so that it is not a 
desire only in a way of charity, but a claim in a way of justice, by virtue of 
meriting, and a demand cf the performance of the promise. There were 
promises made by God to Christ as our head and representative ' before the 
world began,' Tit. i. 1, 2, and 2 Tim. i. 9, when he was fore-ordained to 
sufiering, 1 Pet. i. 20. Eternal life was ' promised before the world began.' 
To whom could this promise of so long a date be made ? Not to any crea- 
ture, since it was before any creature had a being. Therefore to Christ ; 
not for himself, who was the eternal Son of God. This promise and this 
grace, given us in Christ, he sues out by his intercessij^n as a feoffee in trust 
for us ; and it being added, 'which God, that cannot lie, promised,' gives us 
an intimation of the manner of Christ's pleading, in calling the truth of God 
to witness the validity of the promise which he pleads. It seems to be in an 
expostulatory manner, as we find it before his incarnation : Zech. i. 12, 

' How long. Lord ? ' which was upon the account of his future incarnation ; 
for which reason he that is called the angel, ver. 12, who was the angel of 
the covenant, is called 'the man,' ver. ]0. So the expostulation of Elias 
with God is called particularly intercession, Rom. xi. 2 ; and Rev. iii. 5 
intimates it by way of claim, * He that overcomes, I will confess (l^o/zoXtyjjffo- 
fiai) his name before my Father ; ' I will confess him plainly and clearly, and 
claim him as one that belongs to me. His advocacy for us is a confession 
of our interest in him, our owning of him, by virtue of which confession or 
claim we are set right in the court of God, as those for whom he hath shed 
his blood. 

4. This intercessory demand or asking is accompanied with a presenting 

* Mares, contra Volkel, lib. iii. cap. xxxviii. p. S78. 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 113 

the memorials of his death. It is a commemoration of the sacrifice which 
he offered on earth for our expiation ; and the whole power of intercession, 
with the prevalency of it, is wholly upon this foundation. It is a presenting 
the efficacy of his death, the vii'tue of his blood, the pleasure of God in the 
sacrifice oflered by him. It is by the displaying the whole merit of his pas- 
sion that he doth solicit for us. Intercession is not properly a sacerdotal 
act, without respect to the sacrifice. It was with the blood of the sacrifice 
that the high priest was to enter into the holy of holies, and sprinkle it there. 
The same blood that had been shed without on the day of expiation was to 
be carried within the veil. What was done typically, Christ doth really : 
first give himself a sacrifice, and then present himself as the sacrifice for us. 
The apostle shews us the manner of it, Heb. xii. 24. The blood of Christ 
is a speaking blood, as well as the blood of Abel ; it speaks in the same 
manner as Abel's blood did, though not for the same end.'''' As the blood of 
Abel, presenting itself before the eyes of God, was as powerful to draw down 
the vengeance of God as if it had uttered a cry as loud as to reach to heaven ; 
so the blood of Christ, being presented before the throne of God, powerfully 
excites the favour of God by the loudness of its cry. He speaks by his blood, 
and his blood speaks by its merit. The petitions of his hps had done us no 
good without the voice of his blood. He stands as a Iamb slain when he 
presents the prayers of the saints. Rev. v. 6, 8, with his bleeding wounds 
open, as so many mouths full of pleas for us ; and every one of them is the 
memorial and mark of the things which he suffered, and for what end he 
suffered them, as the wounds of a soldier received in the defence, and for the 
honour of his country, displayed to persons sensible of them, are the loudest 
and best pleas for the grant of his request. If the party-coloured rainbow, 
being looked upon by G-od, minds him of his covenant not to destroy the 
world again by a deluge. Gen. ix. 14-16, much more are the wounds which 
Christ bears, both in his hands, feet, and side, remembrancers to him of the 
covenant of grace made with repenting and believing sinners. The look of 
God upon those wounds, whereby so great an oblation is remembered, doth 
as efficaciously move him to look kindly upon us, as the look upon the rain- 
bow disposeth him to the continuance of the world. If our Saviour had not 
a mouth to speak, he had blood to plead ; and his blood cries louder in 
heaven for us than his voice did in any of the prayers he uttered upon earth ; 
for by this his performance of the articles on his part is manifested, and the 
performance of the promises on God's part solicited. When he sees what 
the Redeemer hath done, he reflects upon what himself is to do. The blood 
of Christ speaks the tenor of the covenant of redemption made with Christ 
on the behalf of sinners. 

5. It is a presenting our persons to God, together with his blood, in an 
affectionate manner ; as the high priest, when he went into the holy of 
holies, was to bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of 
judgment upon his heart, Exod. xxviii. 29, to which the church alludes in 
her desire that she might be ' set as a seal upon the heart' of her beloved. 
Cant. viii. 6 ; and perhaps an allusion may be also in Rev. iii. 5, confessing 
the names of the victorious sufferers before his Father, bearing their names 
visibly before him. The persons of believers are his jewels, locked up in the 
cabinet of his own breast, and shewed to his Father in the exercise of his 
priestly office. 

IV. The fourth thing. That Christ doth perpetually manage this office. 
* Daill6 stir le Descent d'Es^jrit, serm. 1. 461. 

VOL. V. H 



114 ohaenock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

The first evidence is in the text, ' We have an advocate ; ' we have at this 
present ; we have an advocate actually remembering us in his thoughts, and 
presenting us to his Father ; we in this age, we in all ages, till the dissolu- 
tion of the world, without any faintness in the degrees of his intercession, 
without any interruption in time. He never ceases the exercise of this 
office, so far as it is agreeable to that high and elevated state wherein he is. 
As there are continual sins of believers in all ages of the world, so there are 
constant pleas of the advocate. This epistle was written many years after 
the ascension of Christ ; some think in the time of John's banishment in the 
isle of Patmos, some think after; yet at that time he owns himself to have a 
share in the benefit of this intercession. The term u-e is inclusive of him- 
self. Christ is an intercessor for us in the whole course of our pilgrimage. 
All the time that we have any need of him, his voice is the same still, ' I 
will that they behold my glory which thou hast given me,' till they are 
wafted from hence to a full vision of it. This is the true end of his 
heavenly life, and his living for ever there : Heb. vii. 25, * Seeing he ever 
lives to make intercession for them.' He lives solely to this purpose, to 
discharge this part of his priesthood for us. His advocacy is, like his life, 
without end. As he died once to merit our redemption, so he lives always 
to make application of redemption. He would not answer the end of his 
life if he did not exercise the office of his priesthood. It would not be a 
love like that of a God, if he did not bear his people continually upon his 
heart. He was the author of our faith by enduring the cross, and the 
finisher of our faith by sitting down at the right hand of God, Heb. xii. 2. 
He will be exercised in it as long as there is any faith to be finished and 
completed in the world. His oblation was a transient act ; but his appearance 
in heaven for us is a permanent act, and continues for ever. His mediatory 
gloiy is not consummate, though his personal be. He hath yet a mystical 
self to be perfected, a fulness to be enriched with. He cannot be intent upon 
this without minding the concerns of, and putting up pleas for, his people ; 
for they are one with him, ' the fulness of him that fills all in all,' Eph. i. 23. 
There can be no cessation of his work till his enemies be conquered, and his 
whole mystical body wrapped up in glory. If he had finished this part of 
his function, we should have had him here again before this time, with all his 
train of angels, to put an end to the present state of things, as the high 
priest stayed no longer in the holy of holies than was necessary for the atoning 
their sins, expecting the felicity of an acceptation, that he might bring the 
welcome news of it to the people that waited without. As soon as he hath 
reduced all the elect to an happy state, he will come again, for * the heavens 
receive him' only till ' the restitution of all things' is completed. Acts iii. 21 ; 
and then ' he shall come with a shout,' 1 Thes. iv. 16, all the angels in hea- 
ven triumphing and applauding the accomplishment of redemption. 

It is necessary it should be so. 

1. Because it is founded upon his death. As bis oblation is of eternal 
efficacy, so his advocacy hath an everlasting virtue. It is an ' eternal re- 
demption,' Heb. ix. 12, and therefore an eternal intercession. This the 
apostle signifies in the text by arguing from his propitiation to his advocacy ; he 
is at present an advocate with an uninterrupted plea, because he is at present 
a propitiation in the efficacy of his passion. There was an end of his actual 
suffering when he expired, but no end of the virtue of his sacrifice ; and there- 
fore no end of his intercession, which depended not upon his death simply 
considered, but upon the value of it. It is in the virtue of this he pleads ; 
since the virtue of his blood is perpetual, the plea grounded upon that virtue, 
and which is nothing but the voice of his blood, is of the same duration. 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 115 

There can be no end of the intercession of his person till there be an exhaust- 
ing of the merits of his death ; the one must fail in its strength before the 
other cease in its plea ; his blood must be a speechless blood before he can 
be a silent advocate. As the continual sacrifice typified the continual virtue 
of the Redeemer's death, so the perpetual burning incense signified the per- 
petuity of his intercession ; and no less was signified by the sprinkling the 
blood of the sacrifice upon the mercy-seat, which was not wiped oif, but stuck 
there, as a visible mark, and remained as a continual solicitor for the con- 
tinuance of grace and favour to the people. 

2. The exercise of this office must be as durable as the office itself. His 
priesthood is for ever, therefore the act belonging to his priesthood is for ever;- 
He was more particularly constituted an high priest ' after the order of Mel-^ 
chisedec' when he entered into heaven 'as a forerunner for us,' Heb. vi. 20^ 
where he abides an high priest continually, Heb. vii. 3 ; made so ' not after 
the law of a carnal command,' or a command to be abrogated, but * after 
the power of endless life,' ver. 15, 16; and 'confirmed by the oath' of God 
a priest for ever,' ver. 21 ; and therefore exereiseth his function of a priest 
for ever. Not of sacrificing himself, because he lives for ever, and cannot 
die again, but of interceding, since no other act belonging to the priesthood 
can be exercised in that glorious and endless state he hath jii heaven but 
this of intercession, which must be without intermission, tscause it is the 
only act of that office which he can perform. It is not said'he is a man for 
ever, but a priest for ever, which is a name of an office, and irnplies an exer- 
cise of the office. He is not called a priest for ever in regard of his life, but 
in regard of his function for which he lives. His mouth cannot be stopped 
by God, because he was constituted by the irreversible oath of God. God 
cannot deny himself, and destroy his own solemn act. He is a priest for ever, 
without repentance on God's part ; he must therefore perpetually mind his 
office, the neglect of it else would cause repentance in God for exalting him 
to so high a dignity, and be a reflection upon divine wisdom, to settle- one in 
this excellent place that were too weak for it, or too careless in it, that should 
bear only the title, and neglect the work ; it would be a cause of repentance 
in God at the expending so much grace to no purpose. This advocate, as he 
bears the name of priest, so he appeared clothed with a priestly robe : Rev. 
i. IB, ' He had a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a 
golden girdle,' which was the habit of the high priest under the law. As he 
is an everlasting priest, so he manages an everlasting intercession. He was 
too faithful in discharging his part on earth, to be negligent of performing his 
office in heaven; he did not embrace so great an honour to be idle in it, and 
neglect the work and duty that his place called for. 

3. This was both the reason and end of his advancement. The intercession 
he made for transgressors was one reason why God would ' divide him a por- 
tion with the great,' Isa. liii. 12 ; ' because he made intercession for the trans- 
gressors.' This is alleged as one reason, among others there mentioned, of 
his glorious exaltation, which intercession is most evident to us in his last 
prayer, John xvii., wherein he prays for all that should believe on him. And 
also upon the cross, when he prays for his murderers : * Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do,' Luke xxiii. 34. An act so pleasing to God 
as to be the motive to give him the division of the spoil of the strong, cannot 
but be perpetual. Will Christ, who always did what was pleasing to God on 
earth, discontinue that which is so delightful to the bowels of his mercy ? 
He cannot look upon his own glory, the robe he wears, the throne he sits on, 
the enemies prostrate at his feet, but he must reflect upon the reason of bis 
present state, and be excited to a redoubling his solicitations for his people. 



116 ' chaenock's wokks. [1 John II, X. 

He would be no longer glorious than he were an advocate. The superstruc- 
tm-e cannot stand when the foundation moulders. Since he was anointed 
with the oil of gladness above his fellows, because he loved righteousness and 
hated iniquity, he cannot be unmindful of promoting the destruction of the 
one and the perfection of the other. A perpetual action will be the result of 
these perpetual qualities ; and being anointed a priest for these qualities, he 
will act as a priest for the glory of them, which can be no other way but by 
intercession. It was the end of his advancement: Heb. x. 12, 'But this 
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right 
hand of God.' The antithesis is made between him and the legal priests ; 
they stood at the altar every day offering the same sacrifices, but this (not 
man as it is in our translation, but rather to be supplied with priest) this 
priest, having finished his work on earth, sat down for ever, viz. as a priest, 
on the right hand of God, and never leaves the place. Other priests stood, 
as not having finished their sacrificing work, but were to repeat it again ; this 
priest sits, as having finished his sacrificing function, and having attained the 
glory due to his person. His sitting down is not mentioned only as a point 
of honour, but of office ; he sat down as one that had offered a complete 
sacrifice in the nature of a priest, and sat down for ever to exercise his priest- 
liood at the right hand of God. This verse, compared with the other, would 
not else have a full sense ; and the words following second it, ver. 13, he sat 
down * expecting till his enemies be made his footstool,' expecting the full 
fruits of that sacrifice in the complete subjection of his enemies, and conse- 
quently the full felicity of himself and his friends ; and all this time of expec- 
tation he is suing out the promise of God to him, asking that inheritance 
which was assured him in the covenant between them, Ps. ii. 8. This is the 
reason of his sitting down for ever to exercise his priesthood for ever in the 
presence of the King and Judge of all the earth. He is always in the pre- 
sence of his Father in the dignity of his person and fulness of his merit, 
continually spreading every part of his meritorious sacrifice in the view of 
God. The high priest entered into the holy of holies but once a year, but 
this high priest sits for ever in the court in a perpetual exercise of his func- 
tion, both as a priest and a sacrifice. And since his own sacrifice for sins 
offered on earth was sufficient, he hath nothing to do perpetually in heaven 
but to sprinkle the blood of that sacrifice upon the mercy-seat. He is never 
out of the presence of God ; and the infiniteness of his compassions may 
hinder us from imagining a silence in him when any accusations are brought 
in against us. The accusations might succeed well were he out of the way ; 
but being always present, he is always active in his solicitations. No clamour 
can come against us but he hears it, as being on the right hand of his Father, 
and appears as our attorney there in the presence of God to answer it, as the 
high priest appeared in the holy of holies for all the people. 

V. Thing is, the efficacy of this intercession. The eflScacy of it is implied 
in the text, both in the person of our advocate, Jesus Christ ; in his quality, 
righteous ; in regard of the work he had wrought on earth, propitiation ; in 
the object of his intercession, and the place, xtith the Father. He is an 
advocate to the Father ; not only to him at a distance, but with him. The 
constant presence of a favourite with a king, of a princely son with a royal 
father, is a means to make his intercessions of force with him. He is an 
advocate, and he is constantly with the Father in that capacity. A letter 
from a fi'iend is not so successful as a personal appearance for gaining a suit. 
If his death were meritorious, his prayer must be so too, as being put up in 
virtue of his meritorious blood ; and though we are reconciled by his death, 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 117 

jet we are saved by his life, with a much more, Rom. v. 10 ; not formally in 
regard of merit, for that was the effect of his death, but in regard of appli- 
cation of that merit, the end for which he lives, to render it efficacious to up, 
as it had been in his passion valuable for us. If he separated himself to 
death to procure it, he will employ the authority and dignity of his life to 
finish and apply it. As none offered so noble a sacrifice, so none lives a 
more powerful life. As when he was on earth never man spake as he spake, 
so, now he is in heaven, never did any man or angel plead as he pleads. If 
' whatsoever we ask in his name' we shall receive, John xvi. 23, surely what- 
soever he asks in his own name will not be refused. 

1. This was typified.* The strength of his mediation was signified by 
the horns, ordered by a special precept to be made upon the four corners of 
the altar of burnt-offerings, Exod. xxvii. 2, and also upon the altar of 
incense, Exod. xxx. 2. As the brazen altar signified the strength of his 
death, so the golden altar signified the excellency of his intercession, horns 
in Scripture being an emblem of strength, power, aud dignity. And perhaps 
his feet of brass wherewith he is described, Kev. i. 15, when he appears to 
John in a priestly garb, signifies his irresistible standing before God in the 
exercise of that office. Much more may be said of him, as it was of Jacob, 
Gen. xxxii. 28, ' As a prince he hath power with God,' by his death and 
intercession, as well as power with men by his Spirit, and prevails in all 
when he pleases. 

2. It was prophesied of Christ, Ps. xxi. 2, ' Thou hast given him his 
heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of bis hps.' This psalm 
seems to be a comment upon part of the second psalm, or rather a dialogue 
between Christ and the Father, Christ speaking ver. 1, and the Father 
promising him a full victory, ver. 8, which is a prophetical triumph of the 
church after the victory gained by the passion of Christ. And of the Messiah, 
the Chaldee and some of the Jews understand it. The expressions in the 
psalm are many of them too illustrious to be meant of David, as ver. 4, 
' length of days for ever and ever,' which cannot be understood of David in 
his royalty as a mortal man. God had given Christ the right of asking, and 
grants him whatsoever he asks ; he bestow^s upon him whatsoever he desires, 
and refuseth nothing that he sues for. The good of his people is the desire 
of his heart, and the request of his lips, and nothing is refused that his heart 
wishes, and his lips move for. This, of the efiicacy of his intercession, is the 
salvation he rejoices in. The pleasing and favourable countenance of God 
is that which makes him exceeding glad. He would have Httle content in 
the rest of his glory without this power of prevalency with his Father. Since 
his intercession for his church is for his own mystical glory, it must be suc- 
cessful, or his own glory would be in part defective, since it is licked with 
that of his church, which is yet behind. As Christ glorified the Father, so 
the Father is reciprocally to glorify the Son, John xvii, 4, 5, which is by 
giving him a power of asking, and engaging himself to a facility of granting. 
A promise of granting was annexed to the command of asking : Ps. ii. 8, ' I 
will give.' He should not be so ready to request as the Father would be 
liberal to bestow. He was promised a mighty encouragement till he had set 
judgment in the earth, and wrought a perfect deliverance for his people, 
Isa. xlii. 4. It is to this contrite person that he would look perpetually 
favourably, Isa. Ixvi. 1, 2. It is that person by whom the ceremonial law 
was to be torn in pieces to whom God promised to look. 

3. God never denied him any request which he put up upon the earth for 
the divine glory and his people's good, and Christ himself acknowledges its 

* Liglitfoot, Temple, cap. xxxiv- p. 198, 199. 



118 chabnock's works. [1 John II. 1, 

John xi. 42, ' I know that thou hearest me always.' He did but groan in 
his spirit without moving his lips, ver. 88 ; and how soon did his groans rise 
into hallelujahs : ver. 41, ' Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.' Aa 
soon as ever he sighed, he had ah occasion of praise. He was heard in all 
his petitions in the world, Heb. v. 7, ilsaxouahlg, heard to purpose ; while he 
was in the days of his flesh encompassed and pressed with the infirmities of 
our nature, much more will he be heard in the days of his glory. He was 
not indeed heard for himself at the time of his suffering, so as to have what 
he begged formally granted ; for in that prophetic psalm, Ps. xxii. 3, he 
complains that he had cried all the day, and God heard him not. His prayer 
that the cup might pass from him was in specie denied him. That prayer 
proceeded from a natural fear and horror of an accursed death as he was man, 
and is therefore said to be in the days of his flesh, when he had our natural 
infirmities about him, which was not also an absolute desire, but conditional. 
* If it were possible,' i. e. if it were not prejudicial to the glory of God and the 
salvation of his people ; yet in this also he was heard ; for though he was 
not delivered from death, he was supported in it. The death was to he 
suffered, and yet to be conquered ; and afterwards his bloody passion was 
changed into a spiritual and glorious life by a resurrection. He was heard a.'jrh 
suXaQiiag ; a deliverance from his fears and horrors was granted, that he might 
with courage proceed on in his suffering. Christ sometimes prayed as 
mediator, and for things in order to his mediatory work, as when he prayed 
for the raising of Lazarus, that by so great a miracle his doctrine might be 
propagated, and the faith of his disciples strengthened : John xi. 40, 42, 
It was for the glory of God, and that they might beheve that God had sent 
him. In this Christ was never in the least denied, and to this that speech 
of his success, ' Thou hearest me always,' refers. He utters this confidence 
and assurance in the hearing of the people, ' that they may believe that thou 
hast sent me.' Thou hearest me always, when what I desire tends to the 
propagation of the gospel doctrine, and the faith and advantage of that people 
to whom and for whom thou hast sent me. But in those prayers he puts 
up from human affections, and the innocent inclinations of nature, as that in the 
garden which he put up from a human sense, yet with a condition; and that 
upon the cross, which he puts upas a man subject to the laws of charity ; though 
he was not formally answered, yet he was not absolutely denied, because he 
did not absolutely beg, but with a condition expressed or implied. It was not 
possible that cup should pass away from him according to the determination 
of things and the predictions of the prophets, without a manifest alteration 
of purpose in God, breach of his word, and the utter ruin and devastation of 
mankind- And for that prayer upon the cross, Luke xxiii. 34, ' Father, 
forgive them ; they know not what they do,' a condition is implied, viz. if 
they did repent and believe. It cannot be supposed that he prayed for their 
pardon without their repentance, whether they repented and believed or no ; 
and indeed the motive that he urgeth implies a condition, ' they know not 
what they do,' implying that when they came to be sensible, and to know 
with an inward penitent practical knowledge what they had done, that they 
had crucified the Lord of life, God would pardon them, which without 
doubt he would, according to the tenor of his own promise. But to consider 
rightly that petition of his in the garden, the refusing his request upon the 
account of the impossibility of the passing away of the cup, doth strongly 
conclude the efficacy of his intercession in heaven. The reason why he was 
not answered was because such a grant had been inconsistent with the 
redemption of his people ; and upon the same reason he will be answered 
in every suit in heaven, because he doth everything pursuant to the redemp- 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 119 

tion and full felicity of believers. He -intercedes not there,''as lie prayed 
sometimes on earth, as a man, but as a mediator. If anything were denied 
him on earth because the refusal conduced to the advantage of his elect, it 
necessarily follows that he will have all things granted him in heaven which 
are for the glory of God, the happiness of his people, and the fulness of 
their redemption. The same reason God hath now to allow his pleas, which 
before he had to refuse them. The necessity of his death for redemption 
was the cause of the refusal. The accomplishment of redemption, which is 
that he now intercedes for, cannot be denied him upon the same account, but 
he will always carry the cause he sues for. As to that petition upon the 
cross, he was answered in it. Many of those whose hands were red with his 
blood, had their hearts afterwards filled with repentance, and their heads 
crowned with pardon ; and if his prayer upon the cross was so efficacious 
for some of his bloody persecutors, shall it have less force in heaven for his 
aflfectionate friends, since it is for those that believe, and not for the world, 
that he there intercedes ? John xvii. 9. If he were heard always, as himself 
asserts, before he had oflered that sacrifice, much more in heaven, since he 
had completed it, and is now suing out his own* right after he had paid God 
his. If his prayers were so prevalent here before he had accomplished his 
task of sulFering, his intercession is much more prevalent above, since his 
sufi'erings are at an end, which are the ground of his intercession. 

Now this intercession must needs be efficacious, if you consider, 

(1.) His person. 

[l.j The greatness of it. A person in the form of God, infinitely more 
excellent than all the tribes of angels ; a person so great, that all the 
creatures in heaven and earth, and millions of worlds cannot equal him, 
they being less to him than a grain of sand to the glorious sun. It cannot 
be said of all creatures that ever were made, or of all that ever God can 
make, that in them all dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; as it 
is said of Christ, Col. ii. 9, he is not as the highest angel, that must 
cover his face, and stand before the throne, but the man, God's fellow, sit- 
ting npon the throne with him, Zech. xiii. 17 ; applied to Christ, Mat. 
xxvi. 31. He is equal with God, and therefore cannot be refused by God. 
As his divine nature gave value to his satisfaction, so it gives efficacy to his 
intercession. His agonies in the garden, and his gaspings upon the cross, 
were rendered by the greatness of his person mighty to reconcile us, and by 
the same, his pleas in heaven are rendered successful to save us. His 
humanity being in conjunction with his divinity, is the instrument, that 
receives all its virtue from the Deity. Though he doth not intercede with 
God, as himself is God, because in that respect he is equal with God, but 
as mediator in his human nature, yet his intercession as man receives a 
power and dignity from him as God, which causes the prevalency of it. 
What there was of humility and supplication in his prayers upon earth, pro- 
ceeded from his human nature ; what there was of authority and efficacy in 
his mediatory icterpositions, proceeded from his divine nature. He was 
bound to die as he was man, taking upon him our sins ; he had a right to 
have bis death accepted, as he was God assuming and sustaining our nature. 
It is a privilege due to the greatness of his person to have his suit granted, 
as it is his duty, as the high priest of his church, to present it in the holy of 
holies. The infinite worth of his prayers results from his divine nature, as 
well as the infinite worth of his passion ; and being the intercessions of a 
divine person, they are as powerful as his suff"erings were meritorious. In 
regard of this greatness of his person, God seems to stand in an admiring 
posture at the approach of Christ to him : Jer. xxx. 21, • Who is this that 



120 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

bath engaged his heart to approach unto me?' and presently the decree 
passes out for the confirming the fruits of his mediation in the fullest 
manner: ver. 22, and ' 3'e shall be my people, and I will be your God,' taking 
them as his own propriety, and giving himself to them as their portion. 
Nothing can be denied to so gi'eat a person. We know the suits of princes 
meet with gi-eater success than those of peasants. In the same capacity 
that Christ performed his oblation, he manages his intercession ; it was 
' through the eternal Spirit,' the strength of his deity, he offered up himself 
to God ; and so through the eternal Spirit, the strength of his deity, he 
presents his suppHcations to God. 

[2.] His near relation to the Father. As there was to be a respect to him 
in regard of the greatness of his person, so there was an affection due to 
him in regard of the nearness of his relation. It is against the rules of jus- 
tice to deny him his requests, because of his obedience, and against the rules 
of goodness to deny him. his respects,* because of his alliance. As he was 
from eternity begotten by the Father, and his particular delight, his person 
cannot but be very acceptable to God. It is upon this relation his conse- 
cration to his eternal priesthood is founded, which he exerciseth in this 
administration : Heb, vii. 28, ' The word of the oath makes the Son,' i.e. 
priest, 'who is consecrated for evermore.' Upon the account of this relation 
he had the power of asking, and the privilege of obtaining : Ps. ii. 7, 8, 
' Thou art my Son, ask of me. ' It is this relation enters thee into this 
honour and glory ; this prerogative had not been granted but as thou art 
my Son ; and when he went into heaven, to appear in the presence of God 
for us, he was entertained as a Son-priest, not only as a priest in relation to 
us, but as a Son in relation to his Father : Heb. iv. 14, ' We have a great 
high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God ; ' and the 
text implies that he manages his advocacy in heaven with God as a Father, 
rather than with God as a Judge : ' advocate with the Father.' He appeals 
to God in heaven under the title of a Father, as God considered him in all 
his expressions to him in the world as his Son : ' This is my Son, in whom 
I am well pleased ; this is my Son, hear him ;' carrying himself in all ways 
of paternal tenderness to him while he was upon earth, which cannot but 
be as strong now he is in heaven. He always considered him in the capacity 
of his Son, as well as our surety. As Christ was placed in this office as a 
Son, so he doth manage it as a Son ; in the same capacity he was placed in 
this function, he doth exercise this office. Now what can render his inter- 
cession more efficacious than his relation? If Moses, a man, could screen 
a people from divine anger, and cool the wrath of a provoked God, by inter- 
posing between God and the ofienders, so that God should say to him, * Let 
me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against this people, and I may con- 
sume them at once,' Exod. xxxii. 10 ; and when Moses would not silence his 
cry, God at length would silence his wrath, ver. 14 ; — if Moses, who was 
dignified only with a glorious title of his friend, with whom he spake face to 
face, had so great a power, how forcible must be the interposition of that 
person, who hath the more illustrious title of that of his Son ? What suit 
can be cast out of the court that is presented by a beloved Son, of whom he 
hath signally pronounced that in him he is well pleased, and well pleased 
with whatsoever he doeth ? Denials would be an argument of displeasure, 
not of a well-pleasedness ; it would then be a Son with whom I am dis- 
pleased, if any plea he makes be rejected as invalid. To whom should he 
grant anything if he refused his Son, and his Son upon the same throne 
with himself, and put a slur upon him in the face of the whole host of 
* Qu. ' requests ' ? — Ed. 



1 John II. 1.] chkist's intercession. 121 

heaven ? If an earthly father knows how to give good gifts to his children 
that ask him, a heavenly Father doth much more, and most of all to an 
only-begotten and only beloved Son, for whose sake he loves all his other chil- 
dren. It is a consideration that discovers the sincerity and tenderness of 
divine mercy. Had not God intended to hear him in all his requests for 
us, he would never have appointed one so nearly allied to him to plead our 
cause ; one that he could not deny without some dishonour to so near a 
relation, and a reflection upon his own afiection, as he might have done to 
some inferior person. God would not love his Son according to his own 
greatness, if he did not express it in the most signal marks of his favour. 

[3. J The special love God bears to his person for what he hath done in 
the earth, and doth yet in heaven. Could there have been any increase of 
the Fatherly affections to him, his person had been more endeared to God 
after he had performed so exact an obedience. After he had triumphed over 
the enemies of his Father's honour, he might challenge as a reward the 
most sprightly sparklings of his Father's afiection. What could hinder the 
grant of his suit, when the flames of that wrath in his Father's breast, which 
was an hindrance to any request, were quenched? Since justice was 
silenced, no other voice could be heard but that of tenderness and love, 
which was the spring of that power he gave him after his conflict ; power in 
heaven as well as in earth. Mat. xxviii. 18, which may comprehend a power 
with God as well as power over angels ; a power with God, not over God. 
Though the relation of a son be endearing, yet, when the quality of obedi- 
ence is added to the dearness of that relation, it enlarges and inflames 
paternal affection, and renders the Father more inclinable to grant any re- 
quest that is made to him by such a person ; as a king will listen more to 
the petitions of a son who had done him signal service, and brought by his 
achievements a renown and honour to his name and government, than to a 
son barely in the relation of a child, without testifying the same affection 
and obedience in such eminent enterprises. If the Father had so special a 
care of Christ in the management of his office in the world, as to uphold him 
in his arms, as Sanctius saith the word "lOnx signifies, Isa. xlii. 1, and sup- 
port him in the deptb of his misery ; much more delight hath he in him now 
in heaven, since he hath brought that honour to him, that no created men 
or angels were ever capable to offer him. He will not be insensible of so 
great an obedience, or stain that glory he hath given him for it, by denying 
anything he presents to him. How can God express a greater affection to 
him, than by committing the government of the world into his hands ? And 
as the apostle argues in our case, Kom. viii. 32, from his delivery of his 
Son up for us to an assurance of the free gift of all things else, so it may in 
this, since he hath put the sceptre for a time into his hands, and from a 
boundless affection invested him in the government of the world, how shall 
be refuse him anything in the confines of it, since he hath during this state 
of things committed all judgment and power or rule to him ? John v. 22. 
If his intercession upon earth for transgressors was a motive to God to 
clothe him with so great a glory, as hath been before mentioned from Isaiah 
liii. 12, his intercession in heaven (every way as delightful to him) would 
excite him to confer a greater glory on him, were it possible for him to be 
elevated to a throne of a higher pitch. The one hath as mighty an influence 
upon his affections as the other, and there is the same reason of both. 
There is an intimate union and an affectionate communion between the 
Father and the Son in heaven in regard of this advocacy : ' Believe me that 
I am in the Father, and the Father in me,' John xiv. 11, which he speaks 
upon a discourse of his ascension, ver. 2, 3, and to encourage them to ask 



122 chabnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

in his name after his going to the Father, ver. 13. Believers have not only 
an advocate with the Father for them, but the person that was offended is 
now united to them in their advocate by an indissoluble league and com- 
munion, and unalterable affection. And as whatsoever we ask in his name 
should be, 'that the Father might be glorified in the Son,' ver. 13, so 
whatsoever Christ sues for is for the same end, which must needs in the very 
act of it fix him more strongly in that affection, which was due to him upon 
the account of his eternal alliance and his unspotted obedience. 

2. It must needs be efficacious in regard of the pleas themselves, the 
matter of them, 

(1.) The matter of his plea is holy. It is, as was said, that the Father 
might be glorified in the Son in regard of his hoHness and righteousness, and 
it is included in the text, by the epithet righteous, ' Jesus Christ the right- 
eous'; righteous in his person, righteous in his ofiice as an advocate, both in 
the pleas he makes, and the manner of managing them. He is ' holy, and 
harmless, and undefiled,' as an high priest, Heb. vii. 26. All his petitions 
are as himself, unspotted, his suit is as holy as his nature ; if there be no 
guile in his mouth, there can be no iniquity in his plea. Our prayers are of 
themselves rejected because of their impurity, Christ's intercession is ac- 
cepted because of its perfection. If a sinful Jacob prevailed with God, much 
more must a perfectly holy Jesus, presenting nothing to God but what is 
becoming the purity and mercifulness of his own nature to grant. If his 
blood were ' without blemish,' 1 Peter i. 19, his intercession must be with- 
out spot, because the one is the sole foundation of the other. 

(2.) It is nothing but what he hath merited. He doth not desire as a 
bare supplicant, but pleads in a way of right and justice. What he sues 
for is due to him from God's truth, because of his promise, and from God's 
righteousDess, because of his merit. So that his suit is put up ralione me- 
riti, ratione juris, he intercedes for no more than he hath purchased, and may 
demand as a due debt. It is necessary God should render what he owes 
unto that person that hath merited of him ; he would be unrighteous if he 
did not, or put a note of insufficiency upon the sufferings of his Son. What 
be pleads for in heaven, is nothing but what he sued for on earth, John xvii. 
4, 5, upon the account of his glorifying his Father, i. e. rendering to him what 
was due by agreement between them ; no doubt but the same argument is 
used by him in heaven ; the matter of his plea is what he hath merited, viz., 
pardon of sin, sanctification, continuance of justification, all which he sued 
for in that chapter. The Father hath acknowledged it already a just demand, 
for by his raising him from the dead, he hath given his approbation of all 
the acts of his life, not only to his death, whereby he merited, but to his 
prayers, whereby he supplicated for those things which he now solicits for in 
heaven, upon the account of the glory he did by his incarnation and passion 
bring to God. No plea can prevail against him, since he hath conquered 
his enemies, wiped out the guilt of sin by his sacrifice, condemned sin in the 
flesh, led captivity captive ; and all this not by a mere strength, but by a 
legal right ; having satisfied the rigours of the law, prevailed at the tribunal 
of justice (which was the sharpest tug and hardest conquest), all which God 
hath subscribed to, by setting him ' at his right hand, far above principali- 
ties and powers,' Eph, iv. 8. Yet, in as legal a way as he merited it, he 
might sue out the fruits of his merit. Shall he not much more prevail at 
the throne of grace by his intercession, since the mouth of justice, which 
gave life and strength to all suits against us, is perfectly stopped by the merit 
of his death ? It hath nothing to except against the issues of mercy upon 
the perpetual pleading of that merit ; what he doth sue for is rather short of, 



1 John II. 1.] chkist's intercession. 123 

than outweighs his merit. An infinite merit deserves infinite blessings, but 
all the blessings he solicits for are finite in themselves, though proceeding 
from infinite grace, and purchased by a payment of infinite value. God can- 
not be unjust to detain the goods and the price paid for them ; Christ must 
have his death and sufferings given back again and uneffected, which is im- 
possible, or else have the fruits of his death given to him and to those for 
whom he suffered. 

(3.) Whatsoever he pleads for is agreeable to the will of his Father. The 
will of Christ whereby he intercedes, is the same with the will of the 
Father with whom he intercedes ; and when the will of an eternal mercy 
and the will of an infinite merit meet together, what will not be the fruit of 
such a glorious conjunction ? As on earth he did nothing but what he saw 
the Father do, John v, 19, 20, so he intercedes for nothing but what he 
knows the Father wills. What he did on earth was not without, but with, 
his Father's will ; what he doth in heaven hath the same rule. As they were 
joint in the counsel of reconciliation and peace, which was ' between them 
both,' Zech. vi. 13, so they are joint in the counsel of advocacy and inter- 
cession, which is between them both, the one as the director, the other as the 
solicitor. Their wills are in the highest manner conformable to one another, 
and the will of the Father as much known by the soul of Christ in heaven 
as it was on earth. He asks nothing but he first reads in the copy of his 
Father's instructions, and considers what his will was. He reads over the 
annals of his Father's decrees and records ; he does nothing but what he 
sees the Father do ; he takes the copy of all from his Father, and whatso- 
ever Christ doth, the same doth the Father also. They have but one will in 
the whole current of redemption, so that he can plead nothing in regard of 
the persons for whom he appears, and the good things he desires for them, 
but it is according to the will of God. When he came into the world, he 
came ' not to do his own will,' i. e. only his own will, * but the will of him 
that sent him ;' and when he returned, he went up, not to do his own will, 
but the will of him that accepted him. The persons were given him by God 
for the ends which he intercedes for ; the words Christ gave them were first 
given him by God ; and this will of God, and his people receiving his words, 
he urgeth all along as an argument for the grant of his prayer, John xvii. 
8, 9. His intercession is in some sort a part of his obedience as well as his 
passion ; by his obedient suffering he learned a further act of obedience, 
Heb. V. 8, which could not be practised here but in heaven. The apostle 
seems to refer this obedience to that part of his office as high priest in heaven 
after the order of Melchisedec, which he discourseth of in that chapter. His 
whole advocacy is but pursuant to that command given him by his Father, 
of losing none of those that God had given him, but ' raising them up at the 
last day,' John vi. 39. What he doth in heaven is in a way of obedience to 
this obligation, and conducing to this end. There is not an answer of prayer 
which is the fruit of his advocacy, but the design of it is ' that the Father may 
be glorified in the Son,' John xiv. 13. As he glorified his Father on earth by 
his suffering, so he glorifies the same attributes by his intercession in heaven ; 
it is for the glory of divine grace that the one purposed and the other acted, 
Eph. i. 5, 6. If he gives blessings for the glory of his Father, he then in his suit 
nrgeth the glory of his Father as an argument to obtain them. God must then 
be an enemy to his own glory, if he be deaf to his Son's suit ; and since 
the Advocate's plea is suita]^le to the Father's will, he cannot reject tbo 
will of his Son without offering violence to his own will. They are both one 
in will and one in affection. His human will cannot desire anything in 
opposition to the divine. Though he desired the passing away of the cup 



124 charnock's woeks. [1 John II. 1. 

here, which was not agreeable to the divine will, yet it was without any sin, 
because with submission to the divine will ; but since he is stripped of our 
infirmities, and hath no furnace of wrath any more to suffer in, there cannot 
in his intercession be so much as a conditional dissent from the divine will. 
What Christ acts now is upon that foundation which he laid here according 
to God's instructions. Christ had not come had not God sent him ; the 
world had not been reconciled had not God employed him upon that errand. 
The whole plot was laid by him ; it was his own purpose. Should God 
deny anything which was founded upon this his will, he would be mutable 
and deny himself ; deny his own act and deed in denying the fruits of that 
work which was designed and cut out by himself. The intercession of Christ 
concurring with the eternal design of God, with his will, with the good 
pleasure of it, and being for the glory of his grace, he must be beloved in 
and for that very act of mediation, and consequently prevalent in it. To 
conclude : it was God's will to make any of you children, and he took a 
pleasure in purposing and effecting it, Eph. i. 5 ; and will he stop his ears 
when the wants of those children are presented to him for supplies by their 
mighty Advocate, who acts nothing but what is agreeable to the eternal 
pleasure of his Father's will ? 

(3.) In regard of the foundation of his intercession, his death. His inter- 
cession must be as powerful as his satisfaction. As he was a mighty surety 
for the discharge of men's debts, so he is a mighty intercessor for the salva- 
tion of men's souls, because his intercession is in the virtue of his satisfac- 
tion : he is an advocate, but by his propitiation ; both are linked together in 
the text. His intercession being founded upon his death, his death may as 
soon want its virtue as his intercession its efficacy. If his blood is incor- 
ruptible, which must be concluded from the antithesis, 1 Peter i. 18, ' We 
are not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of 
Christ.' If his blood be incorruptible, as being precious in the ej-es of God, 
his intercessions are undeniable, as having an equal value in God's account. 
If his blood hath the same virtue now, which it had when it was first pre- 
sented to God, his pleas must have the same virtue with his blood ; as the 
one was owned, the other cannot be refused. There is a necessary connec- 
tion between the perfection of the one and prevalency of the other. If his 
sacrifice be perfect, his plea upon it must be prevalent ; if his plea be not 
prevalent, it must conclude the imperfection of his sacrifice. A fiat must 
be set upon all his petitions, since he hath finished his passive obedience. 
What greater rhetoric can there be in the tongues of men and angels than 
in the tongue of Christ ? Yet all his eloquence cannot be so powerful as 
that of his gaping wounds. His blood hath the same efficacy in heaven that 
it had on earth; it speaks the same things, and must meet with the same 
success. His merit must be deficient before his intercession can be success- 
less ; and his blood will not want a voice while his death retains a satisfactory 
suflficiency. Having by his bloody obedience silenced justice, that it cannot 
put in any exception, he hath nothing to do but to solicit mercy, prone 
enough to bestow all good upon those that love him and believe in him. 

(4.) In regard of the persons he intercedes for. They are those that are 
the special gift of God to him, as dear to the Father as to Christ : John 
xvii. 9, ' They are thine;' thine as well as mine; thine before they were 
mine ; thine in purpose, mine by donation. There is a likeness in the love 
the Father bears to his people to that love which he bears to Christ. It is 
the argument Christ himself uses for the grant of what he desired in that 
intercessory model : John xvii. 23, ' That the world may know that thou 
hast loved them as thou hast loved me ;' not that the Father might have a 



1 John II. 1.] cheist's intercession. 125 

rise for bis affection, but an occasion for tbe manifestation of bis affection in 
the view of tbe world. Andtbougb Cbrist dotb pray tbe Father, yet he inti- 
mates how easily bis prayer for them would be granted ; because, saith he, 
'the Father himself loves you' : John xvi. 2G, 27, 'At that day you shall 
ask in my name : and I say not unto you, that I will pray tbe Father for 
you ; for tbe Father himself loves you, because you have loved me.' Do 
not think tbe Father is so full of revenge that he must be earnestly pressed 
to be merciful to you. I do not say I will pray tbe Father for you, he of 
himself is inclinable to embrace you with the tenderest affection; be hath, 
for your love to me, a particular kindness for you. It is as if a favourite 
should say, I will entreat the king for you, but I need not ; for he bears you 
such an affection because you are my friend, and belong to me, that be will, 
from bis own inclination, be ready to do you all good. Cbrist doth not here 
deny bis intercession for them, which before he bad promised them, but 
would have them in their dependence consider not only bis suing for them, 
but fix their mind upon tbe Father's love to them, and assure themselves 
there is nothing but they may expect from bis immense bounty and infinite 
affection. The Father himself loves you in tbe greatness of bis majesty ; 
be bath as deep a stamp of affection to you as I myself have, and as you 
know I have manifested to you. The persons be intercedes for are those 
whom tbe Father loves, those whom tbe Father bath given him, those whom 
God bath justified, those for whom himself is a propitiation, those for whom 
he * died and rose again ;' for, Rom. viii. 33, 34, since they were tbe persons 
for whom be was intended as a sacrifice, and for whose good his glorious 
resurrection and exaltation were designed, there is no doubt but his inter- 
cession shall be accepted for them. When the love of the Father to tbe 
advocate, and his love to bis clients, meet together, what a glorious success 
must be expected from such an intercession ! 

(5.) It is evidenced by tbe fruit of it. 

[l.j Before bis sacrifice. Tbe text intimates it ; as he was ' a propitiation 
for the whole world,' i. e. for all ages of tbe world, so he is an advocate in all 
ages of tbe world. How could tbe execution of God's vengeance upon tbe 
world for sin, at tbe first commission of it, have been prevented, but by the 
interposition of the Son of God ? He interposed then by virtue of a pro- 
mise to offer himself a sacrifice, he interposeth now by virtue of bis actual 
performance. If it were so prevalent as to support the world for so manv 
ages, in tbe midst of that abundance of mire and dirt which should overflow 
it, and to save those that should believe in a promised Messiah, it is much 
more powerful to save those that believe in a sacrificed and conquering Mes- 
siah. For as he was a lamb slain from tbe foundation of the world, so by 
tbe same reason he was an advocate pleading from the foundation of the 
world. The credit of his plea is tbe same with that of bis passion ; as be 
was a sufferer by promise from the foundation of the world, so be was an 
intercessor by virtue of that promise.* There is the same reason of bis 
intercession upon tbe credit of bis future suffering, as there was for the par- 
don of sin upon tbe credit of his future passion. Those that were saved 
before, were saved upon the account of bis life as well as we ; as they were 
reconciled by his death as well as we. For God made not several ways of 
salvation, one for them and another for us. Acts xv. 8, 9, 11. They were 
' saved by faith ;' by tbe same grace, by the same grace of Christ. And his 
future death being a sufficient ground from the foundation of the world for the 
pardon and salvation of those that believed in him, because it was not pos- 
sible, in regard of the greatness of his person, and faithfulness to his trust, 
* Ursin. 



126 oharnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

that he could fail in the performance of the condition required of him, 
and God knew he could not ; and besides his own stedfast resolution, and 
his ability to accomplish his undertaking, God having given him promises of 
his omnipotent assistance ; upon those accounts, Christ might with confidence 
be, even before his coming, a powerful advocate for those that laid hold upon 
the promise by faith. Though he was not actually installed in all his offices, 
yet he exercised them, if I may so speak, as a candidate ; as a king he ruled 
his church ; as an angel he guided his Israel ; as a prophet he sent the pro- 
phets of the Old Testament, and revealed his will to them. So though he 
was not a perfect priest till he was a propitiation for sin by the oblation of 
himself as a grateful victim to God, because propitiation could not be n\ade 
without blood, yet upon the account of the promise of his suffering he did 
exercise that part of his priesthood, whereupon the sins of many were par- 
doned. God was then a pardoning God, and a God blotting out iniquity ; 
and whenever Christ interposed himself for his people, he was answered with 
* comfortable words,' Zech. i. 13. A.nd though it be said, that Christ upon 
his ascension went • to appear in the presence of God for us,' Heb. ix. 24, 
this excludes not his former intercession in heaven. He tells the disciples 
that he went to heaven to prepare a place for them, yet the place is said to 
be ' prepared before the foundation of the world,' Mat. xxv. 34. He inter- 
ceded before as a promisor, he intercedes now as a performer ; and if his 
intercession then was graciously answered with comfortable words, his inter- 
cession now hath a ground to meet with a no less acceptable entertainment. 
[2.] After his sacrifice, in the first fruit of it, the mission of the Holy 
Ghost. God gave a full proof and public testimony of the vigour of his 
interposition, in that abundance of the Spirit which he poured forth upon the 
apostles at the day of pentecost ; and his sending the same Spirit to dwell in 
the hearts of believers, and the gracious operations of this Spirit in the hearts 
of men, are infallible evidences that his intercession is still of the same force 
and efficacy. He had acquainted his disciples before that he ' would pray 
the Father, and he should give them another Comforter,' John xiv. 16. We 
find not any prayer of Christ for the Spirit upon record while he remained 
upon the earth. He prayed for this Spirit after he went to heaven ; for he 
seems to speak of it as that which was to be acted by him after his going 
from them ; and, saith he, the Father will ' send the Comforter in my name,' 
ver. 26, i. e. as a fruit, and a manifestation of the great interest I have in 
him. This was so great a pledge of the prevalency of this advocacy, that a 
greater could not be given. As soon as ever he was at God's right hand, 
and had put up his petition for it, before he could be well warm in his throne, 
he received ' the promise of the Holy Ghost,' Acts ii. 23, i. e. that Holy 
Ghost which had been promised, the richest gift, next to that of his Son, 
that could be presented to man. As the apostles had but little hopes after 
his death of his being a redeemer, till they saw the truth of his resurrection, 
so they might have as little expectations of his mighty power in heaven after 
his ascension, till he gave them this token of it in the mission of his Spirit. 
The Spirit, indeed, was in some measure sent before, when he was an advo- 
cate designed (the live coal, which seems to be an emblem of the Spirit, was 
taken from the altar, a type of Christ, Isa. vi. 6), but much more richly 
poured out when he was an advocate installed. The Old Testament had 
some drops, and the New Testament full effusions and showers. Though all 
the blessings of the new covenant are the fruits of Christ's death and inter- 
cession, yet the first fruit of it was the Holy Ghost, as the person who by 
office was to convey to us, and work in us, the blessings of the covenant 
sealed and settled by the blood of the Redeemer ; and therefore the promise 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 127 

of the Spirit is the first promise of the new covenant : Ezek. xxxvi. 25- 27, 
' I will sprinkle clean water upon you, anew spirit will I put within you, and 
I will put my Spirit within you.' This was the first thing Christ solicited for 
when he came to heaven, as the fio^st hlessing of the new covenant. And though 
he gave his disciples in his prayer, John xvii. an essay whereby they might well 
imagine what should be the substance of his petitions in his state of glory, 
yet he tells them not positively of any particular thing, but of this of 
the Comforter, ' I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com- 
forter.' This was the first boon he begged after his ascension; this was 
granted him, and with this the riches of heaven and the blessings of eternity 
to pour down upon us, which the apostle notes, Titus iii. 6, when he speaks 
of the shedding of the Holy Ghost abundantly and richly by the Father, but 
through Jesus Christ our Saviour, as the choicest witness of the irreversible 
validity of our Saviour's intercession with the Father ; so that we may as 
well conclude in this case as the apostle doth in a like case of the love of 
God, Kom. viii. 32, ' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up 
for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? ' So, 
since the intercession of Christ hath been so efficacious for a gift of so great 
a value as the Holy Ghost, wherein the gift of whatsoever was great in 
heaven was virtually contained, should it not be a warrant of assurance to us 
that nothing will be denied to the solicitation of one that, in his very first 
request, hath been so inexpressibly successful? 

VI. Thing is the particularity of this intercession. Christ is an advocate 
for believers only, and for every one in particular. 

1. For believers only. It is their peculiar privilege. It is not every 
name he takes into his lips, Ps. xvi. 4. The names of those that hasten 
after another God, that own another God and another mediator, he would 
not ofier their drink-ofierings, or back them by any solicitation of his own 
for acceptance. He would deny them, and not assert them for his clients, 
nor be an high priest for them, to ofi'er any of their sacrifices ; for those that 
believe not in him as mediator, disown that God by whom he was sent for 
the redemption of the world ; and therefore he disowns, in his mediatory 
prayer, the whole unbelieving impenitent world : John xvii. 9, * I pray not 
for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.' It is not agreeable 
to his wisdom to intercede for those that reject him. He is an advocate, but 
only for those that entertain him. He manages no man's cause that is not 
desirous to put it into his hands. Advocates manage the business only of 
those that enter themselves their clients. As he prayed not for the w^orld on 
earth, so much less doth he in heaven. No person hath an interest in his 
intercession, but he that, by faith, hath an interest in his satisfaction. 
Though his death was the remedy of our evils in a way of satisfaction to 
divine justice, yet the application of this remedy by the act of his priesthood 
in heaven is only to those that repent and believe ; in the text, ' We have 
an advocate with the Father,' v:e that walk in communion with God. Though 
he be a propitiation for the world, if any should take it extensively, yet he is 
not an advocate for the whole world, but for those that separate themselves 
from the world by believing on him. 

2. For every believer particularly. The text intimates, ' We have an 
advocate,' every one of us, ' if any man sin.' Sin is a particular act of 
a person, and this advocacy is for every particular sin that the accuser can 
charge the criminal with. Advocates answer every particular charge against 
every particular person that is in the roll of their clients. 

There is, indeed, an intercession for the church in general in the time of 



128 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

its suflferings. So he interceded for mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of 
Judah in the time of the Baylonish captivity, Zech, i. 12. What the high 
priest did in a shadow, that doth our high priest in the substance ; when he 
went into the holy place, he bore the names of ' all the tribes of Israel upon 
his breast,' Exod. xxviii. 29 ; and when our Saviour was preparing to sacri- 
fice himself, and afterwards to ascend into the heavenly sanctuai-y, he prayed 
not only for those that were then with him, the whole chm-ch at that time, 
but the whole lump, even to the end of the world, were then presented to 
God by him : John xvii. 20, ' Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also which shall believe on me through their word,' comprehending them all 
in one mass in that intercessory prayer. And though he did not particularly 
name every one of them, yet since his divine understanding was furnished 
with omniscience, he knew them all distinctly in their successive appearances 
and varieties of conditions in the world. But his pleas in heaven are par- 
ticular, according to the particular persons he solicits for, and the particular 
necessities wherewith they are encumbered. It was for Peter's person in 
particular he prayed when he was on earth, and for preservation of that par- 
ticular grace of faith to recover from under the temptation that was ready to 
invade him : Luke xxii. 31, 32, ' But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
fail not ;' ' thee,' his person, and ' thy faith,' his case. He is an high priest 
over the house of God, Heb. x. 21, and therefore over every member of the 
house and family ; upon which the apostle founds his exhortation to every 
one to draw near with a true heart, and in full assurance of faith. Men pray 
in particular for themselves and others, and Christ hears in particular : 
1 John V. 14, * And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we 
ask anything according to his will, he hears us.' The Son of God, of whom 
he was speaking, hears us in particular what we request in particular; and 
as he hears us he pleads for us ; he offers ' the prayers of all saints,' Rev. 
viii. 3, and therefore of every saint upon every occasion with a particular 
plea and incense of his own. There is not one but he keeps in his remem- 
brance, nor one request but he presents to his Father, though not by an oral 
expression of every man's name and cause, yet by some distinct way of re- 
presentation of them and their wants to God, not so easily conceivable by 
us in this state of obscurity and darkness. As the devil is an accuser in 
particular, and cannot well be supposed to accuse all in the gross, so Christ 
stands particularly to excuse them, and frustrate the indictment. They were 
given to him in particular, and he pleads for them as given to him, and as 
they were the propriety of his Father, John xvii. 6, 9, 10, 11. God knows 
all his own in particular, and Christ hath a care of them in particular. 
Christ hath a charge of every one's person ; he is to raise every one of them 
at the last day ; he is to give an account of every one's case. Again, he in- 
tercedes for those that ' come to God by him,' Heb. vii. 25 ; but those that 
believe come not in the gross to God by Christ, but by a particular act of 
faith in every one ; and for every such comer, Christ lives for ever to make 
intercession for them. As he saves every comer to God by him in particular, 
so he doth particularly use the means of salvation for them, i. e. his inter- 
cession. He hath his life for ever, and his standing office of advocacy for 
ever, to make a distinct suit for every one upon his application to God by 
him in the methods of that court where he exerciseth this function. And as 
every believer owns Christ in particular, so Christ will confess them by name 
plainly and clearly : Rev. iii. 5, ' I will confess his name before my Father;' 
every individual person will be named by him at last in his final sentence, 
nd every individual person is named by him in his intercessory office ; the 
name is confessed, the grace owned, and the merit of the Redeemer pleaded 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 129 

by him as an advocate before his Father. He is entered into the holy of 
holies, with all the names of those that belong to him upon his breast. 

VII. Thing. What doth Christ intercede for ? In general, his intercession 
for believers is as large as the intent of his death for them. Whatsoever 
privilege he purchased for them upon the cross, he sues for upon his throne. 
His intercession is the plea, upon the account of his satisfaction, which was 
the payment. 

He intercedes for the church in all its states and conditions. As soon as 
ever the news of the state of the world, and the condition of his church in 
it, is brought to him by the angels, his messengers, Zech. i. 11, 12, and the 
seventy years of captivity in Babylon were expired, he presently expostulates 
with God for the withdrawing his hand, and restoring their freedom. There 
is not any weapon formed against the church blunted, any design hatched 
against his people abortive, any seasonable rescue, any discovery and defeat 
of clandestine and hellish works of darkness, but they are fruits of the 
diligence and industry of our Advocate, and the benefits of his intercession. 
Let the profane world look upon them as products of chance ; let natural 
religion regard them as works of common providence ; let us look upon them 
in their true spring and their proper channel. Since God grants all things 
upon the account, and acts all things by the hands, of a mediator, all things 
flow to us through the intercession of Christ. Since all things were purchased 
for us by the sacrifice of Christ, he is an advocate to sue out what he merited 
for us as a surety ; and since the mission of the Spirit was the first fruit of 
this office after his taking possession of heaven, it must needs follow that all 
the works which the Spirit began and doth accomplish in the soul, are fruits 
of it also. Therefore Christ said, John xvi. 14, ' He shall receive of mine, 
and shew it unto you.' He shall take of mine, what is mine by purchase, 
what is mine by plea, what is mine by possession, and shew it unto you. 
The casting out the accusations of Satan from the court of justice, the casting 
them out of our own consciences, the pardon of our transgressions, the 
healing of our natures, our support against temptations, perseverance in that 
grace any have, and perfection of that grace any want, and at last the per- 
petual residence of our souls with him, are procured by him as an advocate, 
as well as purchased by him as our surety. 

1. Justification. 

(1.) He is an advocate in opposition to an accuser. 

In the matter of justification, the Scripture represents God as a judge 
and Christ as an advocate, pleading his blood and death ; and when we 
come for justification, we come ' to God as the judge of all,' listening to the 
voice of that blood of Jesus, ' the mediator of the new covenant :' Heb. xii. 
23, 24, ' Ye are come to God, the judge of all, and to Jesus, the mediator of 
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things 
than the blood of Abel.' We come to God as a judge, and also ' to the blood 
of sprinkling,' whereby he was appeased, of which ' the spirits of just men 
made perfect' are a full testimony. To this blood we come, as it is a blood 
of sprinkling, in regard of its imputation to us ; and as it is a speaking blood 
in regard of its solicitation for us. Our triumphant justification by God, 
the apostle places upon this as the top-stone in the foundation. He first 
lays it upon the death of Christ ; next, with a rather on the resurrection of 
Christ ; and lastly, with an also upon his intercession : Rom, viii. 33, 34, 
' It is God that justifies, who is he that condemns ? It is Christ that died, 
yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who 
also makes intercession for us.' Justification by God, as opposed to condem- 



130 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

nation, is ascribed to Christ and to his intercession as completing it, and 
putting the last hand to it. In the title of an advocate, there is respect to 
judicial proceedings. -'• In the method of this proceeding, God is considered 
as a judge, man as the arraigned criminal ; Satan is the accuser : Rev. xii. 
10, ' The accuser of the brethren,' who brings in the indictments of sin, 
pleads the righteousness of the law, solicits for judgment upon his accusation, 
and the execution of the curse due to the crime. Our own consciences may 
be considered as the witness, and the law as the rule, both of the accusation 
brought in, and of the judgment demanded. Christ is considered as an 
advocate in opposition to Satan the accuser, pleading the efficacy of his 
merit against the greatness of our crimes, and his satisfaction to justice by 
the blood of his cross against the demands of the law, whereby the sentence 
of condemnation due to us as considered in ourselves is averted, and a 
sentence of absolution upon the merit and plea of our advocate is pro- 
nounced, and Satan cast out, and this upon an universal rule of righteous- 
ness, which suffers not that which is either a criminal or pecuniary debt to be 
twice paid. And in the text, wherein it is said, ' we have an advocate with 
the Father,' in case of sin, the Father is implied to be the sovereign judge, 
sin to be the crime, and Satan, though not mentioned, to be the accuser ; 
and this advocacy is there expressed to be, not for preventing sin, to which 
Satan excites us, but the pardoning sins committed, for which Satan accuses 
us, procuring an acquitting sentence for us from the Judge of all the earth, 
and indemnity from the punishment merited by our crimes, but stopped by 
his plea. As Christ appeared as an advocate against Satan when he would 
be Peter's winnower, — Luke xxii. 31, 32, 'I have prayed for thee,' — so be 
appears as an advocate against Satan when he steps up as our accuser. 
Now, the intercession of Christ being opposite to the accusations of the devil, 
as one would reduce us under the actual execution of the legal sentence, so 
the other hath a contrary effect, pleading for our justification by the appli- 
cation of his righteousness to us, and the acceptation of it for us, that we 
may stand clear before the tribunal of God. 

(2.) Besides, Christ's blood speaks contrary, or puts up contrary demands 
to what Abel's blood laid claim to. The blood of Abel pierced heaven with 
its cries, and solicited a condemning vengeance on the head of Cain ; the 
blood of Christ, on the contrary, must then cry for justifying grace on the 
person of every believer, otherwise it would not speak better things than Abel's 
blood did, but the same things : that called for punishment, this for pardon ; 
that desired the death of the murderer, and this sues out the life of the rebel. 

(3.) And further consider, since this blood is a speaking blood, it shews 
that the intercession of Christ is managed in the virtue of his blood. The 
same thing therefore which was the end of the effusion of his blood, is the 
end of the solicitation or elocution of his blood. His blood was shed for the 
expiation of sin, and 'bringing in an everlasting righteousness,' that sinners 
might not be condemned, Dan. ix. 24 ; his intercession is for the application 
of this propitiation, that believers might be justified. Christ pleads the pro- 
pitiation made by his blood, and accepted, according to the rule of appHcation, 
by the faith of the repenting sinner. 

(4.) Again, if Christ prayed for this on earth when he prayed for his glory, 
he solicits for it also in heaven when he prays for his glory : John xvii. 1, 
'Father, glorify thy Son.' He prays for his resurrection, ascension, sitting 
at the right hand of God ; not only as it was his own personal concern, but 
as it was terminative for his believing people, as verse 2 intimates; and, 
ver. 10, he expresses himself to be glorified in them. Now, as he died for 
* Mares, contra Volkel, lib. v. cap. iv- pp. 8, 9. 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 131 

the pardon of our sins, so he rose again for our justification ; as he therefore 
desired his resurrection, so he desired it for the same end for which it was 
intended and promised, viz. our justification, and therefore virtually begged 
our justification in the petition for his glory. Now, since he hath gained the 
request as to his own person, and as to a fundamental justification in his 
resurrection, and exaltation in heaven, yet it not being perfectly accomplished 
in all the ends of it, he moves still by his intercession for the actual justifi- 
cation of every one that comes, furnished with the gospel condition, to God 
by him. 

Upon the whole we must consider, that though our propitiation made on 
the cross by the blood of Christ be the meritorious cause of our justification, 
yet the intercession upon the throne made by the same blood of Christ, as a 
speaking blood, is the immediate moving cause, or the causa applicans, of our 
justification, as lUyricus phraseth it. The propitiation Christ made on the 
cross, made Grod capable of justifying us in an honourable way; but the in- 
tercession of Christ, as pleading that propitiation for us, procures our actual 
justification. The death of Christ accepted mnde justification possible, and 
the death of Christ, pleaded by him, makes justification actual. Righteous- 
ness to justify was brought in by him on the cross, and righteousness justify- 
ing is applied by him on his throne. Our justification was merited of God 
by his death, the merit of it acknowledged by God at his resurrection ; and 
is conferred on us, when we believe, by his intercession. When a soul 
believes, Christ recommends him to God as a performer of the condition of 
the new covenant, and thereupon pleads his death for him, and demands his 
actual admission into that favour which was purchased. And thus by him as 
our living Advocate, exercising his priesthood in heaven, we ' receive the atone- 
ment,' Rom. V. 10, 11. 

2. Daily pardon. This is principally intended in the text : * If any man 
sin' — if any one of those that walk in the light, in communion with God and 
Christ, which cannot be without justification — ' If any man sin, we have an 
advocate,' i.e. in case of sin after justification. We contract daily debts by 
committing daily sins, and there is not a day but we merit the total removal 
of justifying grace, that God should revive the memory of his former justice, 
and cancel the grants of his lately conferred mercy. And how could we avoid 
it, if Christ did not renew the memory of his propitiation before his Father, 
which first procured our admission, and is only able to maintain our stand- 
ing ? Every sin brings in its own nature an obligation to punishment, that 
is guilt. Sin and guilt are inseparable ; that which hath no guilt is no trans- 
gression. This intercession of Christ answers the obligation which every sin 
brings upon us, as well as it did answer all the obligations at our first coming 
into the presence of God. It is upon every sin he doth exercise this office, 
and by his interposition procures our pardon thousands of times, and pre- 
serves us from coming short of the full fruits of reconcihation at first obtamed 
by him, and accepted by us. He that had been stung a second time by the 
fiery serpent, must have had a fresh influence of the brazen one for his cure, 
as well as the first time he was wounded. As sin daily accuseth us by virtue 
of the law, so Christ daily pleads for us by virtue of his cross ; sin charges 
us before the tribunal of justice, and Christ by his intercession procures our 
discharge from the chancery of mercy. 

3. Sanctification. As he is a priest set on the right hand of the throne 
of the Majesty on high, he preserves the stability of the better covenant, 
the new covenant, and perpetuates the fruits of it: justification, in blotting 
out the memory of our sins ; and sanctification, in M'riting the law in our 
hearts, Heb. viii. 1, 6, 10, 12. He is the author of our first sanctification 



132 chaenock's works. [1 John II, 1. 

by his intercession, as the first fruits of it was the sending that Spirit 
by whose powerful operations the soul is reformed according to the divine 
image ; and he is the author of our repeated sanctification by the exercise of 
his advocacy. He is an advocate in case of sin, in regard of the guilt, that 
it should not remain upon our persons ; in regard of the power, that the 
contagion of it should not seize upon our vitals ; in regard of the filth, that 
it might not remain to unfit us for a fellowship with the Father and himself. 
His intercession in heaven is a continuation of that intercession on earth, 
whereby he testified his desire that we might be ' kept from the evil ' while 
we resided in an infectious world : John xvii. 15, ' Keep them from the evil,' 
and ' sanctified through his truth,' while we are upon an earth full of lying 
vanities, ver. 17. The end of his intercession is not for sharpness of wit, a 
pompous wealth, a luxurious prosperity, or a lazy peace ; such things may 
be hurtful; but for faith, holiness, growth, wherein we can never be culpable. 
His intercession is not employed for low things, but for such as may fit us for 
an honour in another world. Mortification of sin, and holiness of conversa- 
tion, are therefore called ' things above, where Christ sits at the right hand 
of God,' Col. iii. 1 compared with ver. 5, &c. : things which come from above 
by virtue of that session of Christ at the right hand of God, and the office 
he doth there exercise, which the apostle explains to be a mortification of 
our members which are upon the earth ; and since the great reason of his 
exaltation is his hating iniquity and loving righteousness, the end of his 
exaltation and of his intercession in that state, is to manifest the same disposi- 
tion in the perfect expulsion of sin, and the full implantation of righteousness 
in us. The same dispositions which animated him to a dying on the cross 
here, do animate him to his intercession above, which is nothing else but a 
presenting his death, and a presenting not only his death, but all the motives 
which moved him to it, and the ends he aimed at in it. He is ' manifested 
to take away sin,' 1 John iii. 5 ; manifested in his humiliation on earth, 
manifested in his exaltation in heaven, to take away sin, sin in the filth as 
well as sin in the guilt. What he designed in the one, he designs in the 
other ; the same end he aimed at in dying, he aims at in interceding. Since 
he is an advocate in the virtue of his blood, he is an advocate for the ends 
of his blood. He will not let sin continue in his members, which he came 
to wash ofi" by his blood. As long as his love to righteousness and his aver- 
sion from sin continues in him, so long will he be acting in heaven, till he 
hath in the highest manner manifested to the full his affections to the one 
and disaffection to the other, by utterly dispossessing out of the hearts of his 
people what he hates, both root and branch, and perfecting what he loves, in 
all the dimensions of it. He doth not only sue out our pardon, but sue out 
a grant of those graces which are necessary preparatories and concomitants 
of pardon. The end of his intercession is no doubt the same with that of 
his exaltation, which is not only for forgiveness of sin, but repentance. Acts 
V. 31, which includes the whole of sanctification. All the holiness believers 
have here is a fruit of this advocacy ; the communication of that power which 
subdues corruption flows from it. Christ, by his intercession, receives all 
from his Father, that, as a king, he may convey all necessary supplies to us. 
But we must consider, that though Christ doth intercede for the sanctifica- 
tion of his people, yet it will not follow that any of them are at present per- 
fect, and totally free from the relics of corruption. This is not intended by 
him in this life, any more than when he prayed for Peter, he desired not 
that he should be kept wholly from falling, but that his faith should be kept 
from totally failing. Sin is likewise suffered to continue in the best here, 
that men should not think that the acceptation of their persons doth arise 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 133 

from their own works and holiness, but from the sweet savour of the Media- 
tor's sacrifice continually presented in heaven. Yet perfection in grace will 
be the final issue of this advocacy. If grace should never be perfectfd, 
Christ would never be fully answered in his intercession, and so this office 
of his in heaven would want a manifestation of its true power and value. 

4. Strength against temptation. We have an enemy industrious to 
entrap us, and we have an Advocate as industrious to protect us, who will 
either solicit for a reasonable strength to resist his invasion, or strength to 
improve it to our spiritual advantage, if he sulfers the temptation to meet 
with some success in its attempt. Satan desires to sift us : Luke xxii. 81, 
e^riTrjSaro, he hath desired, or asked and begged with earnestness, for so st,, being 
added to a/'rsoi, signifies ; and our Advocate is ready to stop the full proceed- 
ings of so fierce a solicitor. The seed of the woman, the mystical seed, shall 
overcome their enemies 'by the blood of the Lamb,' Rev. xii. 11 ; by his 
blood shed upon the cross, by his blood presented in heaven, which cries for 
vengeance against the great seducer of mankind, and prevails to the casting 
him down. If strength against temptations were not procured by it, Christ's 
office of advocacy would lose a great part of its end. It was in kindness to 
us he was so advanced, not an advocate for himself personal, but for him- 
self mystical, i. e. for believers ; in the text, ' we have an advocate.' It were 
little kindness to us, if we should lie grovelling in the dust, upon every in- 
road om- enemy makes against us, and sink under every shot that comes 
from the mount of his battery. It is this intercession that renders us either 
immoveable against his assaults, or after a foil victorious in the issue of the 
combat. Christ doth not solicit for such a strength whereby a temptation 
may be wholly successless, but whereby it may not be wholly victorious. He 
prayed for Peter against Satan, that his faith might not fail, but he did not 
pray positively that the temptation might wholly fail. He implies by that 
expression, Lnke xxii. 82, * When tbon art converted, strengthen thy bre- 
thren,' that he should fall so iowWj as that not a grain of grace should be 
visible in him ; but he should appear like one in an unregenerate state, so 
that his return should be as a new conversion. So that though he prayed 
cot for a prevention of his fall, yet he prayed for a recovery of him after his 
fall, by imph'ing that he should be converted. His intercession is not always 
for keeping off a temptation from us, for he many times suffers fierce ones 
to invade us for gracious ends, both for his own glory and our good ; but he 
sohcits that a temptation may not utterly siuk us, and mortify our grace. 
So that, according to that model in the case of Peter, Christ sues not so 
much against a temptation, as for your faith ; for if that keep up, a tempta- 
tion will fall like a bullet against a brazen wall. He is content we should 
be in an evil world, but not satisfied unless we be preserved from the evil, 
or rescued from it after it hath assaulted us ; and therefore a believer's cou- 
rage hath a support in the greatest temptation. Christ opposes his petition 
against the demands of Satan ; the first-born of every creature sets himself 
against the head of the wicked world ; the seed of the woman against the seed 
of the serpent, and the serpent himself; as he defends us against his accusa- 
tions before God, so he succours us in his temptations of our own persons. 

5. Perseverance in grace. This follows upon the other. His prayer 
for the not failing of Peter's faith, is an earnest that the same petition is 
continually put up by him for all that believe in him. For since the Scrip- 
ture is written for our comfort, this part of it would be little for our comfort, 
if he were not as well concerned in the standing of every behevcr as of 
Peter ; why should he wish him, when he was converted, to strengthen his 
brethren, if he had not intended it for a standing example of comfort to his 



134 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

church ? The objection, that Christ did not intend to pray for the perse- 
"verance of any but Peter, would have split all the arguments Peter could have 
used from this carriage of Christ to him for the strengthening of others. How 
could he strengthen his brethren in faith, if they had not been his brethren 
in Christ's praj^er, for their perseverance, as well as he in his faith ? It is 
principally for the continuance of our standing, that his intercession is in- 
tended, if we may judge of what he doth in heaven by that prayer on earth, 
which was the model of his intercession in heaven, in which this petition 
for his Father's keeping us ' through his own name,' and keeping us ' from 
the evil,' and furthering our progress in sanctification, takes up much of the 
time, John svii. 11, &c. Certainly he hath the same language in heaven as 
he had then on earth ; he would else leave out a main head in his petitions 
above, which this prayer below was intended to present us with a pattern of, 
and so there would be no agreement between his carriage in heaven and the 
pledge he gave us on earth. It would have been but a fawning and dissem- 
bling afiection, to desire this in his disciples' hearing, and never solicit the 
same cause when he went out of their ken. No ; our Saviour hath given evi- 
dence of a choicer and more durable affection than to give occasion to any 
to think, that he should be regardless of that in his glory, which he was so 
mindful of at the time of his approaching misery, "What he was earnest for 
then, he is as desirous not to be defeated of now ; and for him to desire that 
his people should be kept from evil, and yet that they should sink under the 
greatest evil of a total apostasy, would argue the small credit his suit hath 
with the Father, and would shew that his advocacy is as impotent to secure 
us as our inability to preserve ourselves. Since Christ doth therefore con- 
cern himself for the perseverance of his own, his intercession is as powerful 
in that as in any other thing. If it meet with a failure in any one part, we 
are not sure of its successfulness in any at all. If his merit be of an infinite 
value, his advocacy is of a sovereign efficacy. There is no question to be 
made, but those for whom he formerly merited, and those for whom he at 
present solicits, shall endure to the end : the gates of hell are as unable to 
prevail against the latter as they were to weaken the power of the former. 
Did he by his propitiation procure our admission into God's favour, in spite 
of the enemies of our salvation? and shall he not, by his intercession, main- 
tain our standing in that favour, in spite of the euviers of our first admis- 
sion ? This is a choice fruit of the intercession of Christ. Upon this score 
he lays Peter's preservation from a total and final apostasy : ' I have prayed 
for thee, that thy faith fail not,' Luke xxii. 32. He doth not say, Peter, 
there is such a principle in thee that is able to stand ; thy own free will and 
the strength of thy grace shall bring thee ofi", and preserve thee from that 
precipice. No ; ' I have prayed ' : there lies our security. The least grain 
of true grace, though as small as a mustard seed, stands better settled by 
the support of Christ's intercession against the most boisterous winds of 
Satan than the strongest grace can of itself, by the power of free will, 
against the least pufl" of hell. The instability of our minds would shake it, 
and the relics of our corruption extinguish it, without this. 

6. Acceptation of our services. As this advocate preserves our graces, 
so he presents our services, and by his intercession maintains life in the one 
and procures credit for the other. He is as powerful a solicitor for the ac- 
ceptance of our duties as he was a grateful sacrifice for the expiation of our 
sins, and a mighty redeemer for the liberty of our persons. Our prayers 
are both imperfect and blemished, but his merit applied by his intercession 
both purifies and perfects them. Our Advocate, by his skill, puts them into 
form and language according to the methods of the court of heaven, as an 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's inteecession. 135 

attorney doth the petition and cause of his client, and by his interest pro- 
cures a speedy hearing. Our works are no more the cause of the recording 
our petitions than they are of the justification of our persons. Though our 
prayers are not entertained without some holiness in them, yet they are not 
entertained without a greater holiness than ours to present them. When 
Christ tells his disciples that he had ordained them to bring forth fruit, 
he adds a clause to prevent their imaginations of meriting the answer of 
their prayers by the present of their fruits, that whatsoever they asked they 
must expect only to obtain in his name, John xv. 16. As they are ours, 
though attended with never so much fruit, they may be rejected ; as he 
makes them his by his intercession, they cannot be non-suited. He is the 
altar upon which our sacrifices ascend with a grateful fume before the God 
of the whole world : Isa. Ivi. 7, ' They shall be accepted upon my altar.* 
He is the altar, that hath much incense to add or bestow upon the prayers 
of the saints. Rev. viii. 3, i. e. a mighty quantity of merit and power of 
intercession, to give a sweet savour to our spiritual sacrifices, that they 
may be acceptable to God, not by themselves, but by Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. 
ii. 5, alluding to the oflice of the high priest under the law, who, after he 
had ofi"ered the sacrifice without the veil, took both his hands full of those 
aromatic drugs, of which the incense was composed without the veil, and 
put them in a censer of gold full of fire, and covered the propitiatory or 
mercy-seat with the fume of it. Nothing that we can ofler is agreeable 
to God, without it comes through the hands, and with the recommenda- 
tion of, our powerful advocate so beloved by him. The fire be fetches 
from the golden altar makes them to fume up, and render a pleasing scent 
before the mercy-seat. He is our Aaron in this part of his priesthood in 
heaven, bearing the iniquity of our holy things, Exod, xxviii. 38, when he 
jiresents himself in the sanctuary on high for the interest of his people. 
This he imphes in the prophetic psalm, Ps. xvi. 4, when he declares he 
' will not ofier the ofierings of those that hasten after another God, nor 
take their names into his mouth ;' he intimates thereby that he doth pre- 
sent the ofierings of those that believe in him as the only mediator, and 
pronounces their names with a recommendation of them before God, as 
such as are parts of his mystical body, such as have owned him and per- 
formed the condition of faith, such persons 'in whom is all his delight.' 
It is from this consideration of Christ's being passed into heaven as a high 
priest that the apostle exhorts the Hebrews not only to ' hold fast their pro- 
fession,' but to ' come boldly to the throne of grace,' with an assurance of 
acceptance and obtaining grace in their necessity, Heb. iv. 14, 16. And in- 
deed, having such a lieger in heaven, we may boldly venture to that throne 
which his propitiation on earth, and his appearance in heaven, render a 
throne of grace. 

7. Salvation. This is the main end of his intercession, Heb. vii. 25 ; 
he saves us ' to the uttermost,' or to all kind of perfection, noting the kind 
of salvation as well as the perpetuity of time, and this by interceding. Thus 
the apostle's argument runs ; he is able to save, because the end of his life 
is to intercede, and the end of his intercession is to save. The immediate 
end of his death was satisfaction respecting God ; the immediate end of his 
intercession is salvation respecting us. He lives there to sue out for us the 
possession of that which he died here to purchase. We are therefore said 
to be ' saved by his life,' as we are said to be reconciled by his death, Piom. 
V. 10 ; not simply by his life, for no man is said to preserve another merely 
as he is a living man, but as his life is active for another in managing some 
means of preservation for him. Christ eaves us by his life, i. e. by that life 



136 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

which he lives, which is a life of intercession. As he did not reconcile us 
simply by his death, but by his death as a sacritice, so he doth not save us 
simply by his life, but by his life as an accepted advocate. The expiation 
of our sins was made by him on the cross, and the happiness of our souls is 
perfected by him on his throne. He took our nature that he might die for 
us, and possesses a throne above that he might live to save us. This part 
he managed in that model of his intercession on earth, John xvii. ; after he 
had prayed for what was necessary for them duriug the length of their pil- 
grimage, viz., sanctifying grace and preservation from evil, he puts forward 
in the upshot for the happy entertainment of them in heaven : verse 24, 
' Father, I will that they be with me where I am.' When he comes to this 
period, he demands it in a way of more authority than what he had sued for 
before, to shew that his desire would be utterly unsatisfied without the grant 
of this. All that which he had sued for before was with respect to this top- 
stone of salvation and glory. After this demand he concludes his prayer, as 
having no more after the completing of their happiness to beg for them. As, 
after he had finished the task of his humiliation, and had ascended to hea- 
ven, he had no more need to pray for himself, so when he hath brought all 
his people to the possession of that happiness with him, he leaves off any 
further pleading for them, because they are in the fullest ocean of felicity. 
Christ would be an unsuccessful advocate, and consequently an impotent 
propitiator, if any believer, after all his wading through the mire of this 
world, should fall short of a comfortable reception and mansion above. 

Use 1. Of information. 

(1.) Here is an argument for the deity of Christ. If he be a prevailing 
advocate for such multitudes of believers, preserving them in the favour of 
God by his intercession, it evidenceth his person to be infinitely valued by 
God, which would not be if his person were not worthy of an infinite love ; 
and he could not be worthy of an infinite love were not his passion of an in- 
finite value ; and his passion could not mount to so high a value were not his 
person infinitely valuable, for the worth of his death depends upon the 
eminency of his person. 

Besides, as an advocate, he presents eveiy man's cause before the Father, 
and puts in for every one a memorial of his death, to preserve them in a jus- 
tified state, and maintain that grace which would else be destroyed by a 
deluge of corruption. He must needs be God, that knows every person in 
that multitude of those that sincerely believe in him, that hears all their 
petitions, and understands all their more numerous griefs and burdens, 
inward and outward sins, those inward agonies of spirit, those mental as 
well as oral prayers, and all those in those distant places where every one of 
those persons reside, and knows whether their supplications be in sincerity 
or hypocrisy. He that knows all those is endued with omniscience, and 
must needs be God. He could not be a sufficient advocate if he did not 
understand every man's cause, to present it before the Judge of the world ; 
and without omniscience he could understand little or nothing. He could 
only understand what is outwardly declared, not what really the cause is. 
He must depend upon the declaration of his client, as advocates do, and so 
be often deluded by false representations, as they are. He could not, with- 
out omniscience, take care of all his clients ; to have so many clients whose 
cases to present every day would be his burden and perplexity, and render 
heaven a place of trouble to him, not of glory. Were he a mere man, it 
could not be conceived how it were possible for him : but how easy is all 
this to one possessed of a deity ! 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's inteecession. 137 

(2.) Hence is a ground to conclude the efficacy of his death. His inter- 
cession is an argument for the perfection of his sacrifice. The virtue of his 
passion is the ground of his plea ; and therefore, if he had not perfectly 
satisfied God, he must have ofiered himself again (Heb. x. 14, ' By one 
ofl'ering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified'), and repeated 
the sacrifice before he could have begun his advocacy. Had his death been 
destitute of merit, there had been no room for his appearance as a justifier of 
our cause at the throne of grace. He could not have been a prevaiHng 
pleader if he had not first been an appeasing propitiator. His standing up 
as a solicitor for us had been of little efficacy, if the atonement he made on 
the cross had not been first judged sufficient. The high priest must be 
punctual to the prescriptions of the law in the sacrifice without, before he 
could enter with the blood of it into the holy of hoHes. If our faith be 
shaken at any time with the doubt of the validity of his death, let us settle it 
by a reflecting upon his advocacy. This verifies the virtue of his passion 
more than all miracles that can be wrought in his name. 

(3.) See the infinite love of God in Christ; of God, that he should 
appoint an advocate for us. If we were left to ourselves and our own pleas, 
our least sins would ruin us. There are daily sins would sink us to hell, 
were it not for this daily intercession. And this love is further enhanced in 
appointing, not an angel, or one of the highest cherubims most dear to him, 
but his own Son, the best and noblest person he had in all the world, to this 
office of advocacy for a company of worms ; one that is equal with himself 
in glory, and is equal with himself in the distinct knowledge of all our cases, 
better acquainted with them than we ourselves ; and one equal to us in our 
nature, experimentally acquainted with all our burdens and grievances. How 
gi-eat also is the love of Christ, who, when he was properly our judge, takes 
upon him to be our advocate ; when he hath a mouth to condemn us, and a 
wrath to cpnsume us, he binds the arms of his wrath, and employs his tongue 
to solicit our cause and procure our mercy ! He is not only an advocate for 
himself and the glory promised him, but for an unworthy sinner, for those 
penitents he hath yet left behind him in the world. He remembers them as 
well as himself. As Satan never appears before God but he hath some to 
accuse, so Christ never appears before God but he hath some to defend. 

(4.) How little ground is there to dream of such a thing as perfection in 
this life ! K we stand in need of a perpetual intercession of Christ in this 
hfe, we have not then a perfection in this life. Intercession supposeth im- 
perfection. Those that pretend to a state here totally free from sin, conclude 
themselves mounted above the need of any to interpose for them. It is in 
the case of sin that this advocacy is appointed ; not in the case of sin un- 
justly, but justly charged ; for it is not if amj man be accused of sin, but ('/ 
any man sin really. The interposition of an advocate always implies a charge 
against the client, but in the text it implies a charge that hath a true, and 
not a mistaken, foundation. Sin is as durable as this world, because Christ's 
intercession endures to the end of the world. ' He ever lives to make inter- 
cession,' i. e. till the end of this state of things. If believers did not sin 
after they were united to Christ and justified, an advocacy for them would be 
of no necessity. The settling Christ in this office implies that God had no 
intention to render men perfect in this life. If we were arrived to such a 
state, we had no more need of Christ's further mediating for us than the 
blessed angels have. After the restitution of all things, and the consumma- 
tion of the elect, Christ no longer acts the part of a mediator, but God shall 
be all in all. Nor can it be said that some may be perfect in this life, though 
all are not ; and for those that are short of such a state, indeed, the advocacy 



138 chaknock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

of Christ is necessary. There is little probabiUty for this from the text. 
The apostle puts himself in the number, * If any man sin, ice have an advo- 
cate' ; not yon, as excluding himself from having any need of it. The con- 
sideration of what apostle it was that speaks thus would damp any presump- 
tions of perfection. Was it not he that had the honour to lie in liis master's 
bosom, and to be blessed with the greatest share in the Kedeemer's affec- 
tions ? that disciple whom he appointed to be the host and guardian of his 
own mother, the dearest thing to him as man he left behind him in the 
world ; and the apostle to whom he was resolved, and did afterwards make 
known, the various revolutions in the church to the end of the world in the 
book of the Kevelations ? If any could be supposed to be settled in a sinless 
and perfect state in this life, he might ; but he disowns any such eminency, 
and looks upon himself in that state as to have need of entertaining this 
common advocate in his cause. 

(5.) Hence it follows that the church is as durable as the world. We 
hai-e, is the time present, but it takes in the future ages, ' He ever lives to 
make intercession for those that come to God by him.' There will always 
then, as long as the world doth endure, be some comers to God. If his inter- 
cession run parallel with the duration of the world, there will always be some 
in the world, whose necessities are to be represented by him to his Father. 

(6.) If Christ be an advocate, the contempt or abuse of his intercession is 
very unworthy. It is an abuse of it when men presume upon it to sin wil- 
fully against knowledge, and then to run to him to interpose for their pardon. 
This is a profanation of the holiness of this advocate, as though he were 
settled in this office to beg a licence for our crimes, to sue for impunity to im- 
penitence ; when, indeed, they are sins of infirmity, not sins of contempt, without 
remorse, that he interposeth for : ' If any man sin.' And his interposition is 
to comfort us under our burdens, not to encourage us in our iniquities. 

Unbelief is also a denial of the sufficiency or necessity of his intercession, 
since it is a slighting of that propitiation which is the ground of it. 

A total neglect of prayer is also a contempt of it. If there should be no 
service, he would have no matter to perfume by his obedience. We should 
frustrate that part of his priesthood which consists in intercession, and render 
him an empty-handed priest, to be full of merit to no purpose. An unrea- 
sonable dejectedness in good men is no honouring of it ; to walk discon- 
solately, as though there were none in the upper region to take care of us 
and mind our cause. Hath Christ lost his power, his eloquence, his interest 
in his Father ? Is the value of his sufferings abated, the market fallen ? 
Hath God utterly discarded the righteousness of his Son ? Hath God 
repented of sending his Son to suffer ? Are our Saviour's pleas distasteful 
to him ? Is Christ, that was carried triumphantly to heaven, now of no 
account there ? or hath the Kedeemer thrown off all thoughts of us, all care 
for us ? One would think some of those things are happened, since Chris- 
tians walk so feebly, with heads hanging down, as if no person concerned 
himself above in their afi'airs. At least a stranger would admire to hear them 
talk of an advocate, and walk as dejectedly as if there were none at all. It 
is a dishonour also to it when men, after sin, betake themselves to vows or 
alms for their solicitors, and not to the sacrifice and advocacy of Christ. 

(7.) If Christ be our advocate, it is a dishonourable thing to yoke 
saints as mediators of intercession with him. The Eomanists tell us that 
Christ is the mediator of redemption, but the saints are also mediators 
of intercession ; though, to give them their due, they say that the prayers 
of saints and angels prevail not by the sole virtue of their own merit, 
but receive their spiritual validity from the merit of Christ. What need, 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 139 

then, of invocating saints, since their intercessions for us will do us no ^ood 
without the intercession of Christ, and his pleading his merit for us ? None 
had authority to offer the incense upon the altar of gold but he that offered the 
sacrifice upou the altar of brass. When the high priest went to burn incense 
in the holy place, he was attended with none of the people, nor any of the 
priests ; not a man nor angel appears with Christ in heaven as an intercessor 
to present the services of any. As they shed none of their blood for us, so 
have they no blood to sprinkle in heaven. Those that have no merit to pur- 
chase for themselves, have no merit to apply to others. He only that hath 
satisfied for us, hath the authority to intercede for us. Christ only that is 
our Redeemer can be our advocate. The glorified saints have been brought 
into heaven by his grace, not to receive our services, but rejoice in his 
salvation. They are co-heirs with him in his inheritance, not co-officers 
with him in his function. To yoke him with saints is to apprehend him very 
unmindful of his office or lazy in his solicitations, that he needs a spur from 
those that are about him. It is to strip him of his priestly garments, and 
put them upon his inferiors ; and it is as great a sacrilege to rob him of the 
honour of his advocacy as to deny him the glory of his death. 

The text strikes oft' men's hands from such an invasion ; it intimates that 
the right of intercession belongs only to him who hath made the propitiation; 
but that was made by Christ alone, without any saints to tread the wine- 
press with him ; and therefore the advocacy is managed by Christ alone, 
without any saints to assist with him at the throne of grace. Since they 
shed no blood to pacify the wrath of God for our sins, they have no right to 
present our prayers for acceptance at his throne. The apostle, Heb. xiii. 7, 
when he speaks to them to follow their faith, had a fair occasion, had he had 
a knowledge of the truth of it, to mention it ; he adviseth them to imitate 
the saints, not to invocate them. He proposeth their example to them on 
earth, when he might as well have added also their intercessions in heaven. 
He had had as good a ground to wish them to present their prayers to them 
which were glorified, if those spirits had been in a capacity to do them such 
a kindness. He would not have been guilty of such an omission, as not to 
have minded them of their duty, and increased their comfort, had such a 
thing been known to him. And whence the assertors of this doctrine had 
the revelation we may easily conclude, since those that were enlightened 
from heaven never mentioned a syllable of anything so dishonourable to the 
Redeemer. 

(8.) If Christ be our advocate, how miserable are those that have no 
interest in him ! He is an advocate for all that walk in communion with 
God, that walk in the light ; those that walk otherwise are under the con- 
demnation of the law, not under the propitiation and intercession of Christ ; 
they have the injured attributes of God, and slighted blood of Christ, to plead 
against them, not for them. If Christ did not pray for the world here, he 
will not plead for the world in heaven, John xvii. 9. He is introduced in 
those prophetic psalms, praying that those that wish him evil may be ' con- 
founded, and put to shame,' Ps. xl. 14 ; and that the indignation of God 
might be poured out upon them, and his ' wrathful anger take hold of them,' 
Pp. Ixix. 21, 24 ; and indeed, at his first settlement in this office, the power 
of asking was conferred upon him, as well for the ruin of his enemies, as for 
the security of his beheving friends : Ps. ii. 8, 9, ' Ask of me, and I shall 
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance ;' and what follows ? ' Thou 
slialt break them with a rod of iron.' Breaking his enemies is a fruit of his 
asking. Impenitent men are so far from having an interest in his inter- 
cfcSbiotJS for mercy, that they have a terrible share in his pleas for wrath. 



140 chaenock's woeks. [1 John II. 1. 

And himself doth solemnly publish in his speech to his Father, Ps. xvi. 4, 
that he will ' not take their names into his lips that hasten after another 
god ' by idolatrous services. If it be a misery to want the prayers of a 
Noah, Daniel, Job, or a Jeremiah, Jer. xi. 14, what a horrible misery it is 
to want the prayers of the Saviour of the world, and to have the pleas of 
Christ directed against them ? As the blood of Christ speaks better things 
than the blood of Abel, for those on whom it is sprinkled, so it speaks bitterer 
things for all such as by unbelief and impenitence trample upon it. It is a 
mighty misery to want so powerful a patronage. 

Use 2 is of comfort. His design in uttering his prayer on earth, the model 
of his intercession, was for the joy of his people : John xvii. 13, ' These 
things speak I in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in them- 
selves ;' that they might have a joy in his absence, in the assurance of his 
faithful managing their cause above, by remembering how earnest he was for 
them below, that this joy might be fulfilled in them, i. e. that they might 
have a full and permanent joy; as much joy proportionably in having me 
their advocate, as I have in undertaking and managing the office for them. 
We should draw forth the comfort of this function he exerciseth. As a pro- 
pitiation, he turned the court of justice into a court of mercy ; and as an 
advocate he keeps it firm in that change he made by his passion. To this 
we may ascribe the firmness of the divine reconciliation, and the fruit of it, 
the non-imputation of our daily sins. It is the top of our comfort that he 
is in heaven a pleader, as it was the foundation of our comfort that he was 
once on earth a sufferer. There is not the meanest beggar that is a believer, 
but he hath a greater favourite to manage his cause with God than any man 
can have with an earthly prince. It is a thousand times more comfort that 
he is an advocate in heaven than if he were a king visibly upon earth. He 
is above, to prevent all evils, which can there only receive their commission, 
to procure all blessings, which there only find their spring. What reason of 
discouragement, when we have one in heaven to be our advocate, one so 
acceptable to the Father, one that hath given such proofs of his affections to 
us, one that is both faithful and earnest in our cause, and one that it is no 
disparagement for the Father to listen to ? What could comfort itself, saith 
one,* wish more for her children, had she been our mother, than to have so 
great a person our perpetual advocate at the right hand of God ? His death 
is not such a ground of assurance as this, because that is past; but when 
we consider how the merit of his death lives continually in his intercession, 
all the weights of doubts and despondency lose Iheir heaviness ; faith finds 
in it an unquestionable support. 

(1.) There is comfort in the perpetuity of this intercession. He is as much 
a perpetual advocate as he is a perpetual propitiation. Till there be a failure 
in the merits of the one, there can be no interruption in the pleas of the 
other. The blood that was sprinkled on the mercy-seat in the holy of holies 
was not to be wiped off, but to remain there as a visible mark of the atone- 
ment. As the high priest went not into the holy of holies to look about him, 
and feast his eyes with the rarities of the place, but to perform an office for 
the people that stayed without all the time he remained before the mercy- 
seat, so is Christ entered to ' appear in the presence of God for us,' Heb. ix. 
24, to appear all the time of his residence there. He is not silent, but is 
always pleading in the strength of his sacrifice for the benefits purchased by 
it. He hath (that I may so say) little else to do where he is but to intercede. 
When he was in the world, and had a glory due to him to petition for, be 
doth it not without intermixing more suits for his people than for himself, 
* Dr Jacksou. 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession. 141 

John xvii. His love is not cooled by his being in heaven. There is little 
of his own glory behind to solicit for. His zeal and earnestness runs in one 
chiinnel for his people, and is more united. He was dead, but his love did 
not die with him ; he now lives, and his aftections live with him, and he 
lives for evermore : Rev. i. 18, ' I am he that lives, and was dead ; and, be- 
hold, I live for evermore.' His life had been little comfort without the end 
of his life. He lives in that nature wherein he died ; he lives for ever, as 
well as he died once in the office of a redeemer. He interceded for all be- 
lievers when he was alive, John xvii. 19. If it be a great comfort to have a 
stock of prayers going for us among our friends, it is a greater to have Christ 
praying for us, and to consider he prayed 1600 years ago, and hath never 
left pleading one moment since he sat down on his throne. Christ's power 
cannot be weakened, his eloquence cannot grow dull and flat ; his interest is 
not decayed ; the righteousness of God endures for ever ; he repents not of 
bis contrivances for man's salvation ; he is to this day pleased with the inter- 
posure of his Son on our behalf ; the laws of heaven are unchangeable ; our 
Advocate is in high esteem there, and his thoughts of us the same as ever 
they were. 

(2.) There is comfort in the prevalency of it. The perpetuity assures us 
of the prevalency of it. If the appearance of the rainbow in the cloud be a 
memorial to God to withhold his hand from ever drowning the world, as he 
promised Noah, Gen. ix. 16, the suS'ering person of his Son being perpetually 
before him every moment of an endless eternity, will not sufier him to be 
forgetful of the covenant of grace sealed by the blood of so great a person. 
He that remembered Abraham in the case of Lot, some time after Abraham 
had done praying. Gen. xix. 29, cannot be unmindful of those for whom he 
hath a perpetual solicitor before his eyes. Can any man lose his cause that 
hath so powerful an advocate as a deserving Son with a gracious Father, who 
hath aflection to us to edge his plea, and interest enough in the Father to 
prevail for our good ? His prayers above are not less, but rather more pre- 
valent (if any difference may be supposed) than they were here below. As 
there were no sinful infirmities in his nature, so there were none in his 
prayers on earth ; but there were natural infirmities, as hunger, thirst, sleep, 
which might give some interruption to the constancy of actual prayer ; but 
there can be none in his intercession, since all his natural infirmities were 
dropped at his resurrection. He is the watchman and advocate of Israel, 
that ' never slumbers nor sleeps.' He pleads not as Moses for the Israelites, 
or as an Israelite for himself, but as the angel and head of the covenant. 
As by his sacrifice, so by his plea, he frees them from a state of condemna- 
tion : Rom. viii. 34, ' Who is he that condemns ? it is Christ that died, yea 
rather, that makes intercession for us.' No blessing he pleads for but we 
shall obtain. The Father can refuse him nothing ; we cannot want help till 
the Father has discarded all affection to his Son, and declares himself mis- 
taken in the judgment he discovered of the greatness of his merit at his re- 
surrection and ascension. Certainly, if we shall have whatsoever we ask in 
his name for ourselves, John xvi. 23, he will obtain whatsoever he asks in 
his own name for us. 

(3.) Hence ariseth comfort to us in our prayers. We cannot doubt of 
success as long as Christ hath faithfulness. The office of the priests under 
the law was to receive every man's sacrifice that was capable of presenting 
one, and refuse none. Christ, as an advocate, hath it incumbent upon him 
to receive our spiritual sacrifices, and he doth receive them, and present 
them with more mercy, because he transcends them in faithfulness and 
compassion. 



142 charxock's works, [1 John II. 1. 

We are many times dejected at the remembrance of our prayers, but the 
concern that Christ hath in them is a ground to raise us. We have an ad- 
vocate that knows how to separate the impertinences and folHes which fall 
from the months of his clients ; he knows how to rectify and purify our bills 
of requests, and present them otherwise than we do. How happy a thing is 
it to have one to offer up our prayers in his golden censer, and perfume our 
weak performances by applying his merit to them ! Satan distracts our 
prayers, but cannot blemish Christ's intercession. When we cannot pre- 
sent our own case by reason of diseases and indispositions, we have one to 
present our cause for us that can never be distempered, who is more quick 
to present our groans than we are to utter them. Besides, all prayer put up 
in his name shall be successful, John xvi. 23. The arguments we use from 
Christ's merits are the same fundamentally upon which the plea of Christ 
in heaven is grounded ; and if God should deny us, it were to deny his Son, 
and cast off that delight he expressed himself to have in the merit of his death ; 
but God loves that mediation of his Son, and that this work of his should he 
honoured and acknowledged. And though we had no promise to have our 
own prayers heard, yet there is no douljt but he will hear the prayers of 
Christ for us, for them he hears always, John xi. 42. 

(4.) Hence ariseth comfort against all the attempts and accusations of 
Satan, and the rebellion of our own corruption. He foresees all the ambush- 
ments of Satan, searcheth into his intention, understands his stratagems, 
and is as ready to speak to the Father for us, as he was to turn his back and 
look Peter into a recovery at the crowing of the cock. The devil accuseth 
us when we fall, but he hath not so much on his side as we have. All his 
strength lies in our sinful acts, but the strength of our advocate lies in his 
own infinite merit. Satan haih no merit of his own to enter as plea for 
vengeance. When he pleads against us with our sins, Christ pleads for us 
by his sufferings, and if our adversary never cease to accuse us, our advocate 
never ceaseth to defend us. How comfortable is it to have one day and night 
before the throne to control the charge of our enemy, and the despondencies 
of our souls, that Satan can no sooner open his mouth, but he hath one to 
stop and rebuke him, who hath more favour in the court than that malicious 
spirit, and employs all his life and glory for our spiritual advantage, who will 
not upon such occasions want a good word for us. And as to our corruptions, 
he is in heaven to make up all breaches. His blood hath the same design 
in his plea that it had in the sacrifice, which was to purify us, Titus ii. 4. 
The difficulty of any cause doth not discourage him, but honours both his 
skill in bringing us off, and the merit of his blood, which is the cause of our 
restoration. Upon every occasion he steps in to plead with the holiness of 
God, and pacify the justice of God for our greater as well as lighter crimes. 
While therefore we feelingly groan under our spiritual burdens, let us not be 
so dejected by them, as cheered by the advocacy of our Saviour. 

Use 3, of exhortation. 

(1.) Endeavour for an interest in this advocacy. It is natural for men to 
look after some intercessor with God for them. When the Israelites were 
sensible of their sin in speaking against God, they desired Moses to be their 
mediator : Num. xxi. 7, ' Pray unto the Lord for us.' Behold here a 
greater than Moses to be the patron of our cause. 

To this purpose, 

[1.] We must have a sincere faith. This is absolutely necessary for an 
interest in Christ's priesthood, Heb. vii. 24. It is only for * those that come 
to God by him.' He hath not a moral ability to save or intercede for any 
but such. That is clearly implied. If ' able to save those that come unto 



1 John II. 1.] Christ's intercession, 113 

God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them,' then able 
to save none else : it is restrained only to such. It is a foolish imagination 
to think Chi'ist pi'ays for unbelievers, because he prayed on the cross forlhose 
that murdered him. There is a great difference between his prayer then and 
his intercession in heaven.* That upon the cross was as he was a holy man, 
and would both shew his own charity to his enemies, and set us a pattern of 
it to ours ; but in hismediatory prayer put up by him as God-man, John xvii., 
a copy of what he doth to this day in heaven, he doth not pray for the world, 
but for those that believe on him, ver. 19, 20, and therefore it is plain that he 
doth not pray for them that will not believe on him. Faith only gives an 
interest in the prayers Christ made on earth, or suits he urgeth in heaven. 

[2.] We must have a sincere resolution of obedience. Such are the 
subjects of Christ's intercession. The apostle had prefaced it so in the 
chapter before the text, and applies the cordial to such only as wallowed not 
in a course of gro?s sins. Those that ' walk in darkness' he excludes from 
any fellowship with him in any of his offices, 1 John i. 6. It is a fellowship 
with the Son as well as with the Father that he understands it of, ver. 3. 
The comfort of this intercession belongs not to those that wilfully defile them- 
selves, but to those that abhor sin, and yet may fall through the violence 
of a surprising temptation. And after he had laid down this comfortable 
doctrine in the text, he closes it with a limitation to strike off the hands of 
any bold and undue claim to it : ver. 3, ' Hereby do we know that we 
know him, if we keep his commandments.' Hereby we know that we know 
him to be both our propitiation and our advocate, if we bear a sincere respect 
to all the discoveries of his will. Christ did not offer himself as a sacrifice, 
nor stand up as an advocate to countenance our f^ins, and free us from the 
debt of obedience, but to excite and encourage us the more, and that in a 
comfortable way, assuring us of pardon for our defects through him. Trust 
in him and obedience to him are the sole fee he requires of us for his care 
and pains. 

(2.) Have a daily recourse to this advocate and advocacy. It is necessary 
because of our daily infirmities, and our imperfect services. We know not 
how to plead our own cause, nor do we understand the aggravations of those 
accusations that may be brought in against us. It is necessary that we 
should fly to one who always is present in the court to appear for us. Every 
man is ready to engage any person that hath the ear and interest of the 
judge on his side. Every man is to lift up his eye to this advocate : ' If any 
man sin, we have an advocate.' The having is little without employing. 
The more we exercise faith in his intercession, the more communion we have 
with the advocate, and the more sanctification will increase in us : John xvii. 
17, ' Sanctify them through thy truth.' His prayer there for sanctification 
is a standing notice to us whence sanctification is to be fetched, viz. from 
heaven by virtue of this intercession. In our shortest ejaculations, as well 
as our extended petit-ons, let us implore him under this title. No man under 
the law was to offer the meanest offering, though a pigeon, by his own hard, 
but the hand of the priest appointed to it by divine order. In all distresses, 
infirmities, and darkness in this world, we should get up to that mountain of 
myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. Cant. iv. 6 (which is, as some under- 
stand it, a speech of the church), to the passion of Christ, which was bitter 
like myrrh, to the intercession of Christ, which is sweet like incense. Our 
whole life, till everlasting glory be ready to receive us, should be a life of 
faith in his death and intercession. 

(3.) Let our affections be in heaven with our advocate. Though the 
* Oamero de Ecclesia, p. 229. 



1 14 charnock's works. [1 John II. 1. 

people of Israel were barred from entering into the holy of holies with the 
high priest when he went to sprinkle the blood on the mercy-seat, yet they 
attended him with their hearts, continued their wishes for his success, and 
expected his return with the notice of his acceptation. Since Christ is 
entered into the holy place, and acts our business in the midst of his glory, 
we should raise our hearts to him where he is, and link our spirits with 
him, and rejoice in the assured success of his negotiation. Though a man 
be not personally present with his advocate in the court, yet his heart 
and soul is with him. The heart is where the chief business is. Let us 
not keep our hearts from him, who employs himself in so great a concern 
for us. 

(4.) Glorify and love this advocate. If Christ presents our persons and 
prayers in heaven, it is reason we should live to his glory upon earth. If he 
carries our names on his breast near his heart as a signal of his affection 
to us, we should carry his name upon our hearts in a way of ingenuous 
return. We should empty ourselves of all unworthy affections, be inflamed 
with an ardent love to him, and behave ourselves towards him as the most 
amiable object. This is but due to him, as he is our advocate. 



A DISCOURSE OF THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 



Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me. — 
John XIV. 1. 

Our Saviour in the foregoing chapter, having discoursed of his death by 
the treachery of Judas, and upon his interruption by Peter's vaunt of his 
affection to him, having predicted his cowardice, could not but possess the 
hearts of his disciples with a wonderful trouble. What could be the first 
reflection upon this alarm, but a fear of the consequences of so sad a sepa- 
ration, and a distrust of themselves ? Their Master would be removed from 
them by the treason of one of their own college, John xiii. 21, and to a place 
whither they could not at present follow him, ver. 36. They must lose that 
ravishing converse they had so long a time enjoyed with him ; they saw 
themselves ready to be exposed to the fury of his and their ill-willers in 
Judea ; they should want the support they had in his presence ; they could 
not imagine how they should bear up against temptations, since the fall and 
apostasy of Peter, one of the most clear-sighted and resolute of their asso- 
ciates, was in such plain words foretold in their hearing : ver. 38, ' The 
cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.' Christ, knowing the 
agitation of their spirits, proposeth remedies both to calm their present fears, 
and aim them against future troubles ; and in this chapter mixes several cordials 
together, suited to their present and future condition. The grand remedy 
is prescribed to them in the text, which is both a preface and a thesis, which 
he strengthens in his following discourse, * Let not your heart be troubled : 
ye believe in God, believe also in me.' I know what troubles those dis- 
courses have raised in your spirits ; give not way to them, there is a remedy 
as great as the distemper, and far greater than the cause of your fears ; faith 
will quell all. You think you have cause to be troubled, but if you rightly 
understood the whole affair, you would find cause of confidence and rejoic- 
ing ; you have a remedy in your trust in God, a trust which your fathers 
have successfully practised, and yourselves have been religiously bred in ; 
you believe in the power, goodness, and faithfulness of God ; keep that hold 
still, but take with you also an additional support. Believe also in me, as 
the person designed in all the promises, from the first to Adam to the last 
in the prophets, as that person in whom you shall see the evidences of the 
power, mercy, and goodness of that God you and your fathers have hitherto 
relied upon. 

VOL. V. K 



146 chaenock's woeks. [John XIV. 1. 

Let not your heart he troubled. The word^ raiaGdiedu signifies properly a 
commotion of water, which rages, swells, and flings up mud and slime from 
the bottom ; or the disturbance of an army when it is out of rank and order ; 
and thence translated to signify perturbations and fear in the heart of man, 
when the rest and quietness of the mind is interrupted. 

Be not troubled. Entertain no rage or fear in your spirits, do not think 
I have deceived you, let not your hearts swell with any disdain of me, because 
your carnal expectations are frustrated. We find in many places that they 
expected their Master's erection of a worldly empire, wherein they hoped to 
be his favourites, and settled in some great employments, as ministers of 
state ; and now, at the upshot, finding him to predict nothing but his own 
death, his leaving of them behind him to endure sufi'erings and persecution, 
and all their grand expectations in a moment defeated, they might have an 
occasion to find storms in their spirits, raking up all the mire and dirt to 
fling in his face, as if he had been some impostor ; well, saith he, ' Let not 
your heart be troubled, believe in me' as fij-mly as you have believed in 
God, and in the issue you will find I have not deceived you, but acted ac- 
cording to the directions of that God in whom you believe ; your faith in me 
shall no more make you ashamed, than your faith in God hath done. 

Observe, 

1. The best of Grod's people are apt to be overwhelmed with an ungrounded 
sorrow. A sorrow for sin never wants ground, but a sorrow for other things 
often doth. Ignorance and heedlessness is frequently the cause of commo- 
tions in the minds of good men. These had heard in the whole course of 
Christ's ministry enough to waylay their fears, and prepare them for this 
hour ; they had heard him more than once speaking of his death, yet a fond 
conceit of obtaining an earthly grandeur by him made them little to regard 
it. They had seen the power of God shielding him from the power of his 
enemies, and illustrious in the miracles he had wrought before their eyes, 
and might have fortified themselves with considerations against any dejection, 
till they had seen the issue. But their inadvertency, regardlessness, and 
ignorance, not only gave way to, but fomented, their inward storms. 

2. How apt is man to be troubled oftentimes at that which conduceth to 
his happiness ! They are troubled at Christ's death and departure, which 
in themselves were the only means appointed by God for their felicity ; that 
which was to render them happy did in their own account render them 
miserable. Had they known the design of it, it had rather been matter of 
joy to see their sins expiated, and an incensed God reconciled to them upon 
the surest and most irreversible terms, and to be assured that mansions 
should be prepared for them in heaven ; but short-sighted men perceive not 
the secrets of divine wisdom in its paths in the world, which are double to 
what they apprehend. Job xi. 6. 

3. How tender is Christ to remedy the troubles of his people ! In his 
dying posture he seeketh not their assistance of him, but neglects himself to 
cheer up them ; he gives them some drops of those comforts here, whereof 
they were to have floods hereafter. He shews them now what he was to do 
in heaven, to order afiairs in such a manner as to expel their troubles. 
What he was so ready to do when his calamitous condition might have ex- 
cused him from so friendly an office, he will be more ready to do since he 
hath nothing to obstruct him. What was his office on earth, is still his office 
in heaven ; * Let not your hearts be troubled,' is his language from the place 
of his glory ; and while he retains his compassions, he will issue out his 
consolations. 

4. How gracious is our Redeemer, to take occasion, from unbelieving 



John XIV. 1 J the object of faith. 147 

distrusts, to pour out bis choicest cordials ! Nothing so admirable was ever 
published to the world as the doctrine that had dropped from his lips to his 
followers. He had acquainted them that redemption was the design of his 
coming ; he had again and again assured them of his Father's and his own 
love to them ; yet you see their corruption shoots up its head above their 
grace ; their unbelieving fears seem to give the lie to all he had formerly 
acquainted them with ; yet he doth not manifest any marks of indignation, 
and strike them down at his foot, as he did shortly after those that came to 
apprehend him, but comforts them without checking them ; and, which is 
more astonishing, takes occasion from hence to utter something more mag- 
nificent and cordial than he had ever done before : he takes occasion, from 
the workings of hell in them, to give them a clearer appearance of heaven, 
and opens that place of glory for them, which was quickly after opened for 
himself. His discourses after this, in this and the following chapters, bear 
a general eminency, and are more full of refreshments, than any before ; he 
now rains down manna upon them, and gives them that incomparable pro- 
mise of the Spirit to be their comforter ; after this evidence of their dis- 
trustful fear, he seems to open all the repositories in heaven to make a 
cordial for them. What could be done more to quell fear, and encourage 
faith, unless he had wafted them immediately to glory, and exchanged their 
faith for that eternally triumphant affection of love which shall reign in 
heaven ? 

5. Christ doth not remove the cross from his people, but comforts them 
under it. He doth not retract anything he had said before, which gave life 
to their fear and sorrow, as many tender persons do when they see others 
startled and grieved at their resolves ; but he bears up their spirits, while he 
holds the cross upon their shoulders, and is as forward in comforting them 
as the matter he had treated of was apt to disquiet them. That which he 
useth to repel their fears is, ' Ye believe in God ; believe also in me.' The 
word mffrsvsTi in our translation is, in the first place, in the indicative mood ; 
in the latter, in the imperative. But the text is read various ways. Some 
read it, 

1. You believe in God, you do also believe in me ;* both in the indicative 
mood ; as much as to say, Since you do believe in us both, this your faith 
in God, and in me, will be a sufiicient bulwark against all your fears. Others 
read it, 

2. Believe in God, believe also in me ; both in the imperative, command- 
ing this act upon those two objects. Others read it, 

3. Believe in God, and you do then also believe in me ; the first in the 
imperative, the second in the indicative ; i. e. If you believe in God rightly, 
you cannot but believe in me ; for there is no true faith and trust in God 
but in and through the Mediator. 

The matter is not great which way we read it ; either thus, ' Believe in 
God, believe also in me,' as ordering both ; or, * You do believe in God, 
believe also in me,' as allowing the first by way of concession, and ordering 
the latter ; both do suit the occasion of his discourse. 

You believe in God. You believe in God as the creator, preserver, and 
governor of all things. f This is natural to all, to acknowledge God, to own 
him one way or other as an object of trust in extremity, which is evidenced 
by the common approach to him, and calling upon him in cases of exigence ; 
but this is not all that is meant here. But, further, you believe the pro- 
mises of God in Moses, the Psalms, and prophets ; you believe all that is 
spoken of the Messiah, by whom he hath promised to justify and save his 
* Erasm. in loc. t Grot. 



148 chaknock's works. [John XI"V. 1. 

people. Thus you have the same faith your fathers had before you, and you 
do not only believe the authority of God speaking, by an act of yonr under- 
standing, but you do embrace those promises by a consent of will, and rely 
upon him for the performance of them, that he will bring forth the Messiah 
for those great ends and purposes for which he is promised. 

Believe also in vie. I do not go about to turn you from your confidence 
in God, but to establish it ; you must, besides this, repose yourselves in me. 
You believe God to be true and merciful, and you believe the promises he 
hath made of the Messiah ; you must believe in me also ; you must believe 
that I am the person designed in all those promises to be that Messiah ; 
you must believe that I am he, as he expresseth it, John xiii. 19, that very 
seed of the woman that was to bruise the serpent's head, and rest yourselves 
in me as that Messiah ; and that fear which hath reigned in the hearts of 
men, from the first moment of Adam's fall, will expire in the spirits of all 
those that have a true and sincere faith in me ; for in me they will behold 
their restoration. If you believe God making those promises, you must also 
believe me to be the matter of them. I am the person which was the centre 
of them, that person by whom your enemies are to be destroyed, your judge 
to be pacified, your pardon to be purchased. Before, a general faith in the 
promise of God, that there should be a Messiah, was sufficient for you ; this 
you have, and this your fathers had ; and you believe in God, promising 
this Messiah, and rest upon him for the accomplishment of this promise ; 
but now, since this promise is accomplished, and the Messiah is come, your 
faith must be more particular ; you must believe me to be an all-sufficient 
Saviour, and must believe in me for the remission of sin, and the eternal 
mansions which I am going to prepare for you. You must firmly believe 
that I am the person sent by God in that capacity and office, whatsoever 
storms you shall see raised against me, and whatsoever black clouds you 
shall see me wrapped in. 

Believing here notes not only an assent, but a recumbency, ' believe in 
me.' You do not only believe God, but believe in him, i. e. rely upon him 
for what he hath promised. You must not only believe me to be the 
Messiah, but rely upon me for those things God hath promised to be done 
by the Messiah. Believe in me, i. e. believe in me as mediator, and rely upon 
me for all the fruits of my mediation. 

Believe in me. As you believe God is constant in his promises, so believe 
also that I will not forsake you, though I be absent from you. So that 
Christ brings them here to himself as mediator, as well as to God the foun- 
tain of salvation, and proposeth himself here as an object of faith, in con- 
junction with the supreme Deity. Nothing would make the poor disciples 
so dejected as to see him hanging on a cross whom they expected upon a 
throne ; and nothing but a consideration of him to be the Messiah, and a 
great faith in him, could support them under so unexpected a disaster. 

Observe, 

1. By way of caution, that this Scripture is no argument against the deity 
of Christ, because our Saviour doth here distinguish God from himself. 

By God here is meant the Father ; and by calling the Father God, the 
Son is no more excluded from the deity than when Christ is called God, as 
he is Rom. ix. 5, ' Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever,' the Father 
is excluded. Christ doth here assert his own deity in the substance of the 
command, in making himself an object of faith in conjunction with God, and 
as necessary for the support of the soul as God himself. He orders faith in 
himself in the same manner as he orders it in God : John v. 17, ' My Father 
works, and I work ;' as my Father works, so I work, because of the unity 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 149 

of essence ; so as you believe in God the Father, believe in me also the 
Son. 

2. It is necessary to believe Christ to be the Messiah. This is the first 
thing to be believed in the Christian religion, that Jesus is the Christ, the 
Saviour of the world. The apostles directed their discourses generally to 
prove this, Acts ii. 36, ix. 22, xviii. 5 ; and the great medium to prove it by 
was his resurrection after his death ; and for not believing this, the Jews 
are pronounced by Paul judgers of themselves, as 'unworthy of eternal life,' 
Acts xiii. 46. Cornelias, before he heard Peter, believed that there would 
be a Messiah ; but after the hearing of Peter's declaration of Christ's death 
and resurrection, he was to exercise a particular faith in him ; and if he had 
not, his former faith had stood him in no stead, because he would have 
despised the revelation of God. How can he be said to believe God in his 
promise, that believes him not in his performance ? I am afraid there is 
too much unbelief of this amongst us ; we are brought up in the profession 
of Christ, and our faith in him is of no better a stamp than an education 
faith ; we understand not upon good grounds that this Christ is the Messiah 
promised from the foundation of the world. 

3. Only faith in God, through the Mediator, can bear up the heart in 
troubles. This is the ballast that can keep the soul steady in a stormy sea. 
' Fear not, but believe,' said Christ, as the proper remedy, Luke viii. 50. 
Faith makes not ashamed, it doth elevate the heart above all that would 
depress it. It breeds a great and courageous spirit, and makes men willing 
to want the satisfactions of the flesh for the delights of heaven. To come 
believingly is to come boldly in a time of need, Heb. iv. 16. Faith is digni- 
fied with a title of confidence, and with that of a full assurance, Heb. x. 22. 
This was that whereby God dispelled the cloud of fear from Abraham : Gen. 
XV. 1, 'Fear not, Abraham,' the wrath due to sin upon the revolt of man, I 
am sufficient to bring forth the promised seed ; I will be thy shield against 
the terrors of wrath, and I will be the reward of thy faith and obedience in 
a glorious salvation. It was not a carnal fear, or a fear of some temporal 
evil, for this speech was after his victory over the kings that had conquered 
and plundered Sodom, after he had been blessed by so great a type of Christ 
as Melchisedec was ; the fear of Abraham was occasioned by his want of a 
child, and a seed wherein the nations of the earth were to be blessed, as 
appears by his answer, ver. 2, that promised seed, that was to change the 
curse of sin into a blessing ; this seed is promised him, ver. 4, 5, and then 
Abraham believed, i. e. all his fears vanished, and he relied upon God for the 
performance of this. 

4. All our comforts are fetched from above. Christ sends them not here 
to the waters of the earth, to quench the heat of their troubles ; he directs 
not their eyes downwards, but upwards, to God and himself. It is a scanty 
relief that is fetched from a man's self, and from the uncertainty of the 
world in shaking troubles ; one God in the one Mediator out-balanceth all 
those things whence men commonly gather their supports. It is as much 
as if he had said, You have fancied great things to yourselves, you thought 
to have had great employments under that earthly royalty you imagined I 
should be possessed with ; and no doubt but I should have had a regard to 
such friends as you are, that have followed me in my perplexed condition, 
had such a kingdom been designed me ; but I would not have your souls so 
mean and low : take a higher flight, nourish 3-ourselves with hopes of a purer 
glory, and more durable mansions which I am going to prepare for you ; a 
temporal grandeur will only stupefy your fears, not stab them to the heart, 
but the consideration of what I propose to you will perfectly despatch them. 



160 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

In the text you see, 

1. An act: ' believe in God.' 

2. The object : ' In God,' ' in me.' 

3. The fruit and efiect of it : ' Let not your heart be troubled.' 

I shall speak of the object, and the doctrine resulting thence will be, 
Doct. God and Christ are in conjunction, the true and proper object of 
faith. Read it which way you will, this is the result of it ; he doth not dis- 
courage their faith in God, but encourageth that, together with faith in him- 
self. Every act hath something about which it is exercised ; faith is an act 
of the soul, it must therefore have an object upon which it is terminated. 
God is the object of faith according to his present dispensation, which is the 
manifestation of himself as a reconciled God through a mediator. As he is 
a God of grace and peace, he is an object of faith, and trust, and joy ; but 
grace and peace are not manifested, not given forth, not multiplied simply 
by the knowledge of God, but also of Jesus our Lord : 2 Peter i. 2, 
' Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and 
Jesus our Lord.' Not by the knowledge of God alone, nor by the knowledge 
of Christ alone, but of God in the mediator Christ, in whom only he is known 
to be our God in the covenant of grace, the spring of all our comfort, the 
knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, i. e. the knowledge of God in Jesus 
our Lord, "Ev bta, bvoTv, as Rom. i. 5, ' grace and apostleship,' i. e. grace of 
apostleship. 

God is not the object of faith now as creator ; he was so in the state of 
man's rectitude, and could not be considered by the creature in any other 
notion ; but in our lapsed state God is not only considered as creator, but as 
the offended Majesty, and consequently as judge, and we cannot behold 
him but encompassed with scorching flames about his throne. He that exer- 
ciseth faith in God merely as creator, understands not the present condition 
of human nature, the malignity of his own provocations, nor the glorious 
perfections of righteousness, veracity, justice, which are essential to the 
Deity. Though the fall of man did not null the relation of God as creator, 
which stands irreversible, yet it added another relation to him, that of a 
judge, and cracked in pieces all grounds and props of a trust in him for the 
expressions of kindness, and set up only the expectation of a mighty revenge, 
according to his threateniug. You find no other sentiments in Adam after 
his rebellion, not the least mite of a trust in God, though he had newly 
come out of the hands of God, and the relation of a creator was fresh and 
flourishing ; and why any of his posterity should have other sentiments than 
he had, in this single relation, I cannot conceive any ground from the reve- 
lation of God ; he beats the hands of the creature off' from expecting any sal- 
vation from him upon that account. Isa. xxvii. 11, * It is a people of no 
understanding : therefore he that made them will have no mercy on them, 
and he that formed them will shew them no favour.' It is spoken upon the 
wasting of Jerusalem, and laying it desolate ; yet, he adds for their comfort, 
that in that day he would gather them, and they should worship the Lord in 
the holy mount at Jerusalem. As he was their creator, or under the notion 
of a creator, they must expect nothing from him, since they were a people 
of no understanding, as all men in Adam are, who being in honour, and 
understanding not, i. e. not walking according to the knowledge they had, 
became like the beasts that perish ; but what they were to expect from him 
was, as he was God Redeemer, expressed by the worship of him in the holy 
mount at Jerusalem, alluding to the ceremonial worship, a type of Christ, 
the way whereby men were to come to God, and blessings to be conveyed 
from God to them. He would not be the object of their expecting faith, nor 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 151 

of their religious worship as Creator, but as God Redeemer. And though 
Peter speaks of ' committing of souls to God, as unto a faithful Creator,' 
1 Peter iv. 19, it is not to be understood of God in the first creation, but 
the second ; and the attribute faithful annexed to Creator, evinceth it ; for 
though faithfulness be a perfection of the Deity, yet it is not apparent in the 
act of creation. In relation to that act, it is the powerful, wise, good creator; 
but faithfulness respects the promise and covenant of grace. As righteousness 
is a fit attribute for a judge, — and so God is called, when he is spoken of 
under that title, 2 Tim. iv. 8, — so powerful is a fit attribute of the Creator, as 
considered in the first material creation of the world. How had God engaged 
himself in creation to preserve the soul of man, but in a way of obedience ! 
Sufiering was not to be expected in a state of innocence, and it is the com- 
mitting of our soul to God in a suifering state that the apostle speaks of. 
His engagements to this purpose are, in his promises, made pursuant to the 
covenant of grace, but he is called Creator here, in regard of the new creation, 
as he is called 'the Creator of Israel, and their King,' Isa. xliii. 15, as he is 
their Holy One, sanctifying them through his grace. He is no more the Creator 
of Israel in a way of appropriation, if you consider him so in the first crea- 
tion, than he is of the fallen angels and the beasts of the earth ; but as he 
formed them into a church, he was peculiarly their Creator. But this creation 
respected the Messiah, and so doth this in Peter respect Christ, in whom all 
the promises, wherein God's faithfulness lies at pawn, are yea and amen. 
He is the Creator of behevers, as they are sons of the promise ; and there- 
fore Calvin inclines to interpret the word translated creator here as possessor; 
and the word doth sometimes, in heathen authors, though rarely, signify 
preserver or restorer.^-' Yet is not the title of God as Creator excluded from 
an object of trust, for since Christ hath restored in part the soul to the 
image of God, which it had by creation, it may expect from God as Creator 
a faithfulness to his own image, and his service, but not singly as Creator, 
but in conjunction with the Redeemer. 

I shall lay down some propositions for the clearing of this. 

I. God is the object of faith. 

God is the principal object of faith and trust. The whole revelation 
in Scripture tends to the knowledge of God. Why did God create, but that 
he might be known to be omnipotent and good ? Why did God send Christ, 
but that he might be known to be merciful and gracious ? Whatsoever is 
revealed in the word, and concerning Christ in particular, hath a direct 
tendency to God, and the knowledge of him, and this practical duty which 
follows thereupon : John xvii. 3, ' This is life eternal, to know thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' 

1. God in his attributes. He is an object of faith as made known to us, 
but he is made known to us in some perfections of his nature, as encourage- 
ments to approach to him, and ground our hopes in him ; and he is an ob- 
ject of faith in every one of his distinct attributes, in his power, wisdom, 
goodness, and righteousness, according to our several occasions and circum- 
stances; for he is the object of faith as he is a God in covenant, our God ; 
and he is our God in every attribute which makes up that glorious nature ; 
and those perfections of his nature were made known in Christ, that he might 
be known not only speculatively, but fiducially. The name of God was in 
him, Exod. xxiii. 21, in that Angel of the covenant. Whatsoever was know- 
able of God was unveiled in Christ, as the exact and perfect medium wherein 
we may have a prospect of God ; there was more of wisdom, and more of 
power discovered in uniting the Godhead to the manhood ; more of good- 
* Stephaiiu3 in verbo Kri'/^u, 



152 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

ness, grace, righteousness, holiness, which are all attractives to seek God, 
and lay hold upon him, than made known any other way ; and all were dis- 
covered to promote that great doctrine of faith preached by Christ and the 
apostles. 

2. Particularly the veracity of God is the first ohject, or ground of faith. 
He is not the first object of faith in any attribute, but his veracity. As God 
creates the world as powerful, and punisheth the wicked as he is just, and 
pardons sin as he is merciful, and provides for all as he is good, so he is 
believed on as true in the first motion of the soul to him. The first act of 
faith considers God as true in his promise, and powerful to accomplish it : 
' This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom thou hast sent,' John xvii. 3. ' AXriQiMlig, signifies verax, as well as 
verus ; not only true in thy nature, but true in thy word ; ' the only true 
God ' in Jesus Christ, in whom there was the performance of the first and 
greatest promise made in paradise; by the same figure spoken of before, sV bid 
buoTv. As in loving God, we have his goodness for the immediate object ; in 
hoping in him, we centre in his power ; so in our first assent to him we fix 
our eye upon his truth.* For when any declaration is proposed as from God, 
the first act is an inquiry whether it be from God, or no ; when the result 
of that inquiry is this, that God speaks and declares this, the assent to it is 
moved by the consideration of the truth of God ; for to a belief of any thing 
that is offered, there is necessary first an evidence that the declarer is not 
deceived, and that he will not willingly deceive others. In the believing that 
God cannot be deceived, faith respects the certainty of his knowledge ; in 
believing that he will not deceive, and so making his word the object of our 
reliance, faith respects the certainty of his faithfulness and veracity. The 
promise is the object of trust ; the reason why I trust the promiser, is his fide- 
lity and constancy to his word. That is not faith which respects not either 
a command, promise, or threatening, in all which the faithfulness and vera- 
city of the person urging the precept, or uttering the threatening, or making 
the promise, comes first into consideration. But justifying faith respects 
chiefly the promise ; hence believers are called ' the children of the pro- 
mise,' Rom. ix. 8, Gal. iv. 28, because by faith they entertain the promise ; 
and as it is an asftent, it hath for its object the unening truth of God ; and 
as it is a consent and reliance, it still principally eyes the same for the accom- 
plishment of what he hath engaged to do for us in his word ; and the first 
language of faith in receiving the testimony of Christ, is a testifying, or ' set- 
ting to the seal that God is true,' John iii. 33 ; that he hath been as good 
as his word, and makes good what he promised to our first parents, and 
repeated several times since in other language. 

3. But faith doth ultimately centre in the Deity. God himself, in hisglo- 
rious nature, is the ultimate object whereinto our faith is resolved. The 
promise, simply considered, is not the object of trust, but God in the pro- 
mise ; and from the consideration of that we ascend to the Deity, and cast 
our anchor there. ' Hope in the word' is the first act, but succeeded by 
hoping in the Lord : Ps. cxxx. 5, 7, * In his word do I hope ;' that is not 
all ; ' but let Israel hope in the Lord.' That is the ultimate object of faith, 
wherein the essence of our happiness consists, and that is God. God him- 
self is the true and full portion of the soul. If it be asked, why we believe 
God ?f the answer is, because he is true. If it be asked, why God is true ? 
the answer is, because he is God, and cannot be God unless he were true. 
No further answer can be given. In this the soul doth acquiesce as a full 

* Suarez, vol. viii. p. 65. t Ibid. p. 64. 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 153 

resolution ; so that, though faith in the first act respects the truth of God, 
yet it is ultimately resolved into the Deity itself. 

4. It particularly centres in the Deity as the author of redemption (Ps. 
cxxx. 7, 8, ' Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with him is plenteous redemp- 
tion ; and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities'), and takes away aU 
the oppressive and provoking guilt of the soul by that redemption, which, 
like a vast ocean, knows no bounds. As God was the first in forming the 
design of creation, so he was the first in laying the platform of redemption, 
and appointing Christ to be a sacrifice for the expiation of our sins, and ran- 
som of our souls. As our thanksgivings are to be directed to him, as he is 
the ' God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' Eph. i. 3, so is our faith. 
This was the title he assumed ; and he is ' the Father of glory,' in being 
' the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,' ver. 17. He was the orderer of aU 
those glorious acts Christ did, and tliat purchase he made. He is the God 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, not in regard of his divine nature, wherein there 
is not a superiority of power, though a priority of order, Christ in regard of 
his divine nature not being inferior to, but equal with, God ; but in regard of 
his mediatory office, as he was the ambassador of God, and his righteous 
servant acting by his commission and authority, according to his particular 
instructions, and in regard of the covenant between them. He is said to be 
the God of Christ, as he is said to be the Cxod of Abraham, not in regard of 
his creating him, but in a more special manner, as being in covenant with 
him. Now faith looks through the ambassador to the prince that employs 
him, and through the servant to the Lord that sends him, and to the person 
that first proposed the terms of the covenant, and revealed his everlasting 
purpose of saving sinners by Christ. Faith looks beyond the time of Christ's 
conversing in the flesh, and sealing the covenant by his blood. It looks to 
the everlasting platform of it in the bosom of the Deity ; beyond the beam 
of it in the incarnation and death of Christ ; beyond the first promise of it 
in paradise, Hab. i. 13, ' Art thou not from everlasting, Lord my God, 
my Holy One ?' The prophet looks back to the everlasting springs of it in 
the heart of the Deity, and pierceth to the first point of the resolve, and 
thence concludes we shall not die. It was not barely the eternity of God he 
considers there ; for that simply considered might be an argument for the 
restoration and sanctification of devils, as well as Israel ; but God from 
everlasting, as his God and his Holy One, as resolving upon a covenant of 
grace, and to be a sanctifier of his people ; and from thence his faith draws 
a conclusion of an impossibility of dying, and a certain assurance of enjoying 
Ufe. And the apostle's faith looked to Christ as the medium, ' by whom are 
all things,' but to the Father, ' of whom,' by whose authority, ' all things 
are,' 1 Cor. viii. 6. Faith doth not stick only in Christ, but mounts up to 
the Deity, as the fountain and spring of all. ' He that believes on me, be- 
lieves not on me,' saith Christ, * but on him that sent me,' John xii. 44. 
Not on me chiefly, not on me solely ; it must pierce through the veil to the 
original wisdom that contrived, and the original authority that enacted, and 
the grace which inspired every action of the Mediator. God is the ultimate 
object of faith in all our considerations of Christ ; to this purpose he was 
raised, ' that our faith and hope might be in God,' 1 Peter i. 21, that it 
might not stick immoveably in Christ, Rom. iv. 24, but be as a ladder to get 
up, and clasp about the Highest and the Ancient of days. In Christ we see 
first the smiles of God, in him we see the tender voice of his bowels, in him 
we feel the lively and affectionate motions of his heart. When we have 
fixed on Christ, faith rests not there, but ascends ultimately to God, as the 
great promoter of this design, by whose authority all was transacted, and 



154 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

before whom all is to be finished, as to him who set out this propitiation for 
sin, and keeps in his own hand the royalty of pardoning iniquity. 

n. Christ is the object of faith. God alone was the object of trust in the 
state of innocence, and under the covenant of works. The covenant, 
' Do this, and live,' being established between God and man without a mediator, 
none could be the object of trust for the performance of the promise upon 
condition of obedience, but God in the simplicity of his own being, without 
any other relation. But under the covenant of grace, which is settled in a 
mediator, ' Believe this, and live,' Christ the mediator is an object of faith, 
though God be still the ultimate object ; because we believe in him, that he 
will give us life and salvation for the merit of this mediator, in whom we be- 
lieve first. 

1. Therefore Christ is the immediate object of faith, as he by whom all 
the counsels of redemption were executed, as he who assumed our nature, to 
sufi'er in it for the satisfaction of divine justice, and was raised again to 
transact our affairs, and manifest the value and infinite fulness of that satis- 
faction. We cannot look upon God under any other notion than that of an 
incensed governor and judge, if we well apprehend the condition of lapsed 
man. Unless we behold him in and through a mediator, the terrors of his 
majesty would confound us ; we dare not look him in the face because of our 
vileness as sinners. We must first, therefore, fasten our ejes upon the 
mediator, and then upon God. The mercy of God in pardoning sin is that 
which faith exerciseth itself about ; the satisfactory death of Christ, upon the 
account of sin to be pardoned, must be the first and immediate object of 
faith. Christ must first be known, because the riches of divine grace are 
knowable and manifested only in him ; God speaks not a word of mercy out 
of this propitiatory. Faith being an applying the reconciliation and mercy 
obtained, it must consider and believe the satisfaction of divine justice, 
whereby it was obtained. Before any man can think to stand before the 
face of God's justice, and be admitted into the secret delights of his mercy, 
and riches of his grace, he must consider this mediator as appeasing God, 
and consider the voice of God proclaiming himself appeased in his Son, 
Mat. iii. 17. We are first to believe and rest upon the strength and value 
of this sacrifice, and with this in the hands of our faith, go to God with a 
further act of faith, for an application to us of what was purchased for us. 
It is by him we believe in God, 1 Peter i. 21 ; we must first, therefore, be- 
lieve in him. The faith, therefore, that justifies, is called ' the faith of Christ,' 
Gal. ii. 16 ; and in other places it is called a * coming to God by Christ,' 
Heb. vii. 24. It is, therefore, first a coming to Christ to bring us to God. 
We cannot ' come to the Father but by him,' as he speaks in the same 
chapter where the text is, ver. 6, pursuant to the doctrine he had laid down in 
the first verse ; and must first, therefore, come to him as ' the way, the truth, 
and the life.' It is in him, and * by the faith of him, that we have access 
with confidence,' Eph. iii. 12. There must first be a coming to him to be 
inspired with confidence ; he that will come to the holy of holies must pass 
through the veil. Thus Christ is brought in in the prophet proclaiming 
himself the object of faith : Isa. xlv. 22, ' Look to me, and be you saved, all 
the ends of the earth.' It is that person is introduced speaking, to whom 
every knee should bow; that person in whom we have righteousness and 
strength; that person in whom all the seed of Israel should be justified, ver. 
23-25. It is in him we can find all things necessary for our deliverance from 
the ruin sin hath brought upon us, whatsoever is necessary to restore us to 
the happiness we have lost. In him is righteousness, to remove our vari- 
ance with God; and sanctification, to clear us from what may be offensive to 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 155 

the eyes of his holiness; and therefore the apostle, 1 Tim. i. 1, calls Christ 
' our hope,' i. e. the object of our hope, as God is called ' the fear of Isaac,' 
Gen. xxxi. 53. The Israelites' worship was directed towards the tabernacle 
and temple where the ark was placed, their thoughts were to be fixed on 
that ; so all the motions of our souls must be directed to Christ, and in 
and by him to God. And therefore faith, in regard of this immediateness 
of it, is appropriated to Christ as the proper and proxim object, and called 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in regard of his mediating and reconciling 
us ; whereas repentance respects God immediately, who hath been oflfended 
by us, and therefore called ' repentance towards God,' Acts xx. 21. 

2. Christ was always, in the times of the patriarchs, the object of faith ; 
and the immediate object, though not so distiuct as now. 

He was the immediate object of their faith. As he is the object of 
faith now, as actually destroying the works of the devil, so he was the object 
of faith then, as potentially bruising the head of the serpent. The object was 
always the same, though diversified ; they believed in the Messiah to be 
incarnate. Those that lived in the days of his flesh, believed in his present 
incarnation and passion ; those that lived after, believed in him as dying and 
rising. The faith was the same for substance, the same for object, only 
difierenced in point of time — future, present, past. 

(1.) It is clear of David : Ps. ex. 1, ' The Lord said unto my Lord.' He 
calls him his Lord, that was his Son, Luke xxii. 44. Observe, when he 
speaks of God, or the Father, or the Deity, singly considered, it is the hord ; 
but when of Christ, it is my Lord, a more particular application and appro- 
priation of the one than of the other. 

(2.) It is as clear of Moses : Heb. xi. 26, ' Esteeming the reproaches of 
Christ gi'eater riches than the treasures of Egypt.' What esteem could he 
have of the reproach of Christ, if he never knew or believed anything of 
him ? Upon what account should he refuse so great an earthly honour, to 
be treated as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but upon some higher account 
than the hopes of enjoying an earthly Canaan, not a better land in itself 
than Egypt, which was counted the fruitfuUest spot in the world ? It was 
certainly the promise of the seed wherein all nations should be blessed, and 
which he might be twitted with by the Egyptians. 

(3.) It is plain of Abraham. The gospel was preached to him in that pro- 
mise, ' In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,' Gal. iii. 8. 
Abraham in some sort understood it as God preached it ; it cannot be 
thought God should preach the gospel to him, and he understand nothing of 
gospel in it ; and as it was preached to him to raise his faith, so it was enter- 
tained by him with a suitable act of faith ; he eyed the Mediator in it, who 
was to bless all nations, and remove the curse which Adam had brought upon 
his posterity. He is called the father of us all in regard of his believing : 
Piom. iv. 16, ' The father of us all,' of all the believers among the Romans, 
who were not all of Jewish extraction ; so the apostle understands that pro- 
mise made unto him, thou shalt be the father of many nations, i. e. of many 
believers among nations ; he should be a copy and pattern of their faith, which 
could not well be, if he had not the same object of faith that they were after- 
wards to have, and had not for substance the same prospect of Christ. He 
did see the day of Christ in that promise, and was glad, John viii. 56. 
That which was the matter of his joy must be the object of his faith ; if he 
rejoiced in the day of his appearing, he believed in the person who was to 
appear in that day. Joy is so far from being without a belief, that it is a 
branch that springs from that root. 

(4.) Enoch pleased God by faith, and walked with him. Two cannot walk 



156 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

together unless they be agreed. But there was no agreement between God 
and lapsed man but in the reconciling mediator; for God out of the pro- 
mised seed was as terrible then as God out of Christ is now. 

(5.) By faith Abel offered a sacrifice, Heb. xi. 4. It must be a belief in 
the person signified by that sacrifice. God was not the object of his faith 
barely as Creator; the first threatening of death, which he couU not well be 
unacquainted with, put a bar to that ; but it must be a faith in God as a 
promiser, and so had the matter of the promise, 'the seed,' for its object. It 
was such a faith whereby he believed God to be a rewarder, ver. 6, which 
he could have no prospect of but in the redeeming declaration. It was such 
a faith upon which God pronounced him righteous, which could not be as he 
stood upon his natural corrupted bottom. He looked for a righteousness in 
and by that which was represented by his sacrifice, and he obtained a wit- 
ness from heaven that he was righteous. It is very likely his sacrifice was 
accompanied with petitions for the hastening the appearance of that seed, 
and thanksgivings to God for making that gracious promise, and performing 
those acts of grace after the fall, which necessary attendants were neglected 
by Cain. It cannot be supposed that Abel could be ignorant of the promise, 
unless we can suppose Adam so forgetful of it, as never to mention that 
which could be his only support in his removal from paradise. He that 
knew the delights of his original state, cannot be imagined to slight a 
cordial so necessary to keep up his spirits in his exiled condition. The re- 
flection upon his former state must needs fill his mind with a sense of the 
curse he at the present lay under ; and this would by consequence mind him 
of the remedy God had provided for it ; and with what pleasing eye could he 
look upon his children whom he had brought into that misery, without 
putting, as I may speak, like a tender nurse, some of the cordial into their 
mouths ? 

(6.) That Adam exercised a faith immediately upon this object, the pro- 
mised seed, is not difficult to represent to you from Gen. iii. 20, ' And 
Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.' 
*n "PD, of all living, in the singular number, or the mother of him that was 
to enliven all that were to be enlivened ; of that latter Adam, who was to be 
made a quickening Spirit ; of that person who was to communicate life to 
the world ; or if we understand it of all living in the plural number, he 
includes himself then.'* But she could not be the mother of him according 
to an animal life, but as one to be spiritually quickened and restored by the 
peed of the woman. He gave this name to his wife just after the sentence 
of death and returning to dust pronounced upon him, ver. 19 ; and had he 
been possessed only with an horror of that sentence, he would rather have 
called her the mother of all dying than 'of all living ; and the name Eve 
signifying life, shews that he did not so much in this name respect her as a 
mother, but that life which was to be brought forth into the world by her 
seed, that restoration promised ; and giving her this name just after the 
sentence of returning to dust, he doth evidence his faith in that seed whereby 
man that was sentenced to death should live again. The Holy Ghost placing 
this imposition of a new name upon her (who was before called isha, woman) 
just after the sentence of death, is not without an intimation that Adam 
looked bej^ond the sentence of death, to the promise made before of bruising 
that enemy whose subtlety had brought upon him that judgment, and laid 
hold on that promise to support him against the sentence of returning to 
dust. Such a relation to the promise it must have ; we can hardly think 

* Heideg. Vit. Patriar, vol. i. Coccei Disput. Selec. disp. ix. sec. 12. Pareus in 
Gen. iii. 20. 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 157 

that Adam in the slate of his fall, and under so gracious a word of deliver- 
ance, should be guilty of so great a pride, as, in a vaunt and contempt of the 
divine sentence, to call her the mother of all living, who had brought death 
upon the world. How could he call her the mother of all living, when he 
had just before heard that he was to return to dust, if he had not respected 
a better and a higher life than that short one he was to pass in the world, 
and respected also the cause of it ? Had he respected only an animal life, 
he might as well have called himself the father of all living, since we find 
the name of Abraham and Sarah changed upon the giving the promise. 
But without question he had respect in this to the Messiah, who was to be 
the seed of the woman, in appropriating this title to her.* And she might 
be called the mother of all living in regard of her faith, as Sarah is called 
the mother of all believing women ; 1 Peter iii. 6, because the promise men- 
tioning only ' the seed of the woman' and not of the man, might give her 
occasion first to exercise a faith in it before Adam did. Besides, that 
particle and, And Adam called his wife Eve, &c., linking it with what went 
before, ver. 19, wherein death was pronounced, shews that he considered 
the promise of restoration as his support in that state ; so that the Messiah 
in the promise, or the seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head, was 
the immediate object of his faith. 

(7.) Eve also expresseth her faith in this seed : Gen. iv. 1, when Eve 
bare Cain she said, ' I have gotten a man from the Lord.' It is true the 
word nx is sometimes the note of other cases as well as the accusative ; as 
Exod. i. 1, ' with Jacob,' where it is the same particle, riN, and Gen, v. 22, 
'Enoch walked with God,' riN ; and some interpret it ' from the Lord,' i. e. 
by God's gift and favour ; others, ' with the Lord ;' others, ' a man, the 
Lord.' It doth not seem to be any straining of the text to render it ' a man, 
the Lord,' as respecting the promised seed in her son, the first seed God 
was pleased to give her, giving him the name Cain,f as if he were the person 
that were to repossess them again of paradise, and restore them to their 
happy estate. As a little before Adam had manifested his faith in the name 
Eve, which he gave to his wife, and the reason of it, so in the birth of Cain 
there might be as fit an occasion for manifesting the faith of Eve ; and it is 
very probable there might be something more in it than barely an acknow- 
ledgment of a mere child from God, and some regard to the promise, since 
we find no special remark upon any name presently after, but what did refer 
to that promise, as that upon Noah, of whom Lamech said. Gen. v. 29 
' This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, 
because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed,' for the return of the 
sons of men (adds Jonathan) ; which doth evidently point to that promised 
seed whereby he expected the curse to be taken off" the ground ; and though 
they both erred in their conception of the persons, yet it was a sion they 
bore a sense of the promise in their minds, and that Eve bore Christ in the 
womb of her faith, though Cain, whom she bore in the womb of her body, 
was not that special seed. This particle riX, between two nouns, gram- 
marians say, doth specify the person or thing spoken of; as Ezek. xxxiv, 
23, ' I will set one shepherd over them, even David my servant.' And it 
is to be considered that an ancient paraphrast, Jonathan ben Uzziel, who 
best understood the idiom of the Hebrew language, explains it so ; 'a man, 
the Lord.' And the objection against this interpretation, that Eve erred in 
her imagination of the birth of the promised seed to be like the birth of 
other men, signifies not much ; so did Lamech in the birth of Noah, yet 
his speech cannot be denied to have some respect to the promise ; and why 
* Ainsworth in loc, t So Fagius, Luther, Cocceius, Schindler, Foster. 



158 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

may not both their errors be very well ascribed to the vehemency of their 
longing (which argued the greatness of their faith) and the obscurity of the 
revelation ? That there should be such a seed, was manifest to them from 
the truth of God ; but the manner how this seed should be brought forth 
into the world, whether of a virgin, was hid from them, and not revealed 
till many ages after. I do not see any inconvenience in thus interpreting 
this place ; as if Eve should have said, I have gained that very man, the 
Lord ; that divine person promised to be the conqueror of the serpent, that 
hath been the cause of bringing this misery upon us. 

(8.) All those that believed under the law had their faith pitched upon 
the Messiah. We may easily perceive by the whole eleventh chapter to the 
Hebrews that the substance of faith was always the same, and therefore the 
object of faith was in the gross, confusedly or distinctly, the same. Upon 
this account, all believers from the beginning of the world may be called 
Christians.* Whatsoever the ceremonies of the church might be, their faith 
had the same foundation, was of the same tenure. Upon the promised seed 
it was pitched, and the bruising of the serpent, and removing of the curse by 
it, was longed for. The whole mystery of prophecy was designed for the 
encouragement and support of this faith. Eating and drinking are meta- 
phors to signify faith in its applicatory act. This the ancients are said to 
do ; they ate Christ in the manna, and drank Christ in the rock, 1 Cor. x. 
3, 4. They came to G-od as a rewarder. That was as necessaiy to be con- 
sidered by them as the existence of a God is to be believed by them, Heb. 
xi. 6, not as a rewarder in a way of nature ; they could not but know- 
Adam's fall to be a discouragement to such expectations ; but in a way of 
grace, according to the promise made to Adam after the fall. This Messiah 
the church perpetually held under all the corruptions of ages and the abuses 
of the watchmen, and would not let him go. Cant. iii. 4. They had the 
same fruits of faith under the law, and therefore the same substantial object 
of faith as we have under the gospel. All that were justified and saved had 
the sentence of justification pronounced upon them on no other account than 
we have, which Paul labours to evidence in several places, especially Rom. iv., 
throughout the whole chapter, in the examples of Abraham and David. Their 
justification was by faith, which faith was ' imputed to them for righteous- 
ness ;' and what that faith was, the apostle plainly deciphers : ver. 23, 24, 
' It was written for us, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him 
that raised up Jesus our Lord fi'om the dead.' If his faith were of another 
kind and had another object, God alone, and not God in Christ, it could not 
have been so positively said it was written for our sakes. It is a faith in 
God through Christ that is imputed to us under the gospel for justification. 
It was a faith in G-od through the Messiah that was imputed to them. It 
was imputed to them, it shall be imputed to us ; the same faith pitched upon 
the same object. It would not be any strong arguing in the apostle that 
Abraham and we should be alike justified by faith, if our faith and his were 
not the same, and embraced not the same object. All that were sanctified 
were perfected by Christ, Heb. x. 14. If any man came to the Father, they 
came by him, because ' no man comes to the Father but by' that true and 
living way, John xiv. 6. They anciently embraced the promises, Heb. xi. 13. 
What ! With the neglect of the first root promise, to which all the other 
promises were but appendixes or comments upon it ? Could they embrace 
the comments, and act faith upon nothing of the text ? It was an heavenly 
inheritance they expected, ' for they confessed themselves strangers and 
pilgrims on the earth ;' and ver. 10, ' they looked for a city, whose builder 
* As Eusebius saith, Histor. lib. i. cap iv. 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 159 

and maker is Grod :' a city having foundations, i. e. an immutable state, 
which they could not do if they had not exercised their faith about that first 
promise, which took off the execution of the first threatening, and promised 
the ruin of that enemy which had ruined their health they had in the first 
creation ; and could all this be without a faith in that Messiah who was to 
be the worker of those glorious things, who was indeed the author and 
finisher of faith ; the author of it, or the foundation of it, in the ancient 
Israelites, in the types and figures ; and the finisher and completer of it in 
bis appearance in the flesh and bloody passion, wherein he laid the top-stone ? 
This may be further cleared if we consider, 

1. Sacrifices in themselves could be no content and satisfaction to them, 
nor the proper object of their faith. They could not but be sensible of too 
great a burden to be taken off" from them and supported by the weakness of 
a lamb ; they could not but be sensible of too deep a stain to be washed oft" 
from them by the blood of a little kid, or a greater quantity of it in a heifer. 
Could they possibly imagine that brutish blood could open the gates of 
heaven, and eat through those bars that justice had fixed upon them, or the 
smoke of the carcase of a slain beast could sweeten the stench of their sins '? 
It is an injury to the faith of those worthies so highly celebrated, Heb. xi., 
to think that it fell so flat, and was drowned in the blood and bowels of the 
beasts, and mounted no higher than the smoke of their entrails, that they 
expected no higher expiation, and no higher contentment, as the issue of 
these things. Though some of those worthies ' wandered about in sheep- 
skins and goat-skins,' Heb. xi. 37, yet their faith was not wrapped up in the 
skins of lambs or hides of heifers, since they had so often heard by the pro- 
phets that those things were not pleasing to God in themselves, that he did 
not ' eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats,' Ps. 1. 13. Though 
they knew God true to perform his promise, and merciful to pity their mise- 
ries, yet they knew him to be of a pure and spiritual nature, above any 
delight in a ceremonious pomp, and too just to be appeased by an herd of 
consecrated animals. The groans and repeated desires of the ancient saints 
for the ' consolation of Israel,' that ' the salvation of Israel would come out 
of Sion,' their hungry waitings for God's salvation, manifested that those 
things were thought too weak by them to ease thetn of their burdens, to 
procure the good things they felt the need of. If their faith had been con- 
fined to those sacrifices, if it had here taken its rest, and laid its head at ease 
upon a pillow of beasts' skins, what ground was there for those groans, those 
ardent desires for another kind of salvation, even when they were in the most 
prosperous and flourishing condition, tasting every day of the milk and honey 
of Canaan, and settled in a ceremonious worship of God's institution ? Surely 
their faith ascended above the blood and smoke of the sacrifices to the throne 
of the Messiah. Sacrifices were the gospel in a rough draught, not with the 
perfect lineaments. 

2. They could not but apprehend some mystery in these ceremonies, and 
use them as assistances of their faith, and as means to conduct it to the 
right object. They could not but apprehend them to be rather the repre- 
sentations of the true object of faith than to be the proper object themselves. 
It can hardly be imagined that all the Israelites stuck in the shell of sacri- 
fices and ceremonies, that their eyes were terminated to the outward pomp 
and bloody offerings, without any respect to some mystery in them ; they 
could not but conjecture that those types were significant of some great work 
to be done.- It could never enter into the understanding of rational men 
that all that corporeal worship was enjoined for itself, and that those multi- 

* Amyr. Moral, torn. iv. pp. 128, 129. 



160 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

tudes of ceremonies were without a signification of something to them. When 
there were such perpetual orders about the tabernacle, the meanest utensils 
of it, the ark, and propitiatory, the cherubims to overshadow it, the shew- 
bread, the sacrifices, the scapegoat, it was known to them that all those had 
a respect to the expiation of sin, and therefore must represent some other 
greater thing, which might be sufficient for the expiation, since they could 
not but judge those things too feeble to attain so great an end of themselves ; 
or else they must have very unworthy and unbecoming notions of God, and 
very slight imaginations of the deep taint original sin had left upon their 
natures, with which we cannot imagine that the minds of believers could be 
possessed. They knew that God was infinitely wise, that in everything that 
he did and ordered there was something to be understood by them : could 
they think that the passage through the Red Sea was intended only to deliver 
them, and had no further aim, since God could have delivered them many 
other ways, struck the enemy dead upon their march, or enabled the Israel- 
ites to overcome them in a plain fight? The wiser at least might well think 
that the manna, rock, the serpent lifted up in the wilderness for the healing 
of the people, and many other actions of God among them, had something 
mysterious in them, though they could not discern every lineament of that 
mystery. Did they not all tend to the encouragement of their faith, pursuant 
to the first promise, and was the design of them altogether unknown to those 
for whose sake they were appointed ? If they were all baptized in the Red 
Sea, can we think that all were ignorant of something of the spiritual mean- 
ing of it ? 1 Cor. X. 1—4. Did they eat Christ in the manna, and drink 
Christ in the rock ? Did they eat the spiritual meat and drink the spiritual 
drink (for that is the apostle's assertion), and did all of them eat and drink 
it unspiritually, without any understanding of the general spiritual significa- 
tion of it ? ' Our fathers,' saith the apostle, speaking to the Gentile Corin- 
thians. The Israelites were not the Corinthians' fathers according to the 
flesh, but their fathers in faith. The faith then the Israelites had in the 
type must respect the antitype, Christ, upon whom only the faith of the 
Corinthians was pitched. That could not be the same faith that had two 
different objects, as distant from one another as heaven from earth. Can a 
faith in the Messiah, and a faith terminated only in corporeal m.anna, and 
the liquid waters of a rock, be accounted a faith equally great and of the 
same kind ? The nature of faith, as well as any other act of the soul or 
body, is quite changed by the object about which it is conversant. The 
mystery of those things could not be altogether unknown to so many thou- 
sands. Would God not hide from Abraham the thing which he would do 
about Sodom, since Abraham should become a mighty nation, and that God 
knew that he would command his children and his household after him to 
keep the way of the Lord? Gen. xviii. 17-19. And would God totally hide 
the mj^stery veiled under those things from Moses, whom he had appointed 
the conductor of this people under him, one who had an excellency above all 
prophets, to be known by God face to face ? Deut. xxxiv. 10 ; i. e. saith 
Maimonides, to have an apprehension of things bestowed upon him above 
what any of the prophets which followed him in Israel had, and one that the 
Spirit of God in the history associates with God himself as the object of the 
Israelites' faith after the deliverance at the Red Sea, as a type of Christ.* 
Exod. xiv. 81, ' They feared the Lord, and believed in the Lord, and in his 
servant Moses ;' for so the words run in the Hebrew, believed in the Lord, 
and in Moses, as implying a mystery. Can we think the mystery was wholly 
obscured from him ? Was not his mind enlightened to some apprehensions of 
* More Nevocb. part ii. cap. xxv. 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 161 

what was couched under all those things ? Surely it was, and he would not 
conceal it to himself and veil it from all his people. The gospel was preached 
to the Israelites while they were in the wilderness : Heb. iv. 2, ' Unto us 
was the gospel preached, as well as unto them ; but the word preached did 
not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.' They 
had the word preached to them, and that word was the gospel ; Christ 
therefore, that is the substance and maxTow of the gospel, was preached to 
them ; preached to them in the types, manna, and the rock, and the serpent 
lifted up ; preached to them in the promise of Canaan. And who were those 
it was preached to ? The Israelites in the wilderness ; it was to them to 
whom God sware that they should not enter in his rest, to them who had 
grieved him forty years, and whose carcases fell in the wilderness. And 
why did they not enter into his rest ? Because they believed not, Heb. 
iii. 17-19. And what was that which they did not believe ? That we may 
not think it was only the promise of entering into the land of Canaan that 
they thus discredited, he tells us that it was the gospel that they did not 
believe. The gospel they rejected, by their murmuring against manna and 
Canaan. Those therefore that did believe among them behoved the gospel, 
pitched upon Chi'ist, who is the marrow of the gospel. They saw Christ in 
the manna, and Christ in the pleasant land promised them ; Christ in the 
blood of the sacrifices : the whole was the Christian religion in its rough 
draught. If the gospel were thus preached to them, Christ was the object 
of faith. Would God preach the gospel to them wholly in vain, so that 
no act of an evangelical faith should be exercised by any of them ? Would 
he be at such pains to send forth a vain sound so many ages, one after an- 
other, to people to whom he would give no understanding, not to a man 
of them, in some measure of what he meant by it ? It cannot be sup- 
posed that the gospel should be preached to them in all those figures, 
without a gospel faith exercised by some of them upon that which was 
represented by those shadows ; they had else been in vain and to no pur- 
pose to them. 

3. The object of their hope and trust under all that dispensation was the 
Messiah, and their faith was expressed by waiting and trusting. Jacob upon 
his death- bed breathes out his soul in longing for God's salvation, or God's 
Jesus,^Gen. xlix. 18, 'I have waited for thy salvation, Lord,' — and that 
in a very remarkable manner. Our interpreters refer it to a prediction of 
Samson, who was of the tribe of Dan, who was afterwards a deliverer of the 
Israelites, and say that Jacob's prophetic foresight of the dangers of that tribe 
made him break out into such a pathetic expression. But did not the other 
tribes conflict with dangers as well as Dan ? Why should Jacob have such 
an eruption of soul in his speaking of this tribe more than of any other, which 
were more considerable, and were to undergo as great sufierings as this ? 
Besides, Jacob speaks not of Dan as afihcted, but as victorious, ver. 16, 17 ; 
he should judge his people, and as a serpent overthrow the rider. Jacob had 
certainly an higher consideration. And therefore some of the ancient rab- 
bins * thus paraphrase the words : When Jacob foresaw Gideon and Samson 
to be the deliverers of his posterity, he saith, I do not so much expect the 
salvation by Gideon, nor the deliverance by Samson, which are temporal and 
created salvations ; but I expect that redemption which thou hast promised 
in thy word to come to Israel, that salvation which shall be for ever. The 
occasion of this sudden ejaculation of Jacob will easily clear the thing. He 
had been speaking of Dan, ver. 16, 17, and likens him to a sei-pent by the 
* Jonathan Ben Uzziel and Targura Hierosolymit. in loc 



162 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse heels so that his rider should 
fall backwards. Probably the speaking of Dan as a serpent, and his subtlety, 
minded him of the trick the serpent played our first parents, who is described, 
Gen. iii. 1, by the quality of the subtlest of all the beasts of the field ; and 
then breaks forth into an high expression of faith in that salvation which God 
had promised against that serpent. If this were not the occasion of it, why 
did he not utter the same expression upon a very fit occasion, when he had 
spoken before of the tribe of Judah, and of Shiloh's coming of that tribe ? 
ver. 10. But upon this occasion only, and no other in his whole prophecy, 
doth he breathe out his soul in such an expression. He kept this promise 
of the seed of the woman, and salvation by him, as a dejwsitum in his heart, 
fed upon it all his days, and makes a solemn confession of his faith in him 
in his dying posture. The psalmist ardently expected it, as those that watch 
for the morning, tired with a gloomy and tedious night : Ps. cxxx. 6, ' My 
soul waits for the Lord, more than they that wait for the morning ; I say, 
more than they that watch for the morning.' The repetition speaks the 
vehemency of his faith. It was after he had spoken of forgiveness of sin 
being with God, ver. 4, he expresseth his waiting : ver. 5, ' I waited for the 
Lord ; my soul waits for the Lord.' Because it is a soul mercy I desire, in 
his word do I hope ; in that first promise of the Messiah, and all the pro- 
mises of pardon and propitiation built upon that foundation. ' I wait more 
than they that watch for the morning :' when the sacrifices are to be con- 
tinued in the temple, my soul waits for that Messiah who is to bring forth a 
plenteous redemption, that Lord who is to redeem Israel from all his iniqui- 
ties.* I wait for him in these sacrifices more than those do for the morn- 
ing, wherein they are appointed to offer their sacrifices. The object of their 
waiting was the same with that of Simeon, Luke ii. 25, the consolation of 
Israel ; and that consolation was the Lord Christ, ver. 26. It was the pro- 
mise made to the fathers that they hoped in ; that hope of the promise for 
which Paul was accused and set before a tribunal, which was his hope in 
Christ, Acts xxvi. 6, 7. Waiting and hope are the words whereby faith is 
expressed in the Old Testament. Faith respects things present or past, hope 
respects things future and to be exhibited ; they believed the promise of the 
Messiah, and hoped for the accomplishment of it. Since Christ was the 
object of their hope, he was also the object of their faith. Since faith is the 
root of hope, nothing can be waited for but what is believed to be certainly 
and infallibly to come to pass. Their salvation, propitiation of their sins, 
redemption of their souls, they expected from Christ; and therefore their faith 
must be pitched upon him before he came. 

2. The second part of the proposition was, that though Christ was the im- 
mediate object of the faith of the ancients, yet he was not so distinct an 
object as now. 

(1.) They could not have a distinct knowledge, because the revelation was 
dark, both in the obscurity of the prophecies wherein it was signified, and 
the'^hadiness of the ceremonies wherein it was represented ; and from this 
obscurity they had many extravagant imaginations of an earthly Messiah, — 
not in the contemptible form of a servant, but in the royal posture of a 
prince, with a magificent attendance, to break the Eoman yoke. Because 
as the spiritual glory of the Messiah was signified, so it was obscured also, 
by those earthly terms ; and indeed they could not well have understood 
those spiritual mysteries without the expressions of them in terms suited to 
their sense. 

(2.) The mercy of God and the' incarnation of the Messiah they had aknow- 
* Chaldee Paraphr. in loc. 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 163 

ledge of, but not so clear of his death. The mercy of God was the distinct 
object of their faith. That was fully revealed to secure them against the 
fears of justice, and revealed to be brought about in and through the Messiah. 
Their faith in that was distinct, as appears Ps. cxxx. 3, 4 ; and the publican's 
address was supported by the simple consideration of the mercy of God, Luke 
xviii. 3 ; but the particular methods of the discovery of this mercy, in and 
by the Messiah, they were ignorant of. Yet a Messiah incarnate they were 
clear in, and as such he was represented as a distinct object of their faith ; 
and thus they considered his person and glory, and their hearts longed for 
him.* They knew by the first promise that he would be an extraordinary 
person, and by the titles God had given him of his righteous servant, that he 
should be an holy person, that he should be in high favour with God, because 
he was styled the Branch, and the Branch of righteousness, Zech. vi. 12 and 
iii. 8, Jer. xxxiii. 15. That he was to be a king upon a glorious throne, and 
a priest of a more excellent order than Aaron, even according to the order of 
Melchisedec, they could not be ignorant of; and a prophet whose words they 
were not to refuse upon the peril of their souls. Such oracles of him were 
plainly delivered ; but what was the religion he should settle by virtue of his 
prophetic office, or the conquests he should make, or the government he 
should establish as a king, or the sacrifice he should ofier as a priest, they 
did not clearly understand. Christ in all those offices was wrapped up in 
types ; they had only the rough draught of a picture, the light and colours 
were not yet added ; the virtue of all lay hid in a dispensation of shadows. 
Though they trusted in God for a mediator, yet they understood not the 
manner of the administration of this office, only they expected a clearness of 
knowledge, a firm peace, and a salvation by him. They had a faith in the 
gross, embraced the promise, saluted the things promised afar off, and rested 
upon the wisdom of God to clear up all in time, and bring all about that his 
grace had assured them of. We are not certain that anything besides his 
incarnation and some kind of suffering was revealed to Adam : his incarna- 
tion, in his being called the seed of the woman ; and his suffering, in the 
bruising of his heel by the serpent. Gen. iii. 15. But whether he understood 
that he was to redeem them by death from the expression of his bruised heel, 
or did collect it from the sacrifices instituted as a representation of this way 
of redemption, and a support to his faith in it, we have no assurance. But 
that he did understand a salvation and redemption of him and his posterity 
to be wrought by that seed, is evident by the promise. God doth not usually 
make a promise to people, but he gives them some understanding of that pro- 
mise which may conduce to their refreshment; the promise would be other- 
wise useless. Had not Adam had some understanding of the intent of the 
promise, his despair could not have been remedied, he could not with any 
heart have performed worship to God, which consists in prayer and thanks- 
giving ; nor have taught his posterity to worship, if he had not understood 
something of the intent of the promise, which he did, as appears by Abel's 
sacrifice. And we cannot think that he omitted the worship of God till the 
time of Seth, when the Scripture speaks of it again, which was about a hun- 
dred years ; and that he had no children between is easily gathered from 
Gen. iv. 25, wherein Eve calls him a seed instead of Abel. But yet the re- 
presentations he and his posterity had were at the best but Hke a bright cloud 
which kept off the heat of divine wrath, and shed some rays upon them, not 
a clear sunshine. The glory of Christ was in the bud, and not so visible ; as 
the glory of a flower is hid in the bud till it comes openly to display itself, 
and then it refresheth every sense. They could not have such a distinct view, 
* Ainyraut, Moral, torn. iv. pp. 120, 121. 



164 chaknock's woeks. [John XIY. 1. 

and therefore their faith could not so distinctly exercise itself about every 
part of this Messiah as ours may. They saw the Messiah as we do a man 
at a distance, or in a disguise ; we see him to be a man, but know not what 
man, we discern not his distinct features and lineaments ; they saw him as 
the Israelites saw Moses his face through the veil, not in all its splendour 
and glory. This indistinct faith being caused by an imperfect revelation, did 
not prejudice their interest in the saving grace of the Messiah ; for God is so 
righteous as not to require a faith but what is proportioned to the revelation 
■he vouchsafes. They were members of Christ with their faith in the gross 
tinder Moses, as well as we with our more particular faith under Paul and 
ithe apostles. 

(3.) Our faith must be more distinct. While the revelation was in the gross, 
a faith in the gross was sufficient. But for us who have a -clearer revelation, 
^ more distinct faith is required, proportioned to the measure and circum- 
stances of the discovery. When they saw the throats of the sacrifices cut 
by the priest, they might know that they were typical ; but how exactly in 
■every part they answered to the antitype, neither did they know then, 
nor we now ; but since we are not under types, but clear manifestations, 
since the fulness of time is come and the veil is rent in twain, since Christ 
hath passed through the veil of the shadow of death to his throne of glory, 
a confused faith will not serve our turn. God, in regard of his veracity, 
mercy, and goodness, was the distinct object of their faith, Christ, a more 
obscure one ; now one is as distinct as the other. Therefore Christ says, 
' Believe also in me,' in the same manner, and as distinctly as you did believe 
in the mercy and truth of God. The former revelation was not intended to 
draw out a faith from them as explicit as ours ought to be, but was intended 
to confirm us who should live in and after the fulness of time, that by the 
consideration of the ancient predictions, and comparing them with the after 
transactions, we should have our faith strengthened by them. This k clearly 
expressed by Peter: 1 Peter i. 12, 'Unto whom it was revealed, that not 
unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now 
reported unto you.' By all these obscure revelations anciently, we have cer- 
tain evidence of the truth of those things declared to us in the gospel. 

3. Christ is the immediate object of faith in his person. ' Believe also 
in me,' that I am the great person appointed by God for the redemption of 
•the world. Christ in this speech directs them to himself, not to a promise ; 
it is not, Believe in this or that promise, but in me. As faith in God centres 
in the Deity, so faith in Christ centres in his person. Promises may be a 
ground, yet they are not the object of a justifying faith, nor are they in any 
sort objects of faith in themselves ; but in regard of the good things pro- 
mised in them, as they contain in them the grace of God, and the blessings 
of the mediation of Christ, they direct us to Christ, as the proclamation and 
promise of a prince directs and encourageth the rebels to come into his pre- 
sence, and supplicate his pardon. Faith is called a coming to Christ, Mat. 
xi. 28, which rather notes his person than his doctrine. It is not a faith 
simply in his Godhead that is required by him, for so he is the object of 
faith in the same manner as the Deity is ; nor simply in his manhood, for 
so he is no more the object of faith than another man may be, but Chi'ist 
in his person, God-man. Christ must be believed in as God gives him ; 
Crod gives his person first, and then his benefits ; the benefits bestowed upon 
us are consequential to the gift of his person to us : Rom, viii. 32, he first 
delivered him for us, and then with him gives us all things. The blessings- 
expected are not the object of our faith, but Christ, by whom those benefits 
were purchased, and by whom they are conveyed to us. God gave him as 



John XIV. l.J the object of faith. 165 

his only-begotten Son, a person, not a doctrine ; though he did not give hitn 
without giving him orders what doctrine to publish. As God gave him, so 
we are to believe in him ; believe in him, and believe on the Son, John iii. 
16, 36. We can never apply ourselves to him as the Son of God without 
a consideration of his person ; we are sanctified by faith that is in him, 
Acts xxvi. 18, not faith in his word severed from his person ; and, indeed, 
there can be no true faith in Christ, if he be not considered in the excel- 
lency of his person. The apostle therefore, in the beginning of the Hebrews, 
an epistle written to draw off the Jews from their ceremonies to the I\Iessiah, 
proposeth him, Heb. i., in his dignity and grandeur. As the Deity in its 
excellency is the ultimate object, so Christ in his eminency is the immediate 
object of faith. Faith respects Christ dying and meriting by his death, which 
it cannot do unless it considers him in the excellency of his person above 
that of a simple man, even the Son of God sanctified for us. His merit, 
had it been finite, would have been insufiicient for the weight of our souls 
aud the burden of our sins, without the greatness of his person. He is not 
only man : then he might have fallen as the first Adam did, and left us in the 
sapae or a worse condition ; he is not only God : then he could have per- 
formed no obedience to the law, as being not concerned in it as a subject, 
but as a lawgiver ; nor could he have offered any satisfaction to God, as being 
uncapable of suffering in the Deity ; but God and man, fit to repair the 
honour of God and the fallen state of the creature. Since Christ as crucified 
is the object of faith, what significancy would his sufferings have without 
the consideration of the other, which puts so high a value upon his passion, 
aud communicates so rich an efficacy to it ? We are to believe in Christ 
for the remission of sin, which is obtained not so much by the sacrifice, as 
by the quality of the sacrifice. The Jews searched for their expiation in the 
bowels of beasts, uncapable to make an atonement for them. The nature of 
the sacrifice must be first considered, and that we cannot have a prospect 
of in the value and merit of it, till we fix the eye of our faith upon the great- 
ness of his person, who was thus made a sacrifice for us. Indeed, to 
consider Christ barely in his person attracts our love more than our recum- 
bency ; to consider him barely in his passion without the excellency of his 
person, would excite neither faith nor love, but grief and horror ; to con- 
sider him as suffering for us, would attract our love in a way of gratitude ; 
but to consider him as suffering for us ; without considering the ability of his 
person to relieve us by that suffering, would be too weak to elevate our faith 
to him. Reliance always respects ability as well as goodness and affection ; 
faith therefore respects the person of Christ immediately, but not absolutely 
in himself, but as he stands in relation to the Father, as his Son and his 
servant. 

4. Therefore, Christ as sent by God is the object of faith, as sent to such 
an end as redemption. Faith rests upon Christ as a gift, upon God as 
the donor. There is little comfort in all that Christ did and suffered, 
unless we respect him as one sent by his Father ; it is this fastens our faith 
on him, and possesses our souls with a confidence in him ; this is the mag- 
nifying emphasis he himself sets upon his disciples' faith, in his solemn 
pleas in heaven, if we may judge of them by the pattern of them he gave us 
on earih : John xvii. 8, ' They have believed that thou didst send me.' 
Christ as sent is the object of faith, since the love of God in sending Christ is 
urged as the encouragement to faith, John iii. 16. Though faith pitcheth 
upon Christ's propitiating blood, yet it is under this consideration, that he 
was set forth by God for such an end : Rom. iii. 25, * Whom God hath set 
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.' This is necessary 



166 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

to the formal condition of faith in its closing and justifying act, -without 
which it would be a lifeless and comfortless thing, for faith justifies us 
before God as a judge ; but can any thing be confidently and comfortably 
pleaded by a criminal, who doubts the judge's approbation of it ? The allow- 
ance of God as a judge upon the propitiation of Christ heartens faith in its 
act ; it would wholly droop, nay, not go a step, if it did not see God's authority 
in Christ's action and passion ; it considers Christ not only as a Redeemer, 
but a Redeemer by commission, and carries God's commission to Christ in 
its hand in every address to the throne of grace for justifying mercy. If a 
pardon be proclaimed to those that shall come to such an inferior magis- 
trate, no man would come but upon the strength of the declaration of the 
supreme authority which made that proclamation, and can only make it valid 
for a rebel's safety. This is so necessary a part of the object of faith, that 
no true grounded and well-built faith can be without it. When our eyes have 
respect to the Holy One of Israel, we must look to our maker, Isa. xvii. 7. 
I question whether if an Israelite bitten by a fiery serpent had looked upon 
the brazen one, lifted up on the pole, only to contemplate the figure, and the 
ingenuity of the artificer, without considering the end for which Moses had 
set it up in relation to his cure, and the divine appointment of it, he would 
have found from it any remedy for his distemper ; natural influence it had 
none, and moral influence supposeth a suitable apprehension in the spectator. 
I am sure an ancient so paraphraseth Numb. xxi. 8, 9, ' When he looks upon 
it, he shall live : he shall live, if his heart be directed to the name of the 
word of the Lord ;'* and so ver, 9, ' When he looked upon the brazen 
serpent, and his heart was intent upon the name of the word of the Lord, 
he did live.' His look was to be not only to the elevated serpent, but to the 
divine authority that ordered it. 

5. Christ in all his ofiices. ' Believe also in me,' without any limitation 
or restriction to this or that particular ofiice. If faith pitch upon the person 
of Christ, and the person of Christ as authorised by God, it embraceth 
Christ with all his offices, because his person is invested with them ; and the 
same authority which settled him in one, conferred upon him the rest. True 
faith rests upon his person as commissioned, and receives him in the extent 
of his commission ; and therefore in every office distinctly, to be given up to 
his rule, sit under his instructions, and eat and drink of his sacrifice. His 
person is not separated from his offices, nor his offices from one another ; 
nor is there a distinct commission for each of them. As faith takes God 
with all his perfections, so it takes Christ with all his dignities ; as when we 
believe in God, we believe in him with all his attributes, so when we believe 
in Christ, we believe in him with all his excellencies ; as you believe in God, 
believe also in me. You do not take God to be your God, only in his power, 
or mercy, goodness, or faithfulness, or wisdom, but in all ; so you must not 
take me to be Messiah, anointed for you to a priesthood only, but to a kingly 
and prophetical office. Christ is proposed whole, and therefore must be 
taken whole ; God doth not ofier him in pieces, but entire ; he is not a priest 
without being a king, nor a prophet without being a king and a priest. As 
faith is exercised for justification, Christ is considered as a priest ; as it is 
exercised for an understanding of God, he is considered as a prophet ; as it 
is exercised for sanctification, to put down the dominion of sin, and relics of 
corruption, he is considered as a king, advanced to put all enemies under 
his feet. Our necessities require such acts of faith upon his distinct offices ; 
we are full of guilt and filth, and we must have Christ as our priest to secure 
us by his sacrifice from the merit of our guilt, and wash us by his blood 
* Jonathan Targum in loc. 



John XIY. 1.] the object of faith. 167 

from the defilements of our filth ; we are beset and inlaid with darkness, and 
we must have Christ by his wisdom to shew us the way, and conduct us in 
saving paths ; we are possessed with a stubbornness and impotency, and 
we must believe in Christ as a king to quell our enmity, and strengthen our 
weakness by his power. The ingenuity of faith speaks this language : Since 
Christ is a priest to sacrifice for me, it is but reasonable he should be my 
prophet to teach me, and my king to govern me ; that as I live by his blood, 
I should walk by his rule ; receive every ray of light, suck in every spiritual 
direction, as well as feed upon the juice of his sacrifice. 

6. Yet, Christ as crucified is the more immediate object of faith. He 
had spoke of his death in the foregoing chapter, which was the occasion of 
their sorrow ; and now he speaks of their believing in him : ' You believe in God' 
as a living God, ' believe also in me' as a dying Saviour. We are to receive 
Christ as God doth ofi'er him to us, as a redeemer from eternal death, and 
the purchaser of eternal life : and this he doth in the quality of a sacrifice 
satisfying for our sin, and meriting our life : Rom. iii. 25, he is set out as a 
propitiation ; as one in whom God is well pleased. It is faith therefore in 
his blood that justifies, ver. 24 ; not faith in his precept, nor faith in his 
miracles, nor abstractedly faith in his person, but faith in him as bathed in 
his own blood, and rolling in his own gore. The other parts are but con- 
ductors of faith to this bath, wherein it washes the soul ; to this throne, 
whereon faith sits triumphantly, and never sparkles with such a life, as in 
this. Faith in the latitude of it, extends to all parts of Scripture ; and as it 
is a general faith, is exercised about precepts, promises, and threatenings ; 
but in its acts about those objects, it is not a justifying faith, but only as it 
respects Christ, and Christ too in the very act of expiating sin by his satis- 
factory death on the cross ; as the soul of a man doth exercise itself in vege- 
tation and sense, yet a man is not said to be a rational creature by those 
acts, or by those powers of the soul, but by the soul, as it is rational. 

(1.) This was proposed as the formal object in the first promise, Gen. 
iii. 15, as having his heel bruised by the devil, as well as bruising the 
devil's head. This promise was the great charter of our redemption, and the 
foundation of the faith of Adam's posterity for several ages. It was indeed 
spoke to the serpent, but for the sake of man ; a threatening to the tempter, 
and a promise to the tempted, and an argument of terror to the first, and 
support to the latter. Christ is here proposed for men's comfort under the 
notion of a conqueror, but yet under the notion of a sufferer ; his passion in 
his heel was to precede his breaking his enemies' head ; so his sufferings are 
first to be eyed by faith before his victory. The devil could not be over- 
come, and stripped of his power, but by a satisfaction to the broken law, 
which could not be only by observing the precept, without suff'ering the 
penalty. The devil's authority was built upon the curse of the law, which 
must be endured before the devil could be turned out of his palace. It was 
upon the cross that principalities and powers were stripped of their dominion, 
and exposed in triumph. Col. ii. 15. And in this promise, though the seed 
of the woman be proposed to their faith as one to be bruised, yet not as one 
to be conquered, but as prevalent and triumphant, bruising the enemy in the 
head and vital part, while himself is only bruised in the heel, a part remote 
from the heart, and more remote from the head. The ancients therefore, in 
sucking the sweet juice of this gracious word, could not but consider Christ 
as combating, as well as conquering ; the Messiah suff'ering something from 
the serpent, as well as defeating and surviving him. 

(2.) Christ under this notion was proposed in all the Jewish sacrifices. 
As the promise was a publication of Christ to faith in a suffering condition, 



168 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

PC the sacrifices were a publication of Christ to sense in the kind of his 
sufferings in a dying posture. It was more than once expressed to the 
Israelites that sacrifices were appointed for the atonement of sin; they 
must be exceeding blind, if they could persuade themselves that any such 
expiation of sin could be wrought by any value in the blood of a beast, that 
that could bear a proportion to the injured honour of God, and the broken 
tables of the law ; they could not but conceive something mysterious in them ; 
and the more inquisitive, it is like, perceived some analogy between the type, 
and the thing signified by it. They might read something of a suffering 
Messiah in them for the atonement of their sins ; but they could never be 
instructed by the dying groans and heart-blood of beasts to fancy such a 
triumphant Messiah as they did, without being exposed to a calamitous con- 
dition. It is certain, Christ as a sacrifice was proposed in all those sin- 
offerings ; they were all but legal shadows of the good things to come by the 
great sacrifice, Heb. x. 1. Our faith ought not less to pitch upon Christ as 
a crucified sacrifice offered to God, than theirs was to look to him under 
that consideration in every beast, in every lamb slain, and offered upon the 
altar. He was not shadowed in those sacrifices in the glories of his person, 
the miracle of his resurrection, the triumphs of his ascension, and his 
honours at the right hand of God, but in the agonies of his bitter passion, 
represented by the stragglings and dying gasps of the slain victim ; these 
sacrifices had no analogy but with his death. 

(3.) This was proposed by the apostles in their teaching. It was Paul's 
practice among the Corinthians : 1 Cor. ii. 2, he ' determined to know nothing 
among them,' i. e. to make known nothing as the object of the faith he invited 
them to, ' save Jesus Christ and him crucified.' His design was to manifest 
Christ in the glory of his person, in the excellency of his natures, in the end 
of his coming,*but more especially as crucified, being under that considera- 
tion the fountain of their salvation, and most proper for the exercise of their 
faith. And when he heard of the Galatians' departure from the truth, he 
wonders at it, since Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among them, 
Gal. iii. 1. It was an astonishment to him that they should imagine to find a 
remedy for their guilt, a sanctuary for their souls, a screen against the justice 
of God, anywhere else but in the cross of Christ. Christ as crucified was in 
all their preaching proposed as the object of faith, security from punishment, 
and way to happiness. Believing in Christ is called eating of the altar, Heb. 
xiii. 10, i. e. of the sacrifice which had been offered on the altar, the 
apostle speaking in legal terms. In some sacrifices part was burnt upon the 
altar, and part reserved for a feast for the offerer and his friends. They ate 
it in the relation of a sacrifice ; and Christ can be fed on by faith only under 
the consideration of a sacrifice, as a dying sacrifice, before he be considered 
as a living Saviour. 

(4.) Under this consideration will the faith of the Jews pitch upon him, 
when God shall be pleased to convert them. Christ as pierced is to be 
looked upon : Zech. xii. 10, 11. ' They shall look upon him whom they have 
pierced.' They that did actually pierce him shall so look upon him with an 
eye of faith, planted in them by the Spirit of grace ; and he that was pierced 
for their sins shall be seen and owned by them. It is a look of belief, not a 
bodily look. They shall look upon him so as to rest in him : they shall look 
upon him as pierced, as their predecessors did look upon the serpent lifted 
up in the wilderness, with a reliance on the promise of God, that they should 
have the restoration of their health, and the expulsion of their venom by it. 
He will be acknowledged in the great intent of his death, which was to take 
away sin. 



John XIV. l.J the object of faith. 1C9 

(5.) That is the object of our faith, which is God's object in justifying a 
sinner. But God in his justifying act particularly looks upon this blood : 
Rom. V. 9, ' Being now justified by his blood.' He speaks of God's act of 
justifying as he doth in the expression of God's act in saving us. In the 
act of justification, God looks upon the sinner as bedewed and sprinkled with 
this blood. He crosses not one of our debts without first dipping his pen in 
this blood. Christ therefore as dying, and paying the price of his precious 
blood for our redemption, is the immediate object of faith. Christ as risen 
is an object of faith successively to this. The payment of a debt is really 
the ground of the justification and security of him for whom that debt is paid. 
The acquittance is only the declaration of the payment, if the debtor should 
be questioned afterwards. It was this sacrifice God took the sole pleasure 
in : Heb. x. 8, ' Ofierings for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure 
therein ;' not in any offered by the law, which the apostle adds in a paren- 
thesis, intimating thereby that this great offering was the delight of the soul ; 
and in this offering of the body of Christ his whole will for our sanctification 
centred, as it follows ver. 9, 10. Our faith must therefore bear some parallel 
with the pleasure and will of God, and wrap itself up in the same object. 
The blood of Christ is that whereby we are justified, for we are pronounced 
justified by God upon the account of a righteousness answering the law ; but 
Christ as a king and Christ as a prophet did not answer either the precept 
or penalty of the law, but Christ as a priest. This therefore whereby God 
justifieth is considered by faith in its going out for justification. This only 
can expel fears, and be a ground of the greatest consolation. This was that 
God's heart was chiefly set upon. This was that he called him out to 
perform. He had never been a king nor a prophet had he not acted the part 
of a priest, nor had God justified any but upon that account of his sacrifice. 
It was in this office God confirmed him for ever with so much delight as to 
engage himself by oath to the perpetuating of it. He was not so solemnly 
by oath invested in the other two. 

(6.) Nothing else of Christ can be the immediate and primary object 
of our faith, but his death. Nothing else but the priestly oflice of Christ 
and his propitiation, and atonement he hath made for sin (and thereby 
delivered us from the wrath to come), can be the formal object of faith in its 
first application. There are many things in Christ that faith afterwards 
considers, and that are worthy of our deepest inquiries and meditations ; but 
this only is considered in the first application. "What did the poor stung 
Israehtes consider in their looking upon the brazen serpent ? Did they con- 
sider it only as the figure of a serpent, or let their minds run out upon the 
excellency of the figure, the skill of the artificer, and the curiosity of the 
workmanship ? These indeed to a sound man would have been a delightful 
employment ; but as soon as ever he had been bitten, he would have laid 
aside all such thoughts, and cast his eye upon it, according to the intent of 
its elevation on the pole for the cure of his disease. "What did the poor 
malefactor consider in his distress when he ran to the horns of the altar ? 
He considered it only as a place of refuge, and not as a place of worship. A 
man in the first act of faith considers himself guilty before God, and in danger 
of eternal fire, under the dreadful displeasure of God by reason of his trans- 
gression of the law ; he considers himself a breaker of that law, and conse- 
quently under the threatening and curse of it, and wishes for security from 
that fire : his conscience, by virtue of a violated law, flasheth in his face. 
That therefore which prompts a man in this condition to go to Christ, is the 
belief and hope of a sure deliverance by him. His great intendment is justifi- 
cation, freedom, and deliverance, and therefore he eyes Christ as a deliverer, 



170 chaenock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

and in that posture and method wherein he was a deliverer, i. e. as hanging 
upon the cross. Indeed, afterwards, when the soul comes to consider its own 
ignorance and pollution, and longs for sanctification, then its faith goes out 
to Christ as a prophet to instruct him, and as a king to defeat his enemies in 
him. But to a soul sensible of the guilt of sin, and racked by the horrors 
of conscience, what is most convenient to be proposed ? Would you set 
forth Christ in his glories as a king that must be obeyed ? This strikes the 
soul dead. What would his answer be ? The more able to damn me for 
my disobedience. A king, say you, to be obeyed ? What is this to me that 
have disobeyed him, that find no power in myself to obey him ; and, if I 
could, I cannot, upon a diligent scrutiny, find any merit in that obedience ? 
But if there were, how can I wipe off my former scores, and pacify God for 
my manifold past errors, and please his offended holiness ? Would you 
propose Christ as a prophet to teach him his duty ? What is this to the 
curse ? How shall I be rid of my guilt ? How shall I escape punishment ? 
But propose Christ as a priest and sacrifice : set him forth in his priestly attire, 
with the streams of blood issuing from him for the expiation of guilt. This 
will make a soul that hath all the flames of hell about his ears listen. Here 
is an offer of Christ in a suitable capacity to the present state and wants of 
a sinner. What is the language of a poor soul at first ? How can I endure 
wrath ? How can I satisfy justice ? The proposal of Christ as having 
undertaken this work for him, and becoming sin in his stead, is the only 
proportionable remedy. It is then, and not till then, that the soul clasps 
about him. Here I find the satisfaction of my soul, where God found the 
satisfaction of his justice. This contents me under the charge of a violated 
law, the dread of an incensed God, the tortures of an em-aged conscience. 
Here I find a surety satisfying my debts, bearing my punishment, and inter- 
posing his shoulders between me and the wrath merited by me ; here I find 
that which pacifies God and pacifies me. This gives rest to the soul. The 
day of atonement among the Israelites, which typified this great saving expia- 
tion by the death of the Messiah, is called, not God's Sabbath, but your 
Sabbath, Lev. xxiii. 32. Here, and here alone, is the rest that faith finds 
in its first search. Christ as a king and Christ as a prophet did not merit, 
and therefore Christ as a king and Christ as a prophet are not considered 
in the first act of seeking after justification ; but Christ as meriting, and 
therefore Christ as a priest and a sacrifice. As a king he rules, as a prophet 
he instructs, as a priest he merits. Christ did not profit us but as dying, 
and all the benefits we have by him were radically in his death. Hereby 
he satisfied the cm-se of the law, which was the only bar to our restoration 
to happiness. This was the main thing he was to do by articles drawn 
between the Father and himself, so that upon this account this death, or 
Christ as dying, is the main object of faith. 

(7.) Nothing can continue, and keep life in faith afterwards, but Christ 
considered as dying. Since there are slips and new pollutions, faith, in all its 
acts for continuance of justification and repeated pardons, goes afresh to the 
embraces of the cross, and pleads the merits of Christ's wounds and agonies ; 
it looks upon the Lamb of God as taking away the sins of the world, and begs 
the favour of God for the merits of Christ. 

As Christ dying is the object of the first act of faith, so he is the encourage- 
ment to a continuance of faith ; for he hath in so high a manner evidenced 
himself merciful and faithful in this, that there is no doubt of his merciful- 
ness and faithfulness in everything that concerns us after. He hath declared 
himself worthy of our most fixed reliance on him, and that he will not stick 
at lesser things, since he hath undertaken and finished so great a task as that 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 171 

of suffering. From bis priesthood faith takes spirit and heart to go to him 
as king and prophet, which it could never do if it did not first receive en- 
couragements from hence, and first pitched upon it ; for, as I said before, as 
all the after benefits of Christ are radically in his death, so all the after acts 
of faith upon Christ in any other condition are radically in his first act of faith 
upon Christ as a sacrifice, which first act gives life to all the exercises of faith 
upon Christ in another capacity afterwards. 

To conclude. The death of Christ, as it is satisfactory to God, is the 
object of faith ; as it is of infinite efiicacy and perpetual force, it is the object 
of a triumphant faith and hope. The righteousness of Christ in his death is 
to be considered in all this. If we take him as a sacrifice, we must take him 
as a spotless sacrifice ; if as a priest, as an undefiled one, separate from 
sinners, as well as for sinners. We cannot beheve in Christ without taking 
in his righteousness, as we cannot behold the sun without beholding its light. 
7. Christ, as risen and exalted, is the object of faith. He is the imme- 
diate object of faith as dying, the triumphant object of faith as rising. His 
sacrifice was in his death, but the value and virtue of that sacrifice was 
manifest by his resurrection. Had Christ left his body in the grave, and 
had sins committed before been pardoned upon the atonement he made 
by his death, yet the sacrifice ceasing and corrupting, it had not been of 
everlasting efficacy. If God, as raising Christ from the dead, is the object 
of faith, — Rom. iv. 24, 25, ' If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our 
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our ofi'ences, and raised again for 
our justification,' — then Christ, as raised by God, is the object of faith also. 
He was raised from the grave for our justification, as well as delivered to the 
cross for our offences. As in his death in our stead he bore the curse of the 
law, so in his resurrection as a common person we received our acquittal 
from the hands of the judge. Though his resurrection was not meritorious 
of our justification, yet it was a declaration of the efficacy of his death, and 
consequently of our discharge. Faith must eye that whereby we are justified. 
Now, though we are justified by Christ's death as the meritorious cause, yet 
we are justified by his resurrection as the perficient cause. Had his death 
been supposed to be fully meritorious without a resurrection, it had freed us 
from death by cancelling the bond ; but his resurrection instates us in life by 
God's gracious acceptation, and makes the redemption complete, which else 
had been but a partial one ; nay, none at all. To the one we owe our free- 
dom from death ; to the other, our investiture with eternal hfe and glory. 
To the one we owe our righteousness ; to the other, our sonship. It is by 
his resurrection from the dead we are begotten to a lively hope, 1 Peter i. 3 ; 
it is upon him, therefore, as raised, that our faith must be settled. Had he 
not risen, we had been still in our sins ; not a mite of our debts had ever 
appeared to have been paid, 1 Cor. xv. 17. His death had been insufficient 
for our happiness without his resurrection. His resurrection was an evidence 
that he could save others, since he was delivered himself, and that his Father 
would save the members, since he had raised the head. Had he not been 
raised, faith in his death had had no ground. It had been an unac- 
countable thing to believe in him that lay under the power of death, and had 
not sufficient strength to shake off the bands of it. This is the key that un- 
locks to us the whole design, end, and sufficiency of his death, and renders 
faith in him as crucified more easy. Everything in Christ, everything pro- 
mised by him, is very credible. Nothing can be matter of any difficulty to 
faith, since this of his resurrection is perfected. Faith is, therefore, called 
* the faith of the operation of God,' Col. ii. 12, noting the object of faith, and 
not the efficient cause of it ; not because God works it in us (though that Le 



172 charnock's woeks. [John XIV. 1. 

true, yet it is not the sense of the place), but a faith of that energy and 
mighty power of God put forth in the raising Christ from the dead. It was 
by this act, whereby he fulfilled his past promises, that he gives us security 
for the performance of future ones. * For as concerning that he raised him 
up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he saith in this wise, 
I will give you the sure mercies of David,' Acts xiii. 34. What were those 
sure mercies of David given in this ? The fulfilling of the promise made 
to the fathers, ver. 32, 33 ; the promise of an everlasting covenant, Isa. 
Iv. 3, whence this is cited. That grand promise God made to Adam, and in 
bim to all his posterity, was fulfilled in this act of Christ's resurrection. The 
bruising the serpent's head, the blessing all nations in the seed of Abraham, 
the bringing in an everlasting righteousness, were declared thereby to be 
fulfilled. Hereby was the efficacy of his death cleared to all the world, in 
his being eased of the burden of our sins, which bowed down bis head upon 
the cross. Hereby it was manifest that his blood was the blood of the ever- 
lasting covenant, Heb. xiii. 20 ; a blood established and settling the covenant 
of grace for ever, and making it truly everlasting. As our redemption was 
not in its meridian glory till his resurrection, so neither is our faith in its 
full strength and vigour, but as eyeing this together with his death. 

Use 1. If God and Christ in conjunction be the proper object of faith, here 
is an argument for the deity of Christ. If he be a mere creature, how can 
he assert himself an object of faith in conjunction with the eternal God ? It 
would be the highest invasion of the right and authority, and aff'ront to the 
perfection and sufficiency of God, to make himself equal with God as the 
object of our faith, if he were not equal with God in the dignity of his nature. 
He doth everywhere propose himself in this consideration to us : John vi. 29, 
' This is the work of Grod, that you believe on him whom he hath sent.' It 
is not a belief of Christ, but a belief in Christ, or on Christ. To believe a 
person is one thing, and to believe on him is another. We beUeve Paul and 
Peter, but are never said to believe in Paul or in Peter. The devils cannot 
but believe what Christ saith to be true, but they do not believe in him. To 
be believed in or relied upon for salvation and pardon is proper only to the 
deity, and a flower of his crown. If Christ were a mere man, though in the 
highest throne of excellency and holiness as a creature, as indeed he is, yet 
he could not be an object of our trust and faith without an offence to God, a 
violation of his precept, and contracting his curse. He doth expressly 
threaten to lay his curse upon every one that makes flesh his arm or confides 
in man, because that is a departure from the Lord, Jer. xvii. 5 ; and pro- 
miseth a blessing to them that trust in the Lord and make bim their hope, 
ver. 17. If he be liable to the curse that puts his trust in man solely for 
worldly advantage, much more he that puts his trust in a mere man for an 
eternal salvation. He pronounceth a curse on them that put their trust in 
man, but a blessing on them that put their trust in his Son the Messiah : 
Ps. ii. 12, ' Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.' If Christ were 
a mere man, we are cursed by God for trusting in him ; if blessed for putting 
a confidence in him, then he is more than a man, the true God. He that 
was obedient to his Father would never have ordered such an act wherein we 
should be accursed by the Father. God would never have backed this pro- 
position of faith in Christ, asserted by Christ himself, and preached by the 
apostles, with the seal of so many miracles, and justified that which he had 
cursed before. He would never have cast the crown from his own head, or 
made another partner with bim, had he not a dignity in his own nature equal 
with God. If God our Saviour and Jesus Christ be the joint objects of hope, 
1 Tim. i. 1 ; if those that believe in him shall not be ashamed, Eom. ix. 33, 



John XIV. l.j the object of faith. 173 

it is a blasphemy to say he is a mere man, a mere creature, and not God, 
since a sovereign prerogative of God is ascribed to him. We should other- 
wise meet with a curse rather than a blessing by relying on him. 

2, The difference between the law and the gospel. The law orders a trust 
in God, but utters not a syllable of a restoring mediator upon the entrance 
of sin, and therefore exacts not from us such a kind of faith as this, which is 
necessary for our happiness since we are all fallen. The law cannot order 
such an act but it must also present the object of that act ; it speaks nothing 
of the latter, and therefore enjoins nothing of the former. It represented 
God as a sovereign and judge, not as a merciful pardoner ; as a revenger 
upon transgression, not as a redeemer and restorer. The law is therefore 
insufficient to save us ; our happiness is wrapped up solely in the gospel ; 
we have no safety but in the arms of a mediator. Faith is wholly a gospel 
grace and a new covenant duty. 

3. Comfort- ' Believe also in me.' What doth this signify but that our 
faith in Christ will be as effectual for our good as our faith in God ? He 
was too faithful to his Father to invade his rights, and too merciful to us to 
put us upon a fruitless act ; his joining himself with God as the object of 
faith, shews that our faith in him will be as prevalent as our faith in God, 
and our happiness be as mount Sion, not to be shaken ; for ' he that believes 
in him shall not be ashamed,' Rom. ix. 33. He had never commanded us 
to believe in him as we do in God, if he had not had an office to relieve us ; 
it intimates, that both God and the mediator are in conjunction for our sal- 
vation and felicity. Do we believe God to be merciful, powerful, gracious ? 
The mediator also hath as tender a compassion to pity us, and as sovereign 
a grace to heal us ; he hath as ardent a love to bless us, and as infinite a 
power to rescue us ; he hath as overflowing a peace to quiet us, and as ever- 
flowing a goodness to relieve and perfect us. If they are jointly to be 
respected by our faith, they are joint also in the answering the expectations 
of our faith: John x. 30, 'I and my Father are one ;' one in saving, one in pre- 
serving, one in perfecting ; for it is spoken in relation to the perpetual pre- 
servation of his people to salvation, ' none shall pluck them out of my hand, 
none shall pluck them out of my Father's hand.' We grasp them both by 
faith, and they grasp one another's hand for our safety ; we lay hold both 
on the Father and the Son by an act of faith, and both Father and Son lay 
hold on us by an act of particular affection ; as we own them, so they will 
prove in the end joint Saviours to our faith. As they are one in power, so 
they are one in the cares of the flocL Christ would never else have 
ordered us to pitch our faith as strongly and fully upon him as upon the 
Father- 
Again, ' beheve also in me.' He requires a true faith, as true in him as in 

God, but not an equal measure of faith in all. If we have not a faith of 
such a stature and growth as that of Paul or the other apostles, yet if it have 
the same mien and lineaments, it will not be ineffectual. The serpent was 
to be looked upon, but not by all with an equal clearness of sight ; some 
eyes were dimmer, some clearer ; a look was sufficient, though but a weak 
one. A blear-eyed Leah might have been cured by a look, as well as a sharp- 
sighted RacheL Believe in me, close with me, though your hands may not be 
equally strong to hold fast as others are. No one's spirit is always in an equal 
degree of health, and an even complexion ; the wheels do not always move 
with an equal swiftness ; reflections on a state of sin, and the blackness of 
transgressions, sometimes make us shrink and tremble ; the wonderful great- 
ness of God's mercy, like the light of the sun, sometimes dazzles and 
bliude our eye. Yet if we believe in him with all these palsies, it will go 



174 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

well with us. It is ' believe in me,' not ordering all faith to be of the same 
elevation. 

4. Let us examine our faith by the object. Many will speak carelessly, 
and many will boast confidently, of their faith and trust in God, and scarce 
ever think or speak of Christ, separating that which God hath joined. What 
warrant have we to trust in God, singly considered, without a mediator ? 
As it is eternal life to know him, not in the simplicity of his own being, but 
as he makes himself visible in a mediator, John xvii. 3, so it is to believe in 
him in the same manner. As our knowledge of God, with an ignorance of 
Christ, so our faith in God, with an unbelief in Christ, will never entitle to 
an eternity of happiness. No act of faith is right that doth not virtually 
and implicitly take in Christ together with God. Our Saviour speaks it 
here in relation to the troubles of his disciples' hearts for their outward con- 
dition, and the misery they expected by his departure from them. You 
have been educated in a reliance on God, and the expectations of a Messiah : 
believe me to be the person, and believe in me as the great undertaker and 
accomplisher of your happiness. We have a prospect of troubles, soon we 
may feel the smart of them ; we believe in God as the sovereign of the 
world, let us see whether we eye at the same time Christ as the king set 
upon the holy hill of Sion for the protection as well as the government of 
the church. We have a great deal of ignorance. We believe in God as the 
Father of lights ; do we also believe in Christ as a prophet to instruct us, 
and a Sun of righteousness to enlighten and heal us with his wings ? We 
believe in God as infinitely merciful ; do we also believe in Christ, as a priest 
settled for ever to make an atonement by his sacrifice, and perpetuate the 
application of it by his intercession ? We have no warrant to exert one 
act of faith on the one without the other. By faith in God singly, without 
a mediator, we neither obey God nor secure ourselves. Since the object of 
faith is Christ as dying, true faith must eye the motive which persuaded Christ 
to die, and have the same motive in itself, viz., the hatred of sin and the love 
of righteousness ; the hatred both of guilt and filth, and a desire to vindi- 
cate the righteousness of God. The hatred of sin is therefore necessary in 
our compliance with Christ, and therefore believers are called his fellows, 
Heb. i. 9 ; not only fellows in his glory, but in his disposition ; in the in- 
tegrity of it, not in the degrees of it. Faith fastens upon Christ as the gift, 
upon God as the donor ; it considers the greatness of the gift, and with 
ravishments ascends to a confidence in the giver. It reads God's heart in 
Christ, sees the glory of God in the face of Christ, and mounts up to clasp 
about him who hath issued out the knowledge of himself in such a full spring 
of mercy and grace. It looks upon Christ as a propitiator, and upon God 
as a father. Faith hath recourse to the atoning blood of Christ, and by that 
blood to God. The goodness of faith consists chiefly in the object it is 
placed upon ; as all acts receive their goodness from the object, as well as 
from the principal end and circumstances. 

5. Exhortation. Let us observe his order. We do believe in God, that 
is taken for granted. There is indeed a natural confidence that all men have 
explicitly or implicitly in God : ' He is the confidence of all the ends of the 
earth,' Ps. Ixv. 5, This is not sufficient; a faith in Christ as mediator, a 
belief of it, a reliance on him in that capacity, together with a walking ac- 
cording to the rules of his prophetic office, is the whole of the Christian 
religion. This is every man's duty, as much his duty to believe in Christ 
as to believe in God. It is enjoined with the same authority, ' believe also 
in me ;' it is a command as well as an invitation. Not believe, if you will, 
but you must believe in me as well as in God, if ever you have a security 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 175 

against trouble, here or hereafter. To believe is not only our privilege, but 
our duty ; not to believe, is not only our misery, but our sin ; it is not a 
matter of indiiferency. Christ had a command from God to die for us, and 
we have a command from himself to believe in him, God will have every 
one confess to the glory of the Father that ' Jesus is the Lord,' Philip, ii. 11, 
God in him hath discovered the wonders of his mercy, justice, and wisdom, 
and without believing in him, we disown God in the glory of those discovered 
perfections : ' He that honours not the Son, honours not the Father that 
bath sent him,' John v. 22, 23, He that believes not in the Son, believes 
not in the Father, whatever vain imaginations he wraps himself in ; he that 
beheves not in Christ satisfying, believes not in the Father satisfied. As 
God goes out to us in him, our return must be by him to God. God was 
the judge, Christ the mediator ; we must first go to the mediator to be con- 
ducted to the judge for our sentence of absolution. We have ofiended the 
sovereign lawgiver; we must first believe in him who is the repairer of the 
honour of the law. Our standing is not secure by absolute mercy ; mercy 
through Christ only saves us ; it breathes in no other air. We must fii'st 
lay hold of the strength of God before we can be at peace with him, Isa. 
xxvii. 5. Take hold of Christ, who is the power as well as the wisdom of 
God, 1 Cor. i. 24. 

1. All our salvation comes in by believing in Christ. We can have no 
satisfaction but in this way ; we cannot answer the terms of the law but by 
our surety, nor the demands of the gospel but by our faith in him. Do not 
our own hearts often disquiet us ? Doth not the perfect law amaze us ? 
Doth the devil never accuse us ? Do our own consciences never charge us ? 
Where can we find a peace for ourselves, a discharge against the law, and an 
answer to Satan, but by faith in him who hath vindicated the law, conquered 
our enemy, and hath blood enough to besprinkle our consciences with an 
eternal peace ? Paul had tried all other ways that were of vogue in the 
Jewish church, but met with nothing that could have a just pretence to be 
a competitor with Christ. With what joy did Andrew meet Peter with the 
news, ' We have found the Messiah ' ? John i. 41. Nothing can contribute 
such a measure of peace and joy to the soul as faith in Christ. There is not, 
indeed, an ear to be gleaned anywhere else ; all is laid up in that garner. 
God cannot now save us in a way of absolute mercy, since he hath settled the 
method of our salvation by faith in his Son ; it would be against his truth, 
his wisdom, and also against the honour of his obedient Son. If he would 
save one by absolute mercy, why not more, why not all ? What need, then, 
of his Son's sufferings to make the purchase ? 

2. We cannot believe any promise without believing in Christ. As the 
promises are confirmed and conveyed to us, so must our faith be exercised 
about them ; there is not a promise that is yea and amen, i. e. firm and irre- 
versible, but in Christ, 2 Cor. i. 20. It is in Christ ; it is in Christ that 
our faith must be exercised in every promise, upon the promise in Christ, 
upon Christ in the promise ; we else believe and depend upon them without 
their confirmation. No man will depend upon a deed and conveyance with- 
out the seal ; look first to the seal, and then, and not till then, will the pro- 
mise pour out comfort to the soul. 

3. He only is fit to be the immediate object of our faith. As he is the 
mighty God, and the Prince of peace, as well as a Son given, Isa, ix. G; as 
he made a suitable compensation for the ofienders in regard of the human 
nature, which had committed the trespass, and as he made a sufficient com- 
pensation in regard of the divine nature, which had been injured by sin. 
Infinite justice was satisfied by an infinite person. He only is fit to be the 



176 charnock's works. [John XIV. 1. 

immediate object of our faith whose shoulders bore the weightiest burdens, 
whose head bowed under the sharpest curses, whose soul drunk down the 
bitterest potions in our stead. He had all the fitness to answer the demands 
of God, and all the fulness to answer the indigencies of man ; he hath an 
office, and himself funiished both with ability and compassion for the execu- 
tion of it ; he hath a wisdom not to be ignorant of what he is to do, and an 
integi'ity not to be false in it. Let us, therefore, according to his own order, 
believe in him in conjunction with God. 

1. Solely, hi me, without joining any created thing in me. We must 
strike off our hands from all other purchases but that of the pearl. It is not 
Believe in me and your own righteousness, though it appear in the utmost 
glory ; not Believe in me and your own hearts, though they smile upon you 
never so kindly. You believe in God. It doth not follow, believe in me 
and your own righteousness ; believe in me and in saints ; in Abraham, Jacob, 
David, or Elijah ; but believe in me alone, without the conjunction of any 
thing less than a Deity. No other Lamb but this was slain from the foun- 
dation of the world. This is the only seed of the woman that was wrapped 
up in the promise. None else was the centre of the prophecies, the subject 
of the promises, the truth of the types ; none in conjunction with him, none 
in subordination to him in the work of mediation and satisfaction. He only 
is the first-bom among many brethren. As the eye seeks for no other light 
than that of the sun, and joins no candles with it to dishonour the sufficiency 
of its beams, so no created thing must be joined with Cluist as an object of 
faith. This is a dishonour to the strength of this Rock, which is our only 
foundation, this is to undervalue the greatness of the gift, and the wisdom 
of the giver. It is a folly to seek for security anywhere else. Who would 
join the weakness of a bulrush with the strength of a rock for his protec- 
tion ? Who would fetch water from a muddy pond to make a pure foun- 
tain in his garden more pleasant ? All other things are broken reeds under 
the most splendid appearances. Address yourselves only to him, to find a 
medicine for your miseries, and counsel in your troubles. Believe in him 
as the power of God under the weight of your guilt. Believe in him as the 
wisdom of God under the darkness of your ignorance. He alone is sufficient 
for our redemption by the allow^ance of God, and therefore the sole object of 
faith in conjunction with God. Let us live a life of faith only in him, as Paul 
did, Gal. ii. 20. This is the vital juice and nourishment of faith ; it lan- 
guisheth when it applies to any thing else. We cannot trust him too much, 
nor ourselves too little. God trusted him alone, therefore should we ; he 
puts no trust in his saints. Job xv. 15 ; not in the highest glory of their 
saintship. Nothing else comes up to the exactness of the law, nor beai's 
proportion with the holiness of God's nature. 

2. Believe in me wholly. Not in a part or a piece of me, not in any one 
particular action of Christ. Nothing of Christ can be well spared by us ; he 
is full and rich, and not any of his fulness or riches but are of use to us. 
He is necessary in every capacity ; the merchant would have his whole pearl, 
not a part ; nothing of Christ is vain and fruitless. God hath given us no- 
thing in the creation but what we may use for his glory ; he hath stored 
Christ as a redeemer with nothing but what we may use for our comfort. 
We must take whole Christ in his sufferings as well as Christ in his glory ; 
Christ with his sceptre as well as Christ with his salvation. True faith 
will lay hold on every word, on every promise, on every particle of Christ, 
as the vine will upon every stick in the support which is set for it. 

3. Constantly believe in me. Not for a time and a spurt, by fits and 
starts ; as you always believe in God, so always believe in me ; as you do 



John XIV. 1.] the object of faith. 177 

not cast God off from being your confidence, so do not in the least waive me 
from being your hope. Upon all occasions when storms arise in the world, 
believe in me as your protector, as your conductor ; when racks appear to 
be set up in your consciences, believe in me as your peace-maker ; when 
corruptions creep up and defile you, believe in me as a refiner. The woman 
of Canaan would not leave her faith in him, though he spoke a word sour 
enough to make her turn her back in sorrow upon him. Let not an act of 
faith be exercised in God, but let there be a mixture of an equal quantity of 
faith in the Mediator. The word spoken to us doth not profit us unless 
mixed with faith ; nor do any of our returns to God please him unless 
mixed with faith in the Redeemer. Whenever we exert a particular act of 
faith in God, let us exert a particular act of faith in Christ too ; not look 
upon the one without the other, nor embrace the one without the other. 
We are as constantly to honour the Son as to honour the Father. 

Let us therefore frequently meditate on this object of faith, view every 
wound of a dying Saviour ; it will increase our faith in him, add a new 
life to our faith in God. Our faith is feeble, and our souls languish under 
spiritual burdens, because we do not look to him as lifted up upon the cross. 
Our addresses to God are faint, fearful, and disturbed, because our eye is 
not fixed upon the Mediator, who hath changed God from the frightful garb 
of a judge to the pleasing aspect of a father. By such acts upon this 
object, our faith will receive a new spirit, a fi'esh boldness, a pleasant live- 
liness. 

Let us consider him in his person, in his promises, in his offices, in his 
mediation, in his sacrifice, and in the righteousness of all, and we shall 
find what is here spoken by way of command, to be exemplified in a power- 
ful operation in our hearts, which will make us echo back again. Our hearts 
are not troubled, Lord, since we beUeve in God, and believe also in thee. 



A DISCOURSE OF AFFLICTIONS. 



And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children, 
My son, despise not thori the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art 
rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every 
son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with 
sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? But if ye be with- 
out chastisement, ivhereof all are imrtakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 
Furthermore, ice have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave 
them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of 
spirits, and live ? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own 
pleasure, but he for our pirofit, that ice anight be i^cirtakers of his holiness. 
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : never- 
theless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which 
are exercised thereby. — Heb. XII. 5-11. 

The apostle, after having drawn a catalogue of those illustrious souls that 
had manifested a choice faith upon several occasions, descends in this chapter 
to press the believing Hebrews to an exercise of patience and faith under 
those pressures they should meet with in their Christian course, where he 
proposeth first to them the example of Christ, ver. 2, 3 ; next, the exhorta- 
tion of the Holy Ghost, drawn from Prov. iii. 11, 12, ' My son, despise not 
the chastening of the Lord ; neither be weary of his coiTection : for whom 
the Lord loveth he corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth ; ' 
which, being an instruction concerning the nature and use of afflictions God 
sends upon us, the apostle applies to the particular case of the Hebrews, 
but discourseth in general of the author, subjects, and ends of the afflictions 
God exerciseth his children with, * Have you forgotten the exhortation which 
speaks to you as to children ? ' Have you lost the remembrance of what God 
saith in that exhortation by his wisdom, Prov. iii., where he commends his 
goodness, and shews the obligation you have to listen to him, by vouchsafing 
you the name of children, the greatest glory and the highest comfort of a 
creature ? Have you, saith he, forgot this ? Have you not the intent of it 
in your minds and memories, in your hearts and considerations ? The apostle 
discourses here of the necessity and advantages of afflictions. In ver. 5, he 
orders us not to despise the chastening of the Lord, nor to despond under it : 
■ Faint not when thou art rebuked of him.' This he backs with many 



HeB. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 179 

motives in the following verses. Mri oXiydJesi, do not make a light account of 
afflictions. 

1. One motive is in the word chastening [tociBsicc), which signifies the 
instruction whereby a child is brought to the knowledge of things profitable 
for him, which being it is not efiected in that age, subject to extravagancy, 
without stripes as well as words, the word is therefore used for the dis- 
cipline which attends such instruction. 

2. Another motive is from the author of afilictions, the Lord : despise not 
the chastening of the Lord. 

Observations. 

1. It must be our great care not to make slight of afflictions, nor to be too 
much dejected under them. The smart will keep us from despising an 
affliction in itself ; but we make light of it when we are careless of improving 
it for the ends for which God inflicts it. We may be sensible of the pain, 
when we are not sensible of the profit which may accrue to us by it. God 
forbids here two extremities ; the one an excess, the other a want of courage. 
Both dishonour God, the one in his sovereignty, the other in his goodness 
and love ; and both are injurious to the sufi'erer, as he rebels against the one, 
and loseth the sweetness of the other. We should receive the afflictions God 
sends with a humility without despondency, with a reverence without dis- 
trust, and keep ourselves from either fearing too much, or not fearing Grod 
enough. Mix reverence with confidence, adore the hand which we feel, and 
rest in the goodness which he promiseth. This is the way to reap the fruit 
of afflictions. 

2. All afflictions, let them be from what immediate causes soever, are from 
the hand of God. Whether they come from man, as loss of goods or other 
calamities ; whether they be sicknesses, griefs, &c. ; they are all dispensed 
by the order of God for one and the same design, viz., our instruction. 
Human reason doth not believe this. Some think they come by chance, or 
look only to second causes, and regard them not as wholesome instructions 
from God, and the orders of his providence. 

1. This should stop any impatient motions. It is fit we should be of the 
psalmist's temper, ' hold our peace, because God hath done it,' Ps. xxxix. 9. 
Shall the clay formed say to him that formed it. Why didst thou thus ? We 
should rather say as Eli, 1 Sam. iii. 18, ' It is the Lord ; let him do what 
seemeth him good.' Especially since an infinite wisdom is joined with the 
sovereign authority of God, and when we are not able to understand the 
reason of his conduct, we ought to acquiesce in his will and in his wisdom, 
and stop the motion of any passion, by a humiliation under his hand. 

2. It teacheth us to whom to have recourse. That hand that strikes can 
only cease striking. When David had stilled impatience, he awakens his 
prayer : Ps. xxxix. 10, ' Puemove thy strokes from me : I am consumed with 
the blows of thine hand.' If Shimei casts a stone at David, it is the Lord 
that bade him ; if the humours of our bodies rise against us, it is God that 
arms them, and it is he must be sought to for redress. He only can disband 
what force be raises. It is our comfort there is a sovereign power to whom 
we can make our moan in our addresses, and that our sovereign that struck 
us is ready to heal us. 

3. How sweet is God towards his children groaning under any affliction ! 
' My son, despise not,' &c. He calls them his sons, his children, sweeten- 
ing in the name whatsoever is rigorous in the suS'ering. He gives them a 
title whereby he manifests that he doth share in their grief, hath a resent- 
ment of their trouble. What father is there on earth, unless he hath lost all 
natural affection, who doth not sympathise in the suffering of his children? 



180 chaenock's works. [Heb. XII. 5-11. 

All the bowels of earth, met together in one combined tenderness, are not to 
be compared to the yearning bowels of heaven. AfBictions are not always 
Bent by God in anger with his creatures, but sent by God as a Father. 

(1.) Hence it is easy to conceive that neither the intentions of God, nor 
the issue of a suffering, can be any other than happy to those that are the 
children of God, since he gives the name of child, and son, to every one that 
he doth instruct as a Father by correction. 

(2.) It will teach us to have a sense of the sufferings of others. The 
argument to press Ibis exhortation is taken from the impulsive cause, the 
love of God ; and the word translated chasten, signifies such a chastisement 
as a father gives his son, or a master his scholar. 

Observation, 

(1.) The afflictions of believers are effects of divine love. ' For whom the 
Lord loves he chasteneth, and scourge th every son whom he receiveth' : Rev. 
iii. 19, 'As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.' They are not acts of 
divine revenge, whereby God would satisfy his justice ; but of divine affec- 
tion, whereby he communicates his goodness, and draws the image of his 
Son with more beauty and glory. They are the acts of God, but not of a 
sleepy and careless God, but a wise and indulgent Father, who takes all the 
care, both of instruction and correction, to train you up to his will and like- 
ness. God indeed afflicts other men who are not in the number of his be- 
loved children. There are scarce any among the sons of men that pass their 
Hfe in a continual prosperity, exempt from all kind of affliction ; and all these 
evils are from God as the governor of the world. Yet though there be no 
difference between the sufferings of one and the other, and though the suf- 
ferings of believers are often more sharp than those of carnal men in out- 
ward appearance, yet there is a vast difference in the motives of them. Love 
makes him strike the behever, and fury makes him strike the unregenerate 
man. The design of the correction of the one is their profit, not their 
ruin ; the strokes upon the other are often the first fruits of eternal punish- 
ment. 

(1.) Then the world is much mistaken in judging the afflictions of be- 
lievers to be testimonies of God's anger and hatred. God acts towards the 
world as a lawgiver and judge, but towards those that he hath renewed and 
adopted in the quality of a father. And who would judge of the hatred of 
a tender father by the corrections he inflicts upon a child that is so dear to 
him ? BeHevers suffer by God not simply as he is a judge, but as he is 
Paternus Judex. There is a combination of judge and father. God doth 
not intend revenge on them ; for though they are afflicted for sin, yet the 
principal aim is to prove them, reform them, that they may be worthy of a 
blessed inheritance. ' Lazarus whom thou lovest is sick,' was the speech of 
his sister to Christ. They were fearing, thinking that Christ's love was de- 
parted with Lazarus his health. 

(2.) No man hath then any reason to fancy himself the object of God's 
love for an outward prosperity : Eccles. ix. 1, ' No man knows either love 
or hatred by all that is before him.' God doth not always love those whom 
his providence preserves in health and ease. Such a conceit proceeds from 
an ignorance of another life, and too great a valuation of the things of this 
world. Temporal goods, credit in the world, outward conveniences, and an 
uninterrupted health, are effects of God's patience and common goodness, 
but not of his affection and choicest love. They are the marks of his affec- 
tion, when, by his grace, they are made means to conduct us to a better in- 
heritance ; but how often are they pernicious to us by reason of our corrup- 
tion and ill usage of them ! How often doth the health of the body destroy 



HeB. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 181 

that of the soul, and the prosperity of the flesh ruin that of the spirit ! 
How often do riches and honours link our hearts to the earth, and expel any 
thoughts of an heavenly paradise ! How often doth a portion in this world 
make many slack their endeavours for a portion in heaven ! How often do 
they hinder our sanctification, which is the only means to an happy vision 
of God ! 

(3.) How should this move us in our afflictions to a carriage pleasing to 
God ! This is the motive the apostle uses to press his exhortation in the 
former verse, neither to despise the chastening of God, nor despond of his 
care. Why should we despise that which is dispensed by love ? Who 
would not be willing to satisfy a friend in his desire, which they are assured 
love is the motive of, though their prudence is not so exact as that we can 
absolutely trust it ? Should we not with greater care consider the chastise- 
ments which the love of God, both good and wise, doth ordain by providence ? 
Is not the love, the motive of sufiering, a sufficient ground to prevent dis- 
trust and discouragement ? Why should any distrust him by whom he 
knows he is afflicted ? That correction which frights us is a work of his 
love, not of his hatred. Should we not, therefore, wait with faith for an 
happy issue of that chastisement which we suffer ? If we be once thus 
affected, we shall receive afflictions with a temper answerable to God, and 
improve them for those holy ends for which God sends them. We should 
also bear them patiently, since they are not for the reparation of the holi- 
ness of the law and the satisfaction of his justice, but to prove the soul and 
fit it for heaven. It is not the love of the criminal, but the love of the laws, 
which causes a judge to condemn and punish him. No wise man ever said 
that a prince did punish malefactors because he loved them, or that God 
makes the wicked suffer eternal punishment in hell because he loves them. 
It necessarily follows that, therefore, the chastisements God doth inflict are 
not properly punishments of the same nature with those God doth ordain 
for unbelievers. We have reason, therefore, to bear them with patience. 
It is inexcusable to murmur at an act of love. Use, then, a religious reason 
in the consideration of this. When the father scourge th, the child cries, and 
then he thinks his father hates him. It is but the error of his childhood, 
and when he comes to reason he will regard it as a false opinion. When a 
physician hath lanced you, and given you a bitter potion, you never had any 
suspicion that he hated you ; you have received all his charitable offices, and 
thought him more worthy of a reward than a rebuke. Why should not our 
carriage be so to God ? 

2. Observation. 

No righteous man in the'world is, or ever was, free from sin. He scourgeth 
every son whom he receiveth. Sin is the cause of afflictions. Were we 
free from sin, we should be free from scourges. Afflictions cease not till 
sin be quite destroyed, which will not be in this world. Justice finds 
enough in every believer in the world to punish, and mercy finds enough to 
pardon. 

(1.) It is against this, then, that we should turn our aim. What Satan 
would make us vent in impatience against God, let us manifest in a hatred 
of that which is the true cause of all the evils which in general or particular 
we sufier. Let us strike that as much as God strikes us ; and it is but 
grateful reason, since it is the best way whereby we can shew our love to 
God, who, in his strokes upon us, shews his love to us. Let us take no rest 
till we have put that to death which God only hates. It is the death of siu, 
and not the death of the soul, God designs in afflictions. 

(2.) It is, upon this account, an argument for patience. While our dis- 



182 chaknock's works, [Heb. XII. 5-11. 

ease remains, why should we think ill of the physician for using means for 
a cure ? If he did not use the means, though sharp, we then should have 
most reason to accuse him of a want of pity. What father would not be 
counted very tender, that should lance his child himself when he saw there 
was need for it ? Sin puts God upon a necessity of scourging ; his good- 
ness and wisdom will not suffer him to do anything but what is necessary 
and expedient. Now, ver. 7, the apostle exhorts them to a patient bearing 
the hand of God, because he deals with them as a father with his sons in a 
way of reward afterwards. As parents caress those children, they see quiet 
after punishment. If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as sons. 
God 'rrs^oacpisi.rai, offers himself to you as a father to his sons. Or rather, the 
apostle doth render the comfort in the former verse more efficacious to 
the Hebrews, and makes application of what is contained in that truth which 
be hath cited out of the Proverbs, in the former verse : that yet, if they 
endure chastisement, God treats them as children ; and, being men are apt 
to think that a troublesome affliction is inconsistent with the love of God, 
the apostle contradicts such a thought by the question, ' What son is there 
whom the father chasteneth not ?' And he goes further, verse 8, and draws 
another conclusion : that we should be so far from thinking that to be 
afflicted is a sign of our not being the children of God, that on the contrary 
he affirms that not to be chastised is a sign that a man is not of God's 
family : verse 8, ' If you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, 
then are ye bastards, and not sons.' For if the Lord scourgeth every son 
whom he receives, it is clear that he whom he leaves without chastisement 
is not a true and legitimate son, but a stranger, a bastard, i. e. one that is 
not of the family, but takes only the name and quality, without any right 
to it. 

Observation 1. God, in chastening believers, treats them as children. If, 
here, is as much as u-hen : ' if you endure chastening,' i. e. when you endure 
chastening ; as Lev. xix. 5, (/"you offer a sacrifice of peace-offering, i. e. when you 
offer a sacrifice. So John xiv. 3, ' If I go and prepare a place for you,' i. e. when 
I go and prepare a place for you. Since God hath commanded men expressly 
in his word to chastise their children, and hath engraved such a disposition 
in the hearts of mankind, and authorised such a carriage by his law, we must 
not think it strange that God, who is wisdom, goodness, and love, should 
exercise in his family such a just, and holy, and wholesome discipline. And 
as none can say that a tender father, when he chastiseth his child, deals with 
him as with an enemy, so none can affirm the same of God ; and though 
affliction be an evil in itself, and sharp to the child that suffers it, yet if you 
compare it with the good it procures, it is not an evil, but an experienced 
good. Compare the lives of those children that have not been without the 
correction of their parents or strangers to the lives of those that have been 
left to themselves without it, and the advantage of the one and miseries of 
the other will easily appear : Prov. xiii. 1, ' A wise son hears the instruc- 
tion of his father.' Hear is not in the Hebrew. A wise son is the instruction 
or chastisement of his father. The Jews have a proverb, If you see a wise 
child, be sure that the father hath chastised him."''' God deals in this manner 
with his children, and there is need of it, for though the regenerate are freed 
from the slavery of sin, yet while they are clothed with flesh, the flesh will 
lust against the Spirit ; and God not only chastises us for our infirmities, 
but to prevent them ; and since the love which he bears us, and the salvation 
which he procures by his chastisements, doth infinitely surpass the affections 
of the best and tenderest fathers, and the best fruit we can draw from their 
* Drusius. 



HeB. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 183 

discipline, we may well confess that no father in the world can be said to 
deal as a father with his children so as God doth with the believer. He 
oifers himself to do a father's office : he is the world's sovereign, but a 
believer's father. As he is the governor of the word, he treats men right- 
eously in his judgments ; as he is the Father of believers, he treats them 
graciously in his afflictions. 

Here is a great comfort, if God deal with you as with children in his 
striking of you. His wisdom and his goodness is infinite ; he doth nothing 
but what is just and reasonable, and is guided by a fatherly affection in all 
that he doth : his blows are healthful. If David would account it a kindness 
if the righteous would smite him, and count his rebukes as an excellent oil, 
Ps. xli. 5, how much more ought we to have the same sentiments of the 
chastisement of God. Goodjmen may mistake in their rebukes, God cannot. 
He is too wise to be deceived, and too good not to make even his strokes 
become an excellent balsam. He doth not assault us as enemies, nor only 
as criminals, but as children ; not to punish us in his fury, but to refine us, 
to make us fit for him to take pleasure in, to make us more like him in the 
the frame and temper of our souls. This is the end of a tender father's 
chastising his children, and this is the end of God. We should receive his 
corrections therefore, not so much as a punishment as a favour, since be 
strikes not as an enemy to destroy, but as a father to correct ; not only as a 
God of righteousness, but as a God of tenderness. 

Observation 2. No child of God but is one time or other under his cor- 
recting hand. The apostle makes a challenge to all to shew one in that 
relation privileged from it : ' What son is there whom the Father chasteneth 
not ?' None of those mentioned among the believing Hebrews in the fore- 
going chapter were without this smart : Noah had an affliction in a child, 
Gen. xii. 10, Abraham and Jacob were afflicted with famine, Isaac by an 
Esau, Moses fain to fly for his hfe, Job sufiered the loss of his goods, Heze- 
kiah a dangerous sickness. To be under afflictions, then, is to travel in the 
road of all that have gone before. And the apostle goes further, ver. 8, and 
affirms that not to be chastised is a certain sign of no right to a membership 
of his family : ' But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, 
then are you bastards, and not sons.' This is an argument from the antithesis, 
they are bastards, and not sons, who are not corrected. Bastards, not, saith 
Grotius, those whom the father of the family hath begot, but those that an 
adulterous mother would obtrude upon him as part of his family, which he 
rejects from any paternal care of instruction and discipline, as having no 
part in his inheritance, no right to his goods, not born of his seed, which is 
the word. By this the apostle signifies, 

(1.) That all the true children of God are under his discipline. If they 
are not, they are no parts of his family. He that is left without it, is not in 
the number of those he owns for his children. Hereby he strengthens what 
he had spoken before, that God deals with those he afflicts as children ; 
whence it follows, that there is no child of his but he doth at one time or 
another afflict. This is one of the clauses of the covenant God hath made 
with us in Jesus, which he doth peculiarly insert, when he owns himself our 
God and Father : Ps. Ixxxix. 32, he would visit them with a rod, but not take 
away his loving-kindness. In the New Testament, God promiseth spiritual 
blessings. In the Old, when he promised most temporal blessings, his people 
were not exempt from his discipline. In the New Testament, it is more 
express, that through afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
His only Son must suff'er, and so enter into glory. 

(2.) That those that are not under his discipline are not his children. 



184 chaenock's works. [Heb. XII. 5-11. 

Afflictions therefore are so far from being discouragements, that where there 
is an evidence of grace in the heart, they are rather marks of adoption. We 
might well doubt of a relation to him if he took no care of us ; that we were 
not his sheep if he used not his crook to pull us unto him. Let us then 
receive his chastisements without regret, since he manifests his care of us 
in them, and regards us with the eyes and heart of a father. If we were 
wholly strangers, he would abandon us, and leave us as persons he knew 
not. His paternal rod is for his children, his rod of iron for his enemies. 
But now in the ninth verse, and the following verses, the apostle exhorts them 
to a reverence of God under his chastising hand. The argument is a mitiori 
ad majus : ver. 9, ' Furthermore, we have had fathers of the flesh which cor- 
rected us, and we gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in 
subjection to the Father of spirits, and live ?' And he urgeth the exhort- 
ation, (1.) from the right of God : he is the Father of spirits ; (2.) from 
his intention, which is our spiritual profit, ver. 10 ; (3.) from the issue : 
it is as much our advantage in the event as it was in his intention, ver. 11. 
The fathers of our flesh have corrected us, and we gave them reverence ; how 
much rather ought we to be subject to the Father of spirits, who chasteneth 
us that we may live ? The two persons which the apostle compares together, 
viz. God and man, have this in common : one and the other is a father, one 
and the other chasteneth, one and the other is carried out to it by love, one 
and the other designs advantage ; but as there is this resemblance, so there 
is a great difference : man is but the father of the body, the more ignoble 
part of our natures, that which we have common with beasts ; God is the 
Father of our spirits, the more noble part, and that which makes us properly 
men. More submission is therefore due to him, who confers more upon us, 
than to them who confer less. The love which fathers bear to their children 
is a passion, and many times is not regulated by reason ; but the love of God 
is a true love, not mingled with any imperfection either of excess or defect, 
and therefore doth nothing but with the justest reason. Again, earthly 
fathers aim at the good of their children, but their ignorance is so great 
that often they mistake it ; but the knowledge of God is as perfect as his 
love, who always chastiseth his people for their true good, and therefore a 
greater submission is due to him. 

(1.) How glorious is the condition of a true believer ! He is the child of 
God : 1 John iii. 1, ' What manner of love is this, that we should be called 
the sons of God ! ' It is an argument of great love to give his people so 
honourable and dear a title, to call himself their Father, as well as their God, 
It is not so strange that he should call all the pure spirits in heaven his 
children, as that he should call those that have defiled his image by that 
title ; that he should own himself a Father to them that are by nature 
children of wrath, slaves to Satan, sold under sin, that have nothing in them 
to please him by nature, but are fit objects of his wrath and curse. Won- 
derful love, that God should not think it a dishonour to him to be called our 
Father ! And hence it is reason we should carry ourselves to him in all his 
dispensations as children to a father, that we should comfort ourselves in this 
relation in all the sufterings we encounter. If he be our Father, what should 
we fear ? Nothing passes in the world without his order ; no evil arrives to 
us without his will. Every affliction is the rod of his hand. The very 
thought that God is our Father should sweeten any grief. 

(2.) God is the creator of souls. By spirits are meant the souls of men ; 
some understand it also of spiritual giits, the graces God infuseth into the 
souls of his people. Both are good motives to that submission unto, and 
reverence of God, the apostle urgeth. Most interpreters run the first way. 



Heb. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 185 

The antithesis requires that we should understand by this expression that 
God is the creator of souls, because it is opposed to the fathers of the flesh. 
God is called the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. xvi. 22. As by the 
flesh the apostle means the body, the material and visible part of our natures ; 
so by the spirit he means the soul, the spiritual and invisible part of our 
being. As for the body, man engendered it ; as for the soul, God only 
formed it ; as in Eccles. xii. 7, ' Then shall the dust return to the earth, and 
the spirit shall return to God that gave it ; ' where by the dust is meant the 
body, and by the spirit the soul. The body was formed of the dust of the 
ground, Gen. ii. 7 ; but the soul was breathed in by God. It is the spirit 
that gives life and sense to the parts of the body, which otherwise are without 
sense and motion; and God is said to form the spirit of man, Zech. xii. 1, 
and challenge th to himself the particular forming of the soul : Isa. Ivii. 16, 
' The soul which I have made.' God, indeed, forms the body too by the 
hand of nature, by the intervention of second causes which he employs ; but 
the soul he forms without any other cause but his own will. The first 
manner of acting by nature in the production of the body is not sufficient to 
demonstrate God the Father of it, no more than he can be called the Father 
of beasts and plants, which are produced by his powerful providence, as well 
as the bodies of men ; but the second manner of acting in the production of 
an immortal and spiritual substance is sufficient to demonstrate God the 
Father of spirits, as they also are called the children of God, because God 
immediately created them, and clothed them with an immortal nature. The 
apostle, therefore, hath good reason to call men which have begot us the 
fathers of the flesh ; because, though the wisdom and power of God in his 
providence acts in our conception and generation, yet it is also the work of 
man, who acts as a second cause ; but the production of the soul is purely 
by the will and power of God, without the action of any creature. Hence it 
follows that the soul is immortal ; for since it doth not depend in its original 
upon matter, it doth not in its subsistence, neither after death hath separated 
the body from it. It follows also that the reasonable soul is more excellent 
than the bodies which we receive from earthly fathers ; and therefore we owe 
more submission and reverence to God and his chastisements than to those who 
have been only the fathers of our bodies, which the interrogation intimates, 
' Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live ?' 
(3.) ' And live ; ' or that we may live. This is an argument from the reward 
of a patient suffering. The apostle seems tacitly to refer to the promise of 
life to children that honour their parents. As a temporal life was promised 
to them, so a. spiritual and eternal life is promised to those that are patiently 
obedient under the hand of God. As in Israel those that slighted the 
rebukes of their parents were stoned without pity, so will God handle those 
that kick against his discipline, and make no profit of his rod. Corrections 
cause life, not meritoriously, but instrumentally. If we, therefore, own God 
as a Father, we ought to carry ourselves to him as our Father. If we desire 
an happy and eternal life, we must subject ourselves to his hand, acknow- 
ledge the righteousness of his discipline, and, by how much the paternity of 
God is more excellent, our submission ought to be the more reverential. In 
ver. 10, the apostle urgeth the exhortation further, from the manner of God's 
proceedings with us, different from that of earthly fathers, and from his aim 
in it : ' For they for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure ; but 
he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.' This he doth 
by comparing of the heavenly Father and the earthly father with one another, 
and acquaints us that it is the aim of God, in those afflictions which seem 
most bitter, to reduce us to that holiness which we have lost in Adam. 



186 chaknock's woeks. [Heb. XII. 5-11. 

1. They verily for a few days chastened us. Either death deprives them 
of their authority, or the growth of their children exempts them fi-om suffer- 
ing under it. Parents only take care to correct their children during the 
weakness of their childhood, when, by ignorance and inexperience, they are 
incapable to conduct themselves. They have, therefore, need of their 
parents to form their spirits, and make those impressions upon them whereby 
they may govern themselves the rest of their lives. But when they axe 
arrived at years of discretion, they are left to govern themselves according to 
their own reasons, without using the rod to supply the defect of their under- 
standing ; so that the corrections of earthly parents are but for few years, a 
little time. 

Observation. 

1. Hereby appears the advantage of God's discipline above that of earthly 
parents. God continues his care to us all our lives upon the earth, as long 
as we have need ; exercises a greater providence over us than earthly parents 
over their childi-en. 

2. Hereby the apostle comforts us. It is but a little time that God 
subjects us to chastisements ; only that part of our life which we are to pass 
on earth, which is but a small time to that eternity wherein we shall be 
exempt from suffering ; bears infinitely less proportion to eternity than the 
least instant doth to all the time from the creation to the end of the world ; 
so that the time of a behever's chastisement is shorter than that of children 
under their parents. And herein is the kindness and love of God apparent, 
who deals more favourably with his children in regai-d of the time of their 
correction than the best father in the world can do. 

2. The motive of, and rule that parents too often follow, in their chastising 
their children, ' after their own pleasure.' They have often a greater regard to 
their own passions than their children's advantage, correct oftener in humour 
than with reason. Having no other law but their own will, their judgment 
is apt to be deceived, whereby it happens that their corrections often injure 
their childi-en instead of advantaging them, whatsoever their intention may 
be, and that either by mistake of the nature of things for which they chastise 
them, or the indiscreet measure and manner of their chastening. 

(].) Mistaking the nature of the things for which they chastise their 
children. Fathers endeavour to form their children to that which they judge 
best and most profitable for them in this hfe ; but their judgments are often 
mistaken, as a covetous pai'ent, that acknowledges no other happiness than 
wealth, will instill such instructions into his child to think nothing unjust 
that is profitable and enriching ; an ambitious man will endeavour to im- 
print the sentiments of worldly honour upon his children ; a superstitious 
parent will correct his child for not conforming himself to that mode of wor- 
ship he is himself addicted to. Thus parents often use their power to ex- 
tinguish good principles in theu* childi'en, and discourage beginnings of virtue 
in them. 

(2.) Mistaking the measure. How often are good parents transported 
with choler in the corrections they inflict ? Others, through a fond indul- 
gence, altogether neglect it, and give the reins to the follies of their children. 
But the chastisements God inflicts are otherwise ; he hath a perfect know- 
ledge of all things, is subject to no passion, never afflicts but when there is 
need, never chastiseth his own but for their good. God, being infinitely wise, 
cannot err in his judgment of what is convenient for us ; he is not biassed 
by weak aftections. David acknowledged this wisdom of God : Ps. cxix. 71, 
' It is good for me that I have been afliicted, that I might learn thy statutes.' 
He is wise, and foresees an evil we are apt to run into, and prevents it by 



HeB. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 187 

aflfliction ; sends Paul a tliorn in the flesh, not so much to correct a present 
default as to prevent it, 2 Cor. xii. 7, that he might not be lifted up above 
measure. Sometimes he afilicts to make their graces apparent. God afflicted 
Job in his goods, in his person, that the truth of his faith and patience 
might be seen in the midst of his sufierings, to the praise of God. He sends 
not temptations unless there be need, and that the trial of faith may be found 
to praise and honour, 1 Peter i. 6, 7. Other parents use their arbitrariness 
often, and not their wisdom. God's afflictions are sovereign acts, but not 
separated from wise and gracious intentions. But the apostle explains the 
particular profit which God aims at, ' That we might be partakers of his 
holiness ; ' to refine their dross, and purify them for himself, and render them 
fit for the place wherein dwells nothing that is unclean. Earthly parents 
correct their children that they may learn useful arts and manners in the 
■world : an external profit chiefly they aim at ; sometimes they correct that 
their vices may be imitated ; God, that his hoHness may be communicated 
here, and blessedness hereafter. This seems to be an exposition of what he 
meant by live in the former verse. This preserves us, and renders us par- 
takers not only of holiness, but of his holiness ; the holiness which he ap- 
proves, which he commands, and hath some resemblance and conformity to 
his own. In the same sense we are said to be partakers of the divine nature, 
2 Peter i. 4, whereby we have a portraiture of the nature and holiness of 
God drawn in our souls by the Spirit. It is not that we may possess the 
holiness of God, but partake of the holiness of God. The lineaments of his 
image, formed in us by the gospel and by afflictions, are as the beams and 
sparks of his holiness. The original is in God, the picture of it in the 
believer ; as light is in the sun, but some splendour of it in the glass upon 
which it shines. This God works by afflictions, whereby he makes us exer- 
cise ourselves more in repentance ; weans us from the flesh, that would 
alienate us from God ; cleave faster to Christ by faith, who is the spring of 
holiness ; more earnestly thirst to draw of the fountain, and pursue those 
things that are heavenly. Parents correct their children to bring them to an 
imitation of their manners ; God corrects his to bring them to an imitation 
of his holiness. They chastise to make their children like them ; and God, 
to make his children conform to him. 

(1.) Then afflictions are not always punishments ; they are not inflicted for 
satisfaction for sin. God aims at our profit. A judge regards not the profit 
of a criminal when he condemns him to punishment, but only the honour of 
the law ; and to repair the ofience done to the law by the violation of it, and 
satisfy that justice which hath been violated. But God aims at the advantage 
of the believing sufferers, and makes them smart to make them gracious and 
glorious, to impart to them the highest excellency a creature is capable of. 

(2.) A great argument there is from hence to love God even for afflictions. 
' In all things give thanks,' saith the apostle. In these there is great reason 
to give thanks, in regard of their fruit. An earthly father transmits his in- 
heritance to his son, but not his internal endowments ; but God communi- 
cates his holiness to his children by these means. 

(3.) How patiently should we bear them ! The majesty of God above earthly 
parents, and his gracious aim and wise conduct of them, doth oblige us to this 
duty. He never strikes but with reason, never strikes his children but for 
their good. Happy blows should be received without murmuring. It is a 
welcome weapon that hath more of balsam than smart, a blessed sword that 
breaks the imposthume. That which is not only profitable, but necessary, 
calls not only for our patience, but our willing embracing when God doth 
wisely inflict it ; besides, they are short, they are of no longer duration than 



188 chaenock's works. [Heb. XII. 5-11. 

this life. There might be reason to complain much if it were an eternal smart, 
but it is only for a little time. 

(4.) We should endeavour to answer the intention of God. To form our- 
selves to that holiness he aims at, to embrace every motion of the Spirit in 
our afflictions. To that purpose the rod hath a voice, the Spirit hath a voice ; 
both must be listened to. 

And because it is a hard matter to be without complaints, the apostle still 
urgeth it further, and prevents the ground of complaint, which is the sharp- 
ness of a rod, and sets the smart and fruit in opposition one to another : 
ver. 11, ' Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous; 
nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them 
that are exercised thereby.' It is confessed they are grievous, but it is in 
appearance only. They seem so ; but as a beautiful face under a frightful 
mask, as a bitter potion, that gripes, but purgeth. This is an argument taken 
from the fruit of correction, and amplified by concession of the objection ; I 
confess suffering is grievous, but wholesome. The end and issue of it is to be 
considered. A rational creature in all things should mind the end as well as 
the means. The end makes a vast difference between things. Because the 
trouble and grief which is in every chastisement makes our flesh to apprehend 
it is an evil, the apostle distinguisheth between what is troublesome and 
what is desirable, between tbe pain and the fruit ; and draws an argument of 
patience from the effect. 

[1 . j All afflictions are grievous to the flesh. God doth not expect we should 
be Stoics, to be without sense or grief. Christ himself hath set us a pattern 
of it ; he shed tears for the death of his friend Lazarus, and shed drops of 
blood at the approaching of his sufferings : ' his soul was sorrowful, even to 
the death ;' he was ' tempted in all things like to us, yet without sin.' It is 
no sin to grieve under, to complain of suffering, without murmuring. If we 
have not a sense of the grief, we can never be capable of the profit of afflic- 
tion. Without some grief, affliction would leave us worse than it finds us. 
As we ought to hear God when he speaks, so we ought to fear God when he 
strikes. At first the trouble of a chastisement doth wholly possess our spirits, 
it makes us mistake the end of it, we cannot sometimes in our pressures 
imagine that a root so bitter should bear a joyful fruit ; as the griping physic 
afflicts the patient so much sometimes, that he scarce thinks of the good which 
will issue from it. David often is full of complaints while he is under an 
affliction, and seems often to have no sense of anything but the present 
trouble, but afterwards he hath no sentiments but of the gracious fruit : 
' In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me.' ' It is good for me that I have been 
afflicted.' ' Thy rod doth comfort me.' After experience manifests a truth 
which the present grief will not often give us leave to consider. 

[2.] Though afflictions be grievous, the fruit is gracious to a believer. 
Experience corrects the false judgment we have while we are under a stroke. 
Indeed, afflictions of themselves are rather a means to cool our affections to 
holiness, to extinguish in our minds the sparks of godliness, and make us 
despond and distrust the grace of God ; but God in his sovereign wisdom 
doth so dispose and manage them, that he makes them end in a happy fruit. 
By the grace of God they break off' those inclinations we have to the world, 
quicken our prayers, awaken us out of our lethargies, put us upon a review 
of ourselves. The strings of an instrument yield a different sound when they 
are stretched, from what they did when they were slack. It is a fruit of right- 
eousness, holiness, and sanctification, which he had spoken of in the former 
verse ; also righteousness, which is a peaceable fruit ; as when it is said, the 
* incorruptible crown of glory,' 1 Peter v. 4. It is as much as to say, the 



HeB. XII. 5-11.] OF AFFLICTIONS. 189 

glory which is a crown incorruptible, so a righteousnes which is the spring 
of peace and serenity of conscience : Isa. xxxiii. 17, ' And the work of right- 
eousness shall be peace ; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assur- 
ance for ever.' It yields the fruit of righteousness, as being a means that 
brings us nearer to God, in communion with whom that peace doth consist. 
It brings us to seek in God and Christ the true remedy of all our evils ; and 
by this means, the trouble of our souls is calmed, and an assurance of the 
grace of God promoted. The joy of the Holy Ghost is often strongest in us 
when afflictions are sharpest upon us : 1 Thes. i. 6, ' Having received the 
word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.' And though it be not 
always so with a believer, yet after the affliction hath wrought kindly, and 
done its work, God comes in with comfort and joy ; as cheering cordials 
follow bitter physic. They bring forth the fruits of righteousness, not as the 
efficient cause, but the means. 

1. Let us then make a right judgment of afflictions. Let us not think 
God intends to destroy when he begins to strike. "We are often in the same 
error the apostles were in when they saw Christ walking upon the waves in 
the dead of the night, and terrors of a tempest, coming to succour them, they 
imagined he was a spirit coming to mischief them, Mark vi. 47-49. The 
flesh makes us think God often to be our enemy when he is our friend. But 
as Christ cried out to them, * Fear not, it is I,' so the apostle doth to believers 
here. Fear not; though the smart be grievous, the fruit is peaceable; if the 
flesh suffer, it is for the good of the spirit. The issue will declare, that * all 
things work together for the good of them that love God,' Kom. viii. 27. 

2. Let patience and faith have their perfect work. Affliction makes the 
beginning sad, patience will make the success glorious. Had the Israelites 
believed God's promise of deliverance, they had not murmured at the Red 
Sea. God brought them to the Red Sea to deliver them from the Egyptians, 
and made all their fears end in joy and triumph. The more we trust God, 
the more he is concerned in our welfare ; the more we trust ourselves, the 
more he doth to cross us. The committing our way to the Lord renders our 
minds calm and composed : Prov. xvi. 3, ' Commit thy way to the Lord, and 
thy thoughts shall be established.' God hath always ' an eye upon them that 
fear him,' Ps. xxxiii. 18, 19 ; not to keep distress and affliction from them, 
but to quicken them in it, and give them as it were a new life from the dead, 
new fruit from the rod. God brings us into straits, that we may have more 
Hvely experiments of his tenderness and wisdom. We should submit our 
way to the guidance of God's wisdom, with an obedience to his will and a 
reliance on his goodness ; and then the success will be gracious in this life, 
and glorious in that which is to come, — a peaceable fruit of righteousness in 
earth and heaven. Wait upon God, being he is a God of judgment : Isa. 
XXX. 18, * For the Lord is a God of judgment ; blessed are all those that wait 
for him.' He goes judicially to work, and can best time the execution of his 
will. God hath as much wisdom to bring an affliction to a good issue, as he 
hath love at first to inflict it. 



A DISCOURSE OF THE REMOVAL OF THE 
GOSPEL. 



Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first ivorks ; or 
else 1 will come unto thee quickly, and remove thy candlestick out of his place, 
except thou repent. — Rev. II. 5. 

These words are part of the epistle of Christ, as king and governor, to the 
church of Ephesus, and they contain a severe threatening after a charge and 
indictment brought in against that church. The bill is preferred against 
them by Christ, who is described, ver. 1, to be him ' that holds the seven 
stars in his right hand, and walks in the midst of the seven golden candle- 
sticks.' He holds the stars in his hand to shew his tenderness, in his right 
hand to shew his power, and he walks among the candlesticks to shew his 
care over them and his love to them. Before he brings the charge, he takes 
notice of what was praiseworthy in that church, and gives them the commen- 
dation of their patience under persecution and zeal for his glory, vers. 2, 3. 
But, alas ! the case was changed, their zeal was cold, and their love was 
flatted : ver. 4, ' she had left her first love.' Ephesus was a mart-town of 
Asia, famous for Diana's temple. Acts xix. 28, which brought resort and 
consequently wealth to her from all parts of Asia and Greece. 

I have formerly noted that the condition of the church in the several states 
of it is described in these epistles. Crocius discourseth of them to this pur- 
pose,* whence our Dr Moor might take his rise for that ingenious and 
rational piece he hath writ upon these epistles in this sense. The design of 
this book is to predict what should happen to the church in all ages till the 
conclusion of time ; and what is spoken here to these seven churches seems 
to be greater than can well suit these places in Asia while they remained 
Christian. The conversion of the Jews seems to be intimated to be brought 
to pass in the Philadelphian state, to which we probably are approaching, 
after a smart trouble : Rev. iii. 5, ' I will make those that are of the syna- 
gogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie ; behold, I 
will make them to come and worship before thy feet ;' those that are of the 
Jewish synagogue, which he calls the synagogue of Satan, being blinded by 
the Grod of this world to keep up that worship which God hath rejected, 
which are indeed Jews in the flesh and by circumcision, but are not so in 
* Epist. Dedicat. ante Syntag. 



Rev. n. 5.] the removal of the gospel. 191 

spirit ; or it may be meant of some people that pretend to be of the Jewish 
race, or practising the Jewish rites, that shall in that state of the church give 
up their names to Christianity. And for Laodicea, it is argued that the 
epistle cannot be meant of local Laodicea, because that is reported to be 
swallowed up by an earthquake in the time of Nero, before the writing of 
this epistle. And it is that state of the church which shall be before the 
day of judgment, and therefore fitly put in that term of Laodicea, which sig- 
nifies in the Greek, the people's judgment, or the judgment of the people. 
The church of Ephesus is understood by him to be the first and apostolical 
condition of the church, or perhaps not that prim o- primitive, but the state 
of the church immediately succeeding it. It is true the primitive church 
was fired with zeal and ballasted with patience ; she had a courage to assert 
the truth, and a meekness to bear her troubles, and detected those false 
apostles that would join works with the righteousness of Christ in justifica- 
tion. But after the death of the apostles, yea, and in the life of Paul, there 
were some that made disturbance, would have blended the gospel doctrine 
and worship with legal ceremonies. And when the head of that great founder 
of the Gentile church was laid, coldness in Christianity and corruption in 
doctrine crept in. 

Doct. 1 How unwilling is the nature of man to be guided by the word 
of Christ ! Men will be mixing their own wills and wisdom with the wisdom 
and will of God. Error could not else have crept in so soon while the 
memory of the apostles lasted. The church of Ephesus was the first state 
of the church next to the primitive, and this gave strong provocations to God 
to take away the gospel from her. 

2. Christ takes an account both of the good and evil works of a church. 
One makes him not overlook the other ; he will not cocker any for their 
good, or spare them in their evil. He sweetens his reproof here with a com- 
mendation, like oil that makes way for a sharp nail. He reckons their 
labour, patience, sense of his dishonour, their discovery of seducing spirits, 
the circumstances of their zeal for his name, and constancy and unwearied- 
ness in it. He sees our good grain and beholds our chaflf; he take notices 
of our decreases and of our decays. 

3. Grace doth not privilege sin. Though he takes notice of their worth, 
yet he charges them with their crime. Christ takes more notice of the sins 
of his people than of the sins of others. Others' sins are enmities : he ex- 
pects no other from them ; their sins are unkind, and more afiect him. 
Their professions, mercies, covenants, assistances, privileges, require a suit- 
able walk. Judas his betraying Christ did not so much trouble him as 
Peter's denial of him. We do not read that he thought of Judas after he 
had betrayed him, but he would look back upon Peter whilst he was ex- 
posed to the danger of his life, and approaching to a contest with death and 
wrath. Christ will be terrible in the assembly of his saints : he will not 
endure the dustiness of his golden candlestick. 

We may see here, 

1. The disease : ver. 4, ' Thou hast left thy first love.' 

2. The issue of it, if it were not cured : the removal of the candlestick. 

3. The cure, which consists 

(1.) In consideration, ' Remember.' 

[1.] Of their present condition, fallen. 

[2.] Of the term of their apostasy : whence thou art fallen. Reflect upon 
your present condition and your former state, and compare them one with 
another. 

(2.) In contrition, ' repent.' 



192 charnock's works. [Key. II. 5. 

(3.) In reformation; and ' do thy first work,' write after thy former copy. 
This method of cure was to be observed, otherwise Christ would take away 
the golden candlestick. 

' Do thy first work ;' reduce thyself to the form of primitive Christianity ; 
away with all mixtures in worship, chillness in discipline, looseness in prac- 
tice. 

Doct. Reformations are reductions of things to their original pattern and 
first institution. "When Christ would reform the abuses in marriage, he doth 
not bring them to the practice of their fathers and the practice of their pos- 
terity, but measures both that of their own and that of their ancestors by 
the first rule, ' In the beginning it was not so,' Mat. xix. 18. We are 
usually swayed by customs in morals, and precedents in politicals, when cus- 
tom and prescription alter not the nature of unrighteousness and unreason- 
ableness. True reformations are reductions of things to reason and reduction 
of things to Scripture. 

' I will remove thy candlestick out of his place.' I shall not trouble you 
with the difierent interpretations of it. There was a candlestick within the 
tabernacle, Heb. ix. 2, which had seven branches, wherein lamps were con- 
tinually presented lighted. The candlestick represented as a type the gospel 
church, and the lamps the gospel in it, and the oil to supply the lamps the 
gifts of the Spirit for the preservation and propagation of the gospel. An 
allusion is made in this place to the candlestick in the ancient tabernacle. 
Some think the candlestick with the seven golden branches represented the 
seven planets, but with what reason I understand not, since the branches of 
the candlestick were all equal, but the planets are of a difierent light and 
magnitude. The chief intention of the ancient tabernacle was to represent 
and signify future things. The seven particular churches allude here to the 
seven branches of that candlestick, seven particular churches or seven states 
of the church, all parts of the universal. The chief concern of the candle- 
stick was the light in it, without which, as the tabernacle had been a place 
of darkness, so is the world without the gospel. 

By removing the candlestick is therefore to be understood the removing 
of the gospel, and so an unchurching of them. Candlestick may be here 
put for the light in it, by a metonomy of the subject for the adjunct. 

We might observe, 

1. A nation, people, or church, that have been eminent for the owning 
the ways and truths of God, may have great decays in their afiiections, and 
greatly apostatize. 

2. Apostasy in a church is followed with a removal of the gospel. 

3. The removal of the gospel is the saddest judgment that can happen to 
a nation. 

We may put the two last together, and so I shall insist on this doctrine. 

Doct. God doth often remove the gospel upon provocations, as the severest 
judgment he can inflict upon an unworthy people. Apostasies have been 
very frequent. Everj^thing under the sun is subject to alteration and cor- 
ruption. Faith is not a hereditary thing like a standing patrimony. Chil- 
dren do not always tread in the steps of their ancestors ; what they receive 
only by education, they will easily part with upon some carnal interest, some 
smiling or frowning temptation. Some have observed that the purity of the 
gospel hath scarce lasted in a city or province to the third generation. The 
gospel in the honour of it may remain longer, but usually some error, some 
mixtures, have deformed it. Good corn is scarcely sown but the devil is as 
ready to sow his tares. 

I shall premise, 



Rev, II. 5.] the removal of the gospel. 103 

1. The gospel shall not be removed out of the world, while the world en- 
dures. Sion, the universal church, hath a promise of stability ; the gospel 
therefore, whereby she is constituted a church, shall be perpetually in her. 
The shutting the gate of the sanctuary after the Lord's entering into it, 
Ezek. xliv. 2, is expounded by some, of the everlasting dwelling of the Lord 
in the gospel church, and never departing from it, as he had done from the 
temple of Jerusalem. The promise of Christ assures it : Mat. xxviii. 20, * I 
will be with you always, even unto the end of the world.' Not with the 
persons of the apostles, who were to expire, but with the doctrine of the 
apostles, which was to endure ; though the apostles die in their bodies, yet 
they live in their doctrine. 

2. The gospel hath been, and still maybe, removed from particular places. 
No particular church but may be unchurched, because no particular church 
hath a promise of stability. There is no entail of God's favour to any par- 
ticular church in the world. The gospel is a candle, and the church is a 
candlestick ; both candle and candlestick are moveable things, not an entailed 
inheritance. Many nations have had their day of grace set, and are now 
benighted. Jerusalem had a season wherein to know the things that con- 
cerned her peace, Luke xix, 42. She finds nothing now but sorrow and 
exile. There is a time when the Spirit strives, and there is a time when the 
Spirit turns his back, and ceaseth any longer wrestling. Sometimes God 
doth both unchurch and unnation a people, sometimes he removes the gospel, 
and continues a nation in being ; but this is rare, to continue providential 
mercies when his most excellent truth is departed. But in such cases he 
gives them up to strong delusions, who would not render themselves at his 
summons ; he continues the substance, while he removes the efficacy by 
withdrawing his Spirit ; and then the gospel is like a carcase without a soul : 
Isa. vi. 9, 10, * They shall hear and not understand.' 

I shall observe this method in handling this doctrine. I shall shew, 

I. The gospel has been removed, a nation hath been unchurched. 

II. It is the greatest judgment. 

III. The Use. 

I, That a nation has been unchurched, and the gospel has been removed. 

1. The Jews are an eminent instance. They had the gospel in a tjTpe, 
while they enjoyed the ceremonies ; they had the gospel unveiled, while they 
had the presence of Christ among them. God gave them anciently some 
evidences of the possibility of it. The law was near being quite removed 
from them, when upon their idolatry, the two tables were broken by Moses, 
which a little before had been received from God. When the ark was put 
into the temple, at Solomon's dedication of it, though it was lodged there 
without any intention in the people to remove it, yet the staves whereby it 
was carried were continued in it, 1 Kings viii. 8, 9, so that it was ready for a 
removal at any time ; to shew, say some, that if the ark were abused and 
the testimonies slighted, it should be taken from them. 

(1.) Consider, they were a people that had the greatest titles. They 
were called by his name, Jer. ii. 2, 3, They were his pecuhar treasure, 
they were called God's son, his first-born, his spouse, his portion, inherit- 
ance, his delight ; yet he hath flung this treasure out of his coffers, disin- 
herited his first-born, cast his children out of his house to be fugitives about 
the world ; his spouse is divorced from him, and his inheritance laid waste. 
No child was more endeared to a father, no wife more to a husband, than 
those people to God ; yet how is that Jerusalem, which was his delight, 
now a den of thieves ? 



194 chaenock's works. [Rev. II. 5. 

(2.) Consider the privileges they enjoyed. They were a people cherished 
in his bosom, walled about with miracles, protected by him in person ; he 
marched before them as their general, and conducted their motions, Exod. 
xiii. 21. He was their lawgiver, and penned their statutes, whereby they 
were to be governed, with his own hand ; he spake to them from heaven 
(which he did to no other nation) ; he was their caterer, and provided manna 
lor them in their necessity, and fed them by miracle. He was their bishop 
to settle them a church, and their prince and magistrate to form them into 
a state ; not only their religion, but their civil government was the birth of 
the wisdom of heaven. He put his oracles as a treasure into their hands, 
Rom. iii. 2. The covenant, ark, pot of manna, were committed to them ; 
he planted them a noble vine, culled them out from all the nations of the 
earth, whereby they were made the delights of heaven, and the admiration of 
the rest of the world. He made them his garden, they cost him more than 
ail the nations beside, and he seems to have no care of any part of the earth 
besides them, Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20. The world had his alms, and they the in- 
heritance ; the rest of the world were his Ishmaels, and they his Isaacs ; and 
which is observable, his first thoughts seem to be, to have the gospel confined 
only to them in that covenant which he makes with Christ, which is repre- 
sented in the manner of a treaty between the Father and the Son. He seems to 
pitch no further than Israel, ' in whom he would be glorified,' Isa. xlix. 3, till 
Christ complains of the narrow limits, and gains a larger portion for himself. 
The terms are then enlarged : ver. 6, * It is a light thing that thou shouldest 
be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore tho preserved of 
Israel ; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles.' The promises of 
the Messiah made to Abraham and Jacob were oft«n with an addition of 
clearness renewed to them by the prophets. He chose them of all nations, 
of whom his Son the Saviour of the world should be born, with whom he w^as 
first to treat. His personal ministry was designed for them, to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel only he was sent, that nation he in person solicited, 
over them he wept, and for them he prayed. Mat. xv. 24. Those that were 
to carry the gospel into other parts of the world, were selected out of that 
nation ; and though they used him so ill, yet he was indulgent to them, sent 
his Spirit upon the apostles first at Jerusalem ; seemed to have little care of 
the Gentiles. How long after was it that Peter scrupled to treat with them '? 
But since they have proved false to God, and forgot the Rock of their 
strength, he exposed them to the fury of a Roman army, tore up the founda- 
tions of their government, demolished their temple, caused the land he had 
infeft them in to spue them out, scattered them over the face of the world 
as a spectacle of his vengeance, and a standing monument what the case 
will be of any nation that walks unworthily of the gospel. 

(3.) Consider the multitude of strange providences they had. He delivered 
them, to the amazement of all round about them ; they were a happy people, 
in being a people saved by the Lord, Deut. xxxiii. 29. They saw more of 
his wonderful providences than all the world ever since hath done : he put 
himself out of the ordinary course of providence in their favour ; he spread 
their tables in the wilderness, and filled their cup ; no good thing they 
could have a mind to, but they had for asking ; the sun must stand still in 
heaven to light them to the gaining a victory, if Joshua desire it ; they had 
upon all occasions immediate direction from the ark. What favour did they 
find from Cyrus after they had been captivated ? A hundred thousand were 
set at liberty by Ptolemy, after they had been enslaved by his father. 
When they proved false to God, and played the harlot upon every high hill, 
aud under every green tree, how was their temple and city destroyed, and 



Rev. II. 5.] the removal of the gospel. 195 

after some revolution of time repaired ; and that by their enemies, as some 
observe, contrary to all the rales of policy, since the re-edifying their temple, 
and the repairing the walls of their city, might be encouragements to them 
to rebel, they being a people that had so often forced their necks out of the 
conqueror's yoke. And often when the temple wanted repairs, God stirred 
np the hearts of their enemies to send supplies out of the Roman provinces 
to beautify it, that as God had at first enriched them by the jewels of the 
Egyptians, he would maintain their wealth by the assistance of the other 
Gentiles. And when Pompey entered into their temple, where there was a 
treasure in the vessels, and instruments of gold, amounting to about nine 
millions of money (a strong temptation to a generous person), yet God so 
ordered it, that he could see nothing there but a cloud. They never were 
conquered (which you know was often), but God raised them up some 
patrons. Yet notwithstanding all these providences whereby God so mira- 
culously owned them, and all the dangers from whence he so powerfully 
delivered them, they are now pulled up by the root, persecuted by man, 
abandoned by God, ' the generation of his wrath,' Jer. vii. 29. Of a tender 
Father he has become their enraged enemy, and flings vengeance down upon 
those heads which before he crowned with mercy. No spiritual dew falls 
upon these mountains of Gilboa. Those that were as plessant to God as 
the * grapes in a wilderness' to a thirsty traveller, Hosea ix. 10, are of as 
little regard as a bramble. Their names are a detestation in nature, and a 
hissing to the Gentiles. God sometimes embraced the Jews without taking 
the Gentiles, and now hath received the Gentiles with rejecting the Jews. 

2. The seven churches of Asia, to whom these epistles are written, are 
another instance. How do their places know them no more as once they 
were ! Not only their religion, but their civil politeness is exchanged for 
barbarism. They have lost their ancient beauty for a Turkish deformity. 
Mahomet's horse hath succeeded in the place of the gospel dove. The 
blasphemies of the Alcoran sound where the name of Christ hath been called 
upon. The triumphant banners of an impostor advanced where the standard 
of the gospel had been erected. Christ had a great company of votaries in 
those places when the ancient Britons were under the empire of Satan, but 
now he seems to have sowed those places with salt, and made them barren. 
No courageous Athanasius, or silver-tongued Chrysostom, or lofty Nazianzen 
to be found in those places. He hath translated the gospel into other parts, 
and multiplied children in those places which before were barren. We might 
instance also in the church of Rome, a church whose faith was spoken of 
throughout the whole world ; and how is the truth and purity of religion 
discarded, true ^faith dwindled into implicit, the righteousness of Christ 
changed for impotent and feeble merit ; pilgrimages, oblations, self-chastise- 
ments advanced instead of the virtues of the cross ; whole countries made 
drunk with the wine of her fornication ; the glory of the gospel gone, a mere 
echo only remaining, the end of a voice, and no reality ! They are given up 
to strong delusions to believe a lie. 

II. Thing. That the removal of the gospel and unchurching a nation is 
the greatest judgment. Can there be a greater judgment than to have the 
word of God removed, to want a prophet to instruct and warn, when the law 
shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancient ? This God 
threatens as the greatest, Ezek. viii. 26. And the church complains of it as 
the sorest : Ps. Ixxiv. 9, ' We see not our signs, and there is no more any 
prophet among us.' It was the greatest token of God's anger, when his glory 
went up from the cherubims, Ezek. ix. 2. A loco placatioius. How much 
more terrible is the shaking off the dust of the feet of God against a people, 



196 chahnock's works. [Rev. II. 5. 

than the shaking off the dust of the feet of an apostle ! What greater 
evidence can there be of a father's indignation against a disobedient son, than 
not only to disinherit him but disdain to speak to him, or send to him any 
notice of his mind and will ? The misery of the old world was summed up 
in this, ' My Spirit shall not always strive with man,' Gen. vi. 3 ; and then 
are the flood-gates of heaven opened. The shutting up the book of mercy 
is the opening the book of justice, the unstopping the vials of wrath ; this, 
this is the very dregs of vengeance. 

1. The gospel is the choicest mercy, and therefore the removal of it the 
sharpest misery. The gospel is so much the best of blessings, as God is the 
best of beings. This is the sun that enlightens the mind, this is the rain 
that waters the heart. Without this, we should sink into an heathen, brutish, 
or devilish superstition. By this, the quickening Spirit renews the scul, and 
begins a gracious and spiritual life in order to a glorious and eternal one. It is 
by this our souls are refined and our lusts consumed. Without it we are with- 
out help, and without hope ; without it we have no prospect of a world to come, 
nor any sight of the paths that lead to happiness. This is the foundation 
of the peace and joy of our spirits here, this is the basis of our hopes of 
happiness hereafter. This is a pearl of great price ; this is the glory and 
honour of a church, people, or person. This only instructs us to save our 
souls. Your trades may gain and preserve an estate, your bread may nourish 
your bodies, this only can fatten and prop your souls ; had we the law only, 
which yet is the law of God, we should still find it weak through the flesh, 
it cannot now save us, though the observance of it might have made our 
father Adam happy. It is the gospel only that is strong to save through 
the Spirit. The law could bless an innocent man, but the gospel only 
restores a guilty man. When the candlestick, the gospel, therefore, is re- 
moved, the light is removed which is able to direct us, the pearl is removed 
which is able to enrich us. In the want of this is introduced a spiritual 
darkness, which ends in an eternal darkness. As the gospel is compared to 
heaven, and so called the kingdom of heaven, and a people in the enjoyment 
of it are said to be * lifted up to heaven,' Mat. x, 23, so in the want of it 
they are said to be cast down into hell, so that what resemblance there is 
between heaven and the means of grace, that there is between the want of 
them and hell, both are a separation from God by divorce between God and 
a people. 

2. It is made worse than those judgments that are accounted the severest. 
Plagues, wars, famine, are lighter marks of divine anger than this. God, 
upon several provocations of the Jews, sent enemies to waste their habita- 
tions and ravage their country, plagues to diminish their inhabitants, yet 
they were still his people ; but when he takes the word and ordinances from 
them, they are Lo-ammi, not my people, Hosea i. 9. God may take notice 
of a people under the smartest afiiictions, but when he takes away his word, 
he knows a people no longer. A father may scourge a child and yet love 
him, but when he takes away his treasure, his food, from his child, he can 
no longer be said to love him, he breaks the bands of all relation and natural 
affection. This judgment is compared to, and yet made worse than, a famine 
of bread. What more terrible than famine, that hath forced parents against 
the ties of natural affection to devour their children, and children to feed 
upon the lean flesh of their parents ! What more terrible than famine, that 
hath rendered carrion, dung, rats, serpents, the refuse of nature, a delicious 
food in that extreme necessity ! What more dreadful than this, that brutifies 
the nature of man, and necessitates them to horrid and abominable actions ! 
Yet this is made a light thing in comparison of the other: Amos viii. 11, 



Rev. II. 5.] the bemoval of the gospel. 197 

' Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the 
land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word 
of the Lord.' In what bitter gall doth God here dip his pen ! I will not 
send so light a judgment, I have a worse scourge for them. When God 
sent the Jews into captivity, he sent prophets to attend them while they were 
under the Chaldean power. The remains of them in the land had Jeremiah 
and Baruch. The captives in Babylon had Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras ; 
after the captivity they had Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi ; but in this judg- 
ment threatened against Israel, none at all ; they were to be without a prince, 
or a priest, Hosea iii. 4 (for the word signifies both), without a sacrfice, 
without Ephod and Teraphim. As the soul surpasses the body in excellency, 
so a soul famine exceeds a bodily famine. The want of spiritual is more 
dreadful than the want of corporeal food ; this makes us"] weak, and that 
makes us wicked ; this pines away the strength of the body, that drives out 
the health of the soul ; this may be a means to make us seek the Lord, but 
that leaves us groping in the dark. We may live in our souls by the influ- 
ence of the word, when we have not bread to convey strength to our bodies, 
but how must the soul languish when it is deprived of spiritual food to 
nourish her ! Isa. xxx. 20. How doleful would it be to have the ground 
parched by the sun, the sky emptied of clouds, or the bottles of heaven 
stopped close without venting a drop of refreshing rain. But how much 
more deplorable is this judgment than the withholding the clouds from drop- 
ping upon our earth, or the sun from shining upon our fruits. 

3. When the gospel departs, all other blessings depart with it. When the 
great charter is taken away, all the privileges depending upon it are snatched 
away together with it. When God departs, judgments succeed. When the 
glory of God was gone up from the first cherub to the threshold of the house, 
Ezek. ix. 3, the angels are commanded to execute the destructive sentence 
against the city, ver. 4, 5. 

(1.) The honour and ornament of a nation departs. When a man departs 
from his house, the hangings are taken down, the furniture removed, and 
the walls left bare. Length of days are the blessings of wisdom's right 
hand, riches and honour the treasures of her left hand, Prov. iii. 16. She 
departs not from any, to leave her hands, and the blessings of her hands, 
behind her. 

(2.) The strength of a nation departs. The ordinances of God are the 
towers of Sion. The temple was not only a place of worship, but a bulwark 
too. The ark was often carried with the Israelites into their camp, because 
there their strength lay ; and when David was chased away by his son 
Absalom, he takes the ark of the tabernacle as his greatest strength against 
the defection of his son and subjects. When the gospel goes, God continues 
no longer the protector of a people. When a man hath packed up his wares, 
and removed them, he cares not much what becomes of the house he hath 
left, which, while he is in it, he will defend to the utmost. When the ark 
was taken by the Philistines, what a rout is there among the Israehtes, 
thirty thousand of them slain ; Eli, the High Priest, breaks his neck ; his 
sons fail in the battle ; and the strength and glory were departed from Israel, 
1 Sam. iv. The flourishing condition of the seven churches withered when 
the candlestick was removed. When the things of Jerusalem's peace were 
hid from their eyes, the destruction of their city followed, so that one stone 
was not left upon another, because they knew not the time of their visitation, 
Luke xix. 42, 44. Then the Roman eagles clapped their wings in judgment 
upon them ; then did the armies of the enemies bring desolation upon the 
points of their swords ; then was the temple filled with the blood of the 



198 charnock's works. [Rev. EC. 5. 

worshippers, which had been formerly consecrated in a way of mercy by the 
blood of sacrifices ; then were carcases heaped one upon another, and the 
survivors led in chains to a miperable captivity, or a disgraceful death. 
What a wasted wilderness is that land now, deprived of that ancient fruitful- 
ness whereby it afi"orded maintenance to such multitudes, which in David's 
time were about one hundred and thirty thousand fighting men, yet thought 
by some not much bigger than Yorkshire ! "When the gospel of peace 
removes, eternal peace goes with it, temporal peace flies after it ; and what- 
soever is safe, profitable, prosperous, takes wings and attends it. 

4. God hath no other intention in the removing the gospel, and unchurch- 
ing a nation, but the utter ruin and destruction of that nation. Other judg- 
ments may be medicinal ; this is killing. Other judgments may lance and 
let out the corrupt matter ; this opens a passage for life, soul, and happiness. 
Other judgments are but scourges ; this is a deadly woand. In other judg- 
ments, God may continue a Father ; in this, he is no other than an enemy 
and a destroyer. Other judgments are upon our backs ; but this is in our 
bowels. Other judgments may be for conversion ; this takes away the means 
of conversion. The torments of hell are not inflicted for the conversion of 
the damned, nor the setting of the gospel sun for the conversion of a nation. 
Other judgments may be nubecula cito transitura, as the Father's speech was 
of the storm in Julian's time ; but this is a covering the heavens with black- 
ness, a pulling the gun out of the firmament. A deluge of other judgments 
may lift the ark higher, but this overthrows it. Other judgments may have 
their period ; this is hardly reversed. Not one of the seven churches re- 
stored to their former beauty to this day. This is an absolute shutting 
the gates of heaven against a people, and entailing upon them death and 



5. This judgment is accompanied with spiritual judgments, which are 
the sorest. The pounding of the jewel is far worse, and of greater loss, 
than the breaking the casket. The judgment of being given up to our 
hearts' lusts, to sensuality, pride, hardness of heart, delusions to believe a 
He, are the sorest judgments ; they are Uke poison in the soul, that will 
never leave till it hath eaten out the vitals. There shall then be no divorce 
between men and their idols : Hosea iv. 11, ' Your daughters shall commit 
whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery,' i. e. spiritual adultery 
and idolatry. "VMien the check of idolatry is gone, the fury of that lust 
will rage. 

in. Use. Doth God often remove the gospel upon provocations, as the 
severest judgment he can inflict upon an unworthy people ? Then, 

1. Be afraid of this judgment. How do we know but that God hath 
limited the preaching of the gospel, and the standing of the candlestick in 
this and that place, only for a time ; and when that is expired, it may be 
carried to another place ? We see it hath been so with others. If he hath 
not spared the natural branches, nor the church next the primitive, nay, those 
churches where the gospel was planted by the apostles, what reason have we 
to think he should spare us, who have long ago discarded primitive discipline, 
and are in a fair way to throw away primitive doctrine after it ? Is England 
better than Jerusalem and Ephesus ? Are the privileges we enjoy a bar to 
the removal of it ? Are our privileges greater than those churches which 
were planted by the apostles had ? Yet the hand of God hath shaken them 
ofi'. Did not the Jews oppose their descent from Abraham, to whom the 
promises were made, and the glory of their temple, as an invincible shield 
against all the threatenings of destruction by the prophets, as though God 
had been shut up in their temple, and so enamoured on the beauty of that 



Rev. II. 5.] the removal of the gospel. 199 

structure, that he could not have the heart to leave them ? But are they not 
rejected, and the Gentiles received in their room ? Is not that which was 
once the glory of their nation, and the wonder of the world, many an age 
since fallen to the ground and mouldered to dust ? What though the gos- 
pel be not yet gone ? That sin may lie at the door which is meritorious of 
its departure. God's patience doth still last, but will it always last ? The 
gospel may shine bright one day, and be eclipsed the next hour. The Jews 
might say with confidence, ' Our temple yet stands,' till they heard the re- 
port of the Roman eagles marching towards them. The sun shone very 
bright that day Sodom was burned. The preaching the gospel in a plentiful 
manner is a sign of judgment when there is unfruitfulness under it. Was 
not the gospel preached to Jerusalem by the best preachers of it that ever 
were, the Son of God, and the apostles after him, not many years before the 
destruction of that city ? God is quick in his judgments when the gospel is 
contemned. The black, red, and pale horse — plague, war, and famine — fol- 
lowed just upon the white horse, to cut off such as would not be conquered 
by him that sat on him, Rev. vi. 2, &c. The sun shines brightest many 
times when it is nearest setting. I must confess I am of the opinion that 
the gospel will never be perfectly and totally taken away from these western 
parts of the world. It hath borne up its head for many ages within the 
scent of Rome, in those of Piedmont, notwithstanding all endeavours to ex- 
tinguish it. The slaying of the witnesses, or the two prophets, which per- 
haps is not far off, is not a corporal, but a political death. Their dead 
bodies would not then be suffered to lie in the streets three years and a half 
(which we must understand by the three days and a half, Rev. xi. 9) ; and 
the resurrection of them, the returning of the spirit of Ufe into them, is not 
to be meant of the resurrection of their bodies, but the resurrection of their 
ofiices ; which pohtical slaying is to be not long before the fall of the tenth 
part of the city, i. e. Rome, that city being the tenth part in greatness now 
of what it was anciently. And before the fall of Babylon the everlasting 
gospel shall be published with more efficacy than in many years before, ver. 
13 ; and therefore I think the gospel will never totally depart, though it may 
for a while be much obscured. And I cannot but mind you of an observa- 
tion a Jewish writer hath of the lamps in the temple,* that though some of 
them went out in the night, yet the western lamp was always found burning. 
The lamps were representations of the gospel, and this might signify the 
perpetuity of the gospel in the western parts of the world, when we see it is 
extinguished, or at least burns very dim, in most of the eastern parts. Yet 
a great eclipse, I fear ; the interposition of a black moon between us and the 
sun, an antichristian smoke out of the bottomless pit to darken the sun and 
the air. In the description of the Sardian church. Rev. iii. 1-3, which is 
the state of the church where we are, Christ speaks of decays coming on 
them with some sharp scourge, but doth not threaten the removal of the 
candlestick. And may we not have just reason to fear it ? to fear, I say, a 
judgment like this of removing the gospel, the removal of it in part ? Bethel, 
when Jacob laid his head there, was a place where angels went up and down 
in vision ; afterwards it was changed into Bethaven, where calves and devils 
were worshipped, when Jeroboam swayed the sceptre. 

(1.) Is not our profaneness a just ground of our fear ? Is there not more 
wickedness found amongst us, where the glorious gospel hath shined, than 
among them that live under the fogs of the Turkish Alcoran ? Have not 
our fruits been grapes of Sodom and clusters of Gomorrah ? Have not many, 

* Kimchi, in 1 Sam. iii., edit, by Lightfoot, Temple, chap. xiv. se>, v. p. 83. 



2Q0 charnock's works. [Rev. II. 5. 

that have been lifted up to heaven by the presence of the gospel, walked as 
if they had the seal of hell in their foreheads ? A fulness of iniquity makes 
the harvest ripe, and fit for the sickle, Joel iii. 13. Why may we not fear 
the clouding of the gospel, as well as we have heard of Moses his breaking 
of the tables of the law, when he found a people given to luxury, sensuality, 
and idolatry ? When Eli the priest is remiss, and Phinehas his son is pro- 
fane ; when there is little care of the true worship of God, and no censures 
for profaneness of life, is not the fruit of this an Ichahod, ' the departure of 
the glory from Israel' ? 1 Sam. iv. 21. What can be expected, when the 
punishment of profaneness is neglected, and the practice of piety hath been 
discouraged ? When the Jewish vineyard brought forth wild grapes, God 
commanded the clouds to rain no more upon it, Isa. v. 6. 

(2.) Is not the slighting of the means of grace a just ground of this fear ? 
When reformations have not answered calls, nor improvement answered 
mercies conferred ; when we have fought against God with his own gifts, 
and contemned that rich mercy we cannot want without ruin. Doth not 
every man's observation witness, that this contempt of the gospel hath been 
a national sin in those frequent and repeated endeavours to suppress the 
purity of it, and tire out the professors thereof: and as a great man saith, 
they had rather part with the gospel, than part with a rag. And is it not 
to be observed, that in many of those places where the gospel was powerfully 
preached in our memories, the very sense of it seems to be worn out ? What 
can be expected, when children throw a precious commodity in the dirt, but 
that the parents should take it away and lay it in another place, and lash 
them too for their vanity ? God will not obtrude the gospel long against 
men's wills. When the Gadarenes desired Christ to depart from their coasts, 
Christ granted their wish and turned his back. When there is no delight in 
the word. Sabbath, gospel, then comes a famine of the word, Amos viii. 5. 
After Christ had pronounced a woe upon Bethsaida, Mat. xi. 21, though he 
came afterwards to the town and had the opportunity of curing a blind man, 
he would not do it in the town, and commanded him, after he was restored, 
not to go into the town, nor tell it to any inhabitants of it, Mark viii. 22, 26. 
He would spill no water upon that ground he had cursed. We shall know 
God, ' if we follow on to know the Lord.' If we then neglect the knowledge 
of God, which is the end of the gospel, to what purpose should means of 
knowledge continue among us ? God will not suffer the waters of life to 
run there, where he sees they will altogether run waste. The gospel hath 
too much worth, and the honour of God is too much interested in it, to 
leave it exposed to the injuries of men, without revenging it. 

(3.) And what shall I say of the barrenness of the church's womb ? How 
few real converts are there brought forth of the church's womb, and nursed 
upon the church's knees ? God seems to have written barrenness upon her 
womb, and dryness upon her breasts. Doth not ignorance sway, where 
before the gospel triumphed ? When the ground yields but a faint increase, 
and answers not the cost and labour of the husbandman, he lays it fallow. 
The abatement of the powerful workings o_f the Spirit, is a presage of a 
removal or dimming the light in the candlestick. When God withdraws 
gifts from his ministers, and the Spirit from the hearers, it is a sign he will 
take away that lamp, into which he will pour no more oil. 

May we not add to this, the apostasy of the age ? Where is the old 
primitive spirit, I had almost said puritan spirit, that sincere love to all the 
truths of the gospel, that valuation of all its ordinances ? What generous 
designs are taken up to glorify and propngate it ? Here is pride and world- 
liness, lik i laraoh's lean kine, devour the fat ones of spiritual duties. How 



Rev. II. 5.] the removax, of the gospel. 201 

seldom have we a sense of God, an estimation of Christ, when we speak 
of him ! 

(4.) And may not the errors in the nation step in as the occasion of our 
fears ? Not httle petty errors, but errors about the foundation, when the 
doctrine of justification is not only denied, but scoffed at ; a doctrine which, as 
it was owned or opposed, was deservedly accounted in the first times of the 
Reformation, articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesicB. 

(5.) What should I speak of the divisions amongst us ? These preceded 
the ruin of the Jews, and made way for the fall of the seven churches in 
Asia. By these did Rome grow to that height, as to put a veil upon the 
gospel, and in most places to extinguish it. The concord of the ancient 
Christians was the cause of the flourishing progress and increase of the 
gospel ; when they began to scuffle, their feuds rose to such a height, as 
threw down the candle which gave them light, and ruined that which the 
union of the former Christians had strongly built. When children fall out 
and fight about the candle, the parents come and take it away, and leave 
them to divide* their difierences in the dark.f We may justly fear, God will 
take away that light which we quarrel by, instead of walking and working by. 

(6.) May we not consider also the death of the ablest ministers as a sad 
prognostic ? Sometimes, indeed, the removal of signal instruments portends 
a nearness of some great appearance of God. When the people were upon 
the skirts of Caanan, first Aaron and then Moses are snatched away ; but 
there were others to succeed in their room : a zealous Phinehas was left behind 
Aaron, and a courageous Joshua succeeded Moses. Many good men may 
do things off'ensive to God, and the work of their generation, for which cause 
God will not let them live to see the blessings he is bringing upon a people. 
But, alas, it is often a sign of an approaching judgment. When the Lord 
gives out his word, * great is the company of them that publish it,' Ps. 
Ixviii. 11 ; when the Lord will remove his word, small is the company of 
them that pubUsh it, till at last not one labourer may be left, because God 
will not have a harvest to gather in, but leave the place as a wild field to 
ravenous beasts and the fowls of the air. Methuselah is taken away just 
before the deluge ; and Ambrose his head was scarce cold in his grave before 
the Goths invaded and wasted Italy. It was observed by the Jews, that 
while they were in God's favour, before the sun of one righteous man set, 
the sun of another righteous man did arise. Before Moses' sun set, Joshua's 
sun arose ; before Eli's sun set, Samuel's sun arose ; and this, they say, is 
the meaning of that place, 1 Sam. iii. 9, that before the lamp of God went 
out, the spirit of prophecy came upon Samuel. Is it thus with us ? Doth 
a new spring equal the old stock that are gone ? How few do possess a 
prophet's spirit among them that wear a prophet's garment ! 

We may well therefore fear an eclipse of the gospel, and many eyes may 
not see the emerging of it out of that eclipse. It is worth our consideration, 
that when the spies that were sent to Canaan returned, and gave a good 
report of the land, the common multitude would not beheve them, they 
would return back to Egypt ; and though they had been lashed for their 
murmuring, yet after this provocation, and the slighting the good land, and 
the perfection of the deliverance in the possession of Canaan, God swore 
the destruction of that generation. Numb. xiv. 21-23 (though because of the 
word passed he did not deprive their posterity of the enjoyment of the pro- 
mised land) ; and God never left, till be bad swept away that generation, 
before the people came to Canaan. 

Use 2. If the removal of the gospel be so great a judgment, we have 
» Qu. ' decide ' ?— Ed. t Fuller. 



202 charnock's works. [Rev. II. 5. 

reason to bless God for its continuance so long among us. What a grace is 
it, that God hath drawn us out of the depths of error and folly, wherein 
other nations have been plunged so long a time ! How mercifully hath God 
indulged us that which thousands of heathens have wanted, and do to this 
day ! Many in the world never enjoyed it, and many that have had it have 
now lost it. We have been like Gideon's fleece, wet, while most of the 
world have been dry. He hath nourished us with heavenly manna, making 
it to fall every day at our gates, without putting us to much labour to gather 
it. That ever God should vouchsafe a light to direct us, who are descended 
from a race of first pagan, and then popish idolaters, plunged in supersti- 
tion ! How criminal will our ingratitude be, if we have not lively resent- 
ments of his immense goodness ! God hath yet rained upon us, and not 
upon many of our neighbours, who are under the thickness of popish fogs. 
We are fet in the way where his blessings be, and where his heavenly 
manna often falls. How deplorable would our case have been, if we had 
been starved for want of food ! Had the sun been extinguished, and the 
stars put out, and our residence had been in a gloomy and dolesome world, 
ignorance might have bemisted our minds, and an implicit faith, we know 
not in what, have hoodwinked us to damnation ; our Bibles might have 
been as sealed books, and a crime as bad as atheism so much as to peep 
into the word of God. Traditions might have been mingled with the 
oracles of God, whereby the wisdom of God would have been blemished ; 
the merits of Christ might have been mated with the merits of men, 
whereby the grace of God would have been dimmed, and worship given 
to idols and images, whereby the glory of God would have been rifled. 
What a ravishing mercy is it, that our brains have not been knocked 
out by St Peter's successor ! that God hath hitherto continued our 
preservation, when the seal of the fisher had ratified our destruction ! 
Antichristianism leaves men in thick darkness. It is the gospel dispels 
our ignorance, and disperseth the beams of saving knowledge. It is this 
which rescues you from despair, by shewing you the doctrine of justification, 
which heathens could never attain to, and antichristianism would fain ex- 
punge out of the world. It is the gospel acquaints you with the fulness of 
the satisfaction of Christ ; whereas antichristianism would fright you with 
a pretended fire of purgatory, to empty your purses, and defeat your heirs. 
The gospel teaches you to worship God only ; whereas antichristianism 
would divert your prayers to saints, perhaps to St Garnet and St Fawkes, 
saints of a new stamp, and saints of so bad a hue, that a sober man would 
never admit to be his servants. It is the gospel that fills you with peace, 
that settles you upon the basis of an infinite satisfaction of the Redeemer, 
that elevates you in a sincere belief, not only above the fears of a pretended 
purgatory, but of a real hell. It is the gospel that puts you upon a real 
sanctification, a mortification of lust by the power of Christ's death, and the 
grace of his Spirit, not by bodily torturings, whereby the soul may be ren- 
dered unfit for its proper function in worship. It is the gospel that directs 
us in an inward holiness of heart, and frees us from being painted tombs and 
gilded sepulchres. How much ought we to bless God for the continuance 
of this gospel among us ! 

3. It should teach us to improve the gospel while we enjoy it. The time 
of the gospel revelation is the time of working. Good entertainment and 
good improvement invites the gospel to stay ; ill usage drives it out of doors. 
God hath allowed us his gospel, and set his candlestick among us, but not 
left it to our discretion to do with it what we please ; he hath given it to us, 
as he did the angel to the Israelites, to comfort and conduct them, Exod. 



KeV. II. 5.] THE EEMOVAL OF THE GOSPEL. 203 

xxiii, 20, 21 ; but with a caution not to despise and provoke him, because 
his name was in him.* Let us improve the gospel dispensation to the 
getting a gospel nature. It is not enough to be within the visible ark ; so 
■was a cursed Ham. Let us not receive the grace of God in vain, but adorn 
the gospel by a gospel spirit and a gospel practice, and walk as children of 
light. Let us not trample it under our feet, but put our souls under the 
efficacy of it, and get from it the foretastes of a heavenly and everlasting 
life. Let us not loiter while the sun shines, lest we be benighted, bewil- 
dered, and misled into quagmires and puddles by some ignis fatuus. ^ We 
cannot command the sun to stand still and attend our pleasure ; it will go 
its course according to the word of its governor, and listen not to the follies 
of men, nor stay for their loiterings. Let not an antichristian principle 
reign in your hearts ; implicit faith is against the improvement of the gospel ; 
there is as much of it in practice in England as there is of principle in Rome. 
How many believe as their church, or churchmen believe, without being able 
to render a reason why they do so ? The gospel was given for every man 
to study and embrace, to embrace knowingly, not blindly. If we do not 
increase in knowledge and grace by it, we anticipate the judgment of God ; 
we remove that from us voluntarily which God accounts the removal of 
judicially to be the most deplorable misery. If we do not improve and hold 
fast what we have received and heard, the coming of Christ in a way of 
revenge will be sudden, like a thief in the night, and we shall not know what 
hour he will come upon us till we feel the stroke ; I mean not by death, but 
some sore scourge, for so he speaks to the church of Sardis, the state wherein 
the church is at this day. Rev. iii. 3. 

4. Let us prevent by repentance and prayer the removal or eclipse of the 
gospel. The loss of your estates, the massacring of your children, the 
chains of captivity, are a thousand times more desirable than this deplorable 
calamity. Estates may be recovered, new children raised, fetters may be 
knocked off, new houses may be reared upon the ashes of the consumed 
ones, the possession of a country regained, but it is seldom the gospel 
returns when carried away upon the wings of the wind. God indeed is 
interested in the preservation of religion and a church, but not in this or 
that particular church, not among this or that particular people ; rather than 
want one, he will raise up stones to be children to Abraham. As he will not 
have his blessings abused, so he will not have his gospel extinguished in all 
parts of the world, or all parts of this western world. But doth this secure 
us from any great eclipse ? What if God will not remove his gospel ? may 
he not suffer many to be infected with popery ? May not many of your 
friends, children, be tainted with this leprosy, that may prove incurable in 
them ? What if there be a likelihood that it will not endure long ? If it 
shall enter upon the stage must we not therefore endeavour to prevent it ? 
Prophecy is the rule of our foresight, precept is the rule of our duty. What 
if God will not remove the gospel, may he not bring a sharp persecution ? 
Is not the enemy at our door ; the rod shaken over our heads ? Have we 
not gathered the twigs of it ourselves, and formed a scourge for our own 
backs ? Did we not first let in the serpent's head, and what should we 
expect but that he will get in his whole body ? What can we expect but 
that God should begin his judgments at his own house, and scrape the sides 
of his sanctuary that have been defiled with so much filthiness ? Let us 
therefore meet God in an humble reforming posture, and lay hold on his 
strength ; consider where we left him, and do our first work, whence we are 
fallen, and fallen by our own fault and peevishness, fallen from a zeal for 
* Claud de Nopces, p. 172. 



204 charnock's works. [Kev. II. 5. 

God, a national endeavour for the propagation of the gospel. Let us desire 
him, as the disciples that were going to Emmaus did Christ, Luke xxiv. 29, 
' Lord, abide with us, for the evening begins to come, and the day is far 
spent.' Our Saviour did so, and gave them his blessing before he vanished 
again out of their sight. God may deal so with us, and leave some notable 
blessing with us, till he comes again to pitch his sanctuary in the midst of 
us for evermore, as the promise is, Ezek. xxxvii. 28. 

Let us therefore seek to him, chiefly to him, only to him ; he only can 
remove the candlestick, he only can put his hand as a bar upon the light ; 
men may be instrumental, but it is Christ only removes the candlestick, and 
he only can maintain it against the puffs of men and devils. He hath the 
enemies in a chain, and the full command of their breath. Place no con- 
fidence in men, some may have some power to give relief, and will not ; 
others may have will to help, and cannot. If we maintain our feud with 
God, he will bid the gospel go, and it shall go ; if we make our peace with 
him, he will bid the gospel stay, and it shall stay. As he hath angels to 
bring, so he hath angels to carry away the everlasting gospel. Remember 
the threatening in the text is not absolute, there is an else and an except to 
mitigate it. ' Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do 
thy first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and remove thy 
candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.' 



A DISCOURSE OF MERCY RECEIVED. 



Thy voics are upon me, God: I will render jjraises unto thee. For thou 
hast delivered my soul from death: uilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, 
that 1 may walk before God in the light of the living ? — Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 

This psalm was penned by David when he was in a notable affliction, when 
the Philistines took him in Gath. David had fled from the fury of Saul to 
Abimelech, otherwise Achish, king of Gath, a city of the Philistines, 1 Sam. 
xxi. 10, 12, 13, where he changed his behaviour. Whether this was penned 
at the same time that the 84th Psalm was, or before, is uncertain. Perhaps 
before ; for it is said, ' When they took him in Gath.' Though David fled 
thither for the preservation of his Ufe, yet being known to be that famous 
person who had been celebrated in the songs of the Israelites, as slaying his 
ten thousands in the slaughter of Goliath, 1 Sam. xxi. 11, he might perhaps 
be apprehended as a suspected person, coming thither upon design ; or else 
from desire to revenge themselves upon him for the slaughter of Goliath, who 
was their countryman and citizen ; for he was of Gath, 1 Sam. xvii. 23. 
And some appearance there is that it was this, by Achish his speech to his 
servants : 1 Sam. xxi. 14, ' Lo, you see the man is mad ; wherefore have 
you brought him to me ?' Howsoever it was, he was in some trouble ; yet 
still keeps his faith and hope as an anchor fixed on God : ver. 3, ' What 
time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.' And his assurance of deliverance 
upon his prayer : ver. 9, ' When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies 
turn back : this I know ; for God is for me. In God will I praise his word ; 
in the Lord I will praise his word. In God have I put my trust : I will not 
be afraid what man can do unto me.' And stirs up himself to thankfulness 
upon the remembrance of former mercies : ver. 12, ' Thy vows,' &c. ; and 
to confidence for future : ver. 13, ' For thou hast delivered,' &c. 
You have here, 

1. The commemoration of former mercies : 'Thou hast delivered.' 

2. The confidence of future : * Wilt not thou ?' 

8. The end of all : ' To walk before God in the light of the living.' 
Vows. ' Thy vows are upon me, God.' Passively, vows made to God, 
not by God ; or the obligations of those vows and prayers which I have 
made, and upon which I have received answers. Sacrifices of thanksgiving 
were called vows, as having been vowed to God upon the want, and to be 
paid upon the receipt, of mercy: Lev. i. 1, ' If the sacrifice that is ofiered be 



206 charnock's works. [Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 

a vow.' Thy vows are upon me ; the fruit of my vows, so that I stand in- 
debted to God for the return of praise. 

' Thou hast delivered.' He understands some great danger, wherein he 
had sunk, had not God stood by him. And from a greater mercy, the de- 
Hverance of his soul from death, argues for a less, the keeping his feet from 
falling. 

' That I may walk before God in the light of the living.' By light of the 
living is meant life, which is called being enlightened with the ' light of the 
living,' Job xxxiii. 30. Sometimes eternal life in heaven : John viii. 12, 
' He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
life.' 

* To walk before God.' To walk obediently in the sight of God, with a 
respect to his presence ; a walking unto all well-pleasing. This is the last 
argument in the psalm, whereon he builds his strongest plea, as if he knew not 
what to urge if this should fail him ; as if he should have said. Lord, I have 
had experience of thy wisdom in contriving, thy power in efiecting, thy 
mercy in bestowing deliverance upon me, thy goodness in answering my 
vows and prayers. * Thou hast deHvered from death,' a danger as gi'eatand 
unavoidable as death itself. Lord, art thou not the same that thou wert ? 
Art thou not still as wise to design, and as gracious to confer further mercy ? 
Wilt thou not as certainly also deliver my feet from falling ? The one 
contains his experience, the other the inference or conclusion he draws 
from it. 

Doct. 1. Mercies received, are in a special manner to be remembered. 

2. Mercies received are encouragements to ask, and strong grounds to 
hope for the mercies we want. 

For the first, mercies received are in a special manner to be remembered. 
This has been the method of God's people. David entitles Psalm xxxviii., ' A 
psalm to bring to remembrance his afflictions,' much more then his comforts: 
Ps. Ixxvii. 10, 11, ' I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most 
High ; I will remember the works of the Lord.' Paul remembered a mani- 
festation of God to him fourteen years before, 2 Cor. xii. 1. If God treasures 
up our tears, much more should we treasure up his mercies; as lovers keep 
the love tokens of those they afi"ect. God hath a file for our prayers, we 
should have the like for his answers. He hath a book of remembrance to 
record our afilictions, and believing discourses of him, Mai. iii. 16 ; why 
should not we, then, have a register for his gracious communications to us ? 
Remembrance is the chief work of a Christian ; remembrance of sin to cause 
a self-abhorrency : Ezek. xx. 43, ' There shall you remember your ways, 
and loathe yourselves.' The remembrance of God for a deep humility : 
Ps. Ixxvii. 3, ' I remembered God, and was troubled.' Remembrance of 
his name for keeping his law, Ps. cxix. 55. Remembrance of his judgments 
of old for comfort in afflictions, Ps. cxix. 52. And remembrance of mercy 
for the establishment of faith : Isa. Ivii. 11, 'Of whom hast thou been 
afraid, and hast not remembered me T It is observed by some that Shushan, 
the royal seat of the Persian, was pictured upon the east gate of the temple, 
to mind them of the wonder of Purim, Esther ix. 26 ; the deliverance they 
had in that place from Haman, by God's ordering Mordecai's advancement. 
Jacob changed the name of Luz into Bethel, that the new name might be a 
memorial of God's comfortable apparition to him, both to himself and his 
posterity. Gen. xxviii. 19. 

They are to be remembered, because, 

1. They are the mercies of God. They are dispensed out of the treasury 
of his goodness, wrought by the art of his wisdom, effected by the arm of his 



Ps. LVI. 12, 13.] MERCY RECEIVED. 207 

power. Christ evidenced this by praying to his Father for the mercies he 
wanted, by blessing him as the fountain of any mercy received. The great 
dominion Christ hath is from God ; it is first, ' Ask of me,' Ps. ii. 8 ; yea, 
though wrought by means. The woman doth touch the hem of Christ's gar- 
ment, but the healing virtue springs from Christ. Men may spread their 
nets, toil and labour nights, and days, and years, and catch nothing, unless 
Christ sends the fish into the net, Luke y. 5, Q : ' Our works are in the hands 
of God,' Eccles. ix. 5. Though our works, yet in God's hand, he pours 
forth his blessing, he gives success. The first link of the chain of mercy is 
in God's hand. If we do not then remember them, and him in them, we 
deny his providence and goodness, and pay that to the servant which is due 
to the Lord : ' We should remember his love more than wine,' Cant. i. 4 ; 
his love in mercies more than the choicest delights of earth. No gift so 
small, but is a messenger from the great God, and hath the badge of his 
name upon it. 

2. Mercies purchased by Christ. Mercies dear bought by the best blood 
that ever was in the world. The print of Christ's nails are upon every one 
of his blessings, the least as well as the greatest. ' Ye are not your own, yo 
are bought with a price,' 1 Cor. vi. 19. You and your bodies, and the pre- 
servation of your bodies, you and what you have, you and your mercies, and 
your comforts, are all purchased by another, and freely conferred upon you ; 
worthy, therefore, of remembrance. 

3. Mercies beneficial to us. We should certainly remember those things 
whereof we carry the sensible marks upon us. 

2. How we should remember them. 

(1.) Admiringly and thankfully. We should observe Grod's mercies, not 
only as works, but as wonders : Ps. Ixxvii. 11, * I will remember the works 
of the Lord ; surely I will remember his wonders of old,' to admire them 
and the author. Old antedated mercies, as well as fresh, should fill us with 
new astonishments ; not a speculative but an elevating remembrance, to cry 
out with raised spirits, how gi-eat God is : ver. 13, * Who is so great a God 
as our God !' Paul never looked back upon God's mercies in his conversion, 
without a new admiration : 1 Tim. i. 12, ' I thank Jesus Christ, our Lord, 
who hath enabled me.' This was not enough ; it was a peg too low for so 
great a mercy, till he rises up into an high doxology, ver. 17, ' Now unto 
the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory 
for ever and ever.' What an heaven sparkles here in Paul's language, so 
like that of glory ! Shall we not have thankful frames in the remembrance 
of them, when we should stand ready with praise to meet every mercy in its 
first motion : Ps. Ixv. 1, ' Praise waits for thee in Sion.' Mercy in its first 
step should not find us a minute without a thankful frame. As God waits 
for an opportunity to be gracious, we should wait with praise in our mouths 
to be thankful to him ; a volley of praise should stand ready to meet a shower 
of mercy. They did not think amiss, that asserted a main part of religion 
to consist in admiration ; this had been the work in innocency. Many other 
duties have been introduced by a fallen state ; this is an entrance into a 
state of innocency, by reassuming the duty of that state, an entrance into 
the state of heaven by beginning the work of it ; this is the eternal religion. 
Not a bullock nor a goat was to be killed for a man's own table in the wil- 
derness, but they were to bring it * to the door of the tabernacle, and ofier 
an ofiering to the Lord ;' if not, they were accounted murderers, Lev. xvii. 3, 4. 
God must be acknowledged in all. 

(2.) Afi'ectionately. What a deep print of love did the kindness of Christ 
stamp upon many whose diseases he cured upon the earth ! We then rightly 



208 charnock's woeks. [Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 

remember them, when they raise choice affections to God in us. It was 
God's promise : Hosea xiii. 4, ' Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land 
of Egypt ; thou shalt know no other god but me.' Love no god, acknow- 
ledge no god but me, because I have brought you out of the land of Egypt, 
and maintained you by a constant succession of merciful streams of benefits. 
We begin to love God by the knowledge faith gives us of him ; but the expe- 
rience of his mercy renders him more amiable, and the consideration of it 
should render our love more lively. Our very common mercies should not 
be thought of without affection, much less our spiritual. The deliverance of 
our bodies from death deserves a I'eturn of love, much more the redemption 
of our souls. Remember them warmly, so as to kindle a flame of love. That 
is not properly remembered, that works not a suitable impression in the 
review of it ; he rather forgets his sin, that remembers it without a dis- 
affection to it ; and he his mercies, that thinks of them without being raised 
in affection to God by them. 

3. Obediently and fruitfully. David, upon the remembrance of it, would 
walk before God in the land of the living. They are given to encourage us 
in his service, and should be therefore remembered to that end. Rain 
descends upon the earth, not that it might be more barren, but more fer- 
tile. We are but stewards ; the mercies we enjoy are not our own, and 
therefore to be improved for our Master's service. Great mercies should 
engage to great obedience. God begins the Decalogue with a memorial of 
that mercy in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt : Exod. xx. 2, ' I am the 
Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' How affec- 
tionately doth the psalmist own his relation to God as his servant, v.hen he 
considered how God had loosed his bonds : Ps. cxvi, 16, ' Lord, truly I 
am thy servant ; thou hast loosed my bonds !' the remembrance of thy mercy 
shall make me know no relation but that of a servant to thee. When we 
remember what wages we have from God, we must withal remember that 
we owe more service, and more liveliness in service, to him. Duty is but 
the ingenuous consequent of mercy. It is irrational to encourage ourselves 
in our way to hell by a remembrance of heaven, to foster a hberty in sin by 
a consideration of God's bounty. When we remember all that we have 
or are is the gift of God's liberality, we should think ourselves obliged to 
honour him with all that we have, for he is to have honour from all his gifts. 
It is a sign we aimed at God's glory in the begging mercy, when we also 
aim at God's glory in the enjoying of it. It is a sign love breathed the 
remembrance of mercy into our hearts, when at the same time it breathes a 
resolution into us to improve it. It is not our tongues, but our lives must 
praise him. Mercies are not given to one member, but the whole man. 
Thanks without obedience is but flattery ; it is but Hail, master, while we 
crown him with thorns, 

(4.) Humbly. Remembrance of free mercies should not be attended with 
a forgetfulness of our own sinfulness, nor increase our pride, but our humi- 
Uation. When Peter saw so gi-eat a stock of fish driven into the net, he had 
the lowest thoughts of himself : Luke -^ 8, ' He fell down at Jesus's knees, 
saying, I am a sinful man, Lord.' What a gracious frame is that, when 
the remembrance of mercy brings us upon our knees to a humble confession 
of sin ! Kindness makes wicked men more proud, and good men more 
broken. We are usually as lead melted in the fire of affliction, and har- 
dened in the fresh air of prosperity, and grow inactive ; but let it be 
otherwise. 

(5.) In the circumstances. As circumstances adorn our actions, so they 
beautify God's mercies, the manner, the time, &c. Every line in mercy 



Ps. LVl. 12, 13.] MERCY RECEIVED. 209 

owns God as the author, as well as the whole mass. Mercy beaten to pieces, 
as spice, will yield a sweeter scent than in the lump. Poemember what 
misery preceded the mercy ; as it made the mercy the sweeter, so it will 
make the remembrance of it more savouiry : Hosea ii. 15, ' I will give her her 
vineyard from thence ;' that is, from the wilderness ; * then shall she sing 
as in the day of her youth.' ' Thy heart shall meditate terror,' Isa. xxxiii. 18. 
Thou shalt consider what thy troubles were, and what the frame of thy heart 
was, and what thy vows and resolutions were in thy distress. It is good to 
call to mind what desires, what fervency in prayer, there was before the 
mercy came, and upon the remembrance of the mercy to act the same fervour 
over again. 

6. Argumentatively and fiducially. But this leads to the next obser- 
vation. 

Doct. 2. That mercies received are encouragements to ask, and ground to 
hope, for the mercies we want. In spiritual blessings it certainly holds ; 
they are earnests of other blessings of the same kind ; and, as it were, obli- 
gations wherein God binds himself to bestow greater blessings hereafter. 
They are but further confirmations of his promise for encouragement of our 
faith. As ' whatsoever is written in Scripture is for our comfort and our 
hope,' Rom. xv. 4, so as much as Grod hath performed of Scripture to us is 
for the same end. 

In temporal mercies. God intends them to his people as means to settle 
their faith faster on him, and make them trust him in future exigencies. When 
God commands Jacob to remove to another place, he puts him in mind how 
he was with him when he fled from the face of his brother Esau, Gen. xxxv. 1. 
It is an argument Moses used to God when he was in a great anger against 
the Israehtes : Num. xiv. 19, 'Thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt • 
until now ;' i. e. thou hast preserved them, notwithstanding their murmurings. 
Upon this argument, though Moses had used others before, God presently 
answers, ' I have pardoned according to thy word.' How ready was God to 
yield to motions of mercy, when his former kindness to them was pleaded ! 
Paul doth thus act faith on God : 2 Cor. i. 10, ' Who hath delivered us 
from so great a death, and doth deliver.' What is the consequence ? 'In 
whom we trust that he will yet deliver.' And the psalmist makes this a 
medium to tie his two petitions together : Ps. iv. 1, * Hear me when I call : 
thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress ; have mercy upon me, and 
hear my prayer ;' and expresseth his confidence, from his experience of former 
deliverances, that he should have a quick answer at any time : ver. 3, ' The 
Lord will hear me when I call upon him.' For, 

1. There is as great an ability in God, when we are in need of new mercies, 
as there M'as when he gave former ones ; nay, as much as there was from 
eternity. He is not a God whose arm is shortened, that is not what he was, 
or shall ever cease to be what he is : Isa. lix. 2, ' Is my hand shortened at 
all that I cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver ?' He is always, / 
inii that I am. There is no diminution of light in the sun no more than 
there was at the first moment of its creation, and the last man upon the 
earth shall enjoy as much of it as we do now. No more doth the Father of 
lights lose by imparting it to others. Thus we light many candles at a 
torch, yet it burns never the dimmer. Standing waters may be drawn dry, 
but a fountain cannot. God is a spring, this day and to-morrow, Jehovah 
unchangeable. The God of Isaac is not like Isaac, that had one blessing and 
no more ; he hath as much now as he had the fu-st moment that mercy 
streamed from him to his creature, and the same for as many as shall believe 

VOL. v. o 



210 charnock's wobks. [Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 

in Christ to the end of the world ; nay, the more we receive from God in a 
way of faith, the more God hath for us. A believer's harvest for present 
mercies is his seed-time for more. The more mercies he reaps, the more 
hopes of future mercy he hath. God's mercies, when full blown, seed again 
and come up thicker. Can the creature want more than the everlasting 
fountain can supply ? Can the creature's indigency be greater than God's 
sufficiency ? What an irrational way of arguing was that : Ps. Ixxviii. 20, 'He 
smote the rock, that the waters gushed out ; can he give bread also ? can 
he provide for his people ?' as if he that filled their cup could not spread their 
table, as if he that had a hidden cellar for their drink had not a secret and 
as full a cupboard for their meat. Do we want mercies for soul and body ? 
Look to the rock whence fonner mercies were hewn : the same fulness can 
supply again. 

2. There is as much tenderness in God as there was before. His power 
is more unquestionable with us than his goodness. We think his compassions 
come short of his ability. We question more his will than his strength : Mat. 
viii. 2, ' If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.' If thou wilt, thou canst 
give me mercy as well as before. You may be sure Christ will speak still 
the same language, 1 uill. I will give thee spirituals and temporals, so far 
as are good for thee. His bowels can no more be straitened than his arm 
is shortened ; his compassions fail not. Lam. iii. 22. All his attributes are 
alike essential to him. As he cannot but be God, so he cannot but be 
powerful, he cannot but be true. His truth lies in pawn for the constancy 
of his good will to them that trust in him. Let your condition be what it 
will, there is some promise to suit it. There is a condition for faith to beg, 
and his truth is engaged to make good one promise as well as another. He 
is a Father, a tender Father, surpassing in tenderness all natural affections. 
No kind father doth ever tell his child, I will do no more for you. The 
heavenly Father will not, who delights more in giving than we do in receiv- 
ing. God's love is not as ours, a sudden passion, but a resolve of eternity. 

3. There is the same ground to beg and beheve for mercies we want, as 
there was for the mercies we have received. We are under the same covenant, 
the influence of the same mediator. Should not our faith be more abundant, 
since we have more evidences of the graciousness of God, the prevalency of 
the Mediator, and stability of the covenant ? Was it not upon this account 
you did plead with God for what you had before ? Were not your argu- 
ments drawn from Grod's name, his covenant, his Son ? They are arguments 
that can never want a force while God is God ; they are as unanswerable as 
ever. Will God disown his name, deny his promise, overlook his Son ? 
Doth the covenant rea-ch only to those mercies wo have received 7 Did 
Christ purchase no more ? Then indeed our expectations may dolefully flag ; 
we may take our leaves of ever hoping for mercy from him. But his pro- 
mise is for this life, all the parts of it, and for that which is to come. 
It hath been tried millions of times, and always found sound : Ps. xii. 6, 

' The word of the Lord is as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven 
times ;' seven times, multitudes of times, seven being a number of perfec- 
tion. It hath been tried in many furnaces of affliction. It is an everlasting 
covenant : God's name is his self, and endures for ever. The blood of 
Christ is of infinite value. The Mediator is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever ; the same in his affection to his people ; the same in his prevalency 
with God. The plea therefore upon this account is as firm for all mercies 
and for all times. Christ's blood was slain to pay for the mercies you have 
received. The mercies we expect to eternity are conveyed to us this way, 
so are the mercies we expect in time. The believers of old had what they 



Ps. LVL 12, 13.] MERCY RECEIVED. 211 

had upon these accounts. These arguments have always been used, and 
have been of force to prevail ; the same arguments shall always be used, and 
have the same efficacy. The covenant, the blood of the covenant, reacheth 
far beyond what we have, though it be never so great, in this world. 

4. One mercy in spirituals is to no purpose without further mercies. God 
would not lay a foundation, and not build upon it. He is not light and 
uncertain in his actions. He knew before he gave the first spiritual mercy 
what charge you would be to him. He sat down and counted all, and he 
cannot be disappointed, since nothing can happen but what he did foresee. 
To what purpose should one forgive a debtor a part of the debt, and lay him 
in prison for the remainder ? To what purpose should God begin to heal a 
leprous soul, and take away a part of the disease, if he did not intend to 
master all, and expel the fomes of it ? To what purpose hath God given 
Christ to any, if he did not intend freely to give all things necessary with 
him ? Rom. viii. 32. All temporals are but dross and dung in comparison 
of him. Has God been at so much charge for you at the expense of his 
Son's blood, and did he not stick there ? What, then, can limit the mercy of 
God ? Upon these accounts, then, former mercies, especially spiritual, are 
good arguments to plead with God, and good grounds of hope and trust in 
him for future ones. 

Use 1. Take heed of forgetting mercies received. Keep a catalogue of 
mercies to quicken your love, wind up your thankfulness, and encourage 
your faith. We can remember ourselves when we pray for mercy, and forget 
God when we receive it, and the mercy itself not long after. We cannot 
profit by mercies unless we thankfully remember them : direct rays convey 
not so much warmth without reflecting back upon the sun. God remem- 
bers the kindness of our youth to him, Jer. ii. 2. Why should not we 
remember the tenderness of his grace to us ? Great comforts must be 
especially remembered ; they come but seldom. Paul had but one special 
rapture in fourteen years. Let every new mercy call the old to mind. The 
mercy of the lamb put them in mind of his mercy to Moses, and the Israel- 
ites, Rev. XV. 3. 'Bless the Lord from the fountain of Israel,' Ps.lxviii. 26, 
r. e. from the very first mercy. Remember also the impressions God makes 
upon your souls under the influence of your mercies. Keep them alive and 
fresh ; it is a way to procure more fi-om God when he beholds such valu- 
ations of them. 

Let us observe, therefore, God's motions to us in mercy, and see how he 
walks with us, and our motions to God in duty, to see how we walk with 
him, especially in the mercies which are fruits of prayer. Hannah called her 
son which she had received as an answer of prayer, Samuel, that in the 
hearing the name she might remember God's kindness. 

(1.) Without a remembrance of them, we shall be very apt to distrust God, 
and abate in our love. The death of our experiences is the resurrection of 
our distrust. When we write mercies in the sand, the next wind makes the 
letters invisible, and our fears terrible. When the Israelites forgot that 
power that had provided for them, their corruption took heart to express 
itself in murmuring : Ps. Ixxviii. 19, ' Can he spread a table in the wilder- 
ness ?' If you remember the time when you were cast down in sorrow, and 
found God raising you up and embracing you in the arms of a tender love, 
such a remembrance would not easily admit jealousies of him into the room 
with it, unless you have ceased to be his followers and given him cause to 
withdraw his care. God breaks not with us till we break with him. When 
David had drawn a catalogue of God's former mercies towards him, he con- 
cludes it with a ' Surely goodness and mercy should follow me all the days 



212 charnock's works. [Ps. LVI. 12, 13. 

of my life,' and takes up resolutions to stick to God in holy affections, ' and 
I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,' Ps. xxiii. 6. 

(2.) Without a remembrance of them we cannot so well improve them. 
If we do not remember what talents of mercy we have, how can we employ 
them ? What account can we give to the supreme Lord of whom we received 
them ? An account there must be, for God cannot be conceived in reason 
to be careless whether his blessings were improved, and regardless whether 
the fruit of his mercy lost or not. We are accountable for the mercies re- 
ceived by our ancestors that we have the knowledge of, much more for our 
own. God brings an indictment against Eli for sinning against the first 
mercy to Aaron : 1 Sam. ii. 27, ' Did I plainly appear to the house of thy 
father when they were in Egypt, in Pharaoh's house ?' The debt due from 
our fathers must be paid by the heirs ; as we enjoy the profit of them, it is 
fit we should pay our great Creditor, much more for those immediately be- 
stowed upon us, superadded to what is derived by succession. How can we 
do either without remembrance ? If we forget them, we must needs forget 
the hand that gave them, and the gratitude we owe for them, and hereby not 
only become false to our Creator ourselves, but make his mercies prove false 
to the end for which he sent them. The end of every mercy is to glorify 
God : Ps. 1. 15, ' I will deHver thee, and thou shalt glorify me;' what glori- 
fying God with forgetfulness of what he wrought for us ? 

(3.) Without a remembrance of them, we shall not so easily resist tempta- 
tions. An ingenuous spirit under a sense of mercy could not easily lend an 
ear to an enticing temptation, and be drawn to do wickedness and sin against 
the author of his mercy. ' Shall I thus requite the Lord, who hath m.ade 
and established me ?' Moses intimates the forgetting this to be the ground 
of their unworthy usage of God, Deut. xxxii. 6. Have I thus learned Christ ? 
Did mercy drop any such instruction into me to sin ? If I had not been a 
subject of his mercy, I had not now lived to be tempted ; and shall I Hve by 
that mercy to embrace a temptation ? ' Since thou hast given us such a de- 
liverance as this, shall we again break thy commandments?' saith good Ezra, 
chap. ix. 13. The goodness of God is to lead us to repentance; how would 
the remembrance of it strengthen us against a temptation ! 

Use 2. Make use of former mercies to encourage your trust for the future. 
Was it God's end in giving us mercies to encourage our jealousies of his 
faithfulness or our hopes of his goodness ? It is fit we should trust God 
upon his bare word, much more upon a trial of him. If we can say, God 
hath delivered, and therefore he will deliver, why may we not with as good 
reason say, We have trusted God, and will trust him still ? We have not 
only heard how faithful and good he is, but we have also seen, known it, 
found him to be so. If, after the knowledge of his name, we trust him not, 
we have a frame contrary to that which should be in all believers : Ps. ix. 10, 
' They that know thy name will put their trust in thee.' If we trust him not 
after mercies received, he may well reproach us for our jealousy. What ! 
Did I ever fail you? did you seek my face in vain ? have you found me false 
to you ? nay, have I not been good to you above your expectations ? What 
iniquity then is there in me, that you should have any suspicious thoughts of 
my goodness ? With what haste doth David catch at Goliath's sword when 
Abimelech told him there was none but that in the tabernacle : 1 Sam. 
xxi. 9, ' There is 'none like that, give it me,' as having experienced God's 
former kindness by it. Moses would shew the rod of God, the rod whereby 
he had wrought wonders, when he prayed for the discomfiture of Amalek, 
Exod. xvii. 9, as if no mercy could be denied him, when the rod in his hand 
pleaded the power and kindness of God so many times manifested by it. 



Ps. LYI. 12, 13.] MERCY RECEIVED. 213 

And Jehoshaphat's prayer is all made up of pleas from ancient mercy and 
promises. If we do not improve mercies this way, 

1. God loseth his glory hy us. It is an unreasonable thing, if we will not 
believe him for his word, yet not to believe him for the work's sake : John 
xiv. 11, ' Believe me for the very work's sake.' God must be of very low 
esteem with us if he cannot be trusted for his word and deed too. Has God 
given us many a mercy, and shall we have such dishonourable thoughts as 
not to trust him ? What excuse is there for distrust against the constant 
stream of his care ? 

2. We lose the sweetness of mercy. Every mercy looks two ways : it 
satisfieth our present want, and is a pledge of a future store. Every flower 
of the field, every passage of providence in the whole course of our lives, 
may yield honey and sweetness. David could never consider how God had 
been his help, but he had a new frame of joy in God : Ps. Ixiii. 7, ' Because 
thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.' 

Whenever we find our souls dejected, let us remember God's dealing with 
us, and, with the psalmist, check them : Ps. xlii. 11, ' Why art thou cast 
down, my soul ?' What, my soul, that hast had so many rich mercies 
out of the storehouse of God's free grace and favour, 'why art thou disquieted 
within me ? Hope thou in God, for I will yet praise him who is the health 
of my countenance and my God.' 



I 



A DISCOURSE OF MORTIFICATION. 



For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do 
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. — Rom. VIII. 13. 

The apostle having before spoken of justification by Christ, and shewed the 
necessity of sanctification, whereby we indeed resemble the holiness of God, 
which he shews to be wrought by the Spirit of God, which is the band of com- 
munion between saints and Christ, who raises them both from sin here and 
the grave hereafter ; and that we are not debtors to the flesh, that we should 
follow the suggestions of that, but to the Spirit, to observe his inspirations ; 
he then in the text backs his exhortations with a threatening and a pro- 
mise : a threatening to excite our industry, and a promise to prevent our 
dejection. You must not imagine you shall be justified without being sancti- 
fied ; for if you live after the flesh, you shall fall under that eternal death 
which is due to sin ; but if you follow the motions of the Spirit, and en- 
deavour to quench the first sparks of sin, the death of your bodies shall be 
an entrance into the happy life of your soul. 

Flesh. Some, by flesh, understand the state under the law ; others, more 
properly, corrupted nature. Ye shall die, without hopes of a better life. 
But if you mortify the deeds of the body : the deeds of the body of sin, 
which is elsewhere called the body of death ; the first motions to sin and 
passionate compliances with sin, which are the springs of corrupt actions. 
Corrupt nature is called a body here, morally, not physically ; it consisting 
of divers vices, as a body of divers members. ' Ye shall live ;' ye shall live 
more spiritually and comfortably here, and eternally hereafter. 

In the words we may observe, 

1. A threatening : ' If ye Hve after the flesh, you shall die.' 

2. A promise : ' If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the 
body, ye shall live.' In the promise there is, 1, the condition ; 2, the re- 
ward. 

In the condition, 

1. The act : mortify. 

2. The object: the deeds of the body. 1. The cause: the body. 2. 
The effects : the deeds. 

3. The agents : ye and the Spirit. The principal, the Spirit ; the less 
principal, ye ; both conjoined in the work : ye cannot do it without the 



Rom. VIII. 13.] of mortification. 215 

Spirit, and the Spirit will not do it without your concurrence with him, and 
your industry in following his motions, 
From the act we may observe, 

1. Sin is active in the soul of an unregenerate man. His heart is sin's 
territory ; it is there as in its throne before the Spirit comes. Mortification 
supposes life before in the part mortified. We call not a stone dead, because 
it never had life. Justification supposeth guilt, sanctification filth, morti- 
fication life, preceding those acts. 

2. Nothing but the death of sin must content a renewed soul. _ The 
sentence is irreversible : die it must. No indulgence to be shewn to it, no 
hghter punishment than death ; not the loss of a member, but the loss of 
its life. The axe must be laid to the root, and the knife must be held to the 
throat. The devils are restrained by the power of God from many sins, 
which cannot therefore be said to be mortified. As nothing but the death of 
Christ would satisfy the justice of God, so nothing but the death of sin must 
satisfy the justice of the soul. 

3. ' Do mortify.' The time present. Whence observe, as sin must have no 
pardon, so it must have no reprieve. No such mercy must be extended to 
it, as to give it a moment's breathing. Dangerous enemies must be handled 
with a quick severity. If we do not presently kill sin, it may suddenly suck 
out the blood of our soul. 

4. • Do mortify.' It notes a continued act. It must be a quick and an 
uninterrupted severity. The knife must still stick in the throat of sin, till it 
fall down perfectly dead. Sin must be kept down though it will rage the 
more, as a beast with the pangs of death is more desperate. 

From the object observe, 

1. Mortification must be universal ; not one deed, but deeds, little and 
great, must fall under the edge, the brats must be dashed against the wall. 
Though the main battle be routed, yet the wings of an army may get the 
victory. There are evil dispositions, depraved habits, corrupt affections ; 
we should not spare a nest of vipers when we find them, being all equally 
injurious. 

2. All actual sins are but the sproutings of original. The body signifies 
corrupt nature, deeds are the products of it ; all the sparks issue from the 
furnace within ; the body gives nourishment to the members, and the mem- 
bers bring supplies to the body. There are outward and inward deeds, acts 
of the mind, which though not acts of the natural body, yet are acts of the 
body of sin. Gal. v. 19, 20, hatred, envyings, acts which the soul may per- 
form separate from the body. 

3. The greatest object of our revenge is within us. Oar enemies are 
those of our own house, inbred, domestic adversaries ; our anger is then a 
sanctified anger when set against our own sins. Our enemy has got pos- 
session of our souls, which makes the work more difficult. An enemy may 
belter be kept out, than cast out when he has got possession. Sin is 
within us, and is always present with us, Rom. vii. 21 ; it lies in ambush for 
us in the best duties, and starts out upon every occasion when we would do 
good ; it would cut oS" all correspondencies with heaven ; it is in our reason, 
in our afi"ections ; it encamps in us, round about us, and easily besets us, 
Heb. xii. 1. 

From the agents, ye, the Spirit, observe, 

1. Man must be an agent in this work. We have brought this rebel into 
our souls, and God would have us make as it were some recompence by 
endeavouring to cast it out ; as in the law, the father was to fling the first 
stone against a blasphemous son. We must not be neuters in this work, 



216 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 13. 

nor lookers-on. It will not be done without, though it cannot be done 
simply by us : it will not be done without our concurrence, though it cannot 
be done without a supernatural operation. 

2. Ye, all of ye. It is a universal duty for the subject, as well as the 
object. 

(1.) Ye carnal men, there is no precept given to you to sin, and therefore it 
is not your duty to sin. The life of sin is your misery, and the mortification 
of sin is your happiness, as well as your duty. 

(2.) Ye renewed and justified persons, regeneration doth not privilege sin, 
or exempt from the mortifying work. Election, and consequently the fruits 
of it, is to holiness, not from it, Ephes. ii. 4. Vocation and sanctifieation, 
whereof mortification is the first step, are perspective glasses to see to the 
top of election. Though je have mortified, yet still do it. 

3. Through the Spirit. (1.) Mortification is not the work of nature ; it is 
a spiritual work. Every man ought to be an agent in it, yet not by his own 
strength. We must engage in the duel, but it is the strength of the Spirit 
only can render us victorious. The duty is ours, but the success is from 
God. Every believer is principium adivum, but the Spirit is principunn 
effectivuvi. We can sin of ourselves, but not overcome sin by ourselves ; we 
know how to be slaves, but are unable of ourselves to be conquerors. As 
God made us first free, so he only can restore us to that freedom we have 
lost, and doth it by his Spirit, which is a Spirit of liberty. 

(2.) The difiiculty of this work is hereby declared. The difficulty is mani- 
fested by the necessity of the Spirit's efficacy. Not all the powers on earth, 
nor the strength of ordinances, can do it ; omnipotency must have the main 
share in the work. The implantation of grace in the heart is called creation, 
the perfection of grace is called a victory, both belonging to an almighty 
power. 

From the promise, observe, 

1 . Heaven is a place for conquerors only : Rev. iii. 21 , 'To him that 
overcomes, will I grant to sit with me on my throne.' He that will be sin's 
friend, cannot be God's favourite. The way to eternal life is through con- 
flicts, inward with sin, outward with the world. There must be a combat 
before a victory, and a victory before a triumph. 

2. The more perfect our mortification, the clearer our assurance of glory. 
The more sin dies, the more the soul lives. The sounder our lives are, the 
more sensible we are that we do live. The more the enemy flies, the more 
certainty of an approaching victory. 

3. Mortification is a sure sign of saving gi-ace. It is a sign of the Spirit's 
indwelling and powerful acting, a sign of an approach to heaven. 

Boct. The doctrine to be hence insisted on is this : Mortification of sin is 
an universal duty, and the work of the Spirit in the soul of a believer, without 
which there can be no well-grounded expectations of eternal life and happi- 
ness. 

I do not intend a full discourse of mortification, but in pursuance of a 
former exhortation of resemblance to the holiness of God, to which this work 
is necessary. We cannot resemble God till that which is the hindrance to 
this resemblance be taken away ; and as our deformity is pared off, we come 
nearer to our original pattern. And, therefore, I shall only shew, in short, 
what this mortification is, and how we may judge of ourselves, whether we 
are mortified or no, and that without it there can be no hope of heaven. 

I. What mortification is. 

1. It is a breaking the league we naturally hold with sin. Since we 
were upon ill terms with God, we have kept a constant correspondence with 



Rom. VIII. 13.] of mortification. 217 

bis enemy; and the union between sin and tbe soul is as strait as that 
between the flesh and the bones, or the flesh and the blood, blood being in 
every part of the flesh, and sin in every part of the soul. In regard of this 
union, sin is called flesh, because of its incorporation with flesh. The union 
between sin and the soul is naturally as great as the union between Christ 
and a believer, and expressed by the similitudes of marriage, Rom. vii. ; 
body and members, root and branches, as well as the other. It is political 
too, as between king and subjects. Sin is therefore said to have dominion, 
to make laws, whence we read of the law of the members. In regard of this, 
mortification is expressed by the term of having ' no fellowship with the 
unfruitful works of darkness,' Ephes. v. 11 ; a breaking of the conjugal knot. 
The acquaintance and familiar correspondence with sin are broken ofi", the 
communion between sin and the soul is at an end, the common interest 
wherein they were linked together is divided ; Res tuas tihi haheto, the form 
of the ancient divorce is all the welcome sin hath : Isa. xxx. 22, ' Thou shalt 
say unto it, Get thee hence ; ' or with Ephraim, ' What have I to do any 
more with idols ? ' Hosea xiv. 8. It looks now upon its former favourite as 
an enemy. Sin's yoke, that was light, is now burdensome ; nothing so much 
desired as the shaking it ofi'; and that is the object of our antipathy, which 
before had been the object of the choicest favour. In this regard it is called 
a denying of lust, Titus ii. 12 ; a stopping the ears against the importunities 
of it, and refusing all commerce and cohabitation with it. 

2. A declaration of open hostility. As leagues between princes are not 
broken but a war ensues, the ways of sin are rejected, the dominion of sin 
opposed, the throne of sin assaulted. The soul is in arms to chase out this 
usurper, and free itself from its tyranny ; and sin up in arms to reduce its 
subject to its ancient obedience. And here behold that irreconcileable and 
tedious war, without a possibility of renewing the ancient friendship, and 
which ends not but with a total conquest of sin. This hostility begins in a 
bridling corrupt affections, laying a yoke upon anything that would take part 
with the enemy. It cuts off all the supplies of sin, stops all the avenues to 
it ; which the apostle expresseth by ' making provision for the flesh,' Rom. 
xiii. 14, &c. ; a turning the stream which fed sin another way. As anger is 
a degree of murder, and he that hates his brother is a manslayer, so he that 
hates sin, and proclaims a war against it, hath killed it affedic, though not 
actu ; he hath attained one degree of mortification when his anger against it 
is irreconcilable, like the anger of those that quarrel about a crown, which 
cannot be ended but by the death of one of the pretenders. 

3. A strong and powerful resistance, by using all the spiritual weapons 
against sin which the Christian armoury will afford, the list of which maga- 
zine we have, Ephes. vi. 13, 14, &c.; at the hearing of the word, setting his 
sin in the front, that the arrows of God may pierce it to the heart, and the 
two-edged sword may cut the sinews of it asunder; improving baptism, 
which is a burial with Christ, to which end the apostle mentions it, Rom. 
vi. 2, 3 ; sending up strong cries for the assistance of heaven, as Paul did 
when he had that thorn in the flesh, 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; redoubling his messages 
to heaven for a quick supply. 

The apostle expresseth this reluctancy against sin by two emphatical words : 
1 Cor. ix. 27, ' I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection ;' i/crwT/a^w, 
bovXayuyioi, ' I keep under.' The word signifies to take hold of or to grip an 
adversary, as wrestlers do when they would give their antagonist a fall, and 
lay him flat with the earth ; or to beat and pound, as wrestlers anciently did 
with their plummets of lead ; whence ivruima, a word derived from this in 
the text, signifies putrified wounds. And the other word, dovXccyuyiTv, sig- 



218 chaknock's works. [Rom. VIII. 13. 

nifies to lead captive ; to subject the body to serve God, not lusts ; to lead it 
as a slave, not to endure it as a master ; a bringing the affections into order, 
that they may not contradict and disobey the motions of the Spirit and 
sanctified reason. 

4. A killing of sin, expressed in the text by mortif3'ing or putting to death ; 
and. Col. iii. 5, by vsxeuffuTi, mortify ; but the word signifies to reduce to a 
carcase ; that though, like a carcase, it may retain the shape, lineaments, and 
members that it had living, yet it hath not the life, strength, and motion it 
had before. And it is called a crucifying, Gal. v. 24, which comprehends 
all the acts which preceded the crucifying of Christ, which was done with the 
greatest spite, as much as could be. The same measures, the same propor- 
tions, the same eagerness of spirit are observed ; a total deafness to the cries 
and complaints of sin, as that of the Jews to the groans of the Lord of life ; 
a crucifying it, notwithstanding all it would give in exchange. It is called 
in Scripture by the name of revenge, which ends not without the destruc- 
tion of the hated person, and sometimes not with it. Every day there is to 
be a driving a new nail into the body of death, a breaking some limb or other 
of it, till it doth expire. 

II. The second thing is, how we may judge of our mortification. 

1. Negatively. 

(1.) All cessation from some particular sin is not a mortification. A non- 
commission of a particular sin is not an evidence of the mortification of the 
root of it. Indeed, a man cannot commit all kinds of sin at a time, nor in 
many years ; the commands of sin are contrary, and many masters command- 
ing contrary things cannot be served at one and the same time. Pride com- 
mands to lavish, and covetousness to hoard. All sins have their times of 
reigning in a wicked man, as all graces have their particular seasons of acting 
according to the opportunities God gives. Hazael abhorred the thoughts of 
that cruelty the prophet foretold that he should act : ' What, am I a dog ? ' 
2 Kings viii. 12, 13. Yet that sin lay hid by him as Joash by Jehoiada, 
hoping for the time to play its part and act Hazael as a slave to it. The 
cessation of a member from motion at present, is no argument either of the 
death of the body or the mortification of that member. 

[l.J A cessation from one sin may be but an exchange. It may be a divorce 
from a sin odious to the world, and an embracing another that hath more 
specious pretences ; as a man may forsake one harlot, and fall in league with 
auother. Some sins do not so much affright the conscience, and those may 
be entertained when a frowning conscience scares a man from some more 
abominable. Lusts are divers, Titus iii. 3 ; a man may cast off" the service 
of one master, and list himself in the service of another ; he changes his lord 
without changing his servility. A man cannot be said to be clean because 
he has risen out of one sink to drench himself in another. 

[2.] This cessation may be from some outward gross acts only, not from 
a want of will to sin, did not some log lie in the way. There may be specu- 
lative pride, ambition, covetousness, uncleanness, when they are not externally 
acted ; which is more dangerous, as infectious diseases are when they are 
hindered by cold from a kindly eruption, and strike inward to the heart, and 
so prove mortal. The pollutions of the world may be escaped when the 
pollutions of the heart remain. A man may be a fine, garnished, and swept 
house, and yet an habitation for seven devils worse than reigned there before. 
The apostle's command for cleaning reaches to the filthiness of the spirit as 
well as that of the flesh, 2 Cor. vii. 1. We say of the soul, Anhna est ubi 
amat, non ubi animat ; so we ra&j of sin. The bias of the soul may run 
strongly to that sin in affection and pleasure, from the outward acts of which 



Rom. VIII. 13.] of mortification. 219 

it abstains. It is most dangerous for the house when the fire burns inward. 
A man may be sooner cured of an outward scald than an inward heat, which, 
when it comes to a hectic fever, is incurable. 

[3.] It may be a cessation from a sin merely because of the alteration of the 
constitution. Every age hath particular sins which it inclines men to ; some 
sins are more proper to young men, which the apostle calls therefore ' youth- 
ful lusts,' 2 Tim. ii. 22. Lust reigns in young men, but its empire decays in 
an old withered body ; some plants which grow in hot countries will die in 
colder climates. Ambition decays in age when strength is wasted, but sprouts 
up in a young man, wbo hath hopes to live many years and make a flourish 
in the world. A present sickness may make an epicure nauseate the dain- 
ties which he would before rake even in the sea to procure. There is a ces- 
sation from acts of sin, not out of a sense of sin, but a change of the temper 
of his body. 

[4.j A cessation from acts of sin may be forced by some forethoughts of 
death, some pang of conscience, apprehension of hell, present sense of some 
Scripture threatening, or some sharp and smarting afiliction, some signal 
judgment of God inflicted upon one or other of the companions in sin, which 
are all of themselves but a kind of force, they being the scourges wherewith 
God sometimes lasheth a man from the present act of sin. As a present pain 
in one part of the body may take away a man's stomach to his food, but when 
the pain is removed, his appetite returns to him ; so while a man is upon the 
rack, and God accusing him, he takes no pleasure, tastes no sweetness, in sin ; 
but after these horrors are ofi", he feeds as heartily as before, nay, sometimes 
hath a greater stomach, as men after a fit of sickness eat more plentifully, to 
recover the strength which before they lost by the distemper. 

[5.] A cessation from acts of sin may be for want of an occasion, for want 
of time, place, and materials. A man's will is not against sin, but he wants 
an opportufiity. This is not from mortifying grace within, but from a pro- 
vidential operation of God, in withholding the materials necessary for the 
commission of sin. Who will say the sins of drunkenness, gluttony, and 
oppression, committed by men on earth, are mortified in them when they are 
in-hell ? They want materials, not a nature nor an atfection, to commit the 
same, were they again upon earth. Grace lies idle many times for want of 
objects to exercise itself about ; so doth lust in the heart, like a snake starved 
with cold, till heated by a temptation. A man's condition in the world is 
not a sign of this mortification ; there may be grasping and ambitious 
thoughts in a cottage. Prodigality may be in a poor man's wishes, though 
not in his power ; yea, and sometimes there is more prodigality in a poor 
man's unnecessary expense of a penny, than in another's throwing away a 
pound. 

(2.) Restraints from sin are not mortification of it. Men may be curbed 
when they are not changed ; and there is no man in the world but God doth 
restrain him from more sins, which he hath a nature to commit, than what 
he doth actually commit. He often hedgeth up the way with thorns, when 
he doth not alter the heart by grace, and doth by his providence hinder the 
execution of the sinful motions, when he doth not root out the wickedness that 
lies secretly in the nature. It was an act of God's providence to restrain 
Abimelech : Gen. xx. 6, * I withheld thee from sinning against me.' These 
restraints are mercies God would have us bless him for, but not evidences of 
mortifying grace. 

[1.] Mortification is always from an inward principle in the heart, restraints 
from an outward. A restraint is merely a pull back, as a man is hindered 
from doing a mischief by a stronger power. But mortification is from a 



220 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 13. 

strength given, a new mettle put into the soul, both a courage and strength 
to resist it ; there is a ' strength in the inward man,' Eph. iii. 16. In a 
renewed man, there is something beside bare considerations to withhold him, 
something of antipathy which heightens and improves those considerations, 
whereby the soul is glad of them, because the edge and dint of them is against 
sin ; whereas a man barely restrained would fain stop the entrance of such 
thoughts, or when they are entered, would turn them out of doors again. 
They are things merely put into him, that have no welcome, neither do they 
change the will, but put a little stop, to alter the method of proceedings. 
Mortifying grace finds something in the nature, as there is in the nature of a 
fountain, to work out the mud when dirt is cast in to infect it. 

[2.] True mortification proceeds from an anger with, and a hatred of, sin, 
whereas restraints are from a fear of the consequents of sin ; as a man may 
love the wine, which is as yet too hot for his lips. But mortification proceeds 
from an anger, a desire of revenge. Hence sin is called an abomination to a 
good man as well as to God ; which signifies an intense and well-heated anger. 
It is not only a passionateness, which upon some disappointment in sin, or a 
tasting the bitterness of it, may be vented against it, which is short-lived, and 
quickly allayed, as the sea after a storm ; but it is a rooted revenge, which is 
the sweetest passion, and accomplished by many projects and contrivances. 
A man tastes a sweetness in giving blow after blow to sin, as before he took 
a pleasure in, and had friendship with it. 

[3.] Mortification is a voluntary, rational work of the soul ; restraints are 
not so. The devil hath nothing of his nature altered, but hath as strong an 
inclination to sin as ever, though the act he intends is often hindered by God. 
As in the case of Job, his malice was as great before to do him a mischief; 
but God puts a bar upon him, and refuses him a licence. Job i. 10. Now if 
that grace which hinders be no more than what a devil hath, it no more 
argues a man mortified than the devil's forbearance of sin argues him morti- 
fied, and recovering his angelical state. 

2. We may judge of our mortification positively. 

(1.) When upon a temptation that did usually excite the beloved lust, it 
doth not stir, it is a sign of a mortified state ; as it is a sign of the clear- 
ness of a fountain, when after the stirring of the water the mud doth not 
appear. Peter's sin seems to be self-confidence, but it was a sign of a greater 
mortification of it, that when Christ pressed him to declare his love in that 
demand, John xxi. 15, 'Lovest thou me more than these?' he would not 
vaunt his love to Christ to be greater than the rest of his brethren's. His 
answer goes no further than, ' Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,' 
without adding ' more than these.' As it is with a man that is sick, set the 
most savoury meat before him, which before he had a value for, if he cannot 
taste it, and his appetite be not provoked by the sight, it is an argument of 
the strength of his distemper, and where it is lasting, of his approaching 
death ; so when a man hath a temptation to sin, decked and garnished 
with all the allurements the devil can dress it with, and he hath no sto- 
mach to close with it, it is a sign of a mortified frame. It is a sign of 
the power of sin, when upon the fair offer it makes, and the alluring baits 
it lays, the affections to it are presently stirred ; it is an evidence of a 
co-naturality and a mighty agreement between that sin and the heart, when 
upon every spark it takes fire ; it is a sign a man was filled with all un- 
righteousness, and had not only a few loose corns about him ; so on the 
contrary, when upon the least motion of temptation, that was wont to 
have the gates open for it, the affections rise against it, and upon the 
least alarm all run to the walls to defend them and forbid the entrance ; 



ErOM. Vin. 13.] OF MORTIFICATION. 221 

it is an evidence of the weakness of that lust that kept before a corres- 
pondence "with such temptations, and the greater evidence it is when the 
temptation is high and yet vigorously resisted ; as when a spring-tide is 
high and blown in with the wind, it is an argument of the strength and 
firmness of the bank to keep it out from entering upon the ground ; whereas 
when a man is carried away by everj^ temptation, as marsh ground is 
drowned at every tide, it is a sign that there is no mortifying grace at all, 
but a great friendliness between sin and the heart. None will question the 
deadness of that tree at the root which doth not bud upon the return of 
the spring sun ; nor need we question the weakness of that corruption which 
doth not stir upon the presenting a suitable temptation. 

(2.) When we meet with few interruptions in duties of worship. The mul- 
titude of such diversions, and an easiness to comply with them, is a sign of 
an unmortified frame ; as it is the sign of much weakness in a person, and 
the strength of his distemper, when he is not able to hold fast anything, or 
when the least blow or jog makes him let go his hold. In duty we are to lay 
fast hold on God, Heb. vi. 18, and join ourselves to the Lord, Isa. Ivi. 3 ; 
it is a weak union when every puff of wind is able to separate us. When the 
starting of sin in us doth easily turn us from our course, it argues either our 
credulity to believe its enticements, or our afi"ection to love its allurements ; 
and also the force and strength of sin ; as the frequent starting of an enemy 
from woods and fastnesses to obstruct our passage, is a sign of some strength 
remaining, and of more than some few scattered troops, rather some well- 
bodied army. The more there is of a man's self, flesh, unspiritualness in 
any service, the more there is of an unmortified temper. The sprouting up 
of such fruits argues much juice and sap at the root, especially when the 
eruptions of sins are more numerous and vigorous than the resistances of 
them. But when the heart can run its race in a service with some freedom, 
and the interruptions from the flesh are few and languishing, it is a sign it 
hath met with a weakening wound ; they are rather gasps of corruption than 
any strong attempts. 

(3.) When we bring forth the fruits of the contrary graces, it is a sign sin 
is mortified. It is to this end that sin is killed by the Spirit, that fruit may 
be brought forth to God ; the more sweet and full fruit a ti-ee bears, the 
more evidence there is of the weakness of those suckers which are about the 
root to hinder its generous productions. Believers are called vines, and 
olives planted in a fair soil, and God the husbandman, who waters and 
dresseth, prunes, and cuts off" the luxuriant branches that he may have fruit, 
and ' fruit meet for him,' John xv. 1, 2. The more fruit is brought forth, the 
greater sign that the soul is purged, and whatsoever is an enemy to that 
fruit is cut off" and weakened. The more nature doth rise to the exercise of 
acts proper to it, the more the strength of the disease that oppresses it is 
wasted. Every exercise of grace is both a discovery of the weakness of sin, 
and a fresh blow given to it for the wounding of it. 

III. The reasons why there can be no expectation of eternal life without 
mortification, are, 

1. An unmortified frame is unsuitable to a state of glory. There must be 
a meetness for a state of glory before there be an entrance into it, Col. i. 12. 
Vessels of glory must be first seasoned with grace. Conformity to Chi'ist is 
to fit us for heaven. He descended to the grave, and there laid his infirmi- 
ties, before he ascended into heaven ; so our sins must die before our souls 
can mount. It is very unsuitable for sin's drudges to have a saint's por- 
tion. A fleshly state is unfit for a spiritual life. All men are under the 
power of the devil or under the power of Christ. The world lies iv t(Ij 



222 chaknock's works. [Rom. VIII. 13. 

TofjjecC, under the power of the devil, 1 John v. 19.* He that hath the wicked 
spirit ruhng in him, and not cast out, with all his accomplices, by the Spirit 
of God, cannot hope to have a friend's privilege, but an enemy's punish- 
ment. A fleshly palate cannot relish an heavenly life : Mat. xvi. 23, ' Thou 
savourest not the things that be of God.' Where there is no savour of God 
in this world, but only of what is contrary to God, there cannot be a savour 
of him in another world. Every vessel must be emptied of its foul water 
before it can receive that which is clean. No man pours rich wine into old 
casks. 

2. God cannot in any wise dehght in an unmortified soul. To delight in 
such would be to have no delight in himself and his own nature ; the less 
the degrees of our mortification, the less God doth delight in us. He hath 
no pleasure in wickedness ; the more maims, diseases, rottenness any have, 
the less pleasure there is. Sin is a mire ; the more miry we are, the less 
can God embrace us, Ps. v. 4. It is a plague ; the more it spreads, the less 
will he be conversant with us. The more of a swinish, viperous, serpentine 
nature, the less of God's affections. Sin represents us more monstrous in 
God's eyes than the filthiest things in the world can do in man's. To keep 
sin alive is to defend it against the will of God, and to challenge the combat 
with our Maker. 

3. Unmortified sin is against the whole design of the gospel and death of 
Christ, as though the death of Christ were intended to indulge us in sin, and 
not to redeem us from it. That sin should die, was the end of Christ's 
death ; rather than sin should not die, Christ would die himself. It is an 
high disesteem of Christ to preserve the life of sin in spite of the death of 
the Redeemer, and if we defend what he died to conquer, how can we expect 
to enjoy what he died to purchase ? It is a contempt of his death not to look 
after that mortifying grace, which was the purchase of so deep a passion. 
The grace of the gospel of God doth more especially teach this lesson, Tit. 
ii. 4, ' to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.' Grace in God was the motive 
to him not to account the blood of Christ too dear for us, and therefore should 
teach us not to account the blood of our sins too dear for him. The tenor 
of the gospel is, that a man without mortification has no interest in Christ, 
and therefore no right to glory, Ps. v. 4. It is an inseparable character of 
them that are Christ's, that ' they have crucified the flesh with the affections 
and lusts,' i.e. they are Christ's that are under the power of his death, not 
they that only hold the opinion of his death, or they are Christ's that are 
truly planted into the likeness of his death, Rom. vi, 5. 

IV. The use ; of exhortation. 
' Let us labour to mortify sin. If we will not be the death of sin, sin will 
be the death of our souls. Though the allurements of sin may be pleasant, 
the propositions seemingly fair, yet the end of all is death, Rom. v. 21. 
Death was threatened by God and executed upon Adam ; death must be exe- 
cuted upon our sins, in order to the restoration of the eternal life of our souls. 
Love to everlasting life should provoke us, fear of everlasting death should 
excite us to this, the two most solemn and fundamental passions that put us 
upon action. ' Why will you die?' was God's expostulation, Ezek. xxxiii. 11 ; 
Why should thou, my soul, for a short vanishing pleasure, venture an eter- 
nal death ? should be our expostulation with ourselves. This would be 
a curing our disease, bringing our soul into that order in part which was 
broken by the fall; by this the power of that tyrant that first headed and main- 
tained the faction against God would be removed, and the soul recover that 
liberty and life it lost by disobeying of God. This would conduce to our 
* Camero. 



Rom. VIII. 13.] of mortification. 223 

peace. We have then a sprouting assurance when we are most victorious 
over our lusts : after every victory, God gives us a taste of the hidden manna, 
Rev. ii. 17. Unmortified lusts do only raise storms and tempests in the 
soul ; less pains are required to the mortification of them than to the satis- 
faction of them. Sin is a hard taskmaster ; there must be a pleasure in de- 
stroying so cruel an inmate. Gratitude engages us ; God's holiness and 
justice bruised Christ for us, and shall not we kill sin for him ? An infinite 
love parted with a dear Son, and shall not our shallow finite love part with 
destroying lusts ? We cannot love our sins so much as God loved his Son : 
he loved him infinitely. If God parted with him for us, shall not we part 
with our sins for him ? He would have us kill it because it hurts us ; the 
very command discovers affection as well as sovereignty, and minds us of it 
as our privilege as well as our duty. And to engage us to it, he hath sent as 
great a person to help us as to redeem us, viz. his Spirit ; he sent one to 
merit it, and the other to assist us in it and work it in us, who is to bring 
back the creature to God by conquering that in it which hath so long detained 
it captive. And therefore to this purpose, 

1. Implore the help of the Spirit. Whenever we set seriously upon this 
work at any time, let us apply ourselves to the Spirit of God, as one in office 
to this end, as being a Spirit of holiness not only in his nature but in his 
operations, Eph. i. 13, Rom. i. 4. The Father and the Son are not so often 
called holy as the Spirit, who is called the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost, 
not that he is more holy than the other persons, but in regard of his office 
to work holiness in the hearts of men. As Jehoshaphat upon the assault 
from the enemy cried unto God for deliverance, so upon any arming of our 
corruptions we should cry to the Spirit for assistance ; he doth as much de- 
light to be our auxiliary on earth, as Christ doth to be our advocate in hea- 
ven. The neglects of application to him are the cause of our miscarriages ; 
we are half persuaded to a sin before we beg strength against it. 

2. Listen to the convictions of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit 
is to convince, by shaking the soul out of its carnal lethargy. As the Spirit 
gives a strong alarm at the first conversion, whereby the soul sees the 
strength of its enemy, and the greatness of its danger, its own impotency and 
inability to contest with it, so upon carrying on the degrees of mortification, 
there are various alarms to put us upon a holy watchfulness against the pro- 
jects of sin. Listen to these convictions which come in by the word, which 
is the ministration of the Spirit, and in respect to the spiritual energy of it 
is called spirit, John vi. 53. 

3. Plead the death of Christ. The end of his death was to triumph 
over sin. As to take away the guilt of sin, he was the righteousness of God; 
so to take away the dominion of sin, he is the power of God : his expiation 
of sin, and his condemnation of it, were twisted together in his sacrifice, 
Rom. viii. 3. ' For sin,' or a sacrifice for sin, ' condemned sin in the flesh' : 
and the consideration of his death, and the end of it, would inflame us to 
desire not to be under the power of a condemned malefactor. A considera- 
tion of his death, and that sin had its hands imbrued in his blood, would 
awaken our love to him, and an indignation against his enemy. 

4. Let us often think of divine precepts. The frequent meditation on the 
law of God would excite our endeavours after a principle more conformable 
to the purity of that law. God's commands establish not men's humours, 
neither do they gratify men's lusts, but are suited to the holy nature of God, 
a conformity to which ought to be our aim in mortification. 

5. Let us be jealous of our own hearts. Venture not to breathe in cor- 
rupt air, for fear of infection. There is a principle in the heart naturally dis- 



224 chaknock's wobks. [Ron. VIII. 13. 

posed to take fire upon the spark of a temptation. A strict \vatch in a city 
hinders foreign correspondence and intestine treachery. 

G. Let us often think deeply of the corruption of our natures, how loath- 
some it is to God, and this will make it loathsome to us. The more it is 
abominated, the more it is mortified ; the supplies of it are cut oft', its at- 
tempts discovered. When Paul considered his misery by the body of death, 
it strengthened his resolution of serving God with the law of his mind, Kom. 
vii. 24, 25, which must needs be accompanied with a strong resistance of 
the law of his members. 

7. Let us bless God for whatsoever mortifying grace we have received, 
though never so little. When we pay him in praise what we receive of him, 
it is the way to have more from him. David grew hot against Nabal after 
he had received his churlish answer, 1 Sam. xxv., and resolved the murder 
of the whole family, which he had no authority to do ; but God prevents 
him by Abigail's intercession ; he blesses God for the success of it, in hin- 
dering his intentions. And as God prevented his sin, so, after his thanks- 
giving, he took away the occasion of his evil resolution, by calling Nabal, 
ten days after, into another world, ver. 38; and gives him- further occasion 
of praise, ver. 39. A httle strength, owned as the gift of God, shall be backed 
with more. Praising God for what we receive, as well as praying for what 
we want, is a means to promote the mortification of our sins in order to 
eternal hfe. 



A DISCOURSE PROVING WEAK GRACE 
YICTORIOUS. 



A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he 
send Jorth judgment unto victory. — Mat. XII. 20. 

We need not take our rise higher than verse 17, where the quotation out of 
Isa. xlii. begins, where you find God like a herald proclaiming his Son to 
the world under the name of his servant : Mat xii. 18, ' Behold my servant, 
whom I have chosen ; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased : I will 
put my Spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.* It 
contains, (1.) His election of him : God chose, called him to his mediatory 
ofiice ; (2.) The agreeableness of the person to God : he did wholly acquiesce 
in him, and deposit in his hand the concerns of his glory ; (3.) The ability 
and assistance God gave him, * I will put my Spirit upon him ;' (4.) The 
work he should do, ' he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.' Verse 19, his 
coming is set down ; not with pomp or noise, ' he shall not strive, nor cry, 
neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.' The meekness and 
tenderness of his carriage, 'he shall not cry.' Palam noluit fieri hominum 
vitia, as Grotius ; he shall not be contentious with the people, of which a 
sign is, an immoderate raising of the voice, and clamour against them. 
Take notice hereof, 

1. The Object. 

(1.) A bruised reed. Jerome takes it for a musical instrument made of a 
reed, which shepherds used to have, which, when bruised, sounds ill, and is 
flung away by the musician, as disdaining to spend his breath upon such a 
vile instrument that emits no pleasant sound. But Christ will not cast off 
poor souls that cannot make so good music in God's ears as others, and 
answer not the breathings of the Spirit with that life and vigour, but he will 
take pains with them to mend them. Bruised reeds, such as are convinced 
of their own weakness, vanity, and emptiness. 

2. The smoking flax of the wick of a candle, wherein there is not only no 
profit, but some trouble and noisomeness. Though the soul is noisome by 
reason of the stench of its corruptions, yet he will not blow out that expiring 
fire, but blow it up and cherish it ; he will not rigidly oppress and throw off 
those that are weak in grace, and faith, and hope, but he will heal them. 



226 chaenock's woeks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

nourish them, inflame them. Maldonate interprets it, that though he walk 
in the way where bruised reeds lie, he will step over them, and not break 
them more ; he will not tread upon a little smoking flax that lies languishing 
upon the ground, and so put it out with his foot, though it hurts the eyes 
with its smoke, and offends the nostrils with its stench. Smoking souls that 
have some weak desires and fumings towards heaven, some small evapora- 
tions of their spirits towards God, he shall not quench them. The Chaldee 
paraphrase, Those meek or gracious ones which are like a bruised reed, shall 
not be broken by him. 

2. The act. He shall not break ; not quench, litotis or weiosis ; he 
shall mightily cherish, support the reed, inflame the flax. 

3. The continuance of it, ' till he send forth judgment unto victory.' In 
Isaiah it is, ' till he bring forth judgment unto truth ;' vere judicabit, so 
Menochius, so the Septuagint hath it ; but Matthew alters it, and instead of 
truth puts victory. 

Judgment is taken several ways. For, 

1. Wisdom : Isa. xxx. 18, ' The Lord will wait that he may be gracious, 
for the Lord is a God of judgment ; ' i.e. of wisdom to give in the most con- 
venient season. 

2. Righteousness : Isa. lix. 9, ' Judgment is far from us, neither doth 
justice overtake us ; ' i. e. there is no holiness in us. 

3. Overthrow of a Christian's enemy : John xii. 31, * Now is the judgment 
of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out,' now shall the 
devil be conquered ; Isa. xlii. 3, ' He shall bring forth judgment unto truth ;' 
i.e. he shall govern in righteousness. Now Christ's government being chiefly 
in the souls of men, he shall assist and encourage that which is the better; 
as governors ought to be encouragers of the good, and discouragers of the 
bad. Matthew explains this, and shews the consequence of this government ; 
if it be in truth, it will make the better part victorious. Some by judgment 
understand the gospel, the new evangelical law: ver. 4, ' The isles shall wait 
for his law ; ' so Christ will not rest till he makes the gospel glorious, and 
advances it in the world above the lusts and idolatries of men, which then 
overflowed the world. Some by judgment understand grace, which is the 
draught and copy of the gospel drawn in the soul ; and both those senses the 
words will bear. The words in Isaiah seem to bear the first sense, * the isles 
shall wait for his law ;' the other seems most consonant to Matthew, ' and 
in his name shall the Gentiles trust' ; i.e. he will make their faith victorious. 
The eff"ect of this judgment, or evangelical law, should be the victoriousness 
of grace and faith. Implanting grace in the heart is the main design of the 
gospel ; and grace is nothing else but a moulding the soul into the form of 
that law and doctrine of Christ. As Christ will make the gospel glorious 
above all the carnal reasonings of men, so he will make grace, which is the end 
of the gospel, victorious above all the corruptions of men. In this latter sense 
we shall now handle it ; Christ shall make those beginnings of grace 
and infused habits to obtain a perfect conquest. By his governing of it, 
he shall make the conquest over corruption perfect ; or if jcg/V/c be taken 
as the physicians use it, for the Tt^icig of a disease, he shall make the 
xs/ff/g end in victory, and nature the conqueror over the disease. 

Doct. True though weak grace shall be preserved, and in the end prove 
victorious. 

Seeds of grace, though mixed with a mass of corruption, cannot be over- 
come by it, as gold cannot be altered in its nature by the dross, or trans- 
formed into the nature of the rubbish in which it lies. Grace is surely 
weakest at the first infusion, when it is newly landed in the heart from 



Mat. XII. 20. J weak grace \^cT0RI0us. 227 

heaven ; when the devil and wickedness of man's nature have taken the 
alarm, and drawn together all the armies of hell to hinder its progress ; 
yet though it be thus, in so weak a condition, indisposed to make a stout 
resistance, having got but little footing in the heart, and a man's own incli- 
nations not well reconciled to it, nor his evil apprehensions and notions fully- 
exterminated, and the predominant corruptions that held the empire before, 
having received but their first wound, and being much unmortified, and 
grace also as yet but in a strange soil, not naturalised at all, yet is grace 
then so strong, that all the legions of hell cannot totally worst it. Though 
it be like a grain of mustard-seed newly sown, yet it springs up into a mighty 
tree ; for as the weakness of God is stronger than men, so is the weakness 
of grace stronger than sin in the event and issue. The meanest grace is 
above the highest intellectual parts, as the smile of a sunbeam is more power- 
ful to chase away the grim and sour darkness of the night, than the spark- 
ling of a diamond. According to the degrees of its growth, its efiects are 
wonderful ; as a small spark, by a breath of wind growing into a flame, may 
fire and consume a spacious and stately building. The weakest grace by 
degrees shall have strength, Zech. xii. 8, which is meant of the Jews* 
strength at their conversion ; ' He that is feeble shall be as David,' who was 
a mighty man of valour, and when a stripling laid Goliath in the dust, but 
in the strength of Christ ; for the ' house of David shall be as God, as the 
angel of the Lord before him,' i. e. Christ that descended from David. In 
the text, you see God assures us that Christ shall perform this ; therefore 
let us see what engagements are on God's part, and what also on Christ's 
part, to efiect this business, which will be sufficient demonstration of this 
truth. 

In general. Grace hath great allies ; the greatest power that ever yet 
acted upon the stage of the world had a hand in the birth of it. Should we 
see all the states of the world engaged in bringing a person to a kingdom, 
and maintaining him there in his right, we could not rationally think that 
there were any likelihood they should be baffled in it. 

The Trinity sat in consultation about grace ; for if there were such a 
solemn convention held about the first creating of man. Gen. i. 26, much 
more about the new and better creating of him, and raising him somewhat 
above the state of a man. The Father decrees it, Christ purchaseth it, the 
Spirit infuseth it ; the Father appoints the garrison, what grace shall be in 
every soul, Christ raiseth this force, and the Spirit conducts it. The Trinity 
have an hand in maintaining it ; the Father purgeth out corruption, the Son 
washes, and the Holy Ghost sanctifies ; all this is but the carrying on the 
new creature : Titus iii. 4-6, ' But after the kindness and love of God our 
Saviour appeared, not by works of righteousness, &c., but according to his mercy 
he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, 
which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour ' ; ' God our 
Saviour,' i. e. God the Father. The Father is the author of salvation from sin, 
Christ the purchaser, the Spirit the conveyer. There is a special relation 
between the Trinity and grace ; the Father is said to beget us, John i. 13. 
and we are said to be the seed of Christ, Isa. liii. 10, and born of the 
Spirit, John iii. 6. That, therefore, which hath so strong a relation cannot 
perish. 

1. The Father, who is the first root of grace in his good will and plea- 
sure. Though Christ merited the fruits of election, yet he did not merit 
election itself, for Christ himself is a fruit of that first election. 

(1.) In respect of his attributes. Grace will engage God's assistance. 
Every grace is part of the divine nature, because it is an imitation of one or 



228 chaknock's woeks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

other of the divine attributes, and exemplifies the divine perfections in its 
operations : 1 Peter ii. 9, ' But you are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people ; that you may shew forth the praises 
of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.' Shew 
forth the praise of God, a^srag, the virtues of God. Grace in all the parts 
of it doth glorify one or other attribute of God ; humility his power, con- 
tentedness his sufficiency, watchfulness his omniscience, prayer his so- 
vereignty, repentance and sorrow for sin his justice, faith his love and truth, 
a fiduciaiy reliance on his word, his wisdom, &c. 

[1.] The love of God is engaged in it. The riches of his grace was the 
motive to work grace in the heart. Goodness made him bring light into the 
world, and it is the same motive makes him bring grace into the soul. It 
is called God's workmanship, his poem, Eph. ii. 10, To/jj/o-a, about which he 
spent more skill than about all other things. As usually men are more lofty 
in a poem than in prose, and enrich it with the sublimest fancies, and dili- 
gently obsei-ve their numbers and measures ; so is God exact in the produc- 
tion of the new creature, which is rather his ^o/^/za than 'i^yov, as if it were 
not so much the work of his hands as the work of his heart ; for, as ver. 18, 
his soul was pleased in Christ, so in all things which make to the glory of 
Christ. His soul, it notes an high joy which we find not expressed of the 
creation ; and therefore his heart is chiefly set upon grace, as that which he 
chiefly designed Christ to purchase, and Christ to implant. 

Well, then, did God's love give his Son to die for thee, to purchase that 
grace ? And will not the same love engage his power to preserve and perfect 
that grace ? Shall his common love to his creature cause him to provide for 
sparrows, and will he neglect his children ? Shall he provide for his chil- 
dren, and not stand by to second that which gives them the denomination of 
children ? Shall their hairs be numbered, and not one fall to the ground 
without the will of God ? Hairs, I say, which are inconsiderable, of which 
there is no miss, no endangering of life by their fall ; and shall grace be 
thrown to the ground by corruption, which brings down with it the life and 
happiness of a Christian, and the glory of God ? No ; the weakest grace 
hath a certain interest in the love of God, because the weakest is the birth 
of that love ; as the child that is crying in the cradle is as much related to 
the father as the son stoutly working in the shop. 

[2.] The power of God. It is not in a bare moral, but physical way, that 
grace is brought into the soul. If power must be employed in raising the 
body, less surely will not serve the turn to raise the soul, which is a far more 
noble and excellent work. Can it be possibly thought that when Satan, the 
strong man, had possession of the soul, well provided for defence, had a great 
interest in the affections and love of a man, making no laws, enjoining no 
commands but what were suitable for and pleasant to flesh and blood, that 
ever gi-ace of itself could have dispossessed him. and wrested this empire out 
of his hands ? Surely it must be the power of God that did it, else so strong 
an enemy, so mighty a prince, could never have been overcome, so well 
beloved "a governor could never have been overthrown, God is the strength 
of the soul ; all the contrivances and stratagems against the flesh are from 
him : 2 Cor. iii. 5, ' Our sufficiency is of God : we are not sufficient of our- 
selves,' "koyioaa&cu, ' to think,' i. e. to come to some certain resolution, as men 
do when the}' sum up their particular accounts, or state our own affairs ; and 
when this is done, we cannot will it, or put it in execution without him ; 
therefore, Philip, ii. 13, ' He works in us both to will and to do, and that of 
his good pleasure,' hBoxlag, love and power is put together. It would be 
derogatory to God if that should be totally overcome, which his immediate 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak geace victoeious. 229 

power is the cause of, put on by his special love ; for it would either argue 
a want of love, or a want of sufficiency to maintain it. But it is not thus ; 
for the same power which brought us to God, keeps us from being drawn 
from him : 1 Peter i. 5, ' If kept by the power of God through faith,' then 
that faith is also kept by the power of God ; that faith whereby we overcome 
the invasions of Satan, and repel his fiery darts ; that faith whereby the cor- 
ruptions of the heart are resisted and expelled by its purifying act ; for faith 
puiifies the heart instrumentally, Acts xv. 9. 

[3.J The holiness of God. Men are said to be like God, not in power, in- 
finiteness, omniscience, &c., but in holiness, which is the attribute most 
cried up in heaven, Isa. vi. 3, an attribute which God doth most magnify, 
as swearing by it, Ps. Ixxxix. 35, which he doth not particularly and ex- 
pressly by any other attribute ; an attribute which he is so tender of. For 
what is the cause of that justice which employs his power in punishing 
ofienders, but his holiness and hatred of sin ? Grace hath its print from 
God, and is conformity to the holiness of God, as appearing in his law. It 
is the image of God ; there is an harmony and proportion of all graces in the 
sou! to those perfections of holiness which are in God, as there is of the mem- 
bers of the body of a child to its father ; in respect of this likeness men are 
said to be the children of God. It may better be said of grace than it 
was said of the soul by the heathen, Scintilla divina essenticB, or, as the Jews 
say, souls were the shavings or chips of the throne of glory. Graces are the 
drops of God's perfections, they are so exact an image of him. In respect 
of this likeness to God's holiness, gracious souls that have escaped the cor- 
ruptions of the world through lust, do partake of the divine nature, 2 Peter 
i. 4. It is called a bearing ' the image of the heavenly,' 1 Cor. xv. 48. Not 
that God bestows anything of the divine essence upon the soul, but an image 
and representation of himself, just as a golden seal conveys to the wax the 
image engraven on it, but not the least particle of its matter, the wax remain- 
ing wax, though under another form and figure. This likeness is a likeness 
to God in his highest perfection, viz., his holiness, which runs through all, 
and may be applied to all the attributes, as holy power, &c., and herein grace 
excels the perfections of the whole creation put together, for all the creatures 
are not so like to God as grace makes the soul. And how can we imagine 
anything, wherein we can be more like to God, than in that which is the 
highest excellency and perfection of God ? Now seeing grace hath -so near 
a relation to God, and God doth so delight to see this in his people, that all 
his end is to make them like him, in a completing of holiness in them in 
heaven, and that this is that which Christ must do at the last, present them 
holy and blameless without any spot, will he neglect that which is so dear 
and like to him, and sufier his own image to be wholly crushed under feet 
by corruption, his basest enemy ? 

[4.] The wisdom of God. The weakest grace is the birth of his eternal 
counsel : Eph. i. 4, ' chosen us that we might be holy.' If thou hast any 
grace, though never so mean, thou wert from eternity given by God to 
Christ ; and Christ purchased this grace for thee, else the Spirit would never 
have infused it into thee, for the Spirit receives of Christ, and shews it unto 
you ; there was a decree passed in heaven for all that grace thou hast. There- 
fore, that which made God at first resolve upon it, and made him send such 
a force and brigade into thy soul, will cause him to perfect it to a complete 
victory : Philip, i. 6, ' Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath 
begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.' The 
apostle was confident that because God had begun it, he would perfect it. 
What ground should he have for this confidence, if weak grace could be 



230 chaknock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

totally overcome ? God being unchangeable in his counsels and decrees, if 
any saint whom he hath purposed to save should be totally drawn from him, 
it would argue God changeable, that his will was altered, or weak, that his 
power was extinguished or unwise, that his counsel was rashly undertaken. 
But surely his love, being founded upon his counsel, admits of no change. 
Besides, God doth infuse grace into those souls which are naturally and 
morally most incapable of it. The most rugged pieces he smoothes, the 
darkest souls he enlightens, the greatest enemies he makes friends, and 
would he begin this work to have it presently spoiled ? God, before he 
meddled with any soul, foresaw what contests and conjflicts of sin and the 
devil there would be against him. He counted all the cost and charges, and 
all the pains he was to take. And it doth not consist with the wisdom of 
God to lay aside this undertaking, nor with the patience of God not to endure 
the brunt, when he foresaw every stratagem of the devil against such a soul 
when he first set up the standard in it. The gospel is called the manifold 
wisdom of God, Eph. iii. 10 ; and surely all the efiects of it, and this of 
grace in the heart, which is the chief effect and design of it, is an act of 
God's wisdom ; and should this, which is the birth of his manifold wisdom, 
be suppressed ? 

[6. J The glory of God. God's end in everything is his glory, and that 
which grace aims at is the glory of God. As God minds himself and wills 
himself, the chief good, so doth grace mind and will God as the choicest and 
supreme happiness. Those graces which maintain the hottest fight against 
corruption, and are the strongest and most active legion, have a peculiar 
objective relation to God, as love to him, faith in him, desire for him. 
Those graces which are exercised about man, and the duties of the second 
table, have not so great an interest in this quarrel. Now, is it for the honour 
of God to let that which is his best friend in the world be totally suppressed ? 
Would not his honour sufier in it ? The two sisters thought it a good argu- 
ment to prevail with Christ to come and help Lazarus when they sent him 
word, ' He whom thou lovest is sick ;' and Christ himself took an argument 
from his friendship to raise him, 'Our friend Lazarus sleeps.' And is it not 
as good an argument with God to come in for rehef of languishing grace, 
when you send him word how hard it is beset ? 

(2.) Christ is engaged in this work. The promise in the text manifests 
that Christ was ordered by his Father to it, his Father having promised it 
upon his proclaiming him his chosen servant. 

Christ is engaged as, 

[1.] A purchaser. He died to * redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify 
unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,' inward works as 
well as outward, Titus ii. 14. He gave himself that we might be without 
filth, and at last without spot, wrinkle, or blemish : Eph. v. 25-27, ' Christ 
loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse 
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself 
a glorious church,' not an imperfect church, ' not having spot or wrinkle, or 
any such thing,' anything like them, ' but that it should be holy and without 
blemish.' To sanctify and cleanse by degrees, to perfect it by wiping out 
all the spots and smoothing the wrinkles, and making it highly beautiful, fit 
to be presented to himself as his eternal spouse. If these spots and blem- 
ishes should keep their standing, it would argue that it was not Christ's 
purpose in the giving himself to remove them, or that his gift was not equiva- 
lent to so great an end, and sufficient to attain it, or else that he had since 
repented of his intent ; but none of those will hold. This scripture assures 
us he gave himself for this purpose. The Father hath exalted him at his 



;MaT. XII. 20.] WEAK GRACE VICTORIOUS. 231 

right hand for it, and his compassions work powerfully in his bowels, even 
in heaven. He was of the same mind after his ascension, when Paul wrote 
this epistle. Therefore he is said ' by one offering to perfect for ever them 
that are sanctified,' Heb. x. 14 ; that is, that one offering was of such 
infinite value, that it perfectly purchased the taking away of sin, both in the 
guilt, filth, and power, and was a sufficient price for all the grace believers 
should need for their perfect sanctification to the end of the world. There 
was the satisfaction of his blood for the removal of our guilt, and a treasure 
of merit for the supply of our grace. Though glory was due to him even 
from the moment of his incarnation, as he was the Son of God, yet he would 
not enter into it and sit down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, till 
be had purchased grace and all the measures of it for his people, and that 
by himself, by the laying down his life as the price for it : Heb. i. 3, ' When 
he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty 
on high.' Sat down when ? Not till he had purged, i. e. made atonement 
for our sins, and paid for whatsoever holiness or purging grace his people 
should want. His blood was so valuable that the treasures of God were dealt 
out to believers before his coming upon the credit of his bond ; much more 
will they be so after his coming upon God's actual receipt of the price, and 
our Saviour's sitting down at the right of God to see the grace he purchased 
given out. Upon this account Christ hath a care of the weakest saint as 
well as of the most glorious angel, because he died to purchase the weakest 
believer, not the highest angel, who stood in no need of it. If Christ bought 
us, we belong to the purchaser, which is the apostle's inference : 1 Cor. vi. 
19, 20, ' Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price ;' not our own 
governors, not our own keepers. The possession the Holy Ghost hath 
of us, making us his temples, is by virtue of this price. If Christ died that 
his people might have grace, and that it might be powerful, shall lust trample 
upon that which Christ hath so dearly bought ? Was it a light thing for 
which he endured all the torments upon the cross, and will he now make no 
matter of it ? If he purchased us, and grace for us, when we were enemies, 
will he not preserve it in us since we are his friends ? Shall he be at the 
expense of his richest blood to buy it, and spare his power to secure it ? Is 
the right of his purchase of so low a value with him as to sufibr it to be 
usurped by his greatest enemy ? 

[2.] An actual proprietor and possessor by way of 

(1.) Donation from his Father. Every believer is God's gift to Christ as 
mediator for this end, to give eternal Ufe to them, and every one of them : 
John xvii. 2, ' That I should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given 
me,' which eternal life is the knowledge of God, which includes all grace. And 
they were given to him that they might be perfect, one, as the Father and the 
Son are : John xvii. 11, ' Keep through thy own name those whom thou hast 
given me, that they may be one, as we are.' He gave them with an intent 
that they should be one in as high a manner as the creature is capable of. 
This was the end both of God's giving and Christ's keeping, for the particle 
ha may refer to keep or to given. If they be not at last one, the end of 
God's giving must be frustrate, and the petition of Christ not heard. Christ 
will not undervalue his Father's gift. We prize even small tokens from a 
friend we love. Because our Redeemer valued this gift, he accepted of it, 
and took it into his own possession ; and because he loves his Father, he will 
answer the ends of this donation. Christ calls those his sheep by virtue of 
this donation, John x. 16. Our being his sheep by virtue of this gift, will 
be as much a reason to preserve us in faith as it was at first to confer it on 



232 chabnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

us. The same is as valid for preserving as for first conferring, and that is 
the Father's gift. 

(2.) He is proprietor and possessor by the conquest of every gradoiis per- 
son, and whatsoever was contrary to grace. As our Redeemer was to pur- 
chase us by his death at the hand of God's justice, so he was to rescue us 
by his power from the fury of our hellish oppressor. As he was to appease 
the justice of God, so he was to deface the works of the devil : 1 John iiL 5, 
' He was manifested to take away our sins ;' ver. 8, ' For this purpose was 
the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' 
As God's justice is so perfectly pacified as never to renew the curses of the 
law against a believer, so is the devil so thoroughly subdued as never to 
repair the ruins of his works. Did Christ rise as a conqueror out of the 
grave, to let sin and Satan run away with the fruits of his victory "? Shall 
he overcome the powers of hell, and triumph over them, to let the devil rob 
him of the honour of his achievements by regaining his loss '? Shall that 
man of his right hand, whom God hath made strong for himsdf, tiiat we 
might not go back from him, Ps. Ixxs. 17, be made weak again by man's 
own corruptions and the devil's repossession "? Should grace truckle nnder 
the devil's works, and the standard which was set up in the soul when h 
was first snatched from the power of darkness be pulled down, what would 
become of the glory of our Redeemer's death, and the honour of his victo^? 
What a disparagement would it be, to have that which he paid so great a 
price for, which was the special gift of his Father, the acquest of the traTail 
and sweat of his soul, wrested out of his hand by an enemy he hath subdued, 
condemned upon the cross, and triumphed over at his ascension ! No, this 
will never be. Christ and the Father are one in operation, and whom God 
delivers from the power of darkness he translates into the kingdom of his 
dear Son, not to return under the government of a hated devil, and makes 
them ' meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,' CoL 
i. 12, not to be partakers of the inheritance of the devils in daikness. 
Neither the Father nor the Son will lose the fruit of their pains. 

(3.) By mutual consent and agreement. He hath possession of them by 
God's gift, and their own choice : John x. 27, 28, ' My sheep hear my voice, 
and I know them, and they foUow me : and I give unto them eternal life, 
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my 
hand.' Believers are his sheep in his hand ; he knows them with a know- 
ledge of affection, and therefore will be careful of their feeding, growth, and 
safety. On the other side, they hear his voice, answer his call, and behere 
in him, and own him for their Lord and proprietor. They foUow him, he 
caUs them ; they hear his voice, he knows them ; they follow him, he gives 
unto them eternal life, a life never to perish, either by their own wills or the 
wolves' violence. Against both those, Christ in this promise, as their owner, 
secures them. Against their corruptions ; they shall not perish, viz., by a 
corruptive principle in themselves ; here he removes from them all inward 
causes of destruction. Against outward violence ; neither shall any man, no, 
nor devil, pluek them out of my hands, olriz. By this promise he hol& us 
safe in his own possession against the encroachments of our lasts, and the 
rapine of the devil. They chose him for their guardian, and east all their 
care upon him, and follow his eondnct, and he takes care of them to give 
them eternal life, and to mind the weakest as well as the strongest of his 
sheep. He hath them in his hand. They apprehend him, and are af^se- 
bended by him, that they may attain the same end of the race with him, the 
resurrection of the dead, viz., a state of perfection: PhiL'p. iii. 11, 12, 'K 
by any means I may attain onto the resurrection of the dead. Not as thoogh 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 233 

I had already attained, or were already perfect ; but I follow after, if that I 
may (xara/.a^i) lay hold of that for which [for which end] I am apprehended 
of Christ Jesus.' Apprehended, or laid hold on by Christ, a metaphor from 
those that run a race, that take hold of another to draw him after to win a 
prize as well as themselves. Christ lays hold on believers, and they follow 
him. Will Christ be easily persnadedto let go the hold of his own right? 
will he throw them out of his hand ? That would be changeableness and 
unfaithfulness after his promise. Shall any pluck them out of his hand ? 
That would be weakness. Faith cleaves to Christ, and Christ to faith. 
Faith hands Christ into the heart, and gives him possession; Christ takes the 
heart as his own propriety, — Eph. iii. 12, ' That Christ may dwell in your 
hearts by faith,' — and engageth himself by promise that both he and his 
Father shall abide there, John xiv. 23. Will any gracious heart cast Christ 
out of his lodging ? He that knows the sweetness of their company can 
never desire to have their room. Doth Christ dwell in the heart to let sin 
pull his house down about his ears ? Will he suffer the devil to bring in 
hell-fire to bum up his dwelling ? It is his own house, the church and every 
member of it, Heb. iii. 6. Will he not hinder the decays of it, and repair 
the beams and walls ; yea, the very tiles and pins ? Shall he not brush 
down the cobwebs, and sweep out the dust ? The heart is his field ; will he 
not gather in his wheat, and burn up the tares at last ? 

[3.1 Christ is a steward and ofiicer, appointed by God to this purpose, to 
take care of every believer and his grace. How is he the surety of the cove- 
nant, and of a better testament ? Heb. vii. 22. How can it be a better testa- 
ment, if it may be broken, and prove as weak as the first ? He is bound 
for the performance of the articles of it, whereof those are the two standing 
parts of this agreement : Jer. xxxii. 40, ' I will not turn away from them, to 
do them good : but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not 
depart from me.' That God will not turn away from us to do us good, and 
that we shall never depart from him ; and our perpetual cleaving to him doth 
depend upon his putting his fear into our hearts, and is the end of it. This 
never departing is the end why God puts his fear into our hearts. And 
Christ being a surety of this testament, is to look to both parts of it, that 
both what concerns God's part, and what concerns ours, may be made good. 

Here it is to be considered, that, 

(1.) Christ had a charge from the Father to this purpose. 

[1.] He had charge concerning what he was to do for them. He had a 
charge to redeem them, and a charge to govern them ; he hath a charge to 
relieve them, and a charge to perfect them. 

1. He had a charge to redeem them. The copy of it you may see : Isa. 
xlix. 9, ' That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth ; to them that are 
in darkness. Shew yourselves.' He was to call them out of their prisons, 
knock off their fetters, bring them out of darkness into a marvellous light. 

2. To be their governor was as much in his commission as to be their 
Redeemer, for, ver. 10, • They shall not hunger nor thirst ; neither shall the 
heat nor sun smite them ; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, 
even by the springs of waters shall he guide them.' So also in Isa. iv. 6, 
where by heat, Sec, is meant all troubles and inconveniences in a Christian 
life. They should not be wasted by fiery temptations, nor left in a forlorn 
condition. And the reason is, because that Christ, that Holy One, to whom 
God speaks, ver. 7, that Redeemer that called them out of a state of dark- 
ness and captivity, was to lead them in his hand, and have his eye upon 
them, and guide them by the springs of water, that they might have a fulness 
of the Spirit, and all refreshings and supplies of grace necessaiy for their 



234 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

present condition. By water, alluding to the river out of the rock, which 
followed the Israelites in the wilderness ; and by the heat and sun, to the 
fiery serjDents, and the plague at that time. Christ here had the conduct of 
those redeemed captives committed to him, and was not to rest satisfied with 
conferring the first grace in the conversion of them, but to provide all things 
for their future security as well as their present freedom. And Isa. xlii. 3, 
when God proclaimed him his servant, this was in his commission, to have 
a special care of the bruised as well as the standing reed ; of the smoking as 
well as the flaming flax ; of the infant grace as well as the adult ; and, 
indeed, the charge is chiefly for them. 

3. He hath a charge to receive them : John vi. 37, ' All that the Father 
gives me shall come to me : and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast 
out.' Ver. 38, ' For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but 
the will of him that sent me.' He was in no wise to cast them out. It is a 
vieiosis ; he was afi'ectionately to entertain and shelter them. And that he 
might make it as firm as possible could be, he tells us it was not only his 
will, but his ofiice, and that he was under a necessary as well as voluntary 
obedience to his Father in this case. It was a part of God's will and charge 
to him, upon the sending him into the world, to receive very kindly any that 
come to him, though the most feeble and crippled believers that came upon 
crutches. As he was to receive kindly those that came, so it implies that he 
should receive them as often as they came, and that in any exercises of faith 
they should find fresh welcomes. Though their faith were very feeble, it 
should not be denied entertainment, but be highly caressed. So that Christ 
was ordered here to entertain every comer, as well as to die for them, and 
charged upon his obedience not to discountenance any that come, come when 
they will, and as often as they will. 

4. He hath a charge also to perfect them, not to lose one of those God 
hath given him : John vi. 39, ' Touro ds sgt! to ^kXrifxa rou 'xs/j.-^avrog fie 
crar^hc ;' ' That of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up again at the last day.' This is my Father's absolute and 
immutable will ; and he hath sent me to perform this will, that of every 
person he hath given me, /m^ a'TroXidu 1^ aurou, lose nothing of it, not the 
meanest, weakest person. Not one mite or grain of grace should be lost, 
but I should raise it up all at the last day. It was not the bare raising up 
that was the charge God gave unto Christ, but the raising up to eternal life, 
ver. 40, with that perfection of holiness and grace which God expects as the 
end of all his dispensations ; otherwise it cannot be a raising up to eternal 
life in such a completeness as God intended in his charge. This charge not 
to lose any, but to raise them up fit to be presented unto God, without 
blemish, doth include all means and methods in subserviency to this end. 
And in this charge they are all implied to be looked after by Christ. Christ 
w^ould be no friend to his Father should he slight his Father's orders. If he 
should fail of being a perfect Saviour, where would be his love and obedience 
to God ? It is as impossible for an elect person to perish as it is for Christ, 
who is one with the Father, to act contrary to his Father's will. For since 
they are given to him, and that on purpose to receive eternal life by him, they 
must be preserved ; and all that which prepares them to be vessels of glory, 
must be secured from a total and final miscarriage, or else Christ breaks his 
trust, disobeys his Father, and frustrates his expectations of a rest and satis- 
faction in him. (2.) A charge which Christ must give an account of. 
Officers are to give an account of the management of the trust reposed in 
them ; so is Christ of every believer's soul. Our Saviour is in several places 
called God's servant. Servants are to give an account to those that employ 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 235 

them ; and it is part of the faithfulness of a servant so to do ; and Christ's 
faithfubiess is to be glorified. He is ' a merciful and faithful high priest,' 
Heb. ii. 17 ; faithful to God, as weU as merciful to us ; and faithful to God 
in being merciful to us. And by giving account of his mercy to us, he gives 
an account of his faithfulness to God. God expects all to be returned to 
him in that perfection and conformity to Christ which he designed when he 
first made the deed of gift of them to Christ, He will see whether a man be 
lost by comparing the number of his sanctified ones with the names written 
in the book of life. Some model of this account we have : Heb. ii. 13, 
' Here am I, and the children which thou hast given me.' When he shall 
deliver up his charge, and all be numbered, he will tell his Father of the faith 
of his people, as he did John xvii. 6, 8, ' Thou gavest them me ; and they 
have kept thy word. They have received the words which thou gavest me, 
and they have believed that thou didst send me.' This is the confession he 
will make of men before God and his angels, when he delivers up the king- 
dom to his Father. Will Christ be found tardy in his accounts ? What 
could he answer if any one given to him should be missing ? How could he 
say he hath kept them in his Father's name, and lost none, if any should 
miscarry, as he did, John xvii. 12, which is a copy of what will be said at 
the last ? 

[2.] As he hath a charge, so there is a power conferred on him to perform 
that charge. 

(1.) A power of authority. He hath a power over death and hell to this 
end: Rev. i. 17, 18, ' Fear not; I am he that lives, and was dead: and, 
behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and 
death.' The giving the key is a mark of authority, and is a ceremony used 
in investitures into ofiice. Christ hath the keys of death and hell delivered 
to him by God, and he hath them to prevent the fears and unbelief of his 
people ; for such a use he makes of them here : ' Fear not.' By hell and 
death are meant all kinds of evils which were the bitter consequents of sin. 
Sin opened the mouth of death and the gates of hell ; they are the only 
things which can possibly prevail against a believer to hurt him. Will not 
Christ keep those fast locked up, never to send them out upon a believer for 
his destruction ? And if Christ hath the keys of hell and death, he hath 
also power to keep his people from that state which will necessarily run them 
into hell and death. All the power Christ hath given him over all flesh is in 
subserviency to the performing this charge : John xvii. 2, * As thou hast 
given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as 
thou hast given him,' e^ovalav ; not only a power over those given to him to 
give them eternal life, but a power over all flesh, all the corruptions of men 
and devils, in order to this end of giving eternal life to every believer, ' to as 
many as God hath given him ; ' so that there is not one believer, no, not the 
weakest, but all the power God hath put into the hands of all flesh is with a 
design that it should be used for his security ; as if God should say. Son, 
look to it ; if any one that I have given to thee miss of eternal life, since I 
have given thee power over all flesh for their sakes ; if any sinful or natural 
flesh deprive them of this life, it is for want of thy exercising the power I 
have granted thee to this purpose. Will Christ be unfaithful not to exercise 
his power to the right end ? No. Much less will he abuse his power over 
all flesh to an end quite contrary to that for which it was given him. And 
Christ doth so exercise his power ; for those righteous judgments and just 
reproofs of men in the world, they are for the sakes of the meek of the earth : 
Isa. xi. 4, ' With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with 
equity for the meek of the earth.' 



236 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

(2.) Power of ability. Christ had the Spirit upon him, to bring forth 
judgment to the Gentiles, and judgment unto truth or unto victory, Isa. xlii. 
4. This rich deposition, his jewels, laid up in the hand of Christ, are more 
highly valued by God than to be entrusted with a weak and feeble keeper. 

Abihty in respect of, 

[1.] Strength to lay the foundation of our security. God made him strong 
for himself for attaining the ends he proposed : Ps. Ixxx. 17, ' Let thy hand 
be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man, whom thou madest 
strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee.' The death and 
mediation of Christ is the strongest preservation against apostasy. God 
made Christ strong for his own glory, to purchase a people that should keep 
their standing with him, and not fall as Adam did. The effect of the hand 
of God being upon Christ, and the strength he had to go through in his work, 
was to keep his people's wills and hearts close to God. This is the issue 
and inference the psalmist makes of it. What might in Adam's or angels' 
hands miscarry, never shall in his. 

[2. J Assistance in this business to hold his people secure. Though God 
gave them to Christ as his charge, yet not wholly to leave them in Christ's 
hands, and take no care of them himself. Though they were safe enough in 
Christ's hands, yet the Father, to shew his care of them, and tenderness 
towards them, would have the keeping of them too, and would have fast hold 
as well as his Son, to assist his Son in it : John x. 29, 30, ' My Father, 
which gave them me, is greater than all (greater than Christ in his office of 
mediation), and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand. I and my 
Father are one.' God would have his hand upon them to assist Christ in 
it, to give him the highest security for their happiness. ' I and my Father 
are one :' one in resolution, affection, power, ability, and consent in this 
business ; one in holding of my sheep ; we both have our hands upon them. 
It is strange that any should perish that are grasped both by the Father and 
the Son. What power is able to do it, since the Father is greater than all, 
all men and devils, corruptions and temptations, and falls in with his greatest 
assistance to enable Christ in this business ? 

(3.) Of knowledge and wisdom. He is the wisdom of the Father ; in him 
are hid all .treasures of wisdom and knowledge, for the advantage of those 
persons designed in his commission. The all-wise God would never have 
put so great a concern as his own gloiy in his people's security into unskilful 
hands, and have disparaged his own wisdom in the choice of an unfit steward. 
He hath the book of God's decrees delivered to him, therefore called the 
Lamb's book of life, and there he finds every name written. Rev. xxi. 27, 
and he hath their names written in heaven before him : Heb. xii. 23, ' To 
the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven.' 
There is a commerce between Christ and his Spirit, so that by the Spirit he 
knows the state of every believer ; their ofiices depend upon one another. 
Christ is the treasurer of grace, the Spirit the conveyer of it. He receives 
of Christ's and shews it unto us. Christ knows what goes out, and he knows 
to whom the Spirit hands it ; knows the mind of the Spirit. He searches 
and listens to know the Spirit's mind, what it would have, what is fit to give 
to the soul. The Spirit intercedes in us ; Christ intercedes for us. Christ 
knows the voice and mind of his own Spirit, and the Spirit knows the will 
of our Redeemer ; for he ' makes intercessions for us according to the will 
of God,' Rom. viii. 27. So he cannot but know our state, because he hath 
a faithful Intelligencer, the same that is our faithful Comforter, and watcheth 
over us to take care of us. The catalogue of the gifts he had is reckoned 
up : Isa. xi. 2, ' And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. ' 237 

of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of 
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.' All his wisdom, and knowledge, 
and counsel, and understanding, are managed by the fear of the Lord, which 
is put last, as that which is the end of all the rest, viz., faithfulness to God. 
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom in us, and the top of wis- 
dom in Christ. His wisdom and knowledge is to fit him for his faithfulness ; 
as ver. 3, ' and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the 
Lord,' in all the methods of obedience to his charge ; and God gave him the 
tongue of the learned, that he should know how to speak a word in season 
to them that are weary, Isa. 1. 4, i. e. that are weary under sin, and appre- 
hensions of wrath, and power of corruptions. The wisdom God gives him is 
principally for this end. 

(4.) The sufficiency of treasure for it. Christ hath a ministerial fulness to 
this end : ' it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,' Col. 
i. 16. The issues of this fulness are our reconciliation to God, and the pre- 
senting us holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in God's sight, i. e. in such 
a state that his infinitely pure eye should find no fault in us, ver. 20-22. 
These are the effects of this fulness, and therefore are the end. Though the 
condition be put in, ver. 23, ' if you continue in the faith grounded and 
settled,' it doth not signify that our continuance in faith depends upon our 
own wills. It is frequent in Scripture to put into promises those conditions 
which in other places are promised to be wrought in us ; so that all those 
promises of Hfe upon our continuing and holding out to the end, do not 
weaken this, that our preservation is the efieet of this fulness, because 
those conditions are promised in other places, and are parts of the covenant 
of grace, for the performance of which this fulness was given to our Saviour. 
Our completeness and perfection doth depend upon that fulness of the God- 
head which dwells in him bodily : Col. ii. 9, 10, ' For in him dwells all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily.' It is a ministerial fulness, whereby he is 
made sanctification to us as well as righteousness, 1 Cor. i. 30. He is made 
to us sanctification, and as much sanctification, and as perfect sanctification, 
as righteousness, or wisdom, or redemption ; so that if any of those be per- 
fect, as our righteousness and redemption, our sanctification also shall be 
perfect, though it be never so weak at present. The oil first poured upon 
Christ's head, as well as that upon Aaron the type, runs down to the skirts 
of his garments, and anoints all the other members. God poured out this 
grace first upon Christ, and through him upon all believers. There is as 
much a dependence of the grace in our hearts, not only in its birth, but in its 
continuance, upon this fulness of grace in Christ, as there is of light in the 
moon or air upon that in the sun ; and there is a constant efflux of it from 
him to expel the darkness of sin, as there is of light from the sun to conquer 
the darkness in the air. And indeed, were it not maintained by a constant 
influence of Christ's fulness, we should quickly have no more grace left than 
Adam just after his fall, and should prove as very bankrupts as the worst of 
sinners. The sun is not able to dry up a drop of sea-water that lies in the 
midst of the sand, which the sea every minute rolls upon and preserves ; 
neither can the flesh the least grace, while the fulness of Christ flows out 
upon it to supply it. 

(5.) The perpetuity of this office. The continuance of Christ for ever in an 
unchangeable priesthood, makes him able to save to the utmost in spite of all 
men and devils : Heb. vii. 24, 25, ' But this, because he continueth for ever, 
hath an unchangeable priesthood : wherefore he is able,' &c. If he continues 
for ever in his office, he will then be for ever able to perform the business 
pertaining to the office, which is to save to the utmost, ug to -ravTiXig, per- 



238 chaenook's works. " [Mat. XII. 20. 

fectly, both in respect of the terminus a quo, from which he saves, and the 
terminus ad quern, to which salvation tends ; from all kind of sins and corrup- 
tions, though never so powerful ; but it continues for ever, none can deprive 
him of his office, because none can deprive him of his life. God neither can 
nor will, because he hath consecrated him by an oath to be a priest or officer 
upon this account for ever. And this office being conferred upon him on pur- 
pose for the salvation of believers, the ends and effects of this office are of as 
long a continuance as the office itself ; for if Christ did not perform the end 
of his office, it would be but an empty title. And this life which is for ever, 
Christ doth intend to use for the standing and perfection of the weakest grace ; 
so that as long as that endures, the grace and happiness of a Christian stands 
immoveable : John xiv. 19, ' Because I live, ye shall live also.' You shall 
live a spiritual life here, and an eternal life hereafter ; all my life shall be 
employed for you, to communicate a gracious life to you, and preserve it in 
you, till it come to be swallowed up in a life of glory with me for ever. If 
the spring of Christ's life fail, then, and not till then, may the stream of ours. 
Grace cannot be destroyed while Christ's life is continued, which will be for 
ever : Eev. i. 18, ' I live for evermore.' A creature under the full beams of 
the sun cannot be cold till the light and heat of the sun be extinguished. 

(6.) Honour. By this God encourageth Christ in this business ; Christ hath 
his honour to this end. Places of trust among men are places of honour. 
Will Christ be careless of his own happiness and glory ? He ' was exalted 
to give repentance, and forgiveness of sin,' Acts v. 41. The grace of repent- 
ance is only mentioned ; but, by consequence, all the rest which accompany 
remission of sins are intended. What was the reason he had so great a glory 
conferred upon him ? Because ' he loved righteousness, and hated iniquity,' 
Heb. i. 9, Ps. xlv. 7. Because he maniftested this love and hatred by vin- 
dicating the righteousness of God, and setting up an everlasting righteous- 
ness, and taking away iniquity. Now, this disposition of loving righteousness 
and hating iniquity, must needs be as powerful in him in heaven as it was 
before ; nay, he must needs love this disposition the better, which was the 
cause of so great an exaltation. And if this disposition was the reason of 
his advancement, should this disposition languish in him, his very advance- 
ment would decay with it. If it were the reason why he was exalted, it must 
then follow that he was exalted that he might still love righteousness and 
hate iniquity, and bia roZro may imply so much ; for this end, for the exer- 
cise of this, he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. Since 
therefore this affection continues in him, is it possible he should endure to 
see that iniquity which he hates prevail over that righteousness which he 
loves, after he hath planted one in the heart, and subdued the other? 
The apostle prays, 2 Thes. i. 11, 12, ' That God would fulfil the work of 
faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glori- 
fied in you.' The name of Christ is glorified in a believer when the work of 
faith is fulfilled with power. It makes his crown shine the brighter. What 
hopes then have the devil and corruption of ever regaining their former stand- 
ing in a believing soul ? None, tiU the glory of Christ becomes vile in his 
own eyes. 

3. As there is a charge and office given by God to Christ, and an ability 
to perform, so there is a compliance of Christ with it ; which appears, 

(1.) In his faithfulness in the discharge of it to this end. He promiseth 
this ; he promised it to his Father in their agreement, else he had never been 
sent ; he promises it to us. In John vi. 39 there is God's charge to him, 
that he should lose nothing of what he had given to him, but raise it up. In 
verse 40 there is one absolute promise, ' I will raise them up at the last day,' 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 239 



t. e. every believer ; where he engageth himself to be faithful in the perform- 
ance of God's will. He hath given a full evidence of it already, in finishing 
the work God gave him to do upon the earth : John xvii. 4, ' I have glorified 
thee on earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do;' for he 
appeals to God for his faithfulness in this particular. And he will be no less 
faithful in finishing the work which is to be yet done by him in heaven in 
the behalf of his people and their graces, for such a work he hath to do : 
Heb. xii. 2, a finisher of faith, in his sitting at God's right hand. His 
faithful care extends to all his subjects, even the weakest as well as the highest 
believer, as God's providence doth to every creature, the lowest worm as well 
as the highest angel. They are all one in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, 
bond or free. Gal. iii. 8. They are all one to him, for he is faithful in the 
exercise of his office to every one. 

(2.) In hisafiection (and that a strong one) to this office, besides his faith- 
fulness ; such as, 

[1.] His stirring compassions to weak grace. These were great in him 
before the assumption of our nature : Exod. xxxiii. 2, 3, ' I will send an 
angel before thee, for I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a 
stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way.' They will give me 
so many provocations that I shall be as a consuming fire, as God must 
needs be in a way of justice when he treats with a sinful people himself. 
But I will send an angel. What angel was this ? It is called his pre- 
sence, ver. 14. Isaiah puts them both together, chap. Ixiii. 9, and calls 
him the angel of God's presence or face. Jesus Christ, the messenger of 
his favour, he shall go up, for he hath compassion; therefore it is said, 
Isa. Ixiii. 9, 'In bis pity he redeemed them.' The antithesis doth easily 
manifest this sense. He shall go up with thee, and he shall not consume 
thee, though thou art a stiff-necked people, because he is a mediator, and 
hath undertaken to satisfy my consuming justice ; and being designed by 
assuming of your nature to be kin to you, hath great compassions towards 
that nature ; his delights are among the sons of men. For God here is 
considered as a judge, and the angel of his presence as a mediator. The 
government of them by Christ is here appointed for their security, which 
they could not have under the immediate government of God. His com- 
passions are in some sense greater now than they were then, since he hath 
been made like unto us, and compassed with our infirmities, and hath 
learned obedience (the necessity of obedience to the mediatory law) by the 
things which he suffered. Infirmity is the object of compassion, and the 
more pressing the infirmity is, the more stirring is the pity. As God pities 
the more when he ' remembers they are but dust, and knows their frame, Ps. 
ciii. 13, 14, so doth Christ know thy frame, thy beheving frame, how weak 
it is; thy sinful frame, how strong it is; he knows thy enemies and he knows 
thy indigence, and how unprovided thou art of thyself to make a stout resist- 
ance, and this awakens his compassion. As the sickly, faint child, hardly 
able to go, and not the strong one, is the object of the Father's pity, the 
weaker thy faith, which lies mixed with a world of strong corruptions' the 
more will Christ be affected with thy case, and pity that grace of his own 
which suffers under them ; for to this end his heart was stored with bowels 
to be exercised upon such occasions. He cannot have a greater object of 
pity than his own grace at the lowest ebb, nor a fitter opportunity to shew 
what a priest he is, how merciful to man in his misery, how faithful to God 
in his interest, which was the end of his being 'clothed with our infirmities,' 
Heb. ii. 17. That very sin which he hates, which is a burden, a grief, a 
trouble to him, shall rather excite than damp his compassion. It shall draw 



240 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

out his bowels to thy person and thy grace, and his anger only against thy 
sin. If he hath any compassions in heaven, they are for those that are his 
own, and for that grace which he loves when it is shot at by powerful cor- 
ruptions. 

[2.] A choice love to the weakest believers and their grace. The having 
a seed is the greatest article that he insisted on in his first agreement with 
God in this mediatory work. He was satisfied with the promises of it, for 
all the satisfaction he was to give to God by his blood: Isa. liii. 10, 11, 
' He shall see his seed, and the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied ;' 
and in his last prayer, John xvii., he prays more for his people and their 
graces than for himself, to shew that his seed lay then nearest his heart, and 
that his soul travailed most with them. And shall that which he had an 
entire affection for in the first agreement between his Father and himself be 
slighted now after all his agonies, pains, sweat, and blood to gain it ? When 
he was in the flesh, he admired not the buildings of the temple, had no fond- 
ness for the pomp of the world or the splendour of a prince's court. No ; 
the faith of the centurion was the matter of his wonder, that of a Canaanitish 
woman, and the penitent love of a converted harlot the object of his aflection, 
the revelation of God to babes and sucklings the subject of his thanksgiving. 
He had more desire to recover a little languishing grace to its former vigour 
than to preserve his life. When he was near his sentence of condemnation, 
he would in that extremity look back upon Peter to inspire him with a new 
strength after his fall, and by rallying his scattered graces make him victo- 
rious, who had been so miserably baffled by his corrupt fears. Would it be 
correspondent to the sincere love of Christ to let that which is his special 
favourite lie grovelling in the dust, wounded to death by sin, his hateful 
enemy ? 

[3.] His delight in believers and their graces. The very first grace acted 
by a new convert causes a jubilee in heaven. Christ', as it were, makes a 
feast in heaven when the lost sheep is found, and calls upon all the angels 
to congratulate with him for the recovery of it. Surely he will never have 
this joy turned into sorrow, these graces rifled and routed by the devil, and 
so give him occasion to laugh or scofi" both at himself and the angels for 
their too forward joy. He was glad even of sad occasions contrary to his 
nature, when they might further the increase of a little faith. When Lazarus 
was dead, he was glad he was not there in the time of his sickness to hinder 
the death of a friend he loved, because by his raising him again his disciples 
might be confirmed in faith, and gain a greater power against their frequent 
doubts and unbelief : John xi. 15, ' I am glad for your sakes that I was not 
there, to the intent that you may believe.' If Paul calls the Philippians his 
joy and crown, because he instrumentally converted them, believers then are 
Christ's joy and crown, because he efi'ectually died for them. Will Christ 
have his joy torn from his heart, his jewels rifled from his crown, and his 
'crown plucked from his head ? What was that joy of his which he desires 
of his Father to be ' fulfilled in his disciples,' John xvii. 13, but the sancti- 
fication of his people which he prays for ? The very discourse of the fruit- 
fulness of his saints' graces cheers his heart : John xv. 11, ' These things I 
have spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you,' i.e. that I might re- 
joice in you. He delights in the beauty, i.e. the graces of his queen : Ps. 
xlv. 11, ' So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.' And will he not in- 
crease his own pleasure by increasing the spiritual beauty and graces of a 
believer ? He doth boast of believers which are his heritage, Ps. xvi. 6, 
' The hues are fallen to me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heri- 
tage.' And can we think he will not improve it ? It must be more pleasure 



Mat. Xn. 20.] weak gkace victopjous. 241 

to enjoy it flourishing than to possess it wasted. And Christ doth not repent 
of any undertaking of his for the happiness and security of his people : Hos. 
xiii. 14, ' I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; I will redeem 
them from death : death, I will be thy plagues ; grave, I will be thy 
destruction : repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.' It is the speech of 
Christ triumphing over death. That it is meant of Christ, the word VIS, to 
redeem with a price, and ^i^i, to redeem jure affinitatis, do evince. It 
includes the conquest of all other enemies, as the apostle descants upon it, 
1 Cor. XV. 55-57. Sin and the curses of the law, of this he would not 
repent ; ' Repentance shall be hid from my eyes ;' I will cast away any 
motion to it, that it shall never come more in my sight. If he rejoices in 
this redemption, he will also in the effects of it upon the hearts of his people. 
These affections are unchangeable as his office. If that be perpetual, Heb. 
vii. 24, the qualifications necessary to that office must be as perpetual as his 
office itself. ' Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,' Heb. 
xiii. 8. The same in credit with his Father, faithfulness to his charge, 
affection to his people, ability for his office, fulness of his person, virtue of 
his blood, compassions to his weeping, gasping new creature, and his hatred 
of that which doth oppress it. And when there is such a combination in 
the heart of Christ, and the end of all is the good of these poor bruised reeds 
his beHeving creatures, can we think it possible that those affections should 
be idle ? And if they be excited, as undoubtedly they will, they will attain 
their ends, being all armed with a mighty power for the effecting of them. 

Well then, let us act faith upon these engagements of Christ, and say with 
him in the psalm, Ps. xlviii. 14, ' This God is our God for ever and ever, 
he will be our guide even unto death,' and beyond death too. It is his 
office to guide by his counsel here, those that he will bring to glory hereafter. 
Lord Jesus, direct us by thy counsel here, as parts of thy charge, and bring 
us to glory as vessels of thy mercy, to be filled with everlasting riches of 
grace ; cherish our bruised reeds, and inflame our smoking flax. 

[4.] The author of grace. He keeps this treasure in his own hands. 
He is so choice of it, that he never entrusted an angel to bestow it. Angels 
were employed to strengthen him both after his temptation and in his agony ; 
they are ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation, but they have not the 
custody of that which brings them into a state of heii'ship. He employs 
none but his Spirit to be his attorney and deputy in the world to this purpose, 
which Spirit is sent in his name, John xiv. 26. What it bestows, it receives 
from Christ, and doth it by his order: John xvi. 14, 'He shall glorify me,' in 
doing my work, for * he shall receive of mine, and shew it unto you. All 
things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that he shall take of 
mine, and shew it unto you.' To his glory, and by communication from 
him, all the saving light in our understanding, that vital principle in our 
will, those supernatural impressions upon our afiections, are all handed to 
us from Christ by the Spirit, and wrought in us by our Redeemer's order. 
It is all his work by his proxy. The Father is the fountain of grace, Christ 
the treasurer, the Spirit the dispenser. It was his prerogative to be the 
author of faith, when he endured the cross and despised the shame : Heb. 
xii. 2, ' Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the 
joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down 
at the right hand of the throne of God,' that he might thereby be the author 
of faith. And he will not lose the other part of his royalty to be the finisher 
of it, for that is his title too, and he performs this by sitting at the right 
hand of the throne of God. There be sits upon a throne of grace, to distri- 

VOL. V. ' Q 



242 chaknock's woKKS." [Mat. XII. 20. 

bute grace upon every emergency, to finish that faith which is the weakest, 
and because it is the weakest, needs most assistance for its rehef and per- 
fection, and wants his greatest care for the support of it : Heb. iv. 15, 16, 
* Let us therefore' {i.e. because we have not an high priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities) ' come boldly to the throne of 
grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace ;' iJg h-/.aioov (3oy;diiav, an 
emphatical word, xaifog, signifies season, without the addition of the adverb 
i^v in the composition. He gives out mercy from thence for the remission 
of sin, and dispenseth gi-ace for a seasonable help. It is then most season- 
able, when habitual grace is weakest in itself, and its enemy strongest. If 
he would be the author of faith by his death, because of the joy set before 
him, he will be no less the finisher of it by his life, because of the joy pos- 
sessed by him. This being his work since his return to glory, his care to 
look after both the supporting and completing bruised and imperfect faith is 
greater, because hereby he shews more of his art (as masters reserve the 
completing of a work to themselves for the honour of their own skill), and mani- 
fests more of his faithfulness to God, which is more evident in the perfection 
of a thing, than the first draught of it. And perhaps this may be meant by 
that expression, ' he learned obedience by the things which he suffered ; and 
being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them 
that obey him,' Heb. v. 8, 9. He learned by his suiferings the necessity and the 
acceptableness of obedience to God in this mediatory work, and therefore will 
not be wanting to that part of faithfulness and obedience, which is still due, 
in being the author of eternal salvation, by his being made perfect in heaven, 
as he was the author of faith by his being humbled upon the earth. And 
indeed that grace which he gives is eternal life, for so he calls it, John 
xvii. 2, 3. What he calls eternal life, which he had power to give, he calls, 
ver. 3, * the knowledge of God, and Jesus Christ whom God had sent.' The 
knowledge of God in Christ, a gracious, aiFectionate knowledge of faith, 
spiritually to know him as sent by God for such great ends, is faith and 
eternal life. Though it be but a bud in this world, subject to storms and 
winds, mixed with much ignorance and doubts, yet it is life, and eternal too. 
For there is no essential difi'erence between grace and glory, but only in 
degree ; therefore Christ saith so frequently in John, ' I give unto them 
eternal life ; ' I give, not I will give, but I give at present ; and he that be- 
lieves hath eternal life, not shall have ; for grace is a preserving principle, 
which shall overpower the corruptive principle of sin. If this knowledge of 
God in Christ, implanted in the soul, should perish, it cannot then deserve 
the title Christ gives it. And indeed it is not agreeable to the wisdom of 
God, and the honour of his Son, to cast about so much, and contrive the 
sending of Christ, to bestow only a perishing gift, and to let the honour and 
fruit of his Son's death, his gift of grace, depend upon the mutable will of 
man. 

Well then, to be the author and finisher of faith, are his two titles com- 
bined together ; and therefore where he is the author, he is engaged to be 
the finisher of the weakest grace. The smallest star receives its light, and the 
preservation of it, from the sun, as well as of the greatest magnitude. 

[5.] The exemplar and pattern of grace. God set up Christ as the great 
standard or standing copy, according to which all believers should be framed 
and wrought just like him : Eom. viii. 29, * Whom he did foreknow, he also 
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be 
the first-born among many brethren.' To the image of his Son; not to the 
image of the most glorious man that ever was in the world. Not to Enoch, 
that signal walker with God ; nor Noah, the only loyal preacher of right- 



I 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak gkace victorious. 243 

eousness in his time ; nor Abraham, God's friend and the believers' father ; 
but his own Son, who was free from all taint of sin. As his perfect purity- 
made him fit to be a sacrifice to take away sin, 1 John iii. 5 ; to be an 
advocate to plead against sin, 1 John ii. 1, 'Jesus Christ the righteous;' so 
also to be the idea accoixiing to which all believers should be framed. Now 
the weakest habitual grace is an inchoative conformity to Christ as well as 
the strongest, and as well as that which is perfected in heaven, and hath in 
its own nature all the parts of that grace which is in Christ ; as an infant 
in his body hath the lineaments of his father, as well as the grown son : 
1 John xvi., 'And of his fulness have all we received grace for grace.' Grace 
in us suited to that grace which is in Christ, as some well express it; as the 
paper receives the image of every letter set in the press. The highest 
believer in the world was not wrought according to a more exact mode 
than the lowest. The meanest branch of God's affectionate foreknowledge 
is conformed to Christ, and the highest cannot have a more excellent pattern. 
The Spirit, in drawing grace in the soul, fixeth his eye upon Christ in every 
line he draws, and forms the lineaments of habitual grace in some proportion 
to that original. Here we are said to be ffu/x/iosf o/, of the same spiritual 
form and shape, with the image of his Son. It is therefore called ' a forming 
of Christ,' Gal. iv. 19; 'a changing into the same image,' 2 Cor, iii. 18, 
lMirai/jO^(pov(MiSa, metamorphosed from our natural into a spiritual shape, 
from glory to glory; from grace, glory begun, to glory, grace perfected. 
There is not only tlae shape of Christ, as a limner draws the picture of a 
man, but not the intellectual or moral endowments ; but in this draught of 
grace in some measure there is. Believers are therefore said to have ' the 
Spirit of Christ,' Rom. viii. 9; the same dispositions of holiness, &c., which 
were in Christ; the same mind which was in Christ, Philip, ii. 5; and to be 
'partakers of Christ,' Heb. iii. 14, not of a part of Christ; partakers of 
his purchase, of his grace, of his nature ; and that by faith, by holding the 
beginning of our confidence, our first ground of faith, and our first act of 
faith, stedfast to the end ; and are called his brethren, not by the human 
nature (for so all men are), but by a nature like his. Now the end of this 
conformity being that Christ might have brethren, and many brethren, can 
we imagine he would have one brother among the sons of men, if this con- 
formity to Christ were to be preserved by our own power? Certainly that 
tempter who would have deprived us of a Saviour, by making him to cast 
himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, would quickly deprive us of 
his image, by hurling it down from the pinnacle of our hearts, and dashing 
all the dirt of hell upon it ; and so the end of God in this absolute will of 
conforming us to Christ, being thereby to make him the first-born among 
many brethren, would be frustrate. For if any one true believer, thus con- 
formed to Christ, might totally and finally fall, then a second and a third 
might, and all till you come to the last man of them. And if we were left 
to our own care, we should as certainly lose this image as Adam did in 
innoceney. Can we preserve our spiritual life without this constant in- 
fluence of God's grace, when we cannot our natural, without an uninter- 
rupted stream of his providence ; and when Adam did not will to preserve 
himself without the influx of God's grace preserving him in the integrity of 
his nature ? 

Well then, will Christ suffer one to perish who hath the same nature, 
spirit, and mind which he himself hath ? Will he endure that his own 
picture, limned by the art of his Spirit, with the colours of his own blood, 
in so near a resemblance to him, that he hath not his image again in any 
thing in the world besides it; and this drawn for his own glory, that he might 



244 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

be a head among many brethren ; will he suffer so excellent a piece as this 
to be torn in pieces, in contempt of him, either by flesh or devils ? 

[6, J As the head and husband of believers, by virtue of union with them. 
Union in all bodies is the ground of stability. There is no straiter union 
in the world than that of Christ to believers ; it is therefore compared to all 
kinds of members, natural and political, to shew the firmness of a believer's 
state upon all accounts. He is the head, believers the members ; he is the 
root, they the branches ; he the husband, they the wife. The bands of this 
union are, on Christ's part, the Spirit ; on our parts, faith and love. The 
greatness of the person he sends to bind it close on his part, shews the high 
dehght he hath in it ; and shall he not as much delight in continuing this 
union by preserving that faith and love which knits us to him ? Christ's 
delight shall not be quenched, nor the Spirit's operation prove fruitless. 

This will further appear by shewing what kind of union this is. 

(1.) It is a marriage union, and as a natural union of head and members. 
Both are discoursed on together by the apostle : Eph. v. 28-30, ' He that 
loves his wife, loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are 
members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.' Where, exhorting 
husbands to love their wives, he sets Christ as a copy to enforce it upon 
them. And ver. 32, he seems to intimate, that his whole discourse, wherein 
bo began to speak of the love of Christ to the church, from ver. 25, did 
refer to this : ' No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it,' Ixr^sf s/, 
provides for it, and i^aXTrj/, clothes it, and beautifies it, and defends it against 
the injuries of the weather. So doth Christ nourish the graces of his people, 
and protects them against the temptations of Satan. What prince would 
without resistance see a traitor wrest his beloved queen from his arms, and 
cut her throat ? 

The apostle from this passes to mix both those unions together, and illus- 
trates one by the other : ver. 30, ' We are members of his body, of his flesh,' 
&c., alluding to Eve's heing taken out of Adam's side. And not only the 
church in general, but every believing member, ' We are members of his 
body ;' we believers, and every one of us. It being thus, it is impossible 
Christ can do any other than nourish and cherish his own body, and every 
member of it, his own spouse. For in doing so, he loves himself, ver. 28, 
as a head, a husband, his mystical self, and his own honour, which is concerned 
in his spouse : ' No man ever yet hated his own flesh.' Whatsoever is 
implanted in our nature as a perfection of it, is eminently in God ; now since 
he hath twisted with our nature a care of our own bodies, this care must be 
much more in the nature of Christ, because he hath a higher affection to his 
mystical body than we can have to our natural, for he is set here as the 
exemplar, and originals are always more excellent than the copied draughts. 
Would not every man improve both the beauty and strength of his own body, 
take care to preserve it from wounds, and to heal them when they are received, 
and not sufter the flesh to be mangled, unless it be for the security of the 
whole ? This would be a hatred of hie own flesh, which never any man 
in his right wits was guilty of. Shall Christ then let spots always defile his 
body, and wounds putrefy it for want of curing ? Shall he let sin wiihin, 
and the devil without, gnaw, slash, and cut his members, and stand by 
unconcerned ? Will he suffer the least member of his body to be torn from 
him by his enemies ? Shall our affectionate Redeemer, that hath taken 
upon him to be our head, and to cause this union, and delights in it, be the 
first that shall do such an unnatural act, and be worse natured to his body 
than the wickedest man in the world is to his ? Men do not use to cut off 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 245 

a finger for every wart or wen, or for every wound that hath putrefaction in 
it. Christ doth not cut off believers for their infii-mities, he would then cut 
off his owm members. Men rather use diseased parts with more tenderness, 
because they stand in more need of it. Christ therefore will much more 
cherish the affected part, and chase the disease away. Certainly believers, 
being members of his body, he must naturally care for their state, especially 
for that grace which is the band of union, and the vital spirit in all its mem- 
bers. Will he ever suffer that to decay for want of food ? Christ hath not 
only the name, but the affection, of a head ; and it is his office by union 
(and not only so, but his nature), as well as his Father's charge, to be care- 
ful of the preservation of his members. Shall he feel what is done against 
his people by persecutors ? And will he not be much more sensible of what 
the tlesh, that grand tyrant and persecutor of his people's graces, doth against 
his body, as well as what the lesser and more extrinsecal enemies execute ? 

Obj. But if it be said, that there is no doubt of Christ's faithfulness to 
us while we continue faithful to him ; but we may cast off Christ from being 
our husband, and we being not natural, but mystical members, may cut off 
ourselves ; — 

Ans. Against this the covenant secures : Jer. xxxii. 40, * I will make an 
everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do 
them good ; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart 
from me.' The fear he hath put into our hearts, keeps us from ever depart- 
ing from him. Besides, there is a stronger stay, ' God will not turn from 
us, to do us good,' even the highest good, all the good he can. God stores 
us with habitual grace, and stands by it. It is God's keeping close to us, 
secures us from turning our backs upon him. Again, Christ's love to keep, 
is armed with gracious omnipotency to effect it, which no husband in the 
world hath over his wife, nor any man over any members of his body. 

(2.) It is so strong a union intensively, that Christ and a regenerate man 
become one spirit : 1 Cor. vi. 17, ' But he that is joined to the Lord is one 
spirit,' xoy.y.uiijisiiog, glued ; one spii'it, as if they had but one soul in two 
bodies. What the Spirit doth in Christ, it doth also in a believer, accord- 
ing to the capacity of his soul. The same Spirit, which was the immediate 
conveyer of grace to the human nature of Christ, is so to us. Christ had 
an essential holiness in respect of his Godhead, but a derivative holiness as 
man. And this derivative holiness proceeded from the Spirit in him with- 
out measure, which we have in our measures. And by virtue of this union, 
by the same Spirit whereby you become one spirit with Christ, not only that 
grace which is in you and the greatest apostle are the same, but that grace 
which is in you and our great Mediator the man Christ Jesus, are of the 
same nature and original. As the light of the sun and the light of a star 
are the same, but they differ in degrees, not essentially ; and as we say of 
souls, anivKB sunt j)ares dignitate, though the actions are not the same, 
because of the indispositions of the organs, and the predominancy of some 
particular humour. It is the same Spirit in Christ and a believer, as it is 
the same soul in dignity, which is in an infant and a man of tlie most 
refined parts. It is more here, for it is the same Spirit, in respect of his 
person, which makes Christ very near of kin to us. This Spirit must either 
desert Christ or us, before this union can be dissolved : not Christ, for he 
had it in the world not by measure, and he is yet anointed with the oil of 
gladness above his fellows ; not us, because the promises of Christ cannot 
be broken ; this being the top- stone of the comfort of believers, in sending 
this Comforter, that he was to abide for ever. 

(3.) This union of the soul to Christ is strengthened by the union of Christ 



246 chaknock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

to the Father : John xvii. 23, ' I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
be made perfect in one ;' itg ev, into one. First, the Father in Christ, and 
then Christ in behevers ; so that whatsoever fuhiess, strength, grace, the 
Father gives to Christ by virtue of his union with him, and which is com- 
municable to his members, the same hath the soul by virtue of its union with 
Christ. And both these unions, that of the Father with Christ, and that 
of Christ with us, are for the perfection of all those that should be with 
him to the end of the world, even the weakest as well as the strongest; for 
it refers to ver. 20. But we must understand this, not of that essential 
union between the Father and the Son, as they are one essence, but of the 
union of the Father to Christ as mediator, in respect of the Father's influ- 
ence upon him, and assistance of him. Christ being the medium of our 
union with God, both the Father's union with him, and his with us, are for 
our perfection. Because, whatsoever grace Christ hath, by virtue of his 
union with the Father, is to be communicated to us according to our capacity, 
or employed for us according to our necessity. And from this union it is 
that God loves believers as he loves Christ ; ver. 23, ' That the world may 
know that thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.' Christ himself 
made no question but the Father loved believers as he loved him their head, 
mnore umilitudinis, not ccqualltatis ; but Christ would have the world know it, 
and themselves know it too, and thei'efore would have them sanctified, and 
at last perfected. From this passage, I think, this will plainly follow, that 
as Christ cannot miscarry because of his union with the Father, whereby he 
hath a continual influence from him, so neither can a believer by virtue of 
his union with Christ, which invests him in the same love which the Father 
bears to Christ. 

Methinks the apostle refers to this passage : Col. iii. 3, ' Our life is hid 
with Christ in God.' Our life is hid with Christ by virtue of our union with 
him, as Christ is in God by union with the Father ; Christ in God, and 
our life in Christ. The flesh then a-nd the devils may as well pull God out 
of heaven, and overthrow the security of Christ, and pull him from the right 
hand of the Father, as rob a true believer of his spiritual life, or pull grace, 
which is Christ formed in the heart, out of the soul of a new creature. 

(4.) From this union with Christ doth result a communion with him, 
which secures grace in a behever's heart, A communion with him in his 
death, and from thence a perfection. So the apostle argues : Rom. vi. 5, 6, 
' If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be 
also in the likeness of his resurrection : knowing this, that our old man is 
crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,' &c. If we are 
planted with him in the likeness of his death for the destruction of the body 
of sin, we shall grow up with him in the likeness of his resurrection for the 
perpetual life of grace ; for by our dying with him we are freed from sin, i. e. 
from serving sin, and yielding up ourselves to it. And this communion in 
his death will introduce a communion with him in his life : ver. 8, ' There- 
fore, as Christ, being raised again, dies no more,' so a Christian being 
regenerate, and raised from a death in sin, which spiritually answers to a 
resurrection of the body, cannot spiritually die again, ver. 9-11 ; for Christ 
formed in the heart dies no more there, than Christ exalted in heaven doth. 
And after an exhortation, that they should not obey sin in the lusts thereof, 
whereby he shews what this communion with Christ in his resurrection is, 
not a total freedom from sin, but a not obeying sin in its lusts and motions ; 
not reverencing the commands of it, as if it were our lord ; not yielding our- 
selves to its service, but to the service of God, ver. 12, 13; which is a good 
comment upon those places which some have made an erroneous use of, and 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak gkace victokious. 247 

from which they do at this day cry up an absolute perfection in this life, 
1 John iii. 9 : 1 John v. 18, ' "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit 
sin : for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of 
God.' He cannot morally, because of the seed of God and strong habit of 
grace, fed by union to and communion with Christ. I say, after this ex- 
hortation, this is the final inference the apostle makes : ver. 14, ' Sin shall 
not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace,' 
i. e. by virtue of your being in the covenant of grace, united to the mediator 
of that covenant, who as surety hath satisfied the law for you, and brought 
it about that you are no more under the law, but under grace ; and having 
a communion with him in his death and resurrection, you are in the same 
stable state inchoatively as Christ himself is, and you will be at last perfectly 
so in heaven. For that is the strength of the apostle's reasoning, as you 
will find perusing that chapter at your leisure, viz., to shew that it was im- 
possible that any one that was in the covenant of grace should abuse that 
grace to a licentiousness in sin, and a devoted affection to it, because 
if he had been once planted into that likeness of Christ's death, he is freed 
from sin, and will be planted in the likeness of Christ's resurrection ; and 
therefore it will be impossible for him to be under the reign of sin. And to 
encourage them to keep up their standing against sin, he assures them that 
sin shall have no dominion over them; as nothing makes a man fight more 
courageously in a battle than to be sure of victory. Union cannot be without 
communion ; for while the members are united to a living, sound head, there 
will be an influx of animal spirits whereby they shall partake of life and 
motion. The spirit from our mystical head will be working in us, providing 
for us, and standing by us for our mystical preservation. 

Well, then, sum up this together, that this union is a marriage union, 
and that thereby we become the body of Christ, yea, and are acted by the 
same Spirit ; add the union of the Father with Christ, as well as that of 
Christ with us, and the communion both of his death and resurrection re- 
sulting from this union ; and if those be not strong enough to hold and 
secure a true believer, though he have but little strength, he may then, and 
not till then, totally and finally fall away. 

[7.] An advocate of grace in respect of his intercession. Christ's office 
being that of an advocate, doth ascertain this truth. An advocate is so to 
plead his client's right, that he may gain the victory over his adversary in 
the suit. Christ being an advocate that always entertains a good cause, will 
certainly so manage it that grace shall at length prove victorious. 

(1.) The concerns of grace are the principal subject of his intercession. 

[1.] Our standing in grace. Our first access by faith is the immediate 
fruit of his reconciling us. But our actual salvation, and all the methods of 
it, are the fruits of his life : Eom. v. 2, ' By whom also we have access by 
faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of 
God.' 

The apostle in that verse mentions three things : 

1. Our access by faith. 

2. Our standing in this grace, whereunto we have access. 

3. Our joy in the hopes of all the fruits of it. All which are ascribed not 
only to his death, but to his life, and the two last principally to that, ver. 
10. 11. By his death, he takes away the partition wall between God and us, 
built on our parts by sin, and on God's part by the hand of justice. By his 
life, he preserves this access free and open, and secures the wall from ever 
being built up again to hinder our access, which would be if sin should pre- 
vail ; for if sin builds it on our part, justice could not but rebuild it on 



248 chaknock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

God's part, were it not for the life of Christ, which doth as much maintain 
our standing, as his death did work our reconcihation, otherwise the apostle 
could not have put a much more to it. For by this life of Christ we can 
joy in God as our friend, who was formerly our enemy, because by Christ 
thus living we receive the atonement, i. e. it is continually applied to us : 
ver. 11, 'by whom we have now received the atonement, iXaQo/xiv, aorist, 
just now,' the fruits of the atonement ; and by this constant application of 
the atonement, our standing is secured with joy ; for in receiving^the atone- 
ment made by his death fi-om him now living, we receive all the other fruits 
of his purchase. Hence he is said to prepare heaven for us, i. e. by keeping 
up the favour of God towards us, that when we come we may have the kind- 
est reception, just as he doth make us meet below for the inheritance of the 
saints in light by his Spirit. 

[2.] Our progress in sanctification. The keeping his seed from the evil, 
and preserving of them, is the main matter of all that prayer, John xvii. 15, 
' Keep them from the evil,' olto rou '!rovr}^ov ; from the devil, the head of sin, 
from all sorts of evils, evils within and evils without; which implies not only 
a desire negatively, that they might not be hurt by evil, but also that they 
might overcome it, and be improved by it. And that no believer should be 
discouraged, and think himself out of Christ's thoughts, he presents to his 
Father the whole generation of them to ' the end of the world,' ver. 20. He 
holds up here all his seed, as it were, in his hand, as those to whom he would 
have those petitions then put up, answered in time, to every one of them, 
weak and strong, to the very last man that should give up his name to him ; 
eveiy one that should believe through the apostles' word, their word minis- 
terially, because committed to them to be delivered down by them from age 
to age, so that the same gospel being now preached in the world, and pro- 
ducing the fruit of faith in any soul, entitles him to the benefits of this 
prayer. In his recovery of Peter by his prayer on earth, he sets a pattern 
of what he would do for all his people in heaven : Luke xxii. 82, ' But I 
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and when thou art converted, 
strengthen thy brethren,' which is evidenced by those words, * when thou art 
converted,' &c. Tell them that the rallying of thy routed faith was by the 
prevalency of my prayer, and that they may expect the like from me in their 
temptations ; that their faith shall not fail, but rather get a surer standing, 
as indeed Peter's did, who, though he so shamefully denied his Master under 
the power of the temptation, yet was the most forward afterwards to confess 
him in the teeth of his adversaries. As Paul's conversion was a pattern to 
after-ages of the power of his grace for the turning the most giant-like sinners, 
so was this a pattern of the force of his intercession for the preservation and 
further sanctification of oppressed believers. These words, ' strengthen thy 
brethren,' would be of little force if it were not a leading case, and that 
Christ intended to make it a rule of court for the comfort of his people that 
are like Peter, having the revelation of Christ from God, and not from flesh 
and blood. 

[3.] The keeping the covenant firm in both the parts of it, as the founda- 
tion of both these. Therefore in the solemn appearance of God in prophetic 
visions, relating to the gospel dispensation, both before the manifestation of 
Christ and since, the throne of God is encircled with a rainbow. But the 
place I would consider is Jer. xxx. 21, 22, 'And their governor shall proceed 
from the midst of them ; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall 
approach unto me : for who is this that engageth his heart to approach unto 
me ? saith the Lord. And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.' 
God causeth Christ to draw near, and gives him a power of mediating : ' I 



Mat. XII. 20.1 weak geace victorious. 



249 



will cause him to draw near;' Christ accepts it; ' he shall approach unto me.' 
Who ? * Their goTernor,' that ' shall proceed from the midst of them.' _ God 
then breaks out into a delightful astonishment at this approach of Christ to 
him as a surety and advocate, so that he gives out all blessings upon his 
asking, ' Who is this that hath engaged his heart ?' 13*? ns my, hath pawned 
his heart, hath become a surety in his heart ; so the word is used and 
translated, Gen. xliv. 32, lyJH nx mj?, thy servant hath 'become a surety 
for the lad;' and likewise Prov. vi. 1, 'If thou be surety for thy friend.' 
This is that which makes the covenant firm, and preserves the knot between 
God and us. Ver. 22, ' You shall be my people, and I will be your God ;' 
I understand it of the mediation of Christ in general, but with a particular 
application to his intercession, as being a great part of that mediation, and 
the principal, if not the only, continued act of it. Now as long as those 
engagements of his heart, those affections, remain, he hath liberty as a surety 
to approach to God, which he will always have ; and as long as God delights 
in it, as here he doth even to admiration, so long shall believers be God's 
people, and he their God. Certainly such an answer doth Christ receive 
upon every act of his intercession, even a covenant answer ; God saith, that 
poor, weak, believing soul whom thou dost plead for shall be mine, one of 
my people, and I will be his God, and I will do what thou wilt for him. 

(2.) His intercession seems to be appointed by his Father for this end, 
the support and happiness of those that believe in him ; which appears iiot 
only in that fore-mentioned place of Jeremiah, wherein God would cause him 
to approach to him for the keeping the covenant stable between God and his 
people ; but in Ps. ii. 8, ' Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for 
thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession;' 
which is Christ's patent for this office of advocate, and granted him after his 
resurrection, intimated in those words, ' Thou art my Son, this day have I 
begotten thee.' As Christ did not die for himself, or rise again for himself, 
but as a public person, so he hath this power of asking, and promise of 
receiving upon asking, as a public person, as a king and governor, as he is 
styled in Jer. xxx. 22, and as he is set Eng upon his holy hill of Sion, i. e. 
king in his church. If he had then this gi'ant of asking, as a pubHc person, 
and as king in his church, it must then be employed for those who are his 
church, his voluntary subjects, those for whom he died and rose again. K 
his asking were designed as a means to come to the possession of his inherit- 
ance, the possession of the Gentiles, by the same reason it is also designed 
as a means for the improvement of his inheritance ; for those that are 
chiefly his heritage in the world, his garden in the wilderness, so pleasant to 
him, Ps. xvi. 6, that if he can make it more pleasant for asking he will riot 
stick at it, and God will do it for him. For the large promise made him 
implies both the preservation and improvement of his inheritance, to niake it 
comfortable to him. This power of asking was chiefly designed for believers, 
as appears by the use the psalmist makes of it, of exhortation to the powers 
of the world, ver. 10, 11, 'to serve him ;' but of exultation in the latter end 
of ver. 12 to believers, ' Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.' 
If it were not designed by God for them, and for every one of them (all they), 
and to be employed for them chiefly, they would be no more blessed than 
others. And this blessedness doth consist in justification and sanctification, 
for ' blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven,' Ps. xxxii. 1 ; and Christ 
blesseth us ' by turning us away from iniquity,' Acts iii. 26. 

(3.) Christ doth ask this blessing of grace in particular, for every believer 
n particular, which still adds a strength to this truth. Christ's living for 
ever to make intercession for U8 is the reason rendered why he is able to 



250 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

' save to the utmost,' Heb. vii. 25. It is eJg to c^a^^^^s5, ad omnimodam per- 
fectionem, so Camero ; perfection of parts here, perfection of degrees here- 
after. If he lives for ever to make intercession for the perfect salvation of 
his people, he doth consequently intercede for all those things which may 
promote the perfection of their salvation, and consequently for their graces, 
which are necessary to it. Therefore the habit of grace shall be actually and 
perpetually preserved, otherwise Chiust's intercession would be in vain. And 
this he doth in particular for every believer. They were given to him in 
particular, they come to God by him in particular, and he saves them in par- 
ticular ; therefore he intercedes for them in particular, even for all those that 
come unto God by him. As they come, he intercedes for them ; as a great 
master of requests, he receives the petitions of every comer, and presents 
their particular cases to his Father with a good and powerful word of his 
own ; so he prayed for Peter in particular, Luke xxii. 32, ' I have prayed 
for thee (and for thy grace too), that thy faith fail not.' It is probable Christ 
prayed for all, it seems to be implied ; Satan had an aching tooth at every 
one of them ; 'EgTir^jo-aro, he hath earnestly desired you to sift you as wheat. 
He prayed particularly for their faith, that it might not be conquered, be- 
cause this being the fundamental grace, if this stands all the rest keep up 
their heads. His intercession is for everything which may preserve, and 
against everything which may destroy. Not only for the preservation itself, 
but for the particular means of it : John xvii. 17, ' Sanctify them through 
thy truth : thy word is truth.' Do it by thy word, where he intercedes for 
the keeping up a gospel in the world in subserviency to this end, viz., their 
sanctification. Do it by thy truth, that incorruptible seed, that eternal 
gospel, eternal in the dm-ation of the effects of it. So that thy standing, and 
all the means of it, the habit and the very acting of thy faith, the impres- 
sions made upon thy soul by any particular truth, are the fruits of Christ's 
intercession. I cannot imagine that a person that Christ doth in so parti- 
cular a manner intercede for in all his concerns, can fall totally and finally. 
(4.) He intercedes more fervently (if there be any degrees at all in his 
affection in heaven above what he had here) in heaven than he did upon the 
earth. If he, upon the earth, did pray so earnestly to his Father to keep 
them, and that a little before his death, when the soitows of death and the 
grave, the contest he was to have with his Father's wrath, began to stare him 
in the face ; when he had a foresight of all those bruises his soul was shortly 
to suffer, which, if anything, might reasonably divert his thoughts, and damp 
his affections from praying for others ; when he hath conquered all this, and 
hath no more death to suffer, no infu-mity of the flesh to clog him, not the 
least eclipse of his Father's countenance so dreadfully to groan under, he will 
rather be more fervent than cold in his suit. Shall he pray against the 
indulged sins of his enemies under the anguish of death, and not against the 
lamented and troublesome corruptions of his friends in the triumphs of glory ? 
Shall he pray for his murderers under the horror of his Father's wrath, and 
not plead for the support of his people's graces in the arms of his Father's 
love ? Hath he not more encouragements to plead strongly for them since 
he sits upon a throne of grace, than when he suffered upon a cross by justice ? 
He stood at his death as a guilty person charged with the guilt of others ; 
but in heaven he pleads as a righteous advocate, freed from all that guilt 
which was then charged upon him. Hath he not more engagements ? Shall 
not the esteem of his purchase, the value of his Father's gift, honour of his 
conquest, consent of his people, credit of his office, obedience to his Father's 
charge, elevated atiection, delight in his people's graces, care of his image, 
relation of a husband, straitness of union : shall not all these inflame his 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 251 

spirit with a zeal in his plea beyond the power of a control, were there a 
possibility of any ? 

(5.) His intercession now must be every jot as prevalent, if not more, than 
his prayer upon earth. If he prevailed at the tribunal of God's justice by 
his satisfaction, which was the sharpest conflict he could ever enter into, 
shall he not much more prevail at the throne of God's grace by his interces- 
sion ? If his death were powerful to procure a perfect righteousness for our 
justification, his intercession will keep pace with it to apply that aud perfect 
grace for our sanctilication. Will not Christ be successful in one as well as 
the other, and as good at finishing the work in heaven as he was at finishing 
his work on earth, especially when his finishing his work on earth is the 
foundation of the continuance of that work of his intercession ; being first a 
propitiation and then an advocate ? It will certainly produce as perfect eflects 
for the perfection of the weakest believer, as his death upon the cross did for 
his reconciliation, which is to ' present us holy, unblameable, and unre- 
provable in God's sight,' Col. i. 22. 

How strongly grounded his intercession in heaven is, and what arguments 
he doth use, see John xvii. 11, 12 : ' And now I am no more in the world, 
but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through 
thy own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we 
are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name : those 
that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of 
perdition.' I am no more in the world, corporally, but those are in the 
world. I shall leave those behind me in a world of temptation and misery. 
' I come to thee.' I shall shortly ascend to thee. Now, ' Holy Father, 
keep through thy name,' &c. Here we have, 

(1.) God's relation to himself, and to his people. Father, not My holy 
Father. The relation reaches not only to the intercessor, but the persons 
pleaded for. Christ in heaven pleads with God as a Father, our Father. 

(2.) God's holiness. Holy Father; not merciful, powerful Father, or 
righteous Father, as afterwards. Grace is an image of God's holiness, and 
therefore is the most proper attribute of God to be used as an argument for 
the preservation of it. 

(3.) The gift of God. Keep those whom thou hast given me, which he 
urgeth twice. Thou gavest them me to redeem and sanctify ; not wholly to 
part with them, but to be presented to thee again in a better state. I had 
never had them but by thy donation. Thou didst not give them to me that 
they might perish, but that they might be kept. Keep, therefore, thy own 
gift, that they may be returned to thee in a better state. Thou gavest them 
me, and they are still thine. Neglect not thy own, because thou art im- 
mutable in thy counsel and afiection. 

(4.) The end why God gave them to Christ. That they may be one, as 
we are. "Ita, the causal particle, may refer either to did^xag or r^riSov. If the 
end, Father, why thou didst give them to me, was that they might be one, as 
we are, keep them, therefore, till they attain this end in perfection, that thy 
aim may not be frustrated. 

(5.) God's past preservation of them. I have kept them through thy 
name. Though I have been in the world with them, and have kept them, it 
was through thy strength ; and in my present petition I desire no greater a 
strength than what already thou hast exerted for their preservation. 

(6.) His own obedience to God. Those whom thou gavest me, I have 
kept. He lays a stress upon God's donation and his own faithfulness. I 
have been obedient to thee in the keeping of them, because they were thy 
gift. Wilt thou command me to keep that which thou thyself wilt neglect 



252 charnock's wokks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

and slight ? Wilt thou bo careless of that charge thou gavest me such strict 
orders to preserve ? Shall my faithfulness to thee in that charge outstrip 
th}' mercifulness to them and care of their standing ? 

(7.) The success of his care. None of them is lost. This charge thou 
gavest me, not to lose any. I have hitherto performed it. Not one son of 
election, but only that of perdition, which was given to me as my attendant, 
not my charge. The but, or s/ /mti, doth not weaken this assertion of Christ. 
As Camero and others observe, s/ /xri is not by way of exception, but opposition. 
He was not of the number of those given to Christ, but of another rank of 
society, as Gal. ii. 16, * A man is not justified, s! iin, but by the faith of 
Jesus Christ,' where faith is set in opposition to works in justification; not 
at all by works, but only by faith. So Mat. xxiv. 36, ' Of that day and hour 
knows no man, no, not the angels in heaven, but, s/ /z.!i, my Father only.' 
The Father is set in opposition to men and angels, not excepted as either 
man or angel. So Judas here is set in opposition to those that were given 
to Christ, not excepted as a lost part of that number. I have been the 
larger in it that it may serve for a little use of what hath been spoken. It 
will be a good pattern of prayer. Arguments may be fetched from those 
topics so far as will suit us to plead with God in our case, and there is scarce 
any of these considerations which have been delivered but may be turned 
into an argument in prayer. 

Now sum up all this. Doth Christ plead for our standing in grace and 
progress in sanctification, and live for this end ? Did he set Peter up as a 
pattern of what he would do in this case ? Is the covenant keptfi.rm by his 
mediation, and covenant-answers procured by his intercession ? Is it 
appointed by Grod for this very end, viz., the blessedness of his people ? 
Doth he present every man's case in particular, and intercede for his grace 
in particular, and what truth shall make impressions on him ? Is there 
some reason to think he is more fervent in it now than he was upon the 
earth ? To be sure, no less. Are the arguments he uses very strong ? Then 
the standing even of the weakest grace is sure. Before that can fall, God 
must change his end in giving his Son a power to ask ; Christ must leave 
pleading, or his arguments must lose their strength. But as Ambrose said 
to Monica concerning Austin, who remained in his natural condition not- 
withstanding his good education and his mother's prayers, It is impossible 
that a son of so many prayers should perish, so may I say of gi-ace, It is 
impossible a child of so many, so fervent, so powerful intercessions, in all 
circumstances, can ever, either totally or finally, perish. 

3. The Spirit is engaged in this business. The reason why God puts 
his Spirit into the heart is to preserve us from departing from him, Jer. 
xxxii. 40. As Christ was true and faithful to God in the end of his coming, 
so will the Spirit be faithful to God in the end of his being put into the 
heart. It is the same Spirit which, being upon Christ, enabled him to the 
performance of his charge, Isa. xi. 1, 2, and made him of quick understand- 
ing in the fear of the Lord, to establish him in faithfulness and obedience to 
God in his mediatory work. The same Spirit is in us, to establish us in the 
fear of God, to keep that principle of God's fear put into our hearts alive. 
And as the Spirit performed his oflSce fully upon the human nature of Christ, 
so it will not be deficient in us according to our measure. Consider the Spirit 
every way, and this work of preserving grace will appear to be his business. 
What Christ doth by his proxy may well be interpreted to be his own act. 

(1.) His mission. If Christ were not to break the bruised reed, surely 
no messenger sent by him is to do it. * The Spirit is sent by the Father in 
bis Son's name,' John xiv. 26. He is sent ' by Christ from the Father,' 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 253 

John XV. 26; with Lis Father's consent and commission. There is a con- 
junct authority, sent by commission from both, sent to supply Christ's place 
upon earth. Christ's business in part was to keep his people, and he wanted 
one to do it after his departure ; therefore prays his ' Father to keep them 
in his name,' John xvii. 11. In answer to this prayer, the Spirit is sent; 
therefore sent by the Father and Son in subserviency to this end of pre- 
serving his people, and comes himself with an intention to answer this end, 
and perform the covenant. If both concur in sending him, his mission must 
be in order to the fulfiling what was agreed upon by the three persons, and 
more particularly by the Father and Son in the mediatory covenant, for they 
would never send one that should go contrary to the covenant they were 
engaged in. 

(2.) His titles. He is called 

[l.j A Comforter : John xiv. 16, ' I will pray the Father, and he will give 
you another Comforter.' The Comforter, y.ar s^oy^Tjv. Such another Com- 
forter as I have been unto you, and in some respects better ; a more spiritual 
Comforter. It was expedient that Christ should go away, that this Com- 
foxier might come : John xvi. 27, ' Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is 
expedient for yon that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter will 
not come unto you.' I tell you the truth ; I must deal plainly with you ; 
I have a great desire the Comforter should come, and if I go not away, he 
will not come ; intimating thereby that it was a greater blessing to have the 
Comforter with them than Christ in person. What comfort could they have 
in this declaration, and what expediency in it, if the Spirit did not mind the 
same end in keeping and preserving us as Christ did ? It had been no ways 
expedient. Better a thousand times Christ had never gone, and the Com- 
forter never come, if it were not for the same end which Christ minded in 
the world. The ends of Christ were to give ' the oil of joy for mourning, 
the gaiment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called 
trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified,' 
Isa. Ixi. 3. As this was the work of Christ, so this is the work of the Spirit 
as a comforter, to make the heart grow up in fruit to the glory of God. 

[2.] An abiding Comforter : John xiv. 86, ' That he may abide with you 
for ever.' He must abide with us in the capacity wherein he is sent, i. e. 
as a comforter. His comfort would signify little if it did not meet with the 
main trouble which pesters us, i. e. the fear of miscarrying and not con- 
tinuing to the end. Oh, I am afraid that this little spark may be quenched 
by the floods cast out of the dragon's mouth, that this little faith may be 
wounded to death by some strong temptations. I doubt it will quickly gasp 
its last. I have but a little oil in the cruse ; it will soon be wasted, and I 
shall die. These kind of thoughts every believer hath more or less. The 
chosen vessel and the greatest instrument for God that ever was, found such 
fears clambering up in him : 1 Cor. ix. 27, * I keep under my body, lestthat 
by any means I myself should be a castaway.' The Spirit therefore must 
be a comforter to mate this grand •trouble, and melt this gloomy cloud which 
doth so often darken the strong as well as the weak believer ; and truly 
every one's experience can testify that when such thoughts do creep up, 
some hopes also start up with them from the Spirit, like a covenant rainbow 
with a shower ; and one thing which, as a comforter, he is to convince the 
world of (and the best part of the world too, even those that are convinced of 
unbelief, sinfulnesss, and the necessity and sufficiency of the righteousness 
of Christ) is, that the prince of the world is judged and condemned, his works 
dissolved, and that he shall never more have power over believers to ruin 
them, John xvi. 11. He is to abide with us to that end and purpose 



254 chaenock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

for which he came into our hearts, and that was to bring us to God ; there- 
fore his abiding with us is to keep us with God. If our first conversion were 
the work of the Spirit, and our standing in it our own, we should be more 
beholding to ourselves than to the Spirit, because a good condition stable is 
a greater blessing than a good condition mutable. If the Spirit stand only 
as a careless spectator, to see how we would steer our course, without putting 
his hand to the helm, what good would his abiding with us do ? If a man 
have a great business to do, the presence of a multitude of men will do hira 
no good unless he hath assistance from them. By the Spirit's abiding with 
us is meant, not the remaining of his person without his operations. As 
when God's promises to be present with us, he doth not mean his essential 
presence, for that cannot but be present, whether he promiseth it or no, but 
his gracious presence. The Spirit abides with believers not only in moving 
them, for so he abides with wicked men, but efficaciously moving, not only 
in their first conversion, but in their growth and progress. 
The use is, 

1. Matter of information ; 

2. Of comfort ; 

3. Of duty. 

1. Information. 

(1.) The doctrine of the possibility of a total and final apostasy of a 
regenerate man after grace infused is not according to truth. You see upon 
what pillars the doctrine we have asserted stands. Whence it follows that 
the contrary doctrine of the apostasy of a regenerate man is against the 
whole tenor of the covenant of grace, against the attributes of God engaged 
in it and about it, against the design of Christ, the mediator of it, against 
the charge committed to him, against the ends of the Spirit's mission and 
abiding with us. 

The question then may be thus stated, whether that vital principle or 
habit of grace put into the heart by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost 
at the conversion of the soul be not perpetually preserved and cherished by 
the same Spirit, so that it never dies ; and that therefore a regenerate man, 
endued with this vital principle, neither can nor will, by reason of this im- 
planted inworking of the^ Spirit, fall from faith and serve sin, so as to give 
himself up wholly to the commands of it. The question is not, whether we 
shall persevere if grace doth continue, as the contrary-minded assert, and 
accordingly gloss upon the scriptures alleged for it. Such a question would 
be ridiculous. It is as much as to ask whether a man shall live to-morrow 
if his life remain in him, or whether the sun shall shine to-morrow if its light 
continues ; and is as much as to say, a man shall persevere if he doth per- 
severe. But whether the habit of grace, the fear of God, faith, the new 
creature, new man, or howsoever you will term it, be not so settled in the 
soul as that it shall never be totally removed. Some afiirm that it may. 
Satan was of this persuasion (though he has since discovered himself more 
orthodox), when he tells God to his face. Job i. 8-11, ' Put forth thy band 
now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face ;' that 
smart aifiictions would divest Job of that uprightness God so signally 
applauded in him, as a none-such in all the earth. The chief ground is, 
that they lay all, both conversion and preservation, upon the will of man, 
not grace. 

I shall therefore lay down, 

[1.] Some propositions for explaining it. 

It is acknowledged that, 

(1.) The operations of grace may be interrupted. As long as there are 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victoeious. 255 

two laws, one of sin in the members, another of grace in the mind ; as long 
as there are two principles in a grand contest, flesh and spirit ; as long as 
onr knowledge is imperfect, and our love but of a weak grow^th, the operation 
of both cannot be perfecter than the nature of their principle. The vigour of 
our gracious actions is often enfeebled by the power of the flesh, that we do 
many times the evil we hate, and omit that good we love. And we cannot 
deny but that our acts flow oftener from a corrupt than a renew^ed principle ; 
yea, and those actions which flow from grace are so tinctured with the vapours 
of the other principle, that they seem to partake more of the impressions of 
the law of sin than of the law of the mind ; so that our perseverance is 
not to be measured by the constant temper of our actions, but from the per- 
manency of the habit. The acts of grace may be suspended by the prevalency 
of some sinful distemper, as the operations of natural life are in an epileptic 
or apoplectic paroxysm. Hence it is that we find David so often praying for 
quickening grace, according to the promise, upon a sense of the flagging of 
his grace. 

(2.) The comfort of our grace may be ecHpsed. We may lose the sense 
of it without losing the substance. An actual communion may be lost, upon 
a sinful fall, till actual repentance, when the union is not unloosed. A be- 
numbed member is knit to the body, though it hath not its wonted vigour 
and active heat. Mutual comfort may be suspended between man and wife, 
though the conjugal knot be not dissolved. BeUevers may be separated 
from Christ's smiles, but not from their relation to Christ and being in him. 
Comfortable interest may be interrupted, when radical interest receives no 
damage. A leper under the law was hindered of actual enjoyment of his 
house, but not deprived of his legal title to it. 

(3.) Relative grace cannot be lost. Every regenerate man being the son 
of God by a double title, that of regeneration and adoption, can never cease 
to be his son. The relation of a son to a father is indissoluble. It can 
never be that he that is once a son can become no son ; the relation is firm, 
though the afi"ection may be on both sides extinguished. The relation we 
have to God as his children, is knit with that other of heirs. The apostle 
made no doubt of the truth of that consequence : Eom. viii. 17, ' If children, 
then heirs, and heirs of God.' And he was afterwards of the same mind : 
Gal. iv. 7, ' And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.' If it be ob- 
jected, True, unless a believer disinherit himself by an nndutiful and con- 
temptuous carriage. But he cannot, unless he should cease to be a creature ; 
for the same apostle doth as positively afiirm in a triumphant manner, that 
no other creature, under which believers themselves are comprehended, can 
separate from the love of God : Rom. viii. 38, 39, ' I am persuaded that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, &c., nor any other creature, shall be able 
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' 
And the other apostle comes in as a witness, that a son of God, so born, can 
never be guilty of such a contemptuous carriage habitually as may end in a 
disinheriting of him, because the seed of God, whereby he was born, remains 
in him as the band of his relation : 1 John iii. 9, * His seed remains in him, 
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.' His being born of God is 
the rock against the flood of sin, because he is born of God, and makes it 
eternally true that such an one is the son of God. Who ever did, or ever 
will, hear of a son of God by those two titles in hell ? It seems not con- 
gruous to divine wisdom to make any his heirs that he saw he should disin- 
herit. No wise man would do so, if he were conscious of all future events, 
and did sincerely adopt a person. And shall the all-wise God be represented 
weaker than man ? 



256 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

(4.) The habit of inherent grace cannot be lost. A believer hath eternal 
life in actual possession in the seed, and in reversion in the harvest, John vi. 
54. It is plain : 1 Peter i. 23, ' Being born again, not of corruptible seed 
but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever.' 
It is called an incorruptible seed in opposition to corruptible, both in its own 
nature and the effects produced by it. But this seed of the word being in- 
corruptible, raises effects according to its nature. The antithesis is express : 
we are not born of corruptible seed, which is of a perishing nature, but of an 
incorruptible seed. The seed of our regeneration is incorruptible ; the word, 
the instrument, is unchangeable ; the Spirit, the eflicient cause which man- 
ages the word, and thereby infuseth the seed, abides for ever. All these 
causes agreeing in one attribute of incorruptible, must needs produce an 
effect suitable to the nature of them. It is indemonstrable that so many 
incorruptible causes should centre in a corruptible effect, and be combined 
together to produce an ephemeron, a thing that may have no longer life, 
according to this opinion, than the day it is born in. Further, the connection 
of those words with those ver. 17, &c., import as much. He exhorts them 
to pass the time of theii' sojourning here in fear, not servile, but filial : ver. 
17, ' Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible 
things.' Be encouraged to all holy and humble obedience, since you are 
fully assured of your perfect redemption, &c. As the blood of Christ doth 
not purchase a corruptible redemption, so neither doth the grace of Chi'ist 
work a corruptible regeneration. As the blood of Christ was incorruptible 
blood, by virtue of the hypostatical union, and in regard of the efficacy of it 
to our redemption, so is grace an incorruptible seed, by reason of the be- 
liever's union with the Son of God, its production by the Spii'it of God, and 
in regard of that incorruptible word whereby it is both begotten and main- 
tained in us. The habit of grace attends the soul to heaven, and for ever. 
The vital principle was not extinct in David by his gross fall, since we find 
him not praying for salvation, but the joy of it ; not praying for the giving 
the Spirit, but not taking it away from him, which he had by his sin deserved 
to be deprived of: Ps. li. 11, 12, ' Take not thy Holy Spirit from me : re- 
store unto me the joy of thy salvation.' And also for greater degrees of 
sanctification, and cleansing his heart from its filthiness and falseness. 
Grace may indeed, like the sun, be under an eclipse, but its internal light 
and heat cannot expire. 

(5.) Though grace be oppressed, yet it will recover itself. It is indeed 
sometimes overtopped by temptation (as a fountain which, being overflowed 
by the torrent of a neighbouring river, is covered while the flood lasts, that 
a man knows not where to find it ; but, after those great waters are slid 
away, the fountain bubbles up as clearly as before), yet it works all that 
while under that oppresssion, though not perceived. It will rise again by 
virtue of a believer's union with Christ. As a bough bent down by force, 
yet by virtue of its union to the body of the tree, will return to its former 
posture when the force is removed. The sap in the root of a tree, which the 
coldness of the season hath stripped of its leaves, will, upon the return of the 
sun, disperse itself, and, as it were, meet it in the utmost branches, and re- 
new its old acquaintance with it. Shall the divine nature in the soul be out- 
stripped by mere nature in the plants ? Grace can never be so blown out, 
but there will be some smoke, some spark, whereby it may be re-kindled. The 
smoking snuff of Peter's grace was lighted again by a sudden look of his 
Master. Yea, it may, by a secret influence of the Spirit, gather strength to 
act more vigorously after its emerging from under the present oppression, 
like the sun, more warm in its beams after it hath been obscured by fogs. 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 257 

Peter's love was more vigorous after his recovery. Christ implied it, when 
he acquainted him with his danger, that he who had not strength to keep his 
faith from falling, should, after his rising, have strength both for himself 
and his brethren : Luke xxii. 32, ' When thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren.' 

[2.J Let us see what inconveniences and reflections upon God do follow 
from their doctrine. Their denial of this truth is grounded upon their 
denial of election, and on the supposed resistibility of grace, by the will of 
man. 

(1.) It evacuates all the promises of God, and concludes them to be empty, 
vain things, as if they were made by God in mockery, and to sport himself 
in deceiving his creature. 

[1.] It frustrates the glory he designs by the promises. Doth God pro- 
mise his presence with the church to the end of the world ? and doth it con- 
sist with infinite wisdom to make an absolute promise concerning an 
uncertainty ? It is possible, according to this doctrine, that God might not 
have so much as one sincere worshipper, one faithful servant, in the whole 
earth ; not one immediately capable of his gracious presence. What would 
become of the glory he intended to himself by all the promises of redemption 
and sanctification, and those praises and admirations he expects from men, 
when, according to this doctrine, it is possible there might not be one to give 
him the glory due to his name, if it were left to their natural wills, whether 
they would receive the grace offered them, or continue in it if they do re- 
ceive it ? For if one saint may fall away, notwithstanding the covenant of 
grace, the truth of God, and the strength of Christ, why may not another, 
and a third, till there be not the appearance of one sincere Christian? What 
certainty then had there been of a church in the world for God to be present 
with ? What certainty of any admirer of his grace to eternity ? Nay, what 
certainty that any would have received it, had it been left wholly to their 
natural wills ? The Scripture intimates otherwise by representing man to 
us as dead in sin and enmity against God, one that cannot receive the things 
of God, &c. May a man be said sincerely to worship God one hour that 
doth cast dirt upon him the next, as the peasants in Germany deal with 
their St Urban, the patron of their vines ? Is that a worship intended by 
his promises, that might not endure the space of one minute, but be suc- 
ceeded by the grossest despites and rebellions ? Is that fear put into the 
heart, that they might never depart from him, of no greater prevalency than 
to come to so sudden a period, and produce no better effects ? Is so slight, 
so short-lived a worship, fit for the gi'eat God by so many declarations in 
Scripture to promise himself from his creature ? No better it would be if 
it were left only to the creature's corrupt will, and the management of that 
natural enmity which is in the heart. Is the holiest soul in the world, with- 
out assisting and preventing grace, so sure of the immoveableness of his own 
will, among so many blustering storms and temptations, or flesh-pleasing 
snares and allurements ? 

[2.] It frustrates the promises made to Christ. Is it consistent with the 
faithfulness of God to be careless of all the agonies, groans, and blood of his 
Son ? Our Saviour might have bled and died, and not seen one grain of seed, 
but lost all the travail of his soul, if this doctrine be true. Will God, accord- 
ing to these men's fancies, make no greater account of his oath ? Ps. Ixxxix. 
33-36, ' My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out 
of my lips,' — that the seed of his servant David, the Messiah, as the Jews 
understand it, should endure for ever, and his loving-kindness he would not 

VOL. v. B 



258 • chabnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

utterly take from them, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail. This, though sworn 
but once by his holiness, is enough for an eternal obligation upon God, and 
a perpetual ground of faith to us. ' The pleasure of the Lord' was promised, 
to 'prosper in his hand,' Isa. hii. 10; it was to 'break through'* all oppo- 
sition, and overcome all invaders. Is it a way to glorify his faithfulness to 
Christ, to take the pleasure, the object of his pleasure, the fruit of his death, 
out of the hands of Christ, and put it into the hands of free will ? The pro- 
mise is, that his pleasure should prosper in his hand, — not in our hands, not 
in the hands of natural will. 

[3.] It frustrates the comfort of the promises to us. Doth not this doc- 
trine give the lie to that blessed apostle, who was wiser in the mysteries of 
the gospel than the whole world besides ? Doth it not accuse him of arro- 
gance, when by a divine inspiration he confidently persuades himself and all 
other believers that neither ' angels, nor principalities,' &c., ' should separate 
tbem from the love of God' ? Rom. viii, 38, 39. Doth God in the Scripture 
pronounce those actually blessed that put their trust in Christ, the Messiah? 
Ps. ii. 12, ' Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.' How can it 
deserve the name of blessedness, and in all of them too, if the faith of any 
one that sincerely believes in him could be totally and finally lost ? Could 
they be blessed even while they have faith, since the comfort and happiness 
of any particular act of faith would be overwhelmed by the tormenting fears 
of the possibility and probability of their losing the habits of it ? It is not 
only probable, but certain, to be lost, if its preservation depended upon n) 
other hand but the shght hold of our own will. Adam in innocency fell under 
a covenant of works; and we should as soon lose our habitual grace under a 
covenant of grace, did not our stability depend upon a supernatural and divine 
power promised in it. This doctrine therefore wipes off all the oil of gladness 
from believers' hearts ; and, contrary to Christ's commission, clothes them 
with tbe spirit of heaviness instead of the garments of praise. 

(2.) It darkens the love of God. Are the products of infinite love so light 
as these men would make them ? Is not his love as immutable as himself? 
Can there be decays in an eternal and unchangeable aflection ? Can any 
emergencies be unknown from eternity to his omniscience ? How then can 
the fountain of kindness be frozen in his breast ? Shall not that everlasting 
love, which was the only motive to draw the believer at the first conversion 
to him, be as strong an argument to him to preserve the believer with him ? 
Jer. xxxi. 3, ' I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving- 
kindness have I drawn thee.' It was love in the choice ; but by the expres- 
sion loving-kindness, it seems to be increased in the execution. "What is it 
then that should make it run as fast backward till it dissolve into disaffec- 
tion ? Was there a love of benevolence towards them in appointing them 
to be heirs of salvation, when they lay like swine in the confused mass and 
mire of the corrupt world ? And is there not a love of complacency in them, 
since he hath pardoned them according to the riches of his grace, renewed 
them by the power of his word, and sealed them by the Holy Spirit of pro- 
mise ? Is it likely this everlasting love should sink into hatred, and the 
glorious fruits of it be dashed in pieces at one blow by a sudden change ? 
To what purpose did he lay the first stone of thy redemption, and bring the 
blood of his Son and thy soul to kiss each other ? Was it not that he might 
be your God in covenant with you ? It was so in the type, the deliverance 
from Egypt : Lev. xxvi. 45, ' Whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt, 
that I might be their God.' Much more in the antitype, the deliverance from 
Satan. Could the kindness of God be so illustrious if it did not make the 
* n?^'' d n?V perrumpere. 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 259 

permanency of his gifts a great part of the benefit of them ? Can these men 
then fancy infinite tenderness so unconcerned as to let the apple of his eye 
be plucked out, as to be a careless spectator of the pillage of his jewels by 
the powers of hell, to have the delight of his soul (if I may so speak) tossed 
like a tennis-ball between himself and the devil ? Which must be the con- 
sequence of this doctrine, if a renewed man be at one time in the hands of 
God, and presently after in the hands of the devil. Is this easy parting with 
them like the affection of a mother to her sucking infant ? How much less 
suitable is it to the kindness of God, which infinitely surmounts the other ! 

(3.) It dipgraceth his wisdom and power. Doth this doctrine support the 
honour of God's wisdom, in contriving ways so admirable for the restoration 
of his creature, that may be lost in a moment ? Is it congruous to infinite 
wisdom, set on work in man's recovery, to make a covenant that should be 
more uncertain than the former ? Which should be if it depended only upon 
the voluble and inconstant temper of the creature's corrupt will for the making 
it good. The former was less likely to be violated by a nature filled with in- 
tegrity, than this by a nature stuffed with iniquity. Is it consistent with the 
honour of this attribute, to have his wonderful designs, wherein he intended 
to make known his manifold wisdom, pufied away by a breath of sin and 
Satan ? Was God subject to error or ignorance in not foreseeing what events 
might happen before he obliged himself by promise ; or to dissimulation if 
he did not foresee, and notwithstanding all these contrivances and prepara- 
tions, not absolutely intend, the salvation of any one man, but leave it to 
themselves whether they would be saved or no ? It disgraceth his power. 
Where can any safety be expected if not in our Kedeemer's hand ? Shall 
his power be beaten out of breath by the wrestling of the devil ? None, say 
these men, shall pluck them out of God's hand while they remain there, but 
they may depart themselves; as though that 'promise, John x. 28, did not 
provide against their inward corruption as well as external violence. But 
the promise is exclusive of all ways of destruction : ' They shall not perish/ 
ov /j.r, dTfjy.uvrai, two negatives to strengthen it, according to the custom of 
the Greeks. And it is not, as it is translated, 7io man, but ov-/^ a;cra^£/ rig, 
not any one. If they depart, they perish ; but because they shall not perish, 
against which the promise secures them, therefore they shall not depart. If 
they may be overcome against the will of God, and against his promise, it 
may be inferred that the devil is superior to God, and that God hath not 
power, or wants will, to make good his promise of perseverance to them. As 
there never was, so there never will be, any violation of his faithfulness, or 
breach made upon his power. Had God let them lie in their sins, no objec- 
tion could be made ; but since by such an admirable power he had snatched 
them from the clutches of the prince of darkness, doth it consist with his 
wisdom or goodness to throw them away, or to let them fall out of his hands 
into the power of their old oppressor ? 

(4.) It sets God at great uncertainties as to the object of his love. If a 
renewed man be discarded from God's favour, and lose the habit of grace 
because he commits a sin which deserves death, he would upon every sin be 
cashiered, because every sin deserves death by the rigour of the law, Rom. 
vi. 23 ; and the whole life of a Christian would be nothing else but an inter- 
change of friend and enemy, son and no son. Niiy, there could not be a 
moment fixed, wherein it could be said of any godly man in this life, that 
he were in God's favour, and had the habit of grace, because there is not a 
moment but man is guilty of some sin or other, of infirmity at least. If it 
be said, it is meant only of those sins that waste the conscience ; these, we 
say, cannct live in the constant practice of a regenerate man. But suppose 



2G0 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

he be overtaken, is he then cast out of favour, i. e. out of God's everlasting 
love ? I would demand, if he be, what brings him in again ? Good works 
afterwards ? Alas ! there is not one of them but is mixed with that which 
deserves eternal death. Can they bring us into favour, which need some- 
thing themselves to make them accepted ? Can a menstruous rag look so 
amiable in the eyes of God, as to introduce us into a forfeited favour ? Is 
it our Saviour's merit ? That is as sufficient to keep our knot with God 
indissoluble, as it is upon every breach to renew it ; for the merit of Christ 
is greater than the demerit of sin. If every act of unbeHef did destroy faith, 
might it not be destroyed and revived an hundred times a-day ? For what 
is the course of the best Christian, but a mixture of faith and unbelief ? It 
is true the bent of the heart stands right in faith ; but there are frequent 
starts of unbelief. Now, according to this doctrine, there would be so many 
blottings out, and so many writings again of their names in the book of life 
every day. A man may be, in their sense, in God's favour, and out of it, 
many times in a day ; one moment in a state of salvation, the next in a state 
of damnation ; and so run in a circle from salvation to damnation all the 
year long. Is this uncertainty like the stability of mountains and hills, a 
greater than which God promises ? Isa. liv. 10, ' The mountains shall 
depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from 
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, 
that hath mercy on thee.' God provided such a covenant of peace that might 
not be removed, that he might not be at such constant removes in his kind- 
ness as these men would make him. Is it not unworthy to make such a 
representation of the all-wise and immutable God, as if he were daily caress- 
ing his creatures, and daily repenting of those gifts of effectual calling, which 
the Scripture asserts to be without repentance ? Rom. xi. 29. Repentance of 
any design is an effect of weakness of judgment as well as mutability of will. 
(5.) It doth the rather set God at uncertainties, because it doth subject 
the grace of God to the will of man. It hangs the glory of God's grace, 
in all the motions of it, and the efficacy of the promise, upon the slip- 
periness of man's will and affections. It makes the omnipotent grace of God 
follow, not precede, the motions of men's wall ; to be the lacquey, not the 
leader, either in converting or preserving ; which is at the best to make the 
glory of his grace as volatile as a feather, at the best sometimes up, some- 
times down ; the soul this moment embraced by God with the dearest affec- 
tions, the next cast out as a vessel wherein is no pleasure, and the succeeding 
moment admitted to fresh communications ; this hour the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, the next an habitation for dragons and satyrs, the will of man giving 
one time the key to the Spirit, the next time to the devil ; one time as clean 
as a saint, another time as foul as a fallen angel. So that a Christian's Ufe 
would be spent in nothing but ejectments and repossessions between God 
and the devil, and the grace of God beholding for its residence in the 
heart only to the humour of the will. Is it reasonable thus to subject the 
fruits of the great undertaking of Christ to the lottery of fancy, and to take 
the crown from the head of grace, to set upon the scalp of our corrupt will ? 
(6.) It frustrates the design and fruits of election. The seduction of be- 
lievers by false prophets, with their train of great signs and wonders, which 
our Saviour concludes impossible, — Mat. xxiv. 24, ' There shall arise false 
Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders ; inso- 
much as, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect,' — is according 
to this doctrine very easy and natural. One start of the fancy completes it. 
The impossibility of their embracing, or at least persisting in damnable errors, 
is founded upon the eternal choice of them by God, and his decree for their 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 261 

preservation. It was the entry of tbeir names into the Lamb's book of life, 
that preserved his followers from the contagion in the universal apostasy of 
the Romish church : Rev. xiii. 8, ' All that dwell upon the earth shall wor- 
ship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb.' If 
believers could totally and finally fall away from Christ, why is it impossible 
for them to be deceived by damning errors, accompanied with such wonders, 
that might stupefy the reason of the wisest natural men, and the elect too, 
did not their election make it impossible ? ' The very elect.' But it is laid 
upon a higher score than their own wisdom, and depends upon that golden 
chain of electing love, which neither the wit of man, nor malice of devils, 
the terrors of afflictions, nor pleasures of temptations, are able to break, 
Rom. viii. 38, 39. 

(7.) It frustrates the fruits of Christ's mediation and offices. "Was it not 
the design of his coming, according to the ancient promise, that all nations 
should be blessed in him, in the seed of Abraham, which seed he was ? Ac- 
cording to this doctrine it is uncertain at the best, whether any one person 
should be blessed by him or no. If the gates of hell could prevail against 
one real member of Christ, they might against a second and a third, till he 
should not have one member to enjoy a blessing by him. Grace infused is 
as the ' holy fire upon the altar, which descended from heaven,' Lev. vi. 
12, 13. And as it was the priest's office, so it is the office of Christ the an- 
titype, to feed it morning and evening by his Spirit, with fresh fuel for its 
continual support. According to this doctrine, the offices of Christ signify 
nothing but with the consent of the will of man. The death of Christ might 
be wholly an unprofitable sacrifice. The intercession of Christ in heaven 
would signify nothing, since they can persevere without him, and notwith- 
standing his intercession can fall away. This is to unpriest Christ, and de- 
stroy the end of his living for ever. His prophetical office fares no better, 
because they make the efficacy of it depend upon their will ; and the teach- 
ing of Christ, like the sibyls' writing upon leaves, may be blown away by the 
next wind. It robs Christ of the key of government, by making every man 
his own governor in this aS'air, and denying Christ the sovereign throne in 
the wills of men. His government would be exercised only in punishing, 
since none left wholly to themselves but would prove obstinate rebels. He 
might be a priest without a people to sacrifice for, an advocate without a 
client, a prophet without a disciple, and a king without a subject, and so be 
insignificant in the fruits of all his offices. 

(8.) It disparageth the work of the Spirit. As if the Spirit of God did 
tincture the soul with so weak a colour as might be easily washed ofi" by the 
next shower ; as if he did only strew, not sow the seed of grace, easily to be 
blown away by the next puff of wind or devoured by fowls. Are the divine 
image and workmanship of heaven, the products of infinite power, wisdom, 
and love, of so slight a make as the embracers of this doctrine would fancy ? 
Is the Spirit too weak to hold, or is he unwilling ? Would Christ ever send 
so uncertain a comforter as he would be unless he did abide with us ? Would 
Christ, after laying so strong and rich a foundation for the redemption of his 
people, send a deputy that should build so weakly and work so slightly upon 
it? The Spirit was to glorify Christ, John xvi. 13. How? Certainly, 
as ' Christ glorified the Father,' Jobn xvii. 4. But Christ glorified the 
Father by finishing the work which was given him. Therefore the Spirit 
will glorify Christ in the same manner by finishing the work he is sent to 
do ; as the Father is not imperfect in his choice, nor Christ in his purchase ; 
80 neither will the Spirit be imperfect in his conduct. The very end why 
God puts the Spirit into the heart, is to preserve the believer from going 



262 charnock's woeks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

back from God. What is called ' putting the fear of the Lord into us, that 
we niiglit not depart from him,' Jer. xxii. 40, is called pulling a new heart 
and a new spirit: Ezek. xxxvi. 2G, 'And I will put my Spirit within you, 
and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and 
do them ;' and a putting his own Spirit within them to preserve and assist 
that new hahitnal grace, for it is to cause them to walk in his statutes. It 
is not only a clennsing them from their filthiness, and then leaving them to 
be their own guides, but it is a putting a contrary principle into them ; and 
the end of putting this spirit into them, is that they ' should live till they be 
placed in their own land, in the heavenly Canaan,' Ezek. xxxvii. 14, and be 
settled there in the work of admiration, and blessing God for his faithfulness 
in performing this covenant; 'then shall ye know,' by a full experience, 
'that I the Lord have spoken, and performed it.' I know some under- 
stand it of their deliverance from the Babylonish captivity ; but the words 
methinks seem to be of a higher import, and the deliverance from Babylon 
was typical of redemption by Christ, Jer. xxiii. 6-8, speaking of the days of 
tbe gospel, ' The Lord lives that brought up the seed of Israel out of the 
north country.' I leave you to judge; however take it as an allusion. The 
Spirit will be no more false to God in not answering the end of his being put 
into the heart, to cause us to walk in his statutes, than Christ was or can 
be false to God in not answering the end of his designation to the mediatory 
office. This doctrine doth quite subvert the end of the Spirit's coming, and 
being put into the heart of a renewed man, and makes all its work a slight 
and superficial business. 

For a close, then, of this. This doctrine stands firm, I bope. Though it 
be possible and probable, and I may say certain, that the habit of grace in 
a renewed man, considered abstractedly in itself without God's powerful 
assistance, would fall, and be overwhelmed by the batteries of Satan and 
secret treacheries of the flesh, yet it is impossible it should wholly fall, being 
supported by God's truth in his covenant, his power in the performance, 
held up by the intercession of Christ, and maintained by the inhabitation of 
the Spirit. Our wills are mutable, but God's promise unchangeable ; our 
strength is feeble, God's power insuperable ; our prayers impotent, Christ's 
intercessions prevalent. Our sins do meritoriously expel it, but the grace 
of God through the merit of Christ doth eflSciently preserve it. If therefore 
believers fall totally and finally, it must be by themselves, or by the industry 
of some external agent. 

(1.) Not by themselves and their own wills. Not as considered in them- 
selves, but as their wills are the proper subject and seat of this habitual 
grace. They are made ' willing in the day of his power,' Ps. ex. 3 ; and 
they are continued willing by the influence of the same power, for the day 
of his power endures for ever. They will not depart out of Christ's hand, 
because it is the chief part of this grace to determine their wills, and to 
bring down every high imagination which might pervert their wills, to a sub- 
jection to Christ, and fix them upon God as the chief good, and last end. 
Hence being his sheep, and knowing him for their shepherd, they are said 
to hear his voice, and follow him ; so that this perseverance is not a forced 
and constrained work. They cannot totally fall by their own wills, they are 
renewed and strengthened; nor by their own corruption, that is subdued 
and mortified by the Spirit of God, which is continually in arms against it ; 
and if, when it was in its full strength, it could not hinder the power of God's 
grace in conversion, surely when it is thus impaired, and only some relics of 
it (though, alas ! too, too much) abiding, it can less resist thie power of the 
same grace in our preservation. 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak gkace victorious. 263 

Again, not by their own wills, for it is here that grace sets its throne, and 
establisheth the heart. Neither doth that life which is hid with Christ in 
God depend upon the levity of our wills ; it being an abiding life, it hath an 
influence upon our wills to preserve them in a due bent, wherein they are set 
by the Spirit. 

(2.) Not by any external agent. 

[1.] Not by God. The counsel of his election stands firm, and they are 
heirs by an immutable covenant. Though God b}' reason of his omnipotent 
sovereignty might justifiably take grace away, and we deserve it, yet morally, 
in regard of the immutability of his righteousness and truth, he will not. 
Chist will not do it ; he died to purchase it, and lives for ever to preserve it. 
The Spirit will not do it ; the end of his coming and indwelling is to main- 
tain it. 

[2.] Not by the devil ; for ' he that is in us is greater' and stronger ' than 
he that is in the world,' 1 John iv. 4, in all the allurements and afi'right- 
ments of the world. Not by his temptations ; they shall either be inter- 
cepted or resisted by an assisting grace stronger than their author's malice : 
1 Cor. X. 13, ' God is faithful, who will not sufi"er you to be tempted above 
what you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, 
that you may be able to bear it.' 

[3.] Not by the world. If the God of the world cannot do it, the world 
itself shall not be able, Christ hath 'conquered the world' for us by his 
death, John xvi. 23, and hath given us ' power to conquer it by our faith,' 
1 John V. 4. 

Use 2. Matter of comfort. 

This doctrine of the preservation of grace is the crown of glory, and 
sweetness of all other privileges. We should in the midst of regeneration, 
justification, adoption, droop and be Magor-missabibs, tormented with fears 
of losing them. It is the assurance of this that makes believers come to 
Sion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. Premise this I must; 
this comfort belongs only to those that have true grace ; see therefore whether 
you can find any serving-work upon your hearts towards God, before you 
entitle yourselves to the comfort of this doctrine. 

(1.) Our state by redemption and regeneration is better than Adam's by 
creation, in respect of permanency, though not by present integrity. God 
keeps us safer in a state of imperfection, than Adam was in all his innocence. 
Adam had a better nature, and a stronger inherent power conferred upon 
him by creation ; he was created after God's image, but he defaced and lost 
it, and afterwards begat in his own likeness, not in the likeness of God, 
whereof he was stripped. He had a natural power, but no supernatural 
assistance. We have no natural power, but we have a supernatural help. 
Our supernatural assistance confers upon us a better state than his natural 
power did, or could do upon him. We are kept by the power of God to 
salvation, and he was to be kept by his own ; he was to stand by the strength 
of nature, we by the strength of grace: Rom. v. 2, 'Grace wherein you 
stand, through faith ;' 2 Cor. i. 24, ' By faith you stand.' Grace is as im- 
mutable as nature changeable. He was under the government of his own 
free will ; it is our happiness to be under the conduct of the Son of God by 
his Spirit: Rom. viii. 14, ' As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God;' and that by virtue of a charge, a privilege never allowed 
to Adam nor angels, who, being their own keepers, were soon their own de- 
stroyers. He had a natural power to stand, but without a will ; we have a 
gracious power to will, and the act of perseverance conferred upon us. He 
had a power to stand, precepts to stand, promises to encourage him to stand, 



264 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

but not one promise to secure him from falling ; we have both a supernatural 
help, and an immutable promise that the fear of God should be put into 
our hearts to this end, to preserve us from falling, Jer. xxxii. 42. By Christ 
we have not only words of grace to encourage us, but the power of grace to 
establish us ; not only precepts to persevere, but promises that we shall, 
otherwise the promise could be no surer than that annexed to the covenant 
of works. If the condition of it might be as easily lost as the condition of 
Adam's covenant, then would it lose its end, which was to ensure the pro- 
mise or covenant to all the seed : Rom. iv. 16, ' Therefore it is of faith, that 
it might be by grace ; that the promise might be sure to all the seed.' Adam 
was under a mutable covenant, and we under an everlasting one. Adam had 
no reserve of nature to supply nature upon any defect ; we have out of Christ's 
fulness, grace for grace, John i. 16 ; grace for the supply of grace upon any 
emergency. The manner whereby we stand is different from the manner of 
his standing ; he stood in dependence on his original righteousness, which 
being once lost, all the original virtues depending on that were lost with it. 
Our state is secured in higher hands. Christ is made wisdom, &c. : 1 Cor. 
i. 30, ' But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us 
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption ;' all which are dis- 
pensed to us in the streams, but reserved in him as the fountain. He is made 
all those to us, not we to ourselves. Adam's life was hid in himself; ours 
with Christ in God, Col. iii. 3. Our life is as secure in Christ's, as Christ's 
is secure in God. Christ's hand, and his Father's bosom, is not to be rifled 
by any power on earth. Heaven is no place to be pillaged by the serpent. 
Which state, then, is best ? Our nature is restored by the second Adam, 
fundamentally better ; not at present so bright as his, but more permanent. 
The mutability of the first Adam procured our misery ; the strength of the 
second preserves our security. So that a gracious man is better established 
in his little grace, by the power of God, than Adam in his flourishing in- 
tegrity by the strength of his own will. 

(2.) The state of a regenerate man is as secure as the state of the invisible 
church, and more firm than that of any particular visible church in the 
world. You stand upon as good terms as the whole assembly of the first- 
born, and upon a surer foundation than any particular church : Ps. cxxv. 1, 
' They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion, which cannot be 
removed, but abides for ever.' They shall he impregnable ; as stable as that 
mountain of the Lord's house which was to be established on tbe top of the 
mountain, Isa. ii. 2, alluding to that temple built upon mount Moriah, of a 
steep ascent, firmer than all the worldly powers and strongest monarchies, 
compared to mountains in Scriptures. Particular churches may fall. How 
is the glory of many of them vanished ! Particular believers shall not, be- 
cause their standing is in Christ, by virtue of that covenant whereof Christ 
is mediator, and of that promise made to the whole body, wherein the 
interest of every member is included : Mat. xvi. 18, ' The gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it.' Neither the power nor policy of hell ; gates being tbe 
seats of judgment and magazines of arms. The visible church is only so by 
profession and privileges ; an invisible member is so by nature and union. 
Appearance will expire when nature shall abide. The mystical body of 
Christ, and every member of it, can no more die than the natural body of 
Christ can now, or any member of that. No member of Christ's fleshly body 
did or shall see corruption. The knot between the soul and the body is 
natural by the band of vital spirits ; the knot between a true member and 
Christ is supernatural. The second person in the Trinity, being united to 
the body of Christ, kept it from corruption. The third person in the 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 265 

Trinity keeps the union between Christ and a mystical member from dissolv- 
ing, which no particular church in the world, as a church, can lay claim to. 
Though Christ may discard a particular church, yet not a particular elect 
person, because of that agreement between his Father and himself concerning 
those given to him. But we read not of any whole nation or church in the 
world given to Christ as such, and in such a manner as a particular person 
is. There is a diiference between God's electing a people to have the gospel 
preached, and his electing a person to have the gospel wrought in him. The 
standing of any particular church is not for itself, but for the elect in it. 
When God chooseth a nation to be under the preaching of the gospel, it is 
for the sakes of his elect ones sprinkled among them ; and that church stands 
as long as there are elect persons among them to be brought in. When the 
number is gathered into God's fold, the gospel is removed thence, because 
of the rejection of it by the rest. These two elections, of persons and matters,* 
the one to grace, and the other to the enjoyment of the ministry of the gospel, 
are mixed together by the apostle in his discourse, Rom. xi. Some places 
must be understood of the one, and some of the other. When the election 
is said to be void, it is meant of the election of a nation, as the Jews are 
called God's chosen people ; when it is said to stand, it is meant of the 
election of a person : as when we say, man is mortal, and man is immortal, 
it is in different senses, both true : mortal, according to his body ; immortal, 
in respect of his soul. 

(3.) Comfort against the weakness of grace. This is the proper comfort 
of this doctrine. It is, and ought to be, a matter of trouble that our grace 
is so weak ; it should not be a matter of murmuring and despondency. We 
have reason to mourn that our graces are not strong ; we have reason to 
rejoice that we have any at all. Little grace is enrolled in heaven. Not a 
weak member of the invisible church, but hath his name written there, Heb. 
X. 23. How glimmering was the disciples' faith, yet our Saviour bids them, 
in all that weakness, ' Rejoice that their names were written in heaven,' 
Luke X. 20. Could their names have been blotted out again, the joy he 
exhorts them to could not have dwelt with such a ground of fear. As the 
least sin beloved brings us into alliance with the devil, so the least grace 
cherished entitles us to the family of God ; for it is but a rough draught with 
blots, of what God had fairly drawn in the glorified saints. The weakest 
grace gives a deadly wound to sin, and a sure, though not so highly comfort- 
able a title to so abundant an entrance into heaven as a stronger. Do not 
therefore seek your torment, where you should find your comfort. 

[1.] The foundation of weak grace, and the hopes of it, is strong. Every 
new creature hath not an equal strength, but every one hath an equal 
interest in the covenant, and as sure a ground of hope, as the highest. The 
design of God was to make the new covenant secure from the violations of 
the creature : Jer. xxxi. 31, 32, ' I will make a new covenant with the house 
of Israel ; not according to the covenant I made with their fathers, which my 
covenant they brake, though I was an husband to them.' He would make a 
covenant stronger than to be broken by them. That covenant was perpetual, 
in regard of God, for he continued a husband to them, and did nothing to 
dissolve the knot. This is not to be broken by a person in covenant. If 
it could be broken, it would be the same with the other covenant, though 
not in terms, yet in the issue. Now true grace depends upon this covenant : 
ver. 23, ' I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts.' Besides, this covenant and the blessings of it are settled upon 

* Qu. ' nations ' ? — Ed. 



266 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

believers, and eveiy one of them, as an inheritance : Isa. liv. 9, 10, ' I have 
sworn that I will not be wroth with thee : for the mountains shall depart, 
and the hills bo removed ; but my kindness shall never depart from thee, 
neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath 
mercy on thee ;' and that by oath. It could not have been made over in 
surer terms. Mountains, the stablest parts of the creation, that cannot be 
blown away by storms, shall depart at the end of the world, this covenant 
shall not. It proceeds not only from love, but kindness, which is love 
spread with a choicer aflfection. It is a covenant of peace, wherein their 
reconciliation with God, and the blessings following from it, are settled upon 
them, and that as an heritage : ver. 17, * This is the heritage of the servants 
of the Lord ;' and lest they should fall, or lose their righteousness, the latter 
clause secures them, ' and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. 
Whether you understand it of the righteousness of justification or sanctifica- 
tion, it amounts to the same thing. This is the sure mercies of David. 
So that thou hangest upon a covenant settled fast by the promise and oath 
of God, and cemented in every part by the Mediator's blood. God never 
yet broke his word. It depends upon promise ; eternal life was promised 
before the foundation of the world : Titus i. 2, ' In hope of eternal life, 
which (Jod, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.' To whom ? 
To Christ, and in him to all the elect, of what size or stature soever, babes 
as well as strong men. God had time to consider all that unconceivable 
eternity before Christ came, and yet he never repented of this promise of 
eternal life, because he cannot lie, which the apostle lays an emphasis upon. 
When Christ came, all his actions and speeches upon record were pursuant 
to the confirmation of this promise. The Lamb, in whose bosom you are 
carried, was slain from the foundation of the world in the decree of God, and 
voluntary designation of himself. Was there not a long time to consider ? 
and did he not repent of it all that time ? and will he now, since he has paid 
all the price for your grace, and the continuance of it ? Can a little time, 
sixteen hundred years since Christ was in the flesh, make any alteration in 
God's counsel and Christ's design, which eternity could not ? Besides, the 
root is strong though the branch be weak ; buds draw sap from the root, as 
well as the forwarder fruit. The least splinter of wood in a tree is a part 
of the tree. The least atom, though never so small, is a part of the world. 
Every one in Christ is a part of Christ, and hath a share in the promise 
made to him. Is there any distinction or difference made in the covenant 
between weak and strong ? The babe in Christ is as well within the verge 
of it, as the most compact Christian. Never then sadden your souls if you 
find true grace in yourselves, when you are within the arms of an everlast- 
ing covenant. The grace which lies smoking in the chafi" hath fire in it, as 
well as that which flames. 

[2.] All grace, now triumphant, was weak at first. The highest began in 
a seed, a little seed. The waters of the sanctuary, whereby the propagation 
of the gospel in the world, and the operation of it in the heart, is figured ; 
I say, those waters which will perfectly purify the soul, did at first reach 
but to the ankles, Ezek. xlvii. 3-5, after that to the loins, and afterwards 
arise to the height of waters to swim in. Till you read of any grace in 
Scripture without its mixtures, do not despond. Moses had his encomium 
of God's familiar, yet though he struck the rock through faith, he struck 
twice through unbelief, when indeed he was only to speak, not strike. Numb. 
XX. 8, 11, which God interprets unbelief, ver. 12. Abraham, who is honoured 
with the noble title of father of the faithful, had a distrust of God's pro- 
mise : Gen. xii. 2, 3, ' I will make of thee a great nation, I will bless thee ; 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 267 

I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee ;' therefore 
he deals with Lis wife to call herseif his sister for fear of his life in Pharaoh's 
court, Gen. xii. 12 ; and after much more experience of God's truth, in the 
court of Abimelech, Gen. xx. 11. 

[3. J Your stock is sure. Your grace is weak, but the stock in Christ's 
hands for supplj' is full. He keeps it in his own hands. He knows our 
necessity better than we do, and measures supplies by his own wisdom, not 
by our desires ; for ' he feeds them with judgment,' Ezek. xxxiv. 16, i. e. he 
will govern them wisely ; for so that place may be understood. It is our 
happiness that, though we have httle in possession, we have much for our 
necessity. It is our happiness that it is laid so high that we cannot reach it 
but by faith, that we have it not in our hands to squander it away. Were it 
in our own hands, it would quickly be out of them, and we not have a mite left. 
The covenant with us was lounded upon that made with Christ : Isa. lix. 21, 
* This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord ; My Spirit that is upon 
thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of 
thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy 
seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.' ' This is my 
covenant with them,' /. e. made with us in Christ. ' My Spirit that is upon 
thee,' &c. As long as Christ hath the Spirit by virtue of that everlasting 
mediatory covenant, so long shall the Spirit, and the fruits and power of the 
gospel, be in the hearts of his people. ' The words in the mouth of his 
seed' depend upon ' the word put into his mouth,' and ' the Spirit put upon 
him.' The covenant was made with Christ, not for himself, but for his seed, 
and his seed's seed ; made with them, but founded upon him. It was for 
their sakes the Spirit was put upon him, for their sakes that words were put 
into his mouth ; for their sakes for whom he sanctified himself, John xvii., 
even for the sakes of those weak disciples he then prayed for. The words 
put into his mouth were not bare words, but attended with spirit ; not mere 
professions, but operative. And this was to abide upon him for them 
henceforth and for ever ; for he calls it a covenant with them, yet turns and 
speaks to one person. It must, therefore, be for them that this person is 
endowed with the Spirit; otherwise it was not a covenant with them. 

[4.] Christ's charge extends to this weak grace. It was for this reason 
he hath the order given him in the text by his Father ; not for the standing 
reed, or flaming flax, though that is included. The weakest is here com- 
mitted to him, and therefore is as much under his care. To what purpose 
hath Christ this order, if the weakness of grace were a ground of despondency ? 
It is a ground of humiliation, but not of distrust. The gardener that regards 
all his ground, watcheth over the tenderest plants. Our keeper riseth early 
to look after the tender grapes and pomegranate buds. Cant. vii. 12. That 
which is feeble is as much under his conduct as that which is vigorous. He 
was ordered to be a shepherd, whose office is to attend the weak motions of 
the new fallen lambs. His bosom is appointed a place for them. He 
gathereth them by his arms, i. e. converts them by his power, and was to 
carry them in his bosom : Isa. xl. 11, 'He shall feed his flock like a shep- 
herd ; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, 
and shall gently lead those that are with young.' If you can go, he is to 
guide you gently ; if you cannot, he is to bear you tenderly, not on his 
shoulders, merely by strength, but in his bosom, with a tender affection. He 
is not only the shepherd, but bishop of our souls, 1 Peter ii. 25 ; and our 
conversion to him makes us part of his diocese : ' You are returned to the 
shepherd and bishop of your souls.' In all your weakness, he was ordained 
by God for your help : Ps. kxxix. 19, he ' laid help upon one that is mighty ; ' 



268 chaknock's woeks. [Mat. XII, 20. 

mighty to preserve his power, and mighty to use it. Help supposeth per- 
sons most in need of it, as the objects to whom it is to be afforded. Every 
new creature hath not an equal strength, but they have an equal interest in 
the Redeemer's death and merit ; and the weakest may seem more under his 
care than the strongest, because they stand more in need of that office which 
he is entrusted with and delights to exercise. 

[5.] He delights in this charge. It was his delight to do the will of God ; 
yea, and his meat and drink to cherish the beginnings of grace in the Samari- 
tan woman, John iv. 34, because it was his Father's work. Surely it was 
no small part of the joy set before him, that upon his dying he was to be 
invested with a power to perform his Father's charge. He will not there- 
fore refuse to embrace the feeblest saint. He knew how well the soul of his 
Father was pleased with his undertaking this care of the smoking flax, as the 
words intimate : Mat. xii. 18, ' My beloved, in whom my soul is well 
pleased ;' pleased with that which Christ was to do, whereof that in the text 
is a part. God takes particular notice of the beginnings of grace, and Christ's 
affection runs in the same channel with his Father's ; yea, he regards the very 
trembling degrees of it. He overlooks all the philosophers of Athens, who 
boasted themselves to be the grandees in learning, and records only two new 
converts. Acts xvii. 34 : Dionysius, who for all his ability and justice in 
judging controversies, had never had his name set down there but for hia 
faith, and Damaris, a woman. He joins a woman with a judge, to shew 
that he takes notice of the weakest faith, as well as that which is joined with 
the strongest parts. This great man is mentioned only upon the account of 
his faith. See also how he overlooks the infirmities of Job : Job ii. 3, ' Hast 
thou considered my servant Job ?' though he knew them as well as his graces, 
and doth not only approve of him and defend him, but makes his boast of 
him. He makes a public proclamation with joy in the very teeth of the 
devil, though he had so many pure angels about him, that one would think 
he should have spoken of with applause, as well as of a poor mortal. Was 
Job's grace very strong ? What means, then, that multitude of impatient 
expressions scattered in the book ? 

[6. J He wull therefore be faithful in it. His faithfulness is more illustrious 
in regarding the more troublesome parts of his charge, as the fidelity of a 
friend or servant is more evidenced by the difficulty than facility of his trust. 
When he knew how weak we are, and how apt to swerve, had he not been 
resolved to relieve us, he had never sent his Spirit to abide with us for such an 
end. The apostle assures us that the care lies upon him still to confirm us to 
the end : 1 Cor. i. 8, ' Who shall also confirm you to the end, that you 
may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus :' in the day, not before ; 
expect not grace to be triumphant till then. "WTierein the faithfulness of 
God also bears a part, ver. 9 ; and surely those Corinthians were none of 
the strongest, when the apostle doubts whether he should write to them as 
spiritual or as unto carnal. The weakest is his seed, and he will not lose it. 
You cannot value your security more than Christ values the honour of his 
office ; and it being his Father's pleasure that he should exercise it, it doth 
more affect him than the desires of your security can affect you. Suppose he 
himself had no love to grace, yet you cannot doubt but that he hath so much 
respect to his Father as not to displease him by a neglect of that which he 
solemnly committed to him as a pledge of his affection, and a testimony of 
his confidence in him. He will also be faithful to his own glory ; but the 
' fulfilling of the work of faith with power ' is for the glory of his name, 
2 Thes. i. 11, 12. It is one part of the glory he reserves to himself, to be 
admired not only by them that believe, but in them at the last day, ver. 10 ; 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak gbace victorious. 269 

admired in the admirable conduct of their faith through all weaknesses and 
difficulties. 

[7. J He has given evidences of this faithfulness. He never yet put out a 
dim candle that was hghted at the Sun of righteousness. 

(1.) It was his course in the world. He found some smoking flax in the 
ruler : John iv. 47-49, ' Come down and heal my son; come down ere my 
child die.' He thought Christ could cure his son. There was some fire of 
faith, but not unless he came to his house, and that before he died too, as if 
Christ could not recover him by a word, and could not restore him after his 
breath was expired. Christ, according to his office of not quenching smoking 
flax, complies with him ; so Mat. vii. 32. Their faith thought Christ could 
cure their friends, but not unless he laid his hands upon them, yet he grants 
their requests. He easily complies with a weak faith, when he loves to put 
a strong one to its shifts ; as he did in the repulse he gave to the woman of 
Canaan, whose faith afterwards he applauds with admiration, ' woman, 
great is thy faith !' 

(2.) It was his disposition after his resurrection, Luke xxiv. 13. He 
meets with two disciples going to Emmaus, who seem to have thrown away 
all their faith and hope in him, and to be upon the brink of the sin against 
the Holy Ghost : ver. 21, ' We trusted that it had been he that should have 
redeemed Israel.' The next words in course were like to have been, But we 
think him an imposter. But doth Christ with indignation cast them ofi", as 
though he would have no more to do with them ? No ; he takes pains to 
enliven their faith, and takes occasion from their weakness to renew their 
strength ; and that in so eminent a manner, that it seems to be one of the 
most excellent sermons that ever he preached, a comment upon the whole 
Scripture concerning himself, ver. 27. Beginning at Moses, he went through 
all the prophets, and expounded all the Scriptures concerning himself. He 
filled their heads with knowledge, and inspired their hearts with life. 

(3.) After his ascension too. He takes notice of a little strength in Phila- 
delphia, Kev. iii. 8, and opens a door for it that no man can shut. Well, 
did our Redeemer ever yet disappoint a trembling faith, or let a limping 
grace go from him without a blessing ? It is too late surely for him to begin 
now at the close of all things, when the world is almost at an end. 

[8.] Therefore you may in the weakest state expect assistance. The 
weakest grace hath a throne of grace to supply it, a God of grace to delight 
in it, a Mediator of grace to influence it, a Spirit of grace to brood upon it. 
Though our grace be weak, yet the grace of all these are sufficient to preserve 
us. The weakest grace in Christ's hand shall stand, when the strongest 
nature without his guard shall fail. It is not our hold of Christ so much 
preserves us, as Christ's hold of us ; though the faith we hang by be a weak 
thread, yet Christ hath a strong hand. Had you the grace of a glorified 
saint, you could not maintain it without his help, and that is sufficient to 
conduct through the greatest storms into a safe harbour. The ' preserved in 
Christ ' is the happy title of those that are sanctified by God the Father, as 
Jude speaks, ' To them that are sanctified in God the Father, and preserved 
in Jesus Christ, and called.' His mercy is in the heavens; his righteousness 
as the great mountain, stable ; his title issuing from thence is, the preserver 
of man and beast, Ps. xxxvi. 5, 6. And shall not that which is more valued 
by him than man and beast, that which is the cause of his keeping up the 
world, be preserved by him ? • Fear not, thou worm Jacob,' Isa. xli. 14, ' I 
will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.' 
What hath more need to fear than a worm, that is liable to be trod on by 



270 chaenock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

itself? Yet what hath less reason to be afraid, when hacked by such a 
mighty power ? It is a weakness, but fortified by an almighty strength ; it 
hath a power which neither Adam with all his nature, nor the holy angels 
before their confirmation, were ever possessed of. 

Well, then, the weaker thy grace the faster let thy dependence be on 
Christ, and then thou wilt be more secure by that exercise of faith Ihan by 
the strongest grace without it. A small vessel, managed by a skilful pilot, 
may be preserved in a rough sea, when a stronger, left to itself, will dash in 
pieces. 

(4.) Comfort against corruptions. Indwelling and easily besetting sin is 
that which makes a believer hang down his head. Oh this enemy within me 
that I cannot conquer ! surely I shall one day die by the hand of Saul. It 
is our unbelief and the ignorance of the great transaction between God and 
Christ, and the tenor of the covenant of grace, which is the ground of all the 
practical doubts about this doctrine, as well as the notional disputes against 
it. Every member, though it hath boils and scabs, is as much a member of 
the body as the soundest, till it be cut oflf, and that it shall not hath been 
the design of the whole discourse to prove. Christ doth not cut it off, but 
heal it. Is it not a part of the covenant of grace to heal our backslidings ? 
Hosea xiv. 4. When he finds a disease, he cures us by the application of 
his blood, for the end of his stripes was that we might be healed, Isa. liii. 5. 
And though God hath a piercing eye to see every sin, and the malignity of 
every circumstance, yet the motion of his eye that way is not to destroy, but 
to heal : Isa. Ivii. 18, 19, ' I have seen his ways, and will heal him, though 
he walked frowardly.' We speak not now of a course of gross sins. No 
true believer can be guilty of that ; there is a great difference between foul- 
inc the feet in the mire, and a total wallowing in it like a swine with delight 
and pleasure. 

Therefore consider that, 

[l.J Christ's charge extends to this too. Is his charge not to break the 
bruised reed ? He is by the same reason to provide against that which would 
break it. Is he not to quench the smoking flax ? Then he is also to pre- 
vent the extinction of it by any other cause. The charge cannot be supposed 
only to tie his own hands from doing it. Such a comfort would be of a 
small value while we were endangered by powerful enemies. But this charge 
arms him with a commission, and lays a necessity upon him to prevent the 
breaking and quenching of it by any other hand, and therefore obligeth him 
to withstand that which is most able and most likely to do it, viz., indwelling 
sin. Though the devil be our great external enemy, yet this is our greatest 
internal, without whose assistance the keenest arrows of the devil would be 
shot at rovers, and be uncertain in their eflects. Christ, therefore, under- 
taking the work, undertakes ever}' part of the charge, and this among the 
rest. The conquest of this in the soul was the reason of the oblation of 
himself: Titus ii. 14, who gave himself for us, not only to redeem from 
iniquity, but to purify a people pecuhar to himself. Is it agreeable to the 
wisdom of Christ to neglect the main end of his undertaking, which was ' to 
make an end of sin' ? Ban. ii. 4. What end is there if it recover its loss, 
and regain its empire in a believing soul ? It were in vain for him to go to 
heaven to prepare mansions for believers, and send his Spirit to prepare them 
for those mansions, if corruption should get a full head, which would inca- 
pacitate them for ever possessing those mansions. Would he be worthy of 
the name of Saviour, yea, and Salvation, a title God conferred upon him in 
the past ages, if he should not save those that have the mark of God upon 
them from that corruption, without which deliverance they could not enjoy 



Mat. XII. 20.] WEAK GRACE VICTORIOUS. 271 

any real benefit of his purchased salvation ? You have no reason to ques- 
tion his power, and as little to suspect his faithfulness. The distrust of 
either is an unworthy reflection upon that God that chose him for his work 
and upheld him in it. Infinite wisdom and immutable goodness would never 
have pitched upon a person, for the restoration of mankind, of a dubious 
fidelity. This were to disparage his wisdom, sully the glory of his mercy, 
and render the designs of h's goodness insignificant. Shall not this great 
person be thought fit to be trusted by us against our enemies, when we have 
both his own word and his Father's for his willingness and ability, whom 
God thought fit to trust with a power against the greatest enemy he had in 
the world upon his own single promise '? It is unworthy for us to nourish 
jealousies of so great a Redeemer, when God that sent him never had cause 
to have the least suspicion of him. Let me then beg this of any despondent 
soul, not to distrust the Redeemer's faithfulness, till you meet with a person 
of more unblemished fideUty to confide in. 

[2.] He has an enmity against your corruptions. Sin hath done more 
wrong to God than ever it did to us. Can it be thought, then, that he should 
let so injurious an enemy reign in the hearts of any that love God, and are 
beloved by him. Your hatred against it cannot be so great as his, because 
you cannot arrive to an equality of holiness with him. The greater the 
holiness, the greater the hatred of anything contrary to it. Our high priest 
is ' holy, separate from sinners,' and therefore ' made higher than the 
heavens,' Heb. vii. 26. Separate from sin too, in all kinds of affection. 
Letting sin reign in them for whom he is a priest is inconsistent with the 
holiness of his oliice. Had he not had an indignation against sin, and a pity 
to the sinner, he would have spared both the trouble of coming and the pains 
of dying. 

[3.j His residence in heaven is an evidence that this corruption shall be 
destroyed. The heavens must receive him 1 11 the time of the restitution of 
all things. Acts iii. 21, 'Arroy.ardaTasi:, nXuuxsic', so Hesychius. Till the 
time of the perfection of all things. His being there is an evidence that 
things shall be restored to a perfect state. It was promised by God from 
the beginning of the world, all the prophecies were designed to declare it, 
that those things deformed by the devil should be restored to their primitive 
lustre. Things cannot be restored till sin be destroyed, grace fully com- 
pleted, Satan put out of all dominion ; in a word, all his enemies put under 
his feet. And we have the greatest assurance of this ; for G-od hath repeated 
it again and again by all the prophets from the beginning of the world, as 
if God's thoughts run upon nothing else but this, and the spirit of prophecy 
was nothing else but 'the testimony of Jesus' (as indeed it is not, Rev. 
xix. 10), a witness of what Christ was to do. He hath the government to 
restore things. If everything is to be restored, believers certainly shall not 
be left out. It was his main design to expel unbelief and sin out of the 
hearts of his disciples by his gracious exhortations when he was in the world ; 
much more will he do it by his power conferred upon him since his resurrec- 
tion, and possessed by him upon his ascension. He sits king in heaven to 
restore this. 

[4.] It is his glory to conquer them. The stronger our corruptions are, 
the firmer ground hath Christ to glorify his strength in our weakness. If 
they were not so strong and sin so foul, redemption would not appear so 
plenteous. His oflice is chiefly exercised about those. When those are 
fully conquered in all the elect, his oflice ceaseth, and the kingdom is to be 
resigned to the Father. Till then he is a shepherd, and in that respect his 
office is to find his sheep out when they wander, and bring them home. If 



272 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

he came to seek that which was lost, it is no less for his honour to preserve 
that which he hath found. The choicer the thing, and the stronger the op- 
position, the more glory accrues to the preserver of it. Is it for his honour 
to begin a work in thee, and start back from it ? Is it likely he would ever 
have struck a stroke at those hard hearts of ours, if he did not intend to 
make thorough work with them ? He never yet did any work by halves, and 
shall he begin now ? 

[5.] It is already condemned by him. God condemned sin in the flesh 
by the sacrifice of Christ : Rom. viii. 3, ' And for sin condemned sin in the 
flesh.' As at his death there was a general condemnation of sin in its nature, 
so upon faith in this sacrifice, our faith in his blood, there is a particular 
condemnation of sin in its power, as an unrighteous thing, and not fit, by 
reason of its malignity, to have a standing there. He condemned it by his 
holiness in the law, by his justice in the death of Christ, and by his mercy 
in the renewing of thy nature, which is always accompanied with a condem- 
nation, and in part an execution, of sin. When the guilt of thy sin was 
pardoned, the power of thy sin was condemned. As the pardon of the one 
will not be reversed, so neither shall the condemnation of the other. If it 
be condemned by our Saviour in his flesh, it will be conquered in us by his 
Spirit ; for whatsoever was done by Christ as mediator in his person, was an 
evidence of what he would do by his Spirit in his members, according to 
their capacity. Hence they are said 'to be crucified, risen, ascended, and to 
sit in heavenly places with him, not only virtually in him as their head, but 
spiritually in themselves. Shall a dying, gasping sin overpower a living, 
thriving grace ? Sin, therefore, shall be conquered. The Father, by his 
Spirit, will purge away the worms and suckers which may hinder the growth 
and ripening of the fruit : John xv. 2, ' Every branch that bears fruit, he 
purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.' If a branch, though small, 
he will take care to remove the hindrance to its fruitfulness. God foresaw 
what infirmities thou wouldst have, before he gave Christ this commission ; 
and Christ foresaw them before his acceptance of the charge. If their pre- 
science could not stop God in his gift, nor cool Christ in his acceptance, why 
should it now ? But, 

(1.) This conquest is by degrees. It is victory promised in the text ; 
therefore a conflict is implied, and must be endured. Victory doth not 
attend the beginning of a war just at the heels. Some time must be allowed 
between the smoke and flame. Christ must not quench the smoke ; but 
grace may smoke, and only smoke for a while. His charge is to keep that 
which is committed to him, not presently to overthrow its enemies. He will 
eye his authority and instructions, as he is God's servant ; for as he hath 
'received a commandment from his Father,' John xiv. 31, so he acts. He 
will not perfect it in an instant, but at length he will. Light, and a fulness 
of it, is sown for the righteous. It is but sown ; time must be allowed be- 
tween that and the harvest. The new creation is no more than the old was, 
perfected at once. Can you expect your Saviour should make quicker work 
with you than with his disciples when he was upon the earth ? It was his 
pleasure not to reduce them presently to a perfect state. Neither can we 
expect more than our Saviour prayed for, which was not that you should be 
without foils to your faith, but without the failing of your faith. He did not 
desire his Father presently to take them out of a world of sin, or sin pre- 
sently from them, but to preserve them under it from being conquered by it. 
God works to will and to do, but of his own good pleasure ; not as we please, 
but as himself pleaseth. 

(2.) Yet while they do continue, the love of God to thee is not hindered 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victoeious, 273 

by them. The incorruptible seed, which is his own, will more prevail to 
draw out his love than thy infirmities to engage his hatred against thee. 
When Christ hung upon the cross, with all the sins of believers about him, 
God did not withdraw his love from him, because of that righteousness, holi- 
ness, and love to God found in him ; yet he withdrew his comfortable pre- 
sence, to shew his hatred of sin. As God dealt with the head, so he will 
with the members. Especially if your hearts begin to hanker after any sin, 
though he hath engaged not to take away his loving-kindness from you, yet 
he may withdraw his comfort till you have repented of your sin. He may 
chastise you with rods, but will not suffer his faithfulness to fail. He will, 
as a mother, raise you when you fall, but whip you for falling, to cause you 
to take more heed. Christ seems to have had as much reason to cast oflf his 
disciples as ever he had to cast ofi" any believing soul since. None could ever 
forsake him in such extremity as they did, for his person will never be in 
the like straits again. Yet, having once loved them, he loved them to the 
end, and after the end, after his resurrection, as appears by viewing the 
story. And it is to be observed, that though their unbelief, ignorance, and 
pride did often fume from them in the presence of their Master, yet Christ 
mentions none of them in his prayer to his Father ; only their grace : John 
xvii. 6-8, * They have kept thy word ; they have believed that thou didst 
send me.' They had indeed received the word of God, but it was lodged in 
souls very muddy. 

(3.) While they do continue, God by his wisdom and grace draws profit 
to you from them. The very stirring of one sin is sometimes the ruin of 
another ; a gross sin sometimes is the occasional break-neck of spiritual 
pride. The high thoughts Peter had conceived of himself upon the confes- 
sion of Christ, were not scattered till he had as shamefully denied him as 
before he had gloriously confessed him. The thorn in the flesh of that great 
apostle, whether it was an outward temptation or inward corruption, kept 
him upon his level, from being ' lifted up above measure.' Thus doth Christ 
make good his charge by ordering things so by his wisdom, that that which 
would in itself quench the smoking flax is an occasional means to inflame it. 
The fogs, which threaten the choking the sun, make his heat more vigorous 
after the dispersion of those vapours. Neither can sin, because it hath no 
positive being, be excluded from the number of those things which, by the 
oveiTuling grace of God, are ordered to our good, Rom. viii. 28, though it be 
not so in its own nature, since the penmen of Scripture spake not alway accord- 
ing to the rules and terms of philosophy. 

For a close, therefore, of this. Perhaps it is our own fault that our cor- 
ruptions are no more shattered. God hath given you success against some 
sin ; but have your hearts been as much elevated in praise for it, as they 
were before fervent in prayer ? If corruption gather strength, charge not 
God with want of love, but yourselves with want of thankfulness. Prayer 
procures mercy, but praise is a means to continue it. As we must depend 
upon his strength for a victory, so we must acknowledge his strength in our 
success, else he may withdraw his power, and our enemies may thereupon 
reassume new life, and assault us with a greater courage. Again, let not 
anything you have heard of the faithfulness and power of Christ make you 
neglect your duty. Let Asaph be your pattern, Ps. Ixxili., who, after a 
strong conflict with sin, had an assurance that God would guide him by his 
counsel to glory, ver. 24, This makes him not lazy, but quickens him into 
a resolve that it was good, and good for him too, ' to draw nigh to God,' 
ver. 28. God is ready with his counsel to guide us, but we must be ready 
with our petitions. 

VOL. V. s 



274 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

Use 3. Matter of duty. 

(1.) How should men labour to get into a state of grace ! To get within 
the verge of Christ's commission, into such a security which may at last 
bring them to an eternal triumph over death and hell ! Security of estate, 
and security of person and interest, is the main intendment of men in the 
world. But security of soul is least in men's thoughts. Should not this 
latter be as seriously minded ? Were there a strong tower wherein they 
might be infallibly preserved in the time of hostile invasion, and be out of 
the reach of the enemy's battery, how greedy would men be to get under 
the shelter ! Such a strong tower is the name of the Lord, and those that 
put their trust in him shall be safe both against open invasions and secret 
stratagems : Prov. xviii. 10, ' The name of the Lord is a strong tower : the 
righteous runs into it, and is safe.' By the name of the Lord, the Jews 
understand in this place, and in many other, the Messiah appointed for the 
security of the righteous. Methinks every natural man should run with all 
haste into his closet, fall upon his knees, and not rise till he hath that grace 
which is by God's order the subject of Christ's tender care. Methinks he 
should cry and groan, sigh and pray, till he have at least some smoking flax. 
There is no medium ; we must either be under the conduct of Christ, or the 
government of the devil. If we are in our natural state, we are not enrolled 
in Christ's family. There is nothing for Christ, but enough for the devil to 
make victorious. Smoking grace shall grow into a flame of love, and smoking 
sins into a flame of wrath. Smoking grace is under his care, and smoking 
sins under his vengeance. As at the last Christ shall come to be admired in 
all them that believe, i.e. in the conduct of them through grace to happiness, 
so he shall be admired too in the vengeance he shall take upon all them that 
obey not the gospel, 2 Thes, i. 8, 10. 

(2.) Examine whether you have grace or no. It is not lost time to inquire 
whether you have this victorious principle. Put those questions to your 
souls : Have I a sincere resolution to discard my former sin ? Do I most 
abhor my darling lusts ? Is the burden of this body of death my greatest 
grief ? Have I valuations of Christ above all the world ? Would I rather 
be under the gracious government of Christ, than be the greatest prince in the 
world without it ? Do I esteem God my chief good, and delight in spiritual 
converse with him, abovo thousands of gold and silver ? Have I a relish of 
the things of God above all the pleasures of sense ? Is the knowledge of God, 
and excitation of my afiections towards him, my chief light ? Try it by its 
activity. It is a true maxim, Openiri sequitiir esse, to be without operation i» 
not to be. If there be not the operation, there is not the essence of grace. 
It is impossible so active a being as that should lie idle in the soul ; there 
will be smoke, strong desires, ascents upwards, and aims at an heavenly region, 
though sometimes it be hindered in its direct ascent by the violence of the 
winds, as the smoke is. Every creature is active in that which concerns its 
welfare ; gi'ace therefore will be as active as any natural thing whatsoever, 
according to its degrees, because it is a divine communication, a participation 
of the divine nature. It being more noble, and of a choicer extraction, than 
any other creature, it will be more active to resist the invasions of the devil, 
and to move towards God as its chief end. 

Only take these cautions : 

[1.] Judge not of thy want of grace by the not acting of that grace which 
formerly was very vigorous. One grace may for a time cease to act so sen- 
sibly, to give way to the powerful operations of another. John Baptist did 
decrease, that Christ might increase. Graces have their particular seasons 
to traverse the stage of the soul ; sometimes love, sometimes hope, sometimes 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 275 

patience, humility, faith, and dependence, sometinces sorrow for sin, some- 
times joy, &c. 

[2.] Grace may be sometimes oppressed by a temptation, and so may cease 
a sensible acting, but it will recover itself by degrees. 

[3.] If you find upon a diligent search that you have true grace, take heed 
of nourishing jealousies of God, and unbelieving doubts of the care of Christ 
over you. We indeed often have our fears of ourselves upon the clouding 
of our evidences ; and when we have reason to question the truth of our 
grace, we have very good reason to question our standing also. Though we 
have a clear prospect of our grace, and know it to be true, yet there may be 
fears in us of what might have been, had we not this security in Christ's 
commission. As a man upon a high tower, though hemmed in with strong 
battlements, and sure that he cannot fall, yet when he looks down he cannot 
but have some horror and chillness in his blood at the apprehension of what 
might be if he had not that protection.* Neither do I discourage fears in 
ourselves, and fears of those things which may weaken our hopes of salvation, 
for those the apostle joins with a confidence in God : Philip, ii. 12, 13, 
' Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which works 
in you both to will and to do.' Fear yourselves, but have confidence in 
God, a believing fear without an unbelieving jealousy of God's neglect of you ; 
for all doubts of the stability of the covenant, and the perpetual tenderness 
of God, are brats of a natural Pelagianism. Breathe not your unbelieving 
fears in the face of Christ ; it is a wrong to his commission, a disparagement 
to his Father's wisdom, as if he had placed so great a trust in feeble hands, 
and a virtual accusing of God and Christ of the greatest falsity imaginable, 
whereby we make him more base and deceitful than the worst of men ; an 
affronting the main tenor of the covenant of grace, and making the work of 
redemption to bear no better fruits than that of creation. How languishing 
will be our love to God, while we have unworthy suspicions of him, that he 
should love us this day, and be an enemy to us to-morrow ! Can we love 
a man this day that we fear will the next be our deadly enemy ? Let the 
time spent in such jealous thoughts and complaints of God be spent in duty. 
Would it not be a trouble to a loving husband to have his wife complain of 
her fears of his easting her off after the marriage-knot, and reiterated pro- 
mises and assurances of his affection ? Would she not better engage his 
affections by a performance of all oflices of love and duty towards him ? 

[4.] Let not this doctrine encourage any remissness in our known duties. 
Let none encourage themselves to a freedom in sin, and presume upon God's 
preservation of them without the use of the means. No ; the electing counsel 
upon which this victory is founded, chose us to the means as well as to the 
end. He that makes such a consequence, I doubt whether ever he was a 
Christian. I may safely say, that any person that hath a settled, resolved, 
and wilful remissness, never yet was in the covenant of grace, since that pro- 
miseth such a fear of God in the heart which is incompatible with a resolved 
laziness in duty. It is a new heart and a new spirit, not a lazy heart, that 
is the intendment of the covenant. The same will which is the seat of grace 
can never be the settled seat of the neglects of God. God hath promised a 
victory ; but the very promise of victory implies a war, and commands as 
well as encourages a standing to our arms. Victories are never gained by 
sleep and laziness ; camps may be beat up, and throats cut, if guards be 
neglected. He that is not under the influence of the doctrine of grace, never 
had the truth of habitual grace in him. He that hath not learned the lesson 
which the grace or gospel of God teacheth, to ' deny ungodliness and worldly 
* Thes. Salm. de Persever. 



276 chaenock's woees. [Mat. XII. 20. 

lusts,' &c., Titus ii. 11, 12, was never any proficient in Christ's school, never 
had any work of grace. It is the nature of grace to be active. It is a divine 
principle, security a diabolical ; darkness and light cannot blend together in 
intense degrees, Christ and Belial cannot shake friendly hands. Security is 
never the eflect, but the disease, of grace, the death of holiness, and the life 
of sin. That grace which assures us to the end, will make us conscionable 
in the means to attain it. A partial security is also very dangerous in a 
Christian : it will kill our comfort, though it may not destroy our souls ; it 
will impair the beauty of grace, though not its being. Would any but a mad- 
man under a distemper neglect the means to restore his healthfulness, because . 
he were sure to live so long a time ? 

[5. J Admire the grace of God. flow much are we beholding to the grace 
of God, which is at an hourly expense upon us ! As his providence is called 
a continual creation by the efflux of his power, so our preservation in the 
new state is a continual regeneration by the influence of his grace. God, in 
giving thee grace, hath given thee more than if he had given thee all the 
glory of the world. All other things are managed only by a common provi- 
dence, this is put more immediately under Christ's charge. By giving thee 
this, which is a peculiar part of his commission, he hath given thee such a 
guardian, such an advantage, which could never have been gained by a con- 
fluence of all the honours in the world. It is a standing miracle in the 
world, that all the floods of temptations should not be able to quench this 
Uttle heavenly spark in the heart ; that it should be preferred from being 
smothered by the steams of sin which arise in us ; that a little smoking flax 
should smoke and burn in spite of all the buckets of water which are poured 
upon it. To see a rich jewel in a child's hand, with a troop of thieves about 
him snatching at it, and yet not able to plunder, would raise an astonish- 
ment both in the actors and spectators, and make them conclude an invisible 
strength that protects the child, and defeats the invaders. Thus God per- 
fects his strength in our weakness, and ordains matter for praise in the 
mouths and hearts of babes and sucklings. 

[6.] Acknowledge thy standing and thy present victories only to be by 
the grace of God. Give the grace of God its due praise. God hath fixed 
our standing in Christ, and entrusted and charged him with our preservation, 
that grace might triumph in the whole Christian pilgi'image, till we come to 
the land of rest ; that nothing may be heard either in heaven or earth, but 
the acclamations of grace, grace. ' God put no trust in his saints,' Job 
XV. 15 ; in some other person therefore, as the head of them. The ground 
of our perseverance is not in ourselves then, since God puts no trust in us, 
but in another, in the mediator. 

We cannot beat men too much ofi" from themselves ; and therefore to 
strengthen this, take these grounds ; 

(1.) Grace in its own nature is not immutable, nor independent. Immu- 
tability is not intrinsecal to grace ; neither is it, nor can it be, the essen- 
tial property of any creature, though never so high. It is a natural perfection 
belonging only to God. The habit of grace is called an incorruptible seed ; 
not that it is so in its own nature (for it is a creature, and therefore defecti- 
ble ; for mutability is as much belonging to the essence of a creature, as 
immutability to the essence of God. As it is impossible God should be 
mutable, so it is impossible a creature should be in its own nature immuta- 
ble) ; but grace is immortal in respect of that omnipotent power which doth 
attend the principle, and spreads its warm wings over it, as the Spirit over 
the world, to bring it to a perfect beauty and order out of the chaos. If 
grace did not depend upon God in its preservation, but were unchangeable in its 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victoeious. 277 

own nature, it might be counted as perfect as God, whose only prerogative 
it is to be independent and immutable in himself. The heathens could say, 
there was no rb ov, no ens, but God ; in him we have our being, and in him 
only we have our firm and stable being. 

(2.) The same power that doth create, is necessary to preserve. There 
is little difference between creation and conservation : the one gives jmmo 
esse, the other porro esse. The wisdom and power of God is as eminent in 
the preservation and government of the world, as in the rearing of it. We 
are no more able to preserve grace, than we are to create it. We cannot 
preserve our own thoughts, which are the natural products of our minds, 
much less so rich a treasure as grace, which is purely supernatural, and in 
the midst of so many pirates which endeavour to rob us of it. As the first 
habitual grace is by the operation of God's grace in us, so the daily preser- 
vation of it is by his assisting grace, which in a sweet way, and yet effica- 
cious, keeps grace in its station, and carries on the soul to further degrees. 
As it is the preserving power of Grod maintains the world, so the auxiliary 
grace of God maintains grace, and all the exercises of it in the heart, which 
could not else be kept up by all the power of men's wit or will. As the in- 
fluence of the sun is necessary to all natural productions, preservation and 
maturity of them, so is the influence of Christ necessary to all productions 
and preservations of grace. The righteousness whereby we are justified, and 
whence our habitual grace doth spring, is laid up in Christ, and our strength 
too : Isa. xlv. 24, 'In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.' Right- 
eousness to justify us, and strength to preserve us; and as he is our Redeemer, 
laying thereby the foundation of the new creation, so he is our strength 
whereby it is preserved : Ps. xix. 14, ' Lord, my strength, and my 
Redeemer.' The former part of the psalm is by the apostle, in the Romans, 
applied to the times of the gospel. Our redemption and our strength, our 
rjohteou'iness imputed, our righteonsnoss inherent, and our strength, are the 
eli'ects of the same cause ; so that we can no more be our own strength than 
be our own redeemers, nor be our own strength no more than our own right- 
eousness. When Paul complains of his temptation, God answers him that 
his grace should be sufiicient for him ; not the habitual grace in Paul, but 
the assisting grace of God, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Hence it is that the saints in 
Scripture desire so often God to help them, which they need not, if their 
inherent grace were sufficient to preserve them. 

(3.) The standing of those who are in their consummate state in glory, is 
only by grace as the chief cause. The good angels and blessed souls are 
confirmed in that state by a superabounding grace ; for by nature they are 
mutable. Was it the contemplation of the face of God that kept the 
angels firm in that state ? What is the reason some of the angels fell, who 
contemplated God's face at the creation as well as those that stood ? Or is 
it that they see no good which they want, being advanced the highest of any 
creatures ? Was not this the case of the fallen angels ? What good did 
they want which was proper to a created state ?* Besides, confirmation is 
positivus effectus, a positive efi"ect, and therefore must have a positive cause, 
a privative cause not being sufficient to produce a positive effect. Or do 
the good angels and glorified saints continue firm to God, because they know 
that, if they sin, they should be eternally miserable? But this doth not 
become a blessed state, to avoid sin for fear of punishment, rather than love 
of righteousness. Besides, the happiness of heaven could not be eternal, 
nor the joy pure, that is mixed with those fears of falling and losing it. ^ Or 
is il from an aff'ection to the pleasure of the place ? Such a self-principle 
* Bradw. de Causa Dei. 1. ii. c xv. 



278 chaenock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

becomes not the purity of that state. But though their inherent grace, the 
contemplation of God, and deHght in him, may be some means of their 
standing, and methods God useth, yet those are not sufficient of themselves. 
It is God in his incomprehensible grace which preserves them. It is an ex- 
cellent speech of a holy man of our neighbour nation : ' I am sure if my feet 
were in heaven, and Christ should say. Defend thyself, I will hold thee no 
longer ; I should go no farther, but presently fall down in many pieces of 
dead nature.'* If you could find one saint that in that place of glory 
ascribes the beginning or perfection of his salvation to himself, then glory in 
yourselves too. Bat not till then, and I am sure you never will. 

(4.) If all this be true, much less can the best grace in this world pre- 
serve itself, because at best in itself it is weaker than its adversaries. No 
sooner is grace put into the heart, but all the powers of hell are in arms 
against it, and would murder the new-born heavenly nature. Now it being 
a creature weak and imperfect, it cannot be so powerful in operation, as to 
resist the force of a stronger being, and a subtle and insinuating adversary. 
Were there no devils to assault, I do not understand how this principle, so 
weak in itself, were able to make head against the deceitfulness of our own 
hearts. It is the Spirit steps in to quell those destroyers, and brood upon 
his own work in the soul. What! Was it Peter's strength, or God's grace 
in him, that made the difference between him and Judas, between Paul 
and the rest of the persecuting pharisees? It is from God's faithfulness 
that we are established and kept from evil: 2 Thes. iii. 3, 'But the Lord 
is faithful, who shall establish j^ou and keep you from evil.' If God, not 
ourselves; it is true we will, but God works that will in us. We work, but 
the grace of God works that work in us, and for us. If by grace we are 
what we are, it is by grace we do what we do, and that of God's good plea- 
sure, not our merit. Our sufficiency is of God, not of ourselves. Our 
fruitfulness depends upon our abiding in Christ. What can dust and ashes 
do against principalities and powers ? What man is able, without the grace 
of God, to wrestle with an experienced devil '? A smoking flax would quickly 
be blown out or expire after a little blaze, if God did not cherish it; a 
bruised reed would be trod in the dirt, if he did not secure it. A gracious 
man depends upon God, as the steel doth upon the loadstone in the air, 
which, if once separated, will be carried down with its own weight, and be 
reduced to a motion proper to its nature. If God should withdraw bis grace 
from us, the grace in us would not preserve us from falling as low as hell ; 
for of itself it is far more insufficient to preserve us, than the strength which 
angels and Adam had was to preserve them. We are preserved not by any 
inherent power in ourselves, but by the constant touches of God upon our 
wills, whereby he keeps our wills fixed to him. 

Let not, then, our free will usurp the praise which is due only to God's grace. 

(1.) There is danger in it. To ascribe thy standing or victory to thyself, 
is an usher to some scurvy and deplorable fall. When we confide too much 
in ourselves, God leaves us to our own foolish confidence, to reduce us to 
our proper dependency on him. Peter's boasting of the power of his own 
grace was a just cause of his being left to himself, that he might be sensible 
of his own weakness, and the true ground of his security. If we do fall, it 
is not for want of faithfulness in God, but for want of thankfulness in us. 

(2.) It is our sin. So much as we ascribe anything to our own strength, 
so much we rob grace of its glory. We provoke the Lord to jealousy, who 
will not have the glory due to his name ascribed to the creature. 

(3.) The contrary is our advantage. The acknowledgment of our depend- 
* Eutberford's Letters, p. 184. 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victoeious. 279 

ency on God is the way to be preserved ; the more we give God the glory of 
his grace, the more will he give us the comfort of it. 

[T.J Let the falls of others that seem stronger than you make you more 
thankful, and more compassionate. If they make you more thankful, they 
will make you more compassionate. Though you may be engraven with more 
lively characters of God's image, and in an higher manner like to God, yet 
grace is to be acknowledged that kept temptations from overcoming you. 
Let not your pride, but your praise, take encouragement from thence. Think 
not yourselves better, because you are victorious while others are defeated, 
but God more gracious to you. The continuance of his assisting grace was 
the cause of your success, as the withdrawing of it was the cause of the 
other's defeat. If this too much natural corruption be indulged, it is a ground 
to fear we may shortly be his successors in the like fault, or a worse. 

Be more compassionate to others : Gal. vi. 1, * If a man be overtaken in 
a fault, you which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness'; 
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' Let the faults of others 
teach us to exercise the grace of humility in our hearts, and carriage towards 
them. Make not the breach wider by our censures, which is too wide already 
by Satan's power. Restore with meekness, not proud censoriousness ; by a 
dove-like meekness, like that of our Saviour ; the case may shortly be our 
own, and we may stand in need of his assistance for our restoration. To 
pity or help a gracious man in such a case, is to assist Christ in his charge, 
and be his seconds in his duel against the devil, and will be kindly accepted 
by him. God commanded in the law to help a beast, if they saw it in a 
ditch. It is unnatural to let an infant lie on the gi'ound, and not lend a 
hand to lift it up ; much more to let an infant grace, the birth of God and 
charge of Christ, to lie grovelling in the earth by the power of sin. 

[8.] Despise not therefore small grace in any. Is Christ to have a special 
regard to smoking flax and bruised reeds ? Is it fit we should be of a temper 
contrary to our Saviour in despising that which God hath ordered him to 
regard ? Must that be the object of our laughter, which is the object of 
Christ's tenderest care ? Is that to be the subject of our scorn, which is one 
of the chief parts of his commission to take care of? Can he be thought to 
be regenerate, who is of a disposition so contrary to him who ought to be his 
pattern ? If God's soul be well-pleased with Christ's care of small grace, he 
must abominate any temper so opposite to his own and that of his Son. It 
is a pride and a scorn like to that of devils, not a spirit like that of God. As 
the least sin in others must not draw our affection, so the weakest grace in 
others must not lie under our contempt. Would you tread upon a diamond 
because it is little, or shght a star bigger than the whole earth, because it 
seems a little twinkling spark in your eye ? Let us look to it, then, that we 
disesteem not that in another which is of more worth than the whole mass 
of the ungracious world. It is a gallant disposition not to be offended with 
that smoke which doth not offend the Redeemer's eye. 

[9.] Stand fast. Leave not off" till you gain a full victory, till judgment 
be brought forth to victory. It is necessary. He that is not at last victori- 
ous was never any soldier under Christ's pay, or inspired with Christ's 
spirit. Men may think they stand fast, and are] in a prosperous way to 
victory, when they are not : 1 Cor. x. 12, ' Wherefore, let him that thinks 
he stands fast take heed lest he fall.' There must, therefore, be much watch- 
fulness and wariness used. Though this doctrine stands firm, yet such 
exhortations must be used. The word of Christ to Peter, that his faith 
should not fail, was as firm as a rock; yet, Mat. xxvi. 40, 41, 'He saith unto 
Peter, Watch and pray, that you enter not into a temptation ;' he stii's him 



280 charnock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

up particularly to liis watchful guard, though there were two others besides 
that had not that assurance from his mouth, that their faith should not fail, 
as Peter had. Paul promiseth the Corinthians, in the name of God, 1 Cor. x. 
13, 14, that God would not suffer them to be tempted above measure ; must 
they therefore stand idle, and suffer themselves to be carried down the stream 
of a temptation, and leave God wholly to do his work ? No ; ver. 14, he 
draws an argument from this promise to exhort them to do their duty, 
' Wherefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry;' fly, not creep, not go, not walk. 
Promises are not to encourage our laziness, but quicken our industry. Let 
not the charge, then, brought against Ephraim fall upon us, that ' our good- 
ness is like a morning dew,' Hosea vi. 4. When men begin in the spirit, 
and end in the flesh, the end will be both dreadful and shameful. An eternal 
crown is entailed upon a constant faithfulness. Our running in a race near 
to the end will be insignificant, if then our antagonist get the start of us. It 
is by this constancy we come nearest the name of God, which is, ' I am that 
I am,' unchangeable in perfections, and immutable in goodness. Our actions 
should be suitable to the reward promised, which is not for a day or two, but 
for eternity. We must hold on and wrestle till we get the blessing. With- 
out continuance, we lose our pains, and the fruit of them, our crown. Eun 
not slowly; but that you may obtain, let your eye upon the crown; you will 
never else run swiftly, because not cheerfully. But, withal, means must be 
used to stand fast in grace and gain a victory.* God doth not preserve a 
Christian by force, or compel him to keep his standing, as he doth establish 
the earth, or the heavens ; hut by rational means, by promises and precepts 
suitable to the condition of a rational and voluntary agent, and proposing 
affective and alluring arguments to encourage him in his course ; yet he 
leaves not the success barely to this, and the operation of our own wills, but 
attends it with the supernatural power of his Spirit, suitable to the manner 
of our fii'st conversion, which was not by violence, but by the proposals of 
the gospel, and the salvation promised in it, wherein a secret power of the 
Spirit was exerted upon the heart, enlightening the mind, and inclining the 
will, and drawing it with the cords of a man in a way of love, to a compli- 
ance with the gospel promise. So, likewise, in the preservation and progi-ess 
of grace, there is still a secret working of the Spirit of God with outward 
exhortations and admonitions to perseverance, thereby keeping up the new 
habit and new heart in us, quickening it by outward means and rational ways 
suited to the judgment and reason of the new creature ; and thus keeping 
his hand upon the will, he moves it to such ends for which he first touched 
it, and draws it on from one degree unto another, till it comes to perfection. 

Therefore we must not make use of this doctrine to neglect the means 
God hath appointed for the establishing and completing of grace ; since God 
acts with us as rational creatures, we ai'e not only passive but active subjects 
in this work. John assures the behevers that the unction in them should 
preserve them from soul-destroying errors. There is this passive persever- 
ance : 1 John ii. 27, ' As it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.' Must 
they therefore be careless ? No ; ver. 28, he backs it with duty on their 
parts, ' Wherefore, my little children, abide in him ; that, when he shall 
appear, we may have confidence ;' abide in him that certainly abides in you. 
There is scarce a promise in the whole book of God to encourage us, but is 
somewhere or other attended with a precept to quicken us. 

Means. 

(1.) Look well to sincerity. This is the blood and vital spirit which runs 
through the veins of every grace, without which it is not what it seems to 
* Camero de Eccles. p. 227. 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 281 

be. Faith is not faith unless it be unfeigned, and what may seem to be love 
is not so unless it be siocere. Sincerity is that principle in the heart which 
complies with the quickening grace of God, as the vital spirit in a plant doth 
with the beams of the sun, which doth not only make it stand, but grow 
against the injuries of the weather. It was God's manner long ago to have 
a special respect to sincerity : Job viii. 20, ' Behold, God will not cast away 
a perfect man, neither will he help the evil-doer;' DXD^ X7. He will, not 
despise or turn away himself. If a sincere man falls, he will reach out his 
hand to hft him up, as the antithesis manifests. The word being in the 
Hebrew, he will not take the evil-doer by the hand, P^n^ nn N7, implying 
that be doth hold the other, and raise him up. It is our sincerity in with- 
standing the sins and temptations of the world, that the promise of perfect 
sanctification is made to : Rev. iii. 4, 5, ' Thou hast a few names in Sardis 
which have not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk with me in white :' 
they shall be clothed in white. An allusion to the Jewish custom of ad- 
mitting the priests into their office, by clothing them with white as a badge 
of their office and continuance in the priesthood. 'Job held fast his in- 
tegrity,' Job ii. 3 ; and that was a means to preserve and recover him. 
Uncompounded things are least subject to putrefaction, whereas mixed bodies 
easily ferment and corrupt. Sincerity can never be feeble, because the spirit 
of power always attends it : 2 Tim. i. 7, ' For God hath not given us the 
spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.' The apostle 
couples them both together. A single respect to Christ in the midst of 
shaking persecution, is both an evidence of the strong touch of the heart by 
the Spirit, and a preservative against apostasy ; as the standing right of the 
needle in the compass, in the midst of the winds which toss the ship, mani- 
fests its powerful touch by the loadstone, and is a means to direct it in its 
course and preserve it from a wreck. 

(2.) Get a stock of spiritual knowledge, and actuate it often. The grave, 
considering Christian will stand, when the hot-headed professor, like horses 
of the same temper, will jade and sink under the rider in a few miles. Men 
whose religion consists rather in a commotion of their passions than a judi- 
cious and considerate determination of their wills, will quickly flag ; hot 
beginners are not durable ; violent motions, either in naturals or morals, are 
not perpetual ; get the experience of every truth you hear. Experimental 
knowledge is the true ballast of the soul, when mere sound and air is a roll- 
ing and moveable thing. Mere head professors are as light as a cork dancing 
upon every dash of water. An experimental taste of the grace of God, viz., 
that grace of Christ which produceth a coming to him, is a means to be built 
up a spiritual house : 1 Peter ii. 3-5, ' If so be you have tasted that the 
Lord is gracious.' It must be a taste, not only the hearing of a sound ; it 
is not enough to be sound in judgment, but spiritual in taste. Col. i. 23. 
Skilful musicians, who understand the delicacy of the airs in a tune, will 
chain their ears to the sound, when an unskilful person will hsten and stare 
a while, and run away. Our valuations of God are according to the degrees 
of our knowledge ; and our cleavings to him, according to the degrees of our 
estimations of him. Actuate it often ; let thy knowledge sink down to thy 
will, and lie ready by thee, to bring forth new and old upon any exigency. 
Tbe forgetting the precepts and promises of God is the cause of fainting, 
Heb. xii. 5 : ' Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy time and 
strength of salvation,' Isa. xxxiii. 6. As this makes the kingdom of Christ 
stable in the world, so it will the kingdom of grace in our souls. Get, there- 
fore, and actuate a knowledge of the tenor of the covenant, the substance of 
the promises, the nature and ends of Christ's mediation : 'Be strong in the 



282 charnock's woeks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

grace that is in Christ,' 2 Tim. ii. 1, 3 ; have a right understanding of the 
covenant of grace which is manifested in and by Christ, of the stock of grace 
stored up in Christ. This will make you endure hardship as the soldiers of 
Christ ; this will make you high-spirited in the acting of your faith and pleas 
before God, without which both your faith and prayers will be very faint and 
languishing. 

(3.) Best not in small degrees of grace. It is true, weak grace will keep 
close to Christ ; Philadelphia with her little strength kept Christ's words, 
Rev. iii. 8 ; yet that pretended grace that always remains in the same pos- 
ture, may well be suspected as a counterfeit. He that stands at a stay in 
what he supposeth to be grace, never had grace in truth. It is impossible 
anything should be without its essential properties, and it is an essential 
property of grace to grow; it would not else be the seed of God and an im- 
mortal principle. He that hath grace, finds such a pleasure and excellency 
in it, that he can but have little acquiescence in himself without exercise of it. 
If you do not strengthen your grace, you will make way to strengthen your 
doubts. Though weak grace will carry a man to heaven, it will be just as a 
small and weak vessel surprised by a shattering storm, which, though it may 
get to the shore, yet with excessive hardships and fears ; such will sail 
through a stormy sea, and have a daily contest with stormy doubts ready 
to overset their hopes ; whereas a stout ship, well rigged, will play with the 
waves in the midst of a tempest, and at last pass through all difficulties, with- 
out many fears, into its haven. We are not perfect here. Perfection is a 
title peculiar to the blessed : Heb. xii. 23, ' The spirits of just men made 
perfect.' Yet we must press forward towards it, to attain the resurrection of 
the dead, Philip, ii. 11, i.e. such a perfection of holiness which shall be 
the state of glorified souls. When this is our mark, we shall have a further 
progress in the degrees of grace, and by that means be nearer to a complete 
victory. Though a man cannot reach the sun in shooting, yet if he aim at 
it, he shall mount his arrow higher than if he aimed at a shrub. 

Well, then, let our aims be at the highest degrees. He is so far from 
gaining strength that doth not aspire to a further conquest, that he is in 
danger to be beaten out of what he hath, and lose the things which he hath 
wrought. To take up our rest beneath it, is a sign that neither the hatred 
of sin, our enemy, nor the love of God, our friend, were ever sincere and 
well rooted. Not to arrive to a complete victory is our weakness ; not to 
aspire to it is our sin ; for it answers not the design of Christ's coming, which 
was not only that we might have life spiritual and eternal, but an abounding 
life : John x. 10, ' I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly.' Not a decreasing life, or one that stands at a stay. 

(4.) Study much your exemplar and copy. That hope whereby we expect 
to become like Christ in an eternally happy state, must be formed by no 
lower copy than that of Christ himself: 1 John iii. 3, 'He that hath this 
hope, {i. e. to see him as he is) purifies himself, as he is pure ;' not as the 
saints are pure, as Abraham, Noah, Job, Daniel. He that steers himself 
only by the lower exemplars, will be more subject to imperfect draughts and 
failings than he that endeavours to form his soul and life according to the 
original. He that sets the best copy to imitate, will exceed others who 
propose lower patterns, though he may not yet come near the original. The 
apostle directs to study Christ much, who is the foundation of our standing : 
Heb. xii. 3, ' Consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against 
himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds;' consider him as the 
author and finisher of your faith : consider him in his patience on the cross, 
despising the shame, and the success of his heroic temper, and this will in- 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak geace victoeious. 283 

spire YOU with a holy courage under the contradictions of corruptions and 
temptations against your grace. This is our duty : Mat. v. 48, ' Be you 
therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' Christ 
himself commands it when he exhorts them to mount above publicans in 
their duty, and not to conform themselves to the low patterns of the world. 
Some translate it. You shall be pe>fect, enforcing thereby the strength of the 
command ; as men, when they would impose anything by the stress of their 
authority, say, You shall do such a thing, instead of saying. Do such a thing. 
Be as resolute and vigorous in all your duties to God, as he is in all his notes 
of mercy and goodness to you. 

(5.) Be conscientious in the performance of holy duties. A fire which for 
a while shoots up to heaven will faint both in its heat and brightness, 
without fresh supplies of nourishing matter. Bring fresh wood to the altar 
morning and evening, as the priests were bound for the nourishment of the 
holy fire, Lev. v. 12. God in all his promises supposeth the use of means. 
When he promised Hezekiah his life for fifteen years, it cannot be supposed 
that he should live without eating and exercise. It is both our sin and 
misery to neglect the means. Therefore, let an holy and an humble spirit 
breathe in all our acts of worship. If we once become listless to duty, we 
shall quickly become lifeless in it. If we languish in our duties, we shall 
not long be lively in our graces. The loss of the stomach is a sign of the 
loss of health. If we would flourish, we must drink of those waters which 
spring up to everlasting hfe. If we desire our leaves should prosper, we 
should often plant ourselves by the rivers of waters ; we must be where the 
sun shines, the dews drop, and the Spirit blows. If you find yourselves 
growing into a slothful temper, check it betimes, and recall to your minds 
the pleasure you have had in your lively and warm converses with God in 
any duty, and how delightful afterwards both the beauty and comfort of your 
graces were. Liveliness in action is a sign of the continuance of health, and 
liveliness in duty an evidence of the continuance of grace. Let them all be 
performed in the strength of Christ. It is not means or ordinances bring 
judgment to victory, but Christ in theva. 

[1.] Attend upon the word and sacraments. As the word was the seed 
whence grace did spring, so it is the channel through which strength and 
nourishment is conveyed. It is the seed whereby we are begotten, 1 Peter 
i. 23, and the milk whereby we are nourished, 1 Pet. ii. 2. If the stomach to 
our spiritual food grow weak, the vigour of our grace will quickly begin to gasp. 

[2.j Prayer. This is the chiefest duty, and that which makes all others 
more vigorous in their tendency to their end. Our Saviour breathes oat 
strong cries, though he had the strongest assurances of a victorious success, 
Heb. V. 7. Promises of perseverance should be the guides of our prayers. 
We may pray most comfortably for that which we are sure to speed in. The 
Spirit which is sent to comfort us in our fears of miscarrying, is a spirit of 
supplication as well as a spirit of grace, Zech. xii. 10. Where it is most a 
spirit of grace, it will be also most a spirit of supplication. To talk of a 
gracious man that neglects prayer, is as great nonsense as to tell us of a living 
man that doth not breathe. We in all our distresses make our application to 
those that have power in their hands. It is God only draws us to Christ, 
and keeps us with him. It is Christ that is ordered to bring forth judgment 
unto victoiy. To him therefore we must be petitioners. He gives us first 
the grace of desire, that he may with the more honour confer the mercy he 
intends us. Our Saviour sets us a pattern in praying to the Father to 
preserve and keep us, John xvii. We must not therefore be negligent in our 
desires of it, or distrustful of the success, especially when we have encourage- 



284 chaenock's woeks. [Mat. XII. 20. 

ments by Christ's petition for the same thing, who was never denied by his 
Father any request for his people. You have many arguments to use : Ps. 
Ixviii. 28, ' Strengthen, Lord, what thou hast wrought for us.' Let thy 
power preserve what thy power did work. It is as much to the glory of thy 
omnipotent love to second thy own work with thy own strength, as it was to 
begin it. To what purpose, God, wert thou pleased to work it, if thou 
wilt not maintain it ? The arguments of God's glory are most prevalent. 
They were so in the mouth of Moses. Plead the same behevingly, and thou 
wilt find the same success. It is for the glory of God you should be vic- 
torious : ' He which stablisheth us wiih you is God,' 1 Cor. i. 21. Shall 
we think to stand without seeking to the author of our standing ? And that 
you may pray boldly, believe it to be a thing belongiiig to you by virtue of 
Christ's purchase as well as your reconciliation and adoption. If you can 
but pray, you are sure to succeed in the conquest ; and you can never want 
pleas for standing till God cancel the bond of his everlasting covenant, 
and depose Christ from his office of an advocate. Plead these then. God 
cannot deny his own bond, nor resist the exercise of an office of his own 
erecting. 

(6.) Exercise grace much. Graces, as soldiers, well exercised, are more 
fit to engage an invading enemy. Muster them up often, and see thy strength, 
but behold it with humility, prayer, and thankfulness. Living bodies gi'ow 
stronger by moderate exercise, and many things grow rusty and unfit for 
want of use. Graces are compared to armour, Eph. vi., and armour is the 
better for use. Frequent blowing up this fire will make it stronger in itself, 
and more comfortable to us. 

[1.] Faith. It was by faith that out of weakness the ancient worthies were 
made stronger, Heb. xi. 24. It was this made Abraham the father of the faith- 
ful, and it will make all the children mighty men of valour, Rom. iv. 24. It is 
a mighty expression, Ps. cxlvii. 11, « The Lord taketh pleasure in them that 
fear him : in those that hope in his mercy ;' as if the dehght and content of 
his being were maintained by this grace. He takes pleasure to relieve 
and pleasure to support them. Mercy cannot be so hard-hearted as to deny 
assistance to that faith that cHngs about it. Should God do so, he would 
cast ofi" that pleasure. You can never ofi'end him by the straitest clasping, 
or pain him by too close embraces. The faster you hold him, the less power 
will indwelling sin or watchful Satan have to drag you from him, for the 
more you hold him, the more he holds you. You do not only apprehend 
him, but are apprehended by him. A sling and stone, with faith in the name 
of the Lord, will be more successful to pierce the head of Goliath with his 
whole army of Philistines, than if you did march clothed with Saul's armour. 
Faith will do more than all the arms and ammunition of moral philosophy, 
80 much furbished and trimmed up in our day. It is to faith all the 
victorious acts of a Christian, through the whole Scripture, are ascribed. 
Faith quencheth the fiery darts of the devil ; faith purifies the heart from 
inward corruptions ; faith wrestles with principalities and powers ; faith gets 
the victory over the world ; faith preserves us by engaging God's power for 
us ; and faith in all this contest never leaves us till it lands us in heaven. 
It is the prime piece in the Christian armour whereby we gain the victory, 
and therefore there is such an emphasis set upon it, as if though a man had 
all the rest and wanted this, he would be foundered in all his attempts : Eph. 
vi. 16, ' Above all taking the shield of faith ;' as if all other pieces, though 
very gallant and strong, were nothing to this to keep ofi" the darts of the 
enemy. It is a grace worthy the exercise. Other graces may fail, and the 
soul recover ; but if faith fail, all is gone. The acting of all our graces 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 285 

depends upon the strength and acting of our faith. The stronger our faith, 
the greater our stabiUty ; the weaker our faith, the more tottering our 
standing. If the soul could at the first go out to God in acts of faith, when 
its corruptions had the first blow given them, and found success, much more 
encouragement hath it to launch out to Christ and renew the same faith, 
since the wounds upon its lusts are both more numerous and deeper. 

|"2.] Patience. I mean not patience under afilictions, but a patient wait- 
ing ; there is need of patience to uphold us in a course of obedience, and 
need of it also to strengthen our expectations of reward : Heb. x. 36, ' Ye 
have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, you may 
receive the promise.' God in the course of his providence seems sometimes 
to turn the back of his promise upon us ; there is need of a patient waiting, 
till it turn again and march towards us. He sometimes lets loose the devil 
upon us, and then we fear the waters will swallow up our souls, and that 
our spiritual enemies will utterly defeat us ; there is need of patience, till 
God pulls back the chain whereby he holds our enemy. Christ accom- 
plisheth the most glorious things by degrees ; as he doth not give all grace 
in a moment, so he doth not perfect it in a moment. Patience must endure 
in the wholes military exercise. We cannot lay it aside till we gain the 
victory. It is as necessary as faith, to entitle us to the inheritance of the 
promises of perseverance and victory : Heb. vi. 12, ' Through faith and 
patience inherit the promises.' Without it, we cannot believe in hope 
against hope ; without it, we can never run our race, Heb. xii. 1. 

[3.] Love. Love adds weight to the soul, and suffers not the affections 
easily to be divorced from the endeared object. The holy angels are fixed 
in their standing by grace as the principal cause, by the purity of their love 
as the internal principle. An intelligent and purified love will not forsake a 
choice object. The iron mixed with drossy particles runs not so quick, nor 
sticks so close to the loadstone, as the refined and best tempered steel. 
Men embrace not the truth as truth for want of faith, and they fall from it 
for want of love : 2 Thess. ii. 10, ' They receive not the love of the truth.' 
They receive the truth, but not the love of the truth. The purer our love, 
the faster we shall stick to that rock which is our strength. God is the 
strength of those that love him : Ps. xviii. 1, ' I will love thee, Lord, my 
strength.' 

[4. J Humility. God gives grace to the humble ; then surely the greatest 
supplies of grace in our deepest exercises of humility. We should find the 
very workings of God's gi-ace more powerful in us, in the very exercises of 
this grace. Christ finds those most strangers to him, that are most proud 
of themselves. He that is not sensible of his own weakness, is never like to 
have recourse to another for strength. To trust in our grace, is to make 
our grace a god, because the principal object of the creature's trust is God, 
and it belongs to him to be so as the highest good. Now to make our 
inherent grace the chief object of our trust, is to own it to be as good as 
God, and as sufficient as God to keep its standing. A conceit of our 
strength may make us seem bigger, but in reality it makes us weaker. All 
the humours in the soul run to the boil of pride. Tearfulness of ourselves 
is a good prologue to a firmness in God, it will make us more strongly lay 
hold of his power, and more earnestly plead his faithfulness. Exercise it 
most after the conquest of a temptation ; then it is our time to take heed of 
spiritual pride, we may else overcome one temptation, and sink under 
another. Pride after a victory gives the enemy an opportunity of success, 
lipon a new assault with a fresh recruit. Humility is as necessary to pre- 
serve us after a conquest, as faith was to arm and strengthen us for it. 



286 chaknock's works. [Mat. XII. 20. 

(7.) Frequently renew settled and holy resolutions. A soldier unresolved 
to fight may easily be defeated. True and sharpened courage treads down 
those difficulties which would triumph over a cold and wavering spirit. 
Resolution in a weak man will perform more than strength in a coward. 
The weakness of our graces, the strength of our temptations, and the diU- 
gence of our spiritual enemies, require strong resolutions. We must be 
' stedfast and unmoveable,' and this will make us ' abound in the work of the 
Lord,' 1 Cor. xv. 58. Abundant exercise in God's work will strengthen the 
habit of grace, increase our skill in the contest, and make the victory more 
easy and pleasant to us. Let them be believing, humble resolutions in the 
strength of God's grace, with a jealousy of yourselves ; not a vaunting 
resolution in the strength of your own wills, a fear of ourselves, but a confi- 
dence in God. David bound himself to God with a hearty vow, depending 
upon his strength : Ps. cxix. 106, ' I have sworn, and I will perform it, that 

1 will keep thy righteous judgments.' ' I have sworn,' &c., but not in his 
own strength, for, ver. 107, he desires God to quicken him, and to accept 
the ' free-will offering of his mouth,' ver. 108, i.e. the oath which proceeded 
from a free and resolved will. God will not slight, but strengthen the affec- 
tionate resolutions of his creature. We cannot keep ourselves from falling, 
if we first keep not our resolutions from flagging. 

(8.) Look often back upon your state under convictions, and the first 
state of conversion. Measure your present complexion by your former 
temper. Cast up your accounts often, and see whether you thrive or decay, 
and renew yom- former dispositions. It is our Saviour's counsel : Rev. ii. 5, 
' Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do thy first works ;' which 
cannot be done without reflection upon thy wonted delight in God, thy 
desires for him, and the sweet communications dispensed by him. Inquire 
into the cause of thy decay. This is a necessary attendant upon this act 
of remembrance, for it is not a bare simple act of memory Christ commands, 
but a diligent inquisition by a practical remembrance. A timely observance 
of the cause of our loss, will prevent many future ones ; without this act, 
the devil will creep in and finish his business before we are aware. It is a 
pleasure to reflect upon the time of danger wherein we have been, and to 
recount the methods God used in our delivery, and the resolutions we then 
entertained: Isa. xxxiii. 18, 'Thy heart shall meditate terror,' i.e. thou • 
shalt consider what thy troubles were, what the frame of thy heart was, what 
terrors thou hadst intlay distress ; for it is spoken of the gospel- times, when 
they shall ' see the King in his beauty.' So likewise it is useful to recall to 
our memory what desires, what fervency in prayer, what holy vows there 
were in and upon us, when we were under a wounded spirit, and act the 
same fervours over again. This would restore and inflame the heart more 
in duty, and enable thee for the contest, by calling into thy assistance the 
supplies of all the habitual grace thou hast had since those firsts heats. 
Remember then the strength of thy appetite to the word ; how your zeal 
did glow, what sprightliness in your affections, with what devotion your 
prayers were winged, with what stoutness your faith did breathe, how high 
it did climb, with what detestation you entertained the motions to sin, with 
what courage you entered into the lists of temptations, how quick and nimble 
your obedience was, what a freshness and verdure was upon all your graces. 
Remember those, and do the same works. 

(9.) Cherish any breathing of the Spirit. Man is unable to keep his 
knowledge and evangelical impressions upon himself without the Spirit : 

2 Tim. i. 14, ' That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by 
the Holy Ghost which dwells in us.' If we cannot keep the knowledge and 



Mat. XII. 20.] weak grace victorious. 287 

form of sound words agreeable to that affection in man whereby he desires 
knowledge, much less can we preserve grace in us, which is more stomached 
by corrupted nature. Men have a natural desire to know, but no natural 
desire to be gracious. Christ promised the Spirit to abide with us, and 
shall we slight his harbingers which come to prepare the way for a more 
powerful residence ? We can never prize the assistance of the Holy Ghost, 
if we neglect the auxiliary force he sends us. Those heavenly motions are 
the Spirit's orders. How can we expect to gain the victory, when we neglect 
the directions and conduct of our great general ? Perseverance is no more 
to be ascribed to our own wills, than our first conversion. As without the 
Spirit we could never by the power of our own wills turn to God, so without 
the continuance of his efficacy, the will would never keep with God, but 
would start from him. "We are forgetful creatures, therefore need a monitor ; 
stupid creatures, therefore need a quickener. The main reason of our falls 
is a non-attendance to those motions ; for we cannot ascribe them to the 
Spirit's carelessness, but our own. We cannot suppose him negligent in 
his office, but ourselves in our duty. Grace cannot live, if you neglect this 
oil put into the lamp to preserve it from expiring. The Spirit's motions are 
the physic he uses for the removal of that which endangers the health of our 
grace, and cordials to strengthen the languishing spiritual nature to a 
recovery of itself. Neglect him not, therefore, but when you find him turn- 
ing his back, withdrawing his motions, and beginning to grieve, do what you 
can to delight him. Beg, pray, cry, with an holy imitation of David, ' Lord, 
take not thy Holy Spirit from me,' Ps. li. 11. 

(10.) Take frequent views of glory. An heavenly conversation will 
quicken our graces, enUven our duties ; while the vigour of both is kept 
up, the heart cannot flag in the ways of God. Can a man be lazy in a 
duty, when he considers he must pray, hear, meditate, walk for heaven ? 
The heat of our graces will be more purer and more durable, when we 
approach nearest, and lie closest under the sunbeams. Glory in the eye 
will encourage grace in the heart, and quicken a resolution against tempta- 
tions, and contempt of the foolish pleasures and enticements of the world, 
as the glory set before Christ made him despise the shame of the cross. 

I might add more ; — 

(1.) Look to the first flagging of thy heart, thy first remissness in religious 
duties. Slothful proceedings become not fervent beginnings. 

(2.) Be much in the duty of mortification. Shake ofi' every weight, Heb. 
xii. 1, that may weaken thee in thy course. Those that are to run a race, 
or go to a battle, cany not burdens with them. 

(3.) Entertain wise considerations of the worst that may happen in your 
Christian course. Prepare against the worst, though it may never come 
upon you. Consider the fury of persecutors, the diligence of the devil, the 
multitude of temptations, and what promises are suited to elevate you above 
them. 

(4.) Remember the promise. This will stay us in our wavering : Heb. 
X. 23, ' Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering ; for he 
is faithful that promised.' 



A DISCOURSE OF THE SINFULNESS AND 
CURE OF THOUGHTS. 



And God saw that the wickedness of man icas great in the earth, and that 
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. — 
Gen. VI. 5. 

I KNOW not a more lively description in the whole book of God, of the natu- 
ral corruption derived from our first parents, than these words ; wherein you 
have the ground of that grief which lay so close to God's heart, ver. 6, and 
the resolve thereupon to destroy man, and what was serviceable to that un- 
grateful creature. That must be highly offensive which moved God to repent 
of a fabric so pleasing to him at the creation, every stone in the building 
being, at the first laying, pronounced good by him ; and upon a review, at 
the finishing of the whole, he left it the same character with an emphasis, 
' very good,' Gen. i. 31. There was not a pin in the whole frame but was 
'very beautiful,' Eccles. iii. 11; and being wrought by infinite Wisdom, 
Ps. civ. 24, it was a very comely piece of ai't."^' What, then, should provoke 
him to repent of so excellent a work ? ' The wickedness of man, which was 
great in the earth.' How came it to pass that man's wickedness should 
swell so high ? Whence did it spring ? From the imagination. Though 
these might be sinful imaginations, might not the superior faculty preserve 
itself untainted? Alas! that was defiled. The imagination of the thoughts was 
evil. But though running thoughts might wheel about in his mind, yet they 
might leave no stamp or impression upon the will and affections. Yes, they 
did. The imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil. Surely all 
could not be under such a blemish : were there not now and then some pure 
flashes of the mind ? No, not one ; every imagination. But granting that 
they were evil, might there not be some fleeting good mixed with them ; as a 
poisonous toad hath something useful ? No, only evil. Well, but there 
might be some intervals of thinking, and though there was no good thought, 
yet evil ones were not always ruling there. Yes, they were continually ; not 
a moment of time that man was free from them. One would scarce imagine 
sucli an inward nest of wickedness, but God hath afiirmed it ; and if any 
man should deny it, his own heart would give him the lie. 
Let us now consider the words by themselves. 

* nej/xaxxt; TiKiouoynfjLot. — Euseb. rrapir. Evang. 



Gen. YI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 289 

IV'', imagiuatioD, properly signifies fir/mentum, of IV" to afflict, press, or 
form a thing by way of compression. And thus it is a metaphor taken from 
a potter's framing a vessel, and extends to whatsoever is framed inwardly in 
the heart, or outwardly in the work. It is usually taken by the Jews for 
that fountain of sin within us. Mercer tells us it is always used iu an evil 
sense. " But there are two places (if no more) wherein it is taken in a good 
sense : Isa. xxvi. 3, 'whose mind is stayed;' and 1 Chron. xxix. 18, where 
David prays, that a disposition to offer willingly to the Lord might be pre- 
served in the * imagination of the thoughts of the heart of the people.' In- 
deed, for the most part it is taken for the evil imaginations of the heart, as 
Deut. xxxi. 21, Ps. ciii. 14, &c. The Jews made a double figment, a good 
and bad ; and fancy two angels assigned to man, one bad, another good ; 
which Maimonides interprets to be nothing else but natural corruption and 
reason.f This word imagination being joined with thoughts, implies not 
only the complete thoughts, but the first motion or formation of them, to 
be evil. 

The word heart is taken variously in Scripture. It signifies properly that 
inward member, which is the seat of the vital spirits ; but sometimes it sig- 
nifies, 1, the understanding and mind : Ps. xii. 2, ' With a double heart do 
they speak ;' i. e. with a double mind, Prov. viii. 5. 2. For the will : 
2 Kings X. 30, ' All that is in my heart ;' i. e. in my will and pui'pose. 
3. For the afiections ; as, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart ;' i. e. with all thy affections. 4. For conscience : 2 Sam. xxiv. 6, 
' David's heart smote him ;' i. e. his conscience checked him. But heart 
here is used for the whole soul, because (according to Parens his note) the 
soul is chiefly seated in the heart, especially the will, and the afiections her 
attendants ; because, when any aff'ection stirs, the chief motion of it is felt 
in the heart. So that, by the ' imaginations of the thoughts of the heart,' 
are here meant all the inward operations of the soul, which play their part 
principally in the heart , whether they be the acts of the understanding, the 
resolutions of the will, or the blusterings of the affections. 

Only evil. The vulgar mentions not the exclusive particle pi, and so 
enervates the sense of the place. But our neighbour translations either 
express it as we do, only ; or to that sense, that they were certainly, or no 
other than evil. 

Continually. The Hebrew ^ITI 73, all the day, or every day. Some 
translations express it verbatim as the Hebrew. Not a moment of a man's 
life, wherein our hereditary corruption doth not belch out its froth, even 
from his youth, as God expounds it, Gen. viii. 21, to the end of his hfe.| 

Whether we shall refer the general wickedness of the heart iu the text to 
that age, as some of the Jesuits do, because, after the deluge, God doi^h not 
seem so severely to censure it ; or rather take the exposition the learned 
Rivet gives of it, referring the first part of the verse, * And God saw that the 
wickedness of man was great in the earth,' to thoje times, and the second 
part to the universal corruption of man's natm-e, and the root of all sin in 
the world; the Jesuits' argument will not be very valid, for the extenut - 
tion of original corruption, from Gen. viii. 21. For if man's imaginations be 
evil ' from his youth,' what is it but in another phrase to say they were so 
' continually' ? But suppose it be understood of the iniquity of that age, 
may it not be applied to all ages of the world ? David complains of the 

* Alii roctius dicunt non esse "1V^ nisi in malum. Merc, in loc. 
t nian -^T y-in tV^ IIOD-IV^ Mamon. More Nevoch. par. iii. cap. 22. Amam. Cen- 
sur. in locum. % Rivet, in Gen. excrcit. 51. 

VOL. V. T 



290 chaenock's wobks. [Gen. VI. 5. 

•wicljedness of his own time, Ps. xiv. 8, Ps. v. 9 ; yet St Paul applies it to 
all mankind, Rom. iii. 12. Indeed, it seems to be a description of man's 
natural pravity, by God's words, after the deluge. Gen. viii. 21, which are 
the same in sense, to shew that man's nature, after that destroying judgment, 
was no better than before. Every word is emphatical, exaggerating man's 
defilement. Wherein consider the universality, 

1. Of the subject, * every man.' 

2. Of the act, ' every thought.' 

3. Of the qualification of the act, ' only evil.' 

4. Of the time, ' continually.' 

The words thus opened aff'ord us this proposition : 

That the thoughts, and inward operations of the souls of men, are natu- 
rally universally evil, and highly provoking. 

Some by cogitation mean not only the acts of the understanding, but those 
of the will, yea, and the sense too. But indeed that which we call cogitation, 
or thought, is the work of the mind ; imagination, of the fancy.* It is not 
properly thought till it be wrought by the understanding, because the fancy 
was not a power designed for thinking, but only to receive the images im- 
pressed upon the sense, and concoct them, that they might be fit matter for 
thoughts ; and so it is the exchequer wherein all the acquisitions of sense are 
deposited, and from thence received by the intellective faculty. So that 
thoughts are inclwative in the fancy, comummative in the understanding, ter- 
minative in all the other faculties. Thought first engenders opinion in the 
mind ; thought spurs the will to consent or dissent ; it is thought also which 
spirits the affections. 

I will not spend time to acquaint you with the methods of their generation. 
Every man knows he hath a thinking faculty, and some inward conceptions, 
which he calls thoughts ; he knows that he thinks, and what he thinks, 
though he be not able to describe the manner of their formation in the womb, 
or remember it any more than the species of his own face in a glass. 

In this discourse, let us first see what kind of thoughts are sins. 

1. Negatively. A simple apprehension of sin is not sinful. Thoughts 
receive not a sinfulness barely from the object. That may be unlawful to be 
acted which is not unlawful to be thought of. Though the will cannot will 
sin without guilt, yet the understanding may apprehend sin without guilt ; 
for that doth no more contract a pollution by the bare apprehension, than 
the eye doth by the reception of the species of a loathsome object. Thoughts 
are morally evil when they have a bad principle, want a due end, and con- 
verse with the object in a wrong manner. Angels cannot but understand 
the offence which displaced the apostate stars from heaven, but they know 
not sin cof/nitione practicd. Glorified saints may consider their former sins, 
to enhance their admirations of pardoning mercy. Christ himself must needs 
understand the matter of the devil's temptation ; yet Satan's suggestions to 
his thoughts were as the vapours of a jakes mixed with the sunbeams, with- 
out a defilement of them. Yea, God himself, who is infinite purity, knows 
the objects of his own acts which are conversant about sin ; as his holiness 
in forbidding it, wisdom in permitting, mercy in pardoning, and justice in 
punishing. But thoughts of sin in Christ, angels, and glorified persons, are 
accompanied with an abhorrency of it, without any combustible matter in 
them to be kindled by it. As our thoughts of a divine object are not gra- 
cious, unless we love and delight in it, so a bare apprehension of sin is not 
positively criminal, unless we delight in the object apprehended. As a sin- 
ful object doth not render our thoughts evil, so a divine object doth not 
* Cartes. Frincip. Philos., part i. sect, ix. 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 291 

reuder them good, because we may think of it with undue circumstances, as 
unseasonably, coldly, &c. And thus there is an imperfection in the best 
thought a regenerate man hath ; for though I will suppose he may have a 
sudden ejaculation without the mixture of any positive impurity, and a simple 
apprehension of sin, with a detestation of it, yet there is a defect in each of 
them, because it is not with that raised affection to God, or intense abhor- 
rency of sin, as is due from us to such objects, and whereof we were capable 
in our primitive state. 

2. Positively. Our thoughts may be branched into first motions, or such 
that are more voluntary. 

1. First motions : those unfledged thoughts and single threads, before a 
multitude of them come to be twisted and woven into a discourse ; such as 
skip up from our natural corruptions, and sink down again, as fish in a river. 
These are sins, though we consent not to them, because, though they are 
without our will, they are not against our nature, but spring from an inordi- 
nate frame, of a different hue from what God implanted in us. How can the 
first sprouts be good, if the root be evil ? Not only the thought formed, but 
the very formation, or first imagination, is evil. Voluntariness is not neces- 
sary to the essence of a sin, though it be to the aggravation of it. It is not 
my will or knowledge which doth make an act sinful^ but God's prohibition. 
Lot's incest was not ushered by any deliberate consent of his will. Gen. xix. 
33, 35, yet who will deny it to be a sin, since he should have exercised a 
severer command over himself than to be overtaken with drunkenness, which 
was the occasion of it ? Original sin is not effective voluntary, in infants, 
because no act of the will is exerted in an infant about it ; yet it is volun- 
tary subjective, because it doth inhcErere voluntati. These motions may be 
said to be voluntary negatively, because the will doth not set bounds to them, 
and exercise that sovereign dominion over the operations of the soul which 
it ought to do, and wherewith it was at its first creation invested. Besides, 
though the will doth not immediately consent to them, yet it consents to the 
occasions which administer such motions, and therefore, according to the 
rule, that causa causcB est causa causati, they may be justly charged upon our 
Bcore. 

2. Voluntary thoughts, which are the blossoms of these motions : such 
that have no lawful object, no right end, not governed by reason, eccentric, 
disorderly in their motions, and like the jarring strings of an untuned in- 
strument. The meanest of these floating fancies are sins, because we act 
not in the production of them as rational creatures ; and what we do with- 
out reason, we do against the law of our creation, which appointed reason 
for our guide, and the understanding to be rh Yiyz/Movuhv, the governing power 
in our souls. 

These may be reduced to three heads. 

I. In regard of God. II. Of ourselves. III. Of others. 

I. In regard of God. 

1. Cold thoughts of God. When no affection is raised in us by them. 
When we dehght not in God, the object of those thoughts, but in the thought 
itself, and operation of our mind about him, consisting of some quaint notion 
of God of our own conceiving ; this is to dehght in the act or manner of 
thinking, not in the object thought of; and thus these thoughts have a foliy 
and vanity in them. They are also sinful in a regenerate man, in respect of 
the faintness of the understanding, not acting with that vigour and sprightli- 
ness, nor with those raised and spiritual affections, which the worth of such 
an object doth require. 

2. Debasing conceptions, unworthy of God. Such are called in the 



chaknock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

heatlien ' vain imaginations :' Rom. i. 21, hakoyioixoTg, their reasonings about 
God ; who, as they ' glorified not God as God,' so they did not think of God 
as God, according to the dignity of a deity. Such a mental idolatry may be 
found in us, when we dress up a god according to our own humours, humanize 
him, and ascribe to him what is grateful to us, though never so base : Ps. 
1. 21, ' Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; ' which 
is a grosser degrading of the Deity than any representation of him by material 
images ; because it is directly against his holiness, which is his glory, Exod. 
XV. 11 ; applauded chiefly by the angels, Isa. vi. 3 ; and an attribute which 
he swears by, Ps. Ixxxix. 35, as having the greatest regard to the honour of 
it. Such an imagination Adam seemed to have, conceiting God to be so 
mean a being, that he, a creature not of a day's standing, could mount to an 
equality of knowledge with him. 

3. Accusing thoughts of God, either of his mercy, as in despair ; or of his 
justice, as too severe, as in Cain, Gen. iv. 13. Of his providence : Adam 
conceited, yea, and charged God's providence to be an occasion of his crime : 
Gen. iii. 12, ' The woman whom thou gavest to be with me.' His posterity 
are no juster to God, when they accuse him as a negligent governor of the 
world : Ps. xciv. 11, ' The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are 
vanity.' What thoughts ? Injurious thoughts of his providence, ver. 7, as 
though God were ignorant of men's actions ; or, at best, but an idle spectator 
of all the unrighteousness done in the world, not to regard it though he did 
see it. And they in the prophet were of the same stamp, that said in their 
hearts, Zeph. i. 12, ' The Lord will not do good, neither will ke do evil' 
From such kind of thoughts most of the injuries from oppressors, and mur- 
murings in the oppressed, do arise. 

4. Curious thoughts about things too high for us. It is the frequent 
business of men's minds to flutter about things without the bounds of God's 
revelation. Not to be content with what God hath published is to accuse 
him, in the same manner as the serpent did to our first parents, of envying 
us an intellectual happiness: Gen. iii. 5, ' God knows that your eyes shall 
be opened.' Yet how do all Adam's posterity long after this forbidden fruit ! 

II. In regard of ourselves. Our thoughts are proud, self-confident, self- 
applauding, foolish, covetous, anxious, unclean, and what not ? 

1. Ambitious. The aspiring thoughts of the first man runs in the veins 
of his posterity. God took notice of such strains in the king of Babylon, 
Isa. xiv. 13, 14, when he said in his heart, ' I will exalt my throne above 
the stars of God, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like 
the Most High.' No less a charge will they stand under that settle themselves 
upon their own bottom, ' establish their own righteousness, and will not 
submit to the righteousness of God's appointment,' Rom. x. 3. The most 
forlorn beggar hath sometimes thoughts vast enough to grasp an empire. 

2. Self-confident. Edom's thoughts swelled him into, a vain confidence of 
a perpetual prosperity ; and David sometimes said, in the like state, that he 
should never be moved. 

3. Self-applauding. Either in the vain remembrances of our former 
prosperity, or ascribing our present happiness to the dexterity of our own wit. 
Such flaunting thoughts had Nebuchadnezzar at the consideration of his 
settling Babylon, the head and metropohs of so great an empire : Obad. 3, 
* That saith in his heart. Who shall bring me down to the ground ?' Dan. 
iv. 30, ' Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the 
kingdom ? ' &c. Nothing more ordinary among men than overweening reflec- 
tions upon their own parts, and ' thinking of themselves above what they 
ought to think,' Eom. xii. 3, 4. 



GeX. VI. 5.] THE SINFULNESS AND CURE OF THOUGHTS. 293 

4. Ungrounded imaginations of the events of things, either present or 
future. Such wild conceits, like meteors bred of a few vapours, do often 
frisk in our minds. (1.) Of things present. It is likely Eve fooHshly 
imagined she had brought forth the Messiah when she brought forth a mur- 
derer : Gen. iv. 1, 'I have gotten a man the Lord ' (as in the Hebrew, ^'^i^ 
nin''"nX), beHeving (as some interpret) that she had brought forth the pro- 
mised seed. And such a brisk conceit Lamech seems to have had of Noah, 
Gen. V. 29. (2.) Of things to come, either in bespeaking false hopes, or ante- 
dating improbable griefs. Such are the jolly thoughts we have of a happy 
estate in reversion, which yet we may fall short of. Haman's heart, Esther 
vi. 6, leaped at the king's question, ' What shall be done to the man whom 
the king delighteth to honour?' fancying himself the mark of his prince's 
favour, without thinking that a halter should soon choke his ambition. Or 
perplexing thoughts at the fear of some trouble which is not yet fallen upon 
us, and perhaps never may. How did David torture his soul by his unbe- 
lieving fears, 1 Sam. xxvii. 1, that he should one day perish by the hand of 
Saul ! These forestalling thoughts do really afiect us. We often feel 
caperings in our spirits upon imaginary hopes, and shiverings upon conceited 
fears. These pleasing impostures and self-afflieting suppositions are signs 
either of an idle or indigent mind, that hath no will to work, or only rotten 
materials to work upon. 

5. Immoderate thoughts about lawful things. When we exercise our minds 
too thick, and with a fierceness of affection above their merit ; not in sub- 
serviency to God, or mixing our cares with dependencies on him. Worldly 
concerns may quarter in our thoughts, but they must not possess all the 
room, and thrust Christ into a manger ; neither must they be of that value 
with us as the law was with David, sweeter than the honey or the honey- 
comb. 

III. In- regard of others. All thoughts of our neighbour against the rule 
of charity r ' Such that imagine evil in their hearts, God hates,' Zech. viii. 
17. These principally are, 1, envious, when we torment ourselves with 
other's fortunes. Such a thought in Gain, Gen. iv. 5, upon God's acceptance 
of his brother's sacrifice, was the prologue to, and foundation of, that cursed 
murder. 2. Censorious, stigmatizing every freckle in our brother's conver- 
sation, 1 Tim, vi. 4. S. Jealous and evil surmises, contrary to charity, which 
' thinks no evil,' 1 Cor. xiii. 5. 4. Revengeful ; such made Haman take 
little content in his preferments, as long as Mordecai refused to court him, 
Esther v. 13 ; and Esau thought of the days of mourning for his father, 
that he might be revenged for his brother's deceits : Gen. xxvii. 41, ' Esau 
said in his heart,' &c. 

There is no sin committed in the world but is hatched in one or other of 
these thoughts. But beside these there are a multitude of other volatile con- 
ceits, like swarms of gnats buzzing about us, and preying upon us, and as 
frequent in their successions as the curlings of the water upon a small breath 
of wind, one following another close at the heels. The mind is no more 
satisfied with thoughts than the first matter is with forms, continually shift- 
ing one for another, and many times the nobler for the baser, as when upon 
the putrefaction of a human body, part of the matter is endued with the 
form of vennin. Such changeable things are our minds in leaving that which 
is good for that which is worse, when they are inveigled by an active fancy, 
and Bedlam affections. This ' madness is in the hearts of men while they 
live,' Eccles. ix. 8, and starts a thousand frenzies in a day. At the best, our 
fancy is like a carrier's bag, stuffed with a world of letters, having no depend- 
ence one upon another ; some containing -business, others nothing but froth. 



294 charnock's works. [Gen. YI. 5. 

In all these thoughts there is a further guilt in three respects, viz. 1, 
delight ; 2, contrivance ; 3, reacting. 

1. Delight in them. The very tickling of our fancy by a sinful motion, 
though without a formal consent, is a sin, because it is a degree of compla- 
cency in an unlawful object. When the mind is pleased with the subject of 
the thought, as it hath a tendency to some sensual pleasure, and not simply 
in the thought itself, as it may enrich the understanding with some degree 
of knowledge. The thought indeed of an evil thing may be without any 
delight in the evil of it, as philosophers deUght in making experiments of 
poisonous creatures, without delighting in the poison as it is a noxious 
quality. We may delightfully think of sin without guilt, not delighting in 
it as sin, but as God by his wise providential ordering extracts glory to him- 
self, and good to his creature. In this case, though a sinful act be the 
material object of this pleasure, yet it is not the formal object, because the 
delight is not terminated in the sin, but in God's ordering the event of it to 
his own glory. But an inchnation to -a sinful motion as it gratifies a corrupt 
affection is sin, because every inclination is a malignant tincture upon the 
affections, including in it« own nature an aversion from God, and testifying 
sin to be an agreeable object ; and without question there can be no inclina- 
tion to anything without some degree of pleasure in it, because it is impossible 
we can incline to that which we have a perfect abhorrency of. Hence it 
follows that every inclination to a sinful motion is consensus inchoatiis, or a 
consent in embryo, though the act may prove abortive. If we think of 
any unlawful thing with pleasure, and imagine it either in fieri or facto esse, 
it brings a guilt upon us as if it were really acted ; as when, upon the con- 
sideration of such a man's being my enemy, I fancy robbers rifling his goods 
and cutting his throat, and rejoice in this revengeful thought as if it were 
really done, it is a great sin, because it testifies an approbation of such a 
butchery, if any man had will and opportunity to commit it ; and though it 
be a supposition, yet the act of the mind is really the same it would be if 
the sinful act I think of were performed ; or when a man conditionally 
thinks with himself, I would steal such a man's goods, or kill such a person, 
if I could escape the punishment attending it, it is as if he did rob and 
murder him, because there is no impediment in his will to the commission 
of it, but only in the outward circumstances ; nay, though it be a mere 
ens intentionale or rationis, which is the object of the thought, yet the act 
of the mind is real, and as significant of the inclination of the soul as if the 
object were real too : as if a man hath an unclean motion at the sight of a 
picture, which is only a composition of well-mixed and well-ordered colours ; 
or at the appearance of the idea of a beauty framed in his own fancy, it is 
as much uncleanness as if it were terminated in some suitable object, the 
hindrance being not in the will, but in the insufliciency of the object to con- 
cur in such an act. Now, as the more delight there is in any holy service, 
the more precious it is in itself, and more grateful to God, so the more plea- 
sure there is in any sinful motion, the more malignity there is in it. 

2. Contrivance. When the delight in the thought grows up to the con- 
trivance of the act (which is still the work of the thinking faculty). When 
the mind doth brood upon a sinful motion to hatch it up, and invents 
methods for performance, which the wise man calls artificial inventions, 
Eccles.vii. 29, niJnK^n, so a learned man* interprets diaXoyiS/ioi 'Trov'/j^oi, Mat. 
XV. 19, of contrivances of murder, adultery, &c. And the word signifies 
properly, reasonings. When men's wits play the devils in their souls, in 
inventing sophistical reasons for the commission and justification of their 
* Dr Hammoud on Mat. xv. 19. 



Gen. VI. 5. J the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 295 

crimes, with a mighty jollity at their own craft, such plots are the trade of a 
wicked man's heart. A covetous man will be working in bis inward shop 
from morning till night to study new methods for gain ;^' and voluptuous and 
ambitious persons will draw schemes and models in their fancy of what they 
would outwardly accomplish : ' They conceive mischief, and bring forth 
vanity, and theii- belly prepares deceit,' Job xv. 35. Hence the thoughts 
are called the ' counsels,' 1 Cor. iv. 5, and ' devices of the heart,' Isa. xxxii. 
7, 8, when the heart summons the bead, and all the thoughts of it, to sit in 
debate as a private junto about a sinful motion. 

3. Reacting sin after it is outwardly committed. Though the individual 
action be transient, and cannot be committed again, yet the idea and image 
of it remaining in the memory may, by the help of an apish fancy, be repeated 
a thousand times over with a rarefied pleasare, as both the features of our 
friends, and the agreeable conversations we have had with them, may with a 
fresh relish be represented in our fancies, though the persons were rotten 
many years ago. 

Having thus declared the nature of our thoughts, and the degrees of their 
guilt, the next thing is to prove that they are sins. 

The Jews did not acknowledge them to be sins,t unless they were blas- 
phemous, and immediately against God himself. Some heathens were more 
orthodox, and, among the rest, Ovid, whose amorous pleasures one would 
think should have smothered such sentiments in him.:}: The Lord (whose 
knowledge is infallible) ' knows the thoughts of men that they are vanity, 
Ps. xciv. 11 ; yea, and of the wisest men too, according to the apostle's in- 
terpretation, 1 Cor. iii. 20. And who were they that ' became vain in their 
imaginations,' but the wisest men the carnal world yielded : the Grecians, 
the greatest philosophers, the Egyptians their tutors, and the Romans their 
apes ? The elaborate operations of an unregenerate mind are fleshly, Rom. 
Tiii. 5, 7. If the whole web be so, needs must every thread. 'The thought 
of foolishness is sin,' Prov. xxiv. 9 (/. e. a foolish thought, not objectively a 
thought of folly, but one formally so) ; yea, ' an abomination to God,' Prov. 
XV. 26. As good thoughts and purposes are acts in God's account, so are 
bad ones. Abraham's intention to offer Isaac is accounted as an actual 
sacrifice, Heb. xi. 17, James ii. 21 ; that the stroke was not given was not 
from any reluctance of Abraham's will, but the gracious indulgence of God. 
Sarah had a deriding thought, and God chargeth it as if it were an outward 
laughter and a scornful word : Gen. xviii. 12, 15, ' Therefore Sarah laughed 
within§ herself, saying,' &c. Thoughts are the words of the mind, and as 
real in God's account as if they were expressed with the tongue. 

There are three reasons for the proof of this, that they are sins. 

1. They are contrary to the law, which doth forbid the first foamings and 
belchings of the heart, because they arise from an habitual corruption, and 
testify a defect of something which the law requires to be in us, to correct 
the excursions of our minds : Rom. vii. 7, 'I had not known lust, except the 
law had said. Thou shalt not covet.' Doth not the law oblige man as a 

* 2 Pet. ii. 14, xao^iav 'ytyv/iya(rfi.'tvnv Tali ■^-Xtovilixi;, a heart exercised in covetous 
practices, 
t Kimchi in Ps. Ixvi. as quoted by Grotius in Mat. v. 20. 

t ' Ut jam servaris bene corpus, adultera mens est, 
Nee custodiri, ni velit, ilia potest. 
Nee mentem servare potes, licet omnia claudas : 
Omnibus occlusis intus adulter erit.' 

— Ovid. Amor. 1. iii. Eleg. iv. v. 5, &c. 
2 Nny?D3 in visceribus suit, Targum. 



296 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

rational creature ? Shall it then leave that part, which doth constitute him 
rational, to fleeting and giddy fancies ? No ; it binds the soul as the principal 
agent, the body only as the instrument. For if it were given only for the 
sensitive part, without any respect to the rational, it would concern brutes 
as well as men, which are as capable of a rational command and a voluntary 
obedience, as man without the conduct of a rational soul. It exacts a con- 
formity of the whole man to G-od, and prohibits a deformity, and therefore 
engageth chiefly the inward part, which is most the man. It must then 
extend to all the acts of the man, consequently to his thoughts, they being 
more the acts of the man than the motions of the body. Holiness is the 
prime excellency of the law, a title ascribed to it twice in one verse : Rom. 
vii. 12, ' Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and 
good.' Could it be holy, if it indulged looseness in the more noble part of 
the creature ? Could it he just, if it favoured inward unrighteousness ? Could 
it be good, and useful to man, which did not enjoin a suitable conformity to 
God, wherein the creature's excellency lies ? Can that deserve the title of a 
spiritual law, that should only regulate the brutish part, and leave the spiritual 
to an unbounded licentiousness ? Can j^^^foction be ascribed to that law 
which doth countenance the unsavoury breathings of the spirit, and lay no 
stricter an obhgation upon us than the laws of men ? Mat. v. 28. Must not 
God's laws be as suitable to his sovereignty, as men's laws are to theirs ? 
Must they not then be as extensive as God's dominion, and reach even to 
the privatest closets of the heart ? It is not for the honour of God's holiness, 
righteousness, goodness, to let the spirit, which bears more flourishing 
characters of bis image than the body, range wildly about without a legal 
curb. 

2. They are contrary to the order of nature, and the design of our creation. 
Whatsoever is a swerving from our primitive nature is sin, or at least a con- 
sequent of it. But all inchnations to sin are contrary to that righteousness, 
wherewith man was first endued. Man was created both with a disposition 
and ability for holy contemplations of God ; the first glances of his soul were 
pure ; he came every way complete out of the mint of his infinitely wise and 
good Creator ; and when God pronounced all his creatures good, he pro- 
nounced man very good amongst the rest. But man is not now as God 
created him, he is ofi' from his end, his understanding is filled with lightness 
and vanity. This disorder never proceeded from the God of order ; infinite 
goodness could never produce such an evil frame; none of these loose inven- 
tions were of God's planting, but of man's seeking : Eccles. vii. 29, ' God 
made man perfect ; but they have sought out many inventions.' No ; God 
never created the intellective, no, nor the sensitive part, to play Domitian's 
game, and sport itself in the catching of flies. 'Man that is in honour, and 
understands not ' that which he ought to understand, and thinks not that 
which he ought to think, 'is like the beasts that perish,' Ps. xlix. 20; he 
plays the beast, because he acts contrary to the nature of a rational and im- 
mortal soul. And such brutes we all naturally are, since the first woman 
believed her sense, her fancy, her affection, in their directions for the attain- 
ment of wisdom, without consulting God's law, or her own reason. Gen. iii. 6. 
The fancy was bound by the right of nature to serve the understanding. It 
is then a slighting God's wisdom to invert this order, in making that our 
governor which he made our subject. It is injustice to the dignity of our 
own souls, to degrade the nobler part to a sordid slavery, in making the 
brute have dominion over the man, as if the horse were fittest to govern 
the rider. It is a falseness to God, and a breach of trust, to let our minds 
be imposed upon by our fancy, in giving them only feathers to dandle, and 



Gen. YI. 5.1 the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 297 

chaff to feed on, instead of those braver objects they were made to converse 
Withal. 

3. We are accountable to God, and punishable for thoughts. Nothing is 
the meritorious cause of God's wrath but sin. The text tells us, that they 
were once the keys which opened the flood-gates of divine vengeance, and 
broached both the upper and nether cisterns, to overflow the world. If they 
need a pardon — Acts viii. 22, ' If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be 
forgiven thee' — (as certainly they do), then, if mercy doth not pardon them, 
justice will condemn them. And it is absolutely said, Prov. xii. 2, ' That a 
man of wicked devices,'* or thoughts, ' God will condemn.' It is God's prero- 
gative, often mentioned in Scripture, to ' search the heart.' To what purpose, 
if the acts of it did not fall under his censure, as well as his cognisance ? 
He ' weighs the spirits,' Prov. xvi. 2, in the balance of his sanctuary, and 
by the weights of his law, to sentence them, if they be found too light. 
The word doth discover and judge them : Heb. iv. 12, 13, ' It divides 
asunder the soul and spirit,' the sensitive part, the affections, and the 
rational, the understanding and will ; both which it doth dissect, and open, 
and judge the acts of them, even the thoughts and intents, li/^u/x^ffswv xa/ 
snoioov, whatsoever is within the ^ufj^og, and whatsoever is within the vov;, 
the one referring to the soul, the other to the spirit. These it passeth a 
judgment upon, as a critic censures the errata even to syllables and letters 
in an old manuscript. These we are to render an account of (as the Syriac 
renders those words, ver. 13, ivith ivhom we have to do). Of what ? Of the 
first bubblings of the heart, the motions, and intents of it. The least speck 
and atom of dust in every chink of this little world is known and censured 
by God. If our thoughts be not judged, God would not be a righteous judge. 
He would not judge according to the merit of the cause, if outward actions 
were only scanned, without regarding the intents, wherein the principle nad 
end of every action lies, which either swell or diminish the malignity of it. 
Actions in kind the same, may have different circumstances in the thoughts 
to heighten the one above the other ; and if they were only judged, the most 
painted hypocrite might commence a blessed spirit at last, as well as the 
exactest saint. It is necessary also for the glory of God's omniscience. It 
is hereby chiefly that the extensiveness of God's knowledge is discovered, 
and that in order to the praise or dispraise of men, 1 Cor. iv. 5, viz., to 
their justification or condemnation. Those very thoughts will accuse thee 
before God's tribunal, which accuse thee here before conscience, his deputy : 
Rom. ii. 15, 16, ' Their thoughts the mean while {i.e. in this life, while 
conscience bears witness) accusing or excusing one another, in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men ;' i. e. and also at the day of judgment, 
when conscience shall give in its final testimony, upon God's examination of 
the secret counsels. This place is properly meant of those reasonings con- 
cerning good and evil in men's consciences, agreeable to the law of nature 
imprinted on them, which shall excuse them, if they practise accordingly, or 
accuse them, if they behave themselves contrary thereunto. But it will hold 
in this case, for if those inward approbations of the notions of good and evil 
will accuse us for our contrary practices, they will also accuse us for our 
contrary thoughts. Our good thoughts will be our accusers for not observ- 
ing them, and our bad thoughts will be indictments against us for complying 
with them.f It is probable the soul may be bound over to answer chiefly for 
these at the last day ; for the apostle chargeth Simon's guilt upon his 

* nintD C'''K. A man of thoughts, i. e. evil thoughts, the word being usually- 
taken in an ill sense. 

t Non solum opus, sed mali operis cogitatio pocnas luet. — Ilieron. in Hosea vii. 



298 chaenock's works. [Gen. YI. 5. 

thought, not his word, aud tells him pardon must be principally granted for 
that. Acts viii. 22. The tongue was only an instrument to express what his 
heart did think, and would have been wholly innocent, had not his thoughts 
been first criminal. What, therefore, is the principal subject of pardon, 
would be so of punishment ; as the first incendiaries in a rebellion are most 
severely dealt with. And if (as some think) the fallen angels were stripped of 
their primitive glory, only for a conceived thought, how heinous must that 
be which hath enrolled them in a remediless misery ? 

Having proved that there is a sinfulness in our thoughts, let us now see 
what provocation there is in them, which jp some respects is greater than 
that of our actions. But we must take actions here in sensu diviso, as dis- 
tinguished from the inward preparations to them. In the one there is more 
of scandal, in the other more of odiousness to Grod. G-od, indeed, doth not 
punish thoughts so visibly, because, as he is governor of the world, his 
judgments are shot against those sins that disturb human society ; but he 
hath secret and spiritual judgments for these, suitable to the nature of the 
sins. 

Now thoughts are greater in respect, 

1. Of fruitfulness. The wickedness that God saw great in the earth was 
the fruit of imaginations. They are the immediate causes of all sin. No 
cockatrice but was first an egg. It was a thought to be as God, Gen. iii. 5, 
that was the first breeder of all that sin under which the world groans at 
this day ; for Eve's mind was first beguiled in the alteration of her thought, 
2 Cor. xi. 3. Since that, the lake of inward malignity acts all its evil by 
these smoking steams. Evil thoughts lead the van in our Saviour's cata- 
logue, Mat. XV. 19, as that which spirits all the black regiment which march 
behind. As good motions cherished will spring up in good actions, so loose 
thoughts favoured will break out in visible plague-sores, and put fire unto 
all that wickedness which hes habitually in the heart, as a spark may to a 
whole stock of gunpowder. The ' vain babblings' of the soul, as well as 
those of the tongue, ' will increase to more ungodliness,' 2 Tim. ii. 16. 
Being thus the cause, they include virtually in them all that is in the eflect ; 
as a seed contains in its little body the leaves, fruit, colour, scent, which 
afterward appear in the plant. The seed includes all, but the colour 
doth not virtually include the scent, or the scent the colour, or the leaves the 
fruit. So it is here, one act doth not include the formal obliquity of another ; 
but the thought which caused it doth seminally include both the formal and 
final obliquity of every action, both that which is in the nature of it, and in 
the end to which it tends. As when a tradesman cherisheth immoderate 
thoughts of gain, and in the attaining it runs into 'many foolish and hurt- 
ful lusts,' 1 Tim. vi. 9, there is cheating, lying, swearing, to put ofi' the 
commodity ; all these several acts have a particular sinfulness in the nature 
of the acts themselves, besides the tendency they have to the satisfying an 
inordinate afiection, all which are the spawn of those first immoderate thoughts 
stirring up greedy desires. 

2. In respect of quantity. Imaginations are said to be continually evil. 
There is an infinite variety of conceptions, as the psalmist speaks of the sea, 
* wherein are all things creeping innumerable, both small and great,' and a 
constant generation of whole shoals of them ; that you may as well number 
the fish in the sea, or the atoms in the sunbeams, as recount them. 

There is a greater number in regard of the acts, and in regard of the 
objects. 

1. In regard of the acts of the mind. 

(1.) Antecedent acts. How many preparatory motions of the mind are 



Gen. YI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 299 

there to one wicked external act ! * Yea, how many sinful thoughts are twisted 
together to produce one deUberate sinful word ! All which have a distinct 
guilt, and, if weighed together, would outweigh the guilt of the action ab- 
stractedly considered. How many i-epeated complacencies in the first 
motion, degrees of consent, resolved broodings, secret plottings, proposals of 
various methods, smothering contrary checks, vehement longings, dehghtful 
hopes, and forestalled pleasures in the design ! All which are but thoughts 
assenting or dissenting, in order to the act intended. Upon a dissection of 
all these secret motions by the critical power of the word, we should find a 
more monstrous guilt than would be apparent in the single action, for whose 
sake all these spirits were raised. There may be no sin in a material act, 
considered in itself, when there is a provoking guilt in the mental motion. 
A hypocrite's religious services are materially good, but poisoned by the ima- 
gination skulking in the heart that gave birth unto them. It is the wicked 
mind or thought f makes the sacrifice (a commanded duty), 'much more an 
abomination to the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 27. 

(2.) Consequent acts. When a man's fancy is pregnant with the delightful 
remembrance of the sin that is past, he draws down a fresh guilt upon him- 
self ; as they did in the prophet, in reviving the concurrence of the will to the 
act committed, making the sensual pleasure to commence spiritual, and, if 
ever there were an aching heart for it, revoking his former grief by a renewed 
approbation of his darhng lust : Ezek. xxiii. 3, 19, ' Yet she multiphed her 
whoredoms in calling to remembrance the days of her youth,' &c. ; ver. 21 , 
' The lewdness of her youth.' Thus the sin of thoughts is gi-eater in regard 
of duration. A man hath neither strength nor opportunity always to act, but 
he may always think, and imagination can supply the place of action ; or if 
the mind be tired with sucking one object, it can with the bee presently 
fasten upon another. Senses ai'e weary till they have a new recruit of spirits ; 
as the poor horse may sink under his burden, when the rider is as violent as 
ever. Thus old men may change their outward profaneness into mental 
wickedness ; and as the psalmist remembered his old songs, Ps. Isxvii. 5, 6, 
60 they their calcined sins in the night with an equal pleasure. So that you 
see there may be a thousand thoughts as ushers and lacqueys to one act, as 
numerous as the sparks of a new lighted fire. 

2. In regard of the objects the mind is conversant about. Such thoughts 
there are, and attended with a heavy guilt, which cannot probably, no nor 
possibly, descend into outward acts. A man may in a complacent thought 
commit fornication with a woman in Spain, in a covetous thought rob another 
in the Indies, and in a revengeful thought stab a third in America, and that 
while he is in this congregation. An unclean person may commit a mental 
folly with every beauty he meets ; a covetous man cannot plunder a whole 
kingdom, but in one twinkling of a thought he may wish himself the pos- 
sessor of all the estates in it. A Timon, a /j,iad',§poj-o;, cannot cut the throats 
of all the world ; but, like Nero, with one glance of his heart he may chop 
off the heads of all mankind at a blow. An ambitious man's practices are 
confined to a small spot of land, but with a cast of his mind he may grasp an 
empire as large as the four monarchies. A beggar cannot ascend a throne, 
but in his thoughts he may pass the guards, mui-der his prince, and usurp 
the government. Nay, further, an atheist may think there is no God, Ps. 
xiv. 1, i. e., as some interpret it, wish there were no God, and thus in thought 
undeify God himself, though he may sooner dash heaven and earth in pieces 

* 'Av ?£ irauTov 'iviohy ivoi^vis * avS^wri, -ro'tKiXo)/ xai ^of.vra^is rxftiTiv xccxaJv iv^r,(TU; xai 
^n(ravrHff,.a, &c. — Pluiarck. Moral, p. (mihi) 500. 
t nDTQ, with a wicked thought. 



800 charnock's works. [Gen. YI. 5. 

than accomplish it. The hodj is confined to one object, and that narrow 
and proportionable to its nature; but the mind can wing itself to various 
objects in all parts of the earth ; where it finds none, it can make one ; for 
fancy can compact several objects together, coin an image, colour a picture, 
and commit folly with it Avhen it hath done ; it can nestle itself in cobwebs 
spun out of its own bowels. 

3. In respect of strength. Imaginations of the heart are onlij, i. e. purely 
evil. The nearer anything is in union with the root, the more radical 
strength it hath. The first ebullitions of light and heat from the sun are 
more vigorous than the remoter beams ; and the steams of a dunghill more 
noisome next that putrefied body than when they are dilated in the air. 
Grace is stronger in the heart operations than in the outward streams ; and 
sin more foul in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart than in the act. 
In the text the outward wickedness of the world is passed over with a short 
expression ; but the Holy Grhost dwells upon the description of the wicked 
imagination, because there lay the mass, Ps. v. 9. Man's inward part is very 
wickedness, Hlin D2 "ip, a whole nest of vipers. Thoughts are the immediate 
spawn of the original corruption, and therefore partake more of the strength 
and nature of it. Acts are more distant, being the children of our thoughts, 
but the grandchildren of our natural pravity ; besides, they lie nearest to 
that wickedness in the inward part, sucking the breast of that poisonous 
dam that bred them. The strength of our thoughts is also reinforced by 
being kept in, for want of opportunity to act them ; as liquors in close 
glasses ferment and increase their sprightliness. Musing, either carnal or 
spiritual, makes the fire burn the hotter, Ps. xxxix. 3 ; as the fury of fire is 
doubled by being pent up in a furnace. Outward acts are but the sprouts ; 
the sap and juice lies in the wicked imagination or contrivance, which hath 
a strength in it to produce a thousand fruits as poisonous as the former. 
The members are the instruments or ' weapons, o'rrXa, of unrighteousness,' 
Rom. vi. 13 ; now the whole strength which doth manage the weapon lies in 
the arm that wields it, the weapon of itself could do no hurt without a force 
impressed. Let me add this too, that sin in thoughts is more simply sin. 
In acts, there may be some occasional good to others, for a good man will 
make use of the sight of sin committed by others to increase his hatred of 
it ; but in our sinful thoughts there is no occasion of good to others, they 
lying locked up from the view of man. 

4. In respect of alliance. In these we have the nearest communion with 
the devil. The understanding of man is so tainted, that his wisdom, the 
chiefest flower in it, is not only earthly and sensual (it were well if it were 
no worse), but devilish too, James iii. 15. If the flower be so rank, what 
are the weeds ? Satan's devices and our thoughts are of the same nature, 
and sometimes in Scripture expressed by the same word, vori/Mara, 1 Cor. 
ii. 11, 2 Cor. x. 5. As he hath his devices, so have we, against the authority 
of God's law, the power of the gospel, and the kingdom of Christ. The 
devils are called ' spiritual wickednesses,' Eph. vi. 12, because they are not 
capable of carnal sins. Profaneness is an uniformity with the world, and 
intellectual sins are an uniformity with the god of it, Eph. ii. 2, 3. There 
is a double walking, answerable to a double pattern in verse 2 : ' fulfilling 
the desires of the flesh,' is a ' walking according to the course of this world,' 
or making the world our copy ; and ' fulfilling the desires of the mind,' is a 
' walking according to the prince of the power of the air,' or a making the 
devil our pattern. In carnal sins Satan is a tempter, in mental an actor ; 
therefore in the one we are conformed to his will, in the other we are trans- 
formed into his likeness. In outward, we evidence more of obedience to his 



Gen. YI. 5.j the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 301 

laws ; in inward, more of affection to his person, as all imitations of others do. 
Therefore there is more of enmity to God, because more of similitude and 
love to the devil ; a nearer approach to the diabolical nature, implj-ing a 
gi-eater distance from the divine. Christ never gave so black a character as 
that of the devil's children to the profane world ; but to the pharisees, who 
had left the sins of men to take up those of devils, and were most guilty of 
those high imaginations which ought to be brought into captivity to the 
obedience of Christ. 

5. In respect of contrariety and odiousness to God. Imaginations were 
only evil, and so most directly contrary to God, who is only good. Our 
natural enmity against God, Kom. viii. 7, is seated in the mind. The sen- 
sitive part aims at its own gratification, and in men serving their lusts thev 
serve their pleasures : Titus iii. 3, ' serving divers lusts and pleasures!' 
But the TO '/jyi/xovr/thv, the prince in man, is possessed with principles of a 
more direct contrariety ; whence it must follow that all the thoughts and 
counsels of it are tinctured with this hatred. They are indeed a defilement 
of the higher part of the soul, and that which belongs more peculiarly to 
God. And the nearer any part doth approach to God, the more abominable 
is a spot upon it ; as to cast dirt upon a prince's house is not so heinous as 
to deface his image. The understanding, the seat of thoughts, is more ex- 
cellent than the will ; both because we know and judge before we will, or 
ought to will only so much as the understanding thinks fit to be willed ; and 
because God hath bestowed the highest gifts upon it, adorning it with more 
lively lineaments of his own image : Col. iii. 10, ' Renewed in knowledge after 
the image of him that created him,' implying that there was more of the 
image of God at the first creation bestowed upon the understanding, the seat 
of knowledge, than on any other part ; yea, than on all the bodies of men 
distilled together. Father of spirits is one of God's titles, Heb. xii. 9 ; to be- 
spatter his children then, so near a relation, the jewel that he is choice of, must 
need be more heinous. He being the Father of spirits, this spiritual wicked- 
ness of nourishing evil thoughts is a cashiering all child- like likeness to him. 
The traitorous acts of the mind are most offensive to God ; as it is a gi-eater 
despite for a son to whom the father hath given the greater portion to shut 
him out of his house, only to revel in it with a company of rioters and 
strumpets, than in a child who never was so much the subject of his father's 
favour. And it is more heinous and odious if these thoughts, which possess 
our souls, be at any time conversant about some idea of our own fi-aming^ 
It were not altogether so bad if we loved something of God's creating, which 
had a physical goodness and a real usefulness in it to allure us ; but to run 
wildly to embrace an ens ratiovis, to prefer a thing of no existence, but what 
is coloured by our own imagination, of no virtue, no usefulness, a thing that 
God never created, nor pronounced good, is a greater enmity, and a higher 
slight of God. 

6. In respect of connaturalness and voluntariness. They are the imagina- 
tions of the thoughts of the heart, and they are continually evil. They are 
as natural as the estuations of the sea, the bubblings of a fountain,* or the 
twinkling of the stars. The more natural any motion is, ordinarily the 
quicker it is. Time is requisite to action, but thoughts have an instantan- 
eous motion.f The body is a heavy piece of clay, but the mind can start 
out on every occasion. Actions have their stated times and places; but these 
solicit us, and are entertained by us at all seasons. Neither day nor night, 
street nor closet, exchange or temple, can privilege us from them ; we meet 

♦ AvTo^^ffovas xnyas t?j Kaxla;. — Phttarch. Moral. 

•j- tdp^iffrov /ih vovi, iia, vavros ya.^ T^ix^'- — Thales. {Diog. Laert.) 



802 charnock's works. [Gen. YI. 5. 

them at every turn, and they strike upon our souls as often as hght upon our 
eyes. There is no restraint for them ; the laws of men, the constitution of 
the body, the interest of profit or credit, are mighty bars in the way of out- 
ward profaneness, but nothing lays the reins upon thoughts but the law of 
God ; and this man is ' not subject to, neither can be,' Rom. viii. 7. Besides, 
the natural atheism in man is a special friend and nurse of these ; few fii-mly 
believing either the omniscience of God, or his government of the world, 
which the Scripture speaks of frequently as the cause of most sins among 
the sons of men, Isa. xsix. 15, Ezek. ix. 9, Job xxii. 13, 14. Actions are 
done with some reluctance, and nips of natural conscience. Conscience ■will 
start at a gross temptation, but it is not frighted at thoughts. Men may 
commit speculative folly, and their conscience look on, without so much as 
a nod against it ; men may tear out their neighbours' bowels in secret w-ishes, 
and their conscience never interpose to part the fray. Conscience indeed 
cannot take notice of all of them ; they are too subtle in their nature, and 
too quick for the observation of a finite principle. They are many, — Prov. 
xix. 21, 'There are many devices in a man's heart,' — and they are nimble 
too ; like the bubblings of a boiling pot, or the rising of a wave, that pre- 
sently slides into its level. And as Florus saith of the Ligurians,* the diffi- 
culty is more to find than conquer them. They are secret sins, and are no 
more discerned than motes in the air without a spiritual sunbeam ; whence 
David cries out, Ps. xix. 12, ' Cleanse me from secret sins,' which some ex- 
plain of sins of thoughts, that were like sudden and frequent flashes of 
lightning, too quick for his notice, and unknown to himself. There is also 
more delight in them ; there is less of temptation in them, and so more of 
election, and consequently more of the heart and pleasure in them w^hen they 
lodge with us. Acts of sin are troublesome ; there is danger as well as plea- 
sure in many of them ; but there is no outward danger in thoughts, therefore 
the complacency is more compact and free from distraction ; the delight is 
more unmixed too, as intellectual pleasures are more refined than sensual. 
All these considerations will enhance the guilt of the inward operations. 

The uses shall be two, though many inferences might be drawn from the 
point. 

1. Reproof. What a mass of vanity should we find in our minds, if we 
could bring our thoughts, in the space of one day, yea, but one hour, to an 
account ! How many foolish thoughts with our wisdom, ignorant with our 
knowledge, worldly with our heavenliness, hypocritical with our religion, 
and proud with our humiliations ! Our hearts would be like a grot, fur- 
nished with monstrous and ridiculous pictures ; or as the wall in Ezekiel's 
vision, Ezek. viii. 5, 10, portrayed with every form of creeping things and 
abominable beasts ; a greater abomination than the image of jealousy at the 
outward gate of the altar. Were our inwards opened, how should we stand 
gazing both with scorn and wonder at our being such a pack of fools ! Well 
may we cry out with Agur, Prov. xxx. 2, ' We have not the understandings 
of men.' We make not the use of them as is requisite for rational creatures, 
because we degrade them to attendances on a brutish fancy. I make no 
question, but were we able to know the fancies of some irrational creatures, 
we should find them more noble, heroic, and generous in suo genere, than 
the thoughts of most men ; more agreeable to their natures, and suited to 
the law of their creation : Ps. x. 4, ' God is not in all his thoughts.' How 
Httle is God in any of our thoughts according to his excellency ! No ; our 
shops, our rents, our backs and bellies, usurp God's room. If any thoughts 
of God do start up in us, how many covetous, ambitious, wanton, revengeful 

* Major aliquanto labor erat inveuire, quam vincere. — Florus, lib. ii. cap. iii. 



Gen. VI. 5.1 the sinfulness and cuke of thoughts. 303 

thoughts are jumbled together with them ! Is it not a monstrous absurdity 
to place our friend with a crew of vipers, to lodge a king in a stye, and 
entertain him with the fumes of a jakes and dunghill ? ' A wicked man's 
heart is little worth,' Prov. x. 20 ; all the peddling wares and works in his 
inward shop are not valuable with one silver drop from a gracious man's 
lips. It was an invincible argument of the primitive Christians for the 
purity of the Christian rehgion above all others in the world, that it did 
prohibit evil thoughts.* And is it not as unanswerable an argument that 
we are no Christians, if we give liberty to them ? What is our moral con- 
versation outwardly but only a bare abstinence from sin, not a disaffection ? 
Were we really and altogether Christians, would not that which is the 
chiefest purity of Christianity be our pleasure ? and would we any more 
wrong God in our secret hearts than in the open streets ? Is not thought 
a beam of the mind, and shall it be enamoured only on a dunghill ? Is not 
the understanding the eye of the soul, and shall it behold only gilded 
nothings ? It is the flower of the spirit.f Shall we let every caterpillar 
suck it ? It is the queen in us. Shall every ruffian deflower it ? It is 
as the sun in our heaven ; and shall we besmear it with misty fancies ? 
It was created surely for better purposes than to catch a thousand weight 
of spiders, as Heliogabalus employed his servants. | It was not intended 
to be made the common sewer of filthiness, or ranked among those ^Zm 
'7rdiJj<paya,% which eat not only fruit and flesh, but flies, worms, dung, and 
all sorts of loathsome materials. Let not, therefore, our minds wallow in 
a sink of fantastical follies, whereby to rob God of his due, and our souls 
of their happiness. 

2. Exhortation. We must take care for the suppression of them. All 
vice doth arise from imagination. || Upon what stock doth ambition and 
revenge grow, but upon a false conceit of the nature of honour ? What 
engenders covetousness, but a mistaken fancy of the excellency of wealth ? 
Thoughts must be forsaken as well as our way : Isa. Iv. 7, * Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,' &c. ; we cannot else 
have an evidence of a true conversion ; and if we do not discard them, we 
are not Hke to have an abundant pardon ; and what will the issue of that 
be but an abundant punishment ? Mortification must extend to these ; affec- 
tions must be crucified. Gal. v. 24, and all the little brats of thoughts which 
beget them, or are begotten by them. Shall we nourish that which brought 
down the wrath of God upon the old world, as though there had not been 
already sufiicient expeinments of the mischief they have done ? Is it not 
our highest excellency to be conformed to God in holiness, in as full a mea- 
sure as our finite natures are capable ? And is not God holy in his counsels 
and inward operations as well as in his works ? Hath God any thoughts 
but what are righteous and just ? Therefore the more fooHsh and vain our 
imaginations are, the more are we ' alienated from the life of God,' Eph, iv. 
17, 18. The Gentiles were so, because they ' walked in the vanity of their 
mind ;' and we shall be so if vanity walk and dwell in ours. As the tenth 
commandment forbids all unlawful thoughts and desires, so it obligeth us to 
all thoughts and desires that may make us agreeable to the divine will, and 
like to God himself. We shall find great advantage by suppressing them. 
We can more easily resist temptations without, if we conquer motions within. 
Thoughts are the mutineers in the soul, which set open the gates for Satan. 
He hath held a secret intelligence with them (so far as he knows them) ever 

* Apud nos et cogitare peccare est. — Mmucius Felix. 

\"Avh( Tr.i ^vx>is- — Plat. I Lampridius. 

§ Arist. Histor. animal, lib. viii. I Mirandul. de Imaginat. c. vii. 



S04 charnock's works. [Gen. YI. 5. 

since the fall, and they are his spies to assist him in the execution of his 
devices. They prepare the tinder, and the next fiery dart sets all on a flame. 
Can -we cherish these, if we consider that Christ died for them ? He shed 
his blood for that which put the world out of order, which was accomplished 
by the sinful imagination of the first man, and continued by those imagirja- 
tions mentioned in the text. He died to restore God to his right, and man 
to his happiness, neither of which can be perfectly attained till those be 
thrown out of the possession of the heart. 

That we may do this, let ns consider these following directions, which 
may be branched into these heads : 1, for the raising good thoughts ; 2, pre- 
venting bad ; 3, ordering bad when they do intrude ; 4, ordering good when 
they appear in us. 

1. For raising good thoughts. 

(1.) Get renewed hearts. The fountain must be cleansed which breeds 
the vermin. Pure vapours can never ascend from a filthy quagmire. "\Miat 
issue can there be of a vain heart but vain imaginations ? Thoughts will 
not become new till a man is in Christ, 2 Cor. v. 17. We must be holy 
before we can think holily. Sanctification is necessary for the dislodgmg of 
vain thoughts, and the introducing of good : Jer. iv. 14, ' Wash thy heart 
from wickedness,' &c. : ' how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within 
thee ?' A sanctified reason would both discover and shame our natural 
follies. As all animal operations, so all the spiritual motions of our heads, 
depend upon the life of our hearts as the i^^'incipium originis, Prov. iv. 23. 
As there is a law in our members to bring us into captivity to the law of 
sin, Rom. vii. 28, so there must be a law in our minds to bring our thoughts 
to the obedience of Christ, 2 Cor. x. 5. We must be renewed in the spii'it 
of our minds, Eph. iv; 23, in our reasonings and thoughts, which are the 
spirits whereby the understanding acts, as the animal spirits are the instru- 
ments of corporeal motion. Till the understanding be bom of the Spirit, 
John iii. 6, it will delight in, and think of, nothing but things suitable to its 
fleshly original ; but when it is spiritual, it receives new impressions, new 
reasonings and motions, suitable to the Holy Ghost, of whom it is bom. A 
stone, if thrown upwards a thousand times, will fall backward, because it is 
a forced motion ; but if the nature of this stone were changed into that of 
fire, it would mount as naturally upward as before it sunk downward. You 
may force some thoughts toward heaven sometimes, but they will not be 
natural till natm-e be changed. Grace only gives stability: Heb. xiii, 9, 'It 
is a good thing that the heart be estabhshed with grace,' and prevents fluc- 
tuation by fixing the soul upon God as its chief end ; and what is our end 
will not only be first in our intentions, but most frequent in our considera- 
tions. Hence a sanctified heart is called in Scriptm-e a ' stedfast heart.' 
There must be an enmity against Satan put into our hearts, according to the 
first promise, before we can have an enmity against his imps, or anything 
that is like him. 

(2.) Study Scripture. Original corruption stuffs us with bad thoughts, 
and Scriptm'e-knowledge would stock us with good ones ; for it proposeth 
things in such terms as exceedingly suit our imaginative faculty, as well as 
strengthen our understanding. Judicious knowledge would make us ' ap- 
prove things that are excellent,' Philip, i. 9, 10 ; and where such things are 
approved, toys cannot be welcome. Fulness is the cause of stedfastness. 
The cause of an intent and piercing eye is the multitude of animal spirits. 
Without this skill in the word, we shall have as foolish conceits of divine 
things as ignorant men without the rules of art have of the sun and stars, 
or things in other countries which they never saw. The word is called a 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 305 

lamp to our feet, i. e. the affections, Ps. cxix. 105 ; a light to our eyes, i.e. 
the understanding : Ps. xix. 8, ' Enlightens the eyes.' It will_ direct the 
glances of our minds, and the motions of our affections. It enlightens the 
eyes, and makes us have a new prospect of things. As a scholar newly 
entered into logic, and studied the predicaments, &c., looks upon everything 
with a new eye, and more rational thoughts, and is mightily delighted with 
everything he sees, because he eyes them as clothed with those notions he 
hath newly studied. The devil had not his engines so ready to assault 
Christ, as Christ, from his knowledge, had Scripture-precepts to oppose him. 
As our Saviour by this means stifled thoughts offered, so, by the same, we 
may be able to smother thoughts arising in us. Converse, therefore, often 
with the Scripture, transcribe it in your heart, and turn it in succum et san- 
guinem, whereby a vigour will be derived into every part of your soul, as 
there is by what you eat to every member of your body. Thus you will 
make your mind Christ's library, as Jerome speaks of Nepotianus.* 

(3.) Reflect often upon the frame of your mind at your first conversion. 
None have more settled and more pleasant thoughts of divine things than 
new converts when they first clasp about Christ, partly because of the novelty 
of their state, and partly because God puts a full stock into them ; and dili- 
gent tradesmen, at their first setting up, have their minds intent upon im- 
proving their stock. Endeavour to put your mind in the same posture it 
was then. Or if you cannot tell the time when you did first close with Christ, 
recollect those seasons wherein you have found your affections most fervent, 
your thoughts most united, and your mind most elevated, as when you re- 
newed repentance upon any fall, or had some notable cheerings from God ; 
and consider what matter it was which carried your heart upward, what em- 
ployment you were engaged in, when good thoughts did fill yom* soul, and 
try the same experiment again. Asaph would oppose God's ancient works 
to his murmuring thoughts ; he would remember his song in the night, i.e. 
the matter of his song, and read over the records of God's kindness, Ps. 
Ixxvii. 6-12. David, too, would never forget, i.e. frequently renew the re- 
membrance of those precepts whereby God had particularly quickened him, 
Ps. cxix. 93. Yea, he would reflect upon the places too where he had for- 
merly conversed with God, to rescue himself from dejecting thoughts : Ps. 
xlii. 6, ' Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan,_and of the 
Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' Some elevations surely David had felt 
in those places, the remembrance whereof would sweeten the sharpness of 
his present grief. When our former sins visit our minds, pleading to be 
speculatively reacted, let us remember the holy dispositions we had in our 
repentance for them, and the thankful frames when God pardoned them. 
The disciples, at Christ's second appearance, reflected upon their own warm 
temper at his first discourse with them in a disguise, to confirm their faith, 
and expel their unbeheving conceits : Luke xxiv. 82, ' Did not our hearts 
bum within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to 
us the Scriptures ?' Strive to recollect truths, precepts, promises, with the 
same affection which possessed your souls when they first appeared in their 
glory and sweetness to you. 

(4.) Ballast your heart with a love to God. David thought all the day of 
God's law, as other men do of their lusts, because he inexpressibly loved it : 
Ps. cxix. 97, ' how I love thy law ! It is my meditation all the day.' 
Ver. 113, « I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do "l love.' This was the suc- 

* Lectione assiilua et meditatione diuturna pectus suum bibliotbecam Christi 
fecerat. — Jerome, Ep. iii. 

VOL. V. U 



806 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

cessful means he used to stifle Tain thoughts, and excite his hatred of ihem. 
It is the property of love to think no evil, 1 Cor. xiii. 5. It thinks good and 
delightful thoughts of God, friendly and useful thoughts of others. It fixeth 
the image of our beloved object in our minds, that it is not in the power of 
other fancies to displace it. The beauty of an object will fasten a rolling eye. 
It is difficult to divorce our hearts and thoughts from that which appears 
lovely and glorious in our minds, whether it be God or the world. Love will, 
by a pleasing violence, bind down our thoughts, and hunt away other afiec- 
tions.* If it doth not establish our minds, they will be like a cork, which, 
with a light breath and a short curl of water, shall be tossed up and down 
from its station. Scholars that love learning will be continually hammering 
upon some notion or other which may further their progress, and as greedily 
clasp it as the iron will its beloved loadstone. He that is winged with a 
divine love to Christ will have frequent glances and flights towards him, and 
will start out from his worldly business several times in a day to give him a 
visit. Love, in the very working, is a settling grace ; f it increaseth our 
delight in God, partly by the sight of his amiableness, which is cleared 
to us in the very act of loving, and partly by the recompences he gives 
to the aff'ectionate carriage of his creature ; both which will stake down 
the heart from vagaries, or giving entertainment to such loose com- 
panions as evil thoughts are. Well, then, if we had this heavenly afiec- 
tion strong in us, it would not suffer unwholesome weeds to grow up so nefir 
it. Either our love would consume those w^eeds, or those weeds will choke 
our love. 

(5.) Exercise faith. As the habit of faith is attended with habitual sanc- 
tification, so the acts of faith are accompanied with a progress in the degrees 
of it. That faith which brings Christ to dwell in our souls will make us often 
think of our inmate. Faith doth realise divine things, and make absent 
objects as present, and so furnisheth fancy with richer streams to bathe itself 
in than any other principle in the world. As there is a necessity of the use 
of fancy while the soul is linked to the body, so there is also a necessity of a 
corrective for it. Reason doth in part regulate it ; but it is too weak to do it 
perfectly, because fancy in most men is stronger than reason. J Man being 
the highest of imaginative beings, and the lowest of intelligent, fancy is in its 
exaltation more than in creatures beneath him, and reason in its detriment 
more than in creatures above him ; and therefore the imagination needs a 
more skilful guide than reason. Fancy is like fire, a good servant, but a bad 
master ; if it march under the conduct of faith, it may be highly serviceable, 
and, by putting lively colours upon divine truth, may steal away our afl'ec- 
tions to it. ' Faith is the evidence of things not seen,' viz., not by a cor- 
poreal, but intellectual eye ; and so it will supply the office of sense. It is 
' the substance of things hoped for ; ' and if hope be an attendant on faith, 
our thoughts will surely follow our expectations. The remedy David used, 
when he was almost stifled with disquieting thoughts, was to excite his soul 
to a hope and confidence in God, Ps. xhi. 5 ; and when they returned upon him 
he used the same diversion, ver. 11. * The peace of God,' i. e. the reconcili- 
ation made by a mediator between God and us believingly apprehended, will 
' keep (or garrison) our hearts and minds ' (or thoughts) against all anxious 
assaults both from within and without : Philip, iv. 5, 7, ^^ov^tissi to. vorjiMara 
bfiwv. When any vain conceit creeps up in you, act faith on the intercession 

* ^neas oculis semper vigilantis inhaerit. 

^nean animo noxque diesque refert. — Ovid. Her. Ep. vii. 
t O Ti i^us (iicciov Ti la-Ti — Lucian Dialog- Tlrt^ahTa-a cv^avia i^urt. — Chryioat- 
+ Mirand, de Imaginat. c. xi. xii. 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 307 

of Christ ; and consider, Is Christ thinking of me now in heaven, and plead- 
ing for me, and shall I squander away my thoughts on trifles, which will cost 
me both tears and blushes ? Believingly meditate on the promises ; they 
are a means to ' cleanse us from the filthiness of the spirit,' as well as that of 
the flesh, 2 Cor. vii. 1. If the having them be a motive, the using them will 
be a means to attain this end. ' Looking at the things that are not seen ' 
preserves us from ' fainting,' and ' renews the inward man day by day,' 
2 Cor. iv. 16, 18. These invisible things could not well keep our hearts 
from fainting, if faith did not first keep the thoughts from wandering from 
them. 

(6.) Accustom yom-self toa serious meditation every morning. Fresh-airing 
our souls in heaven will engender in us a purer spirit and nobler thoughts. 
A morning seasoning would secure us for all the day.* Though other neces- 
sary thoughts about our calling will and must come in, yet when we have 
despatched them, let us attend to our morning theme as our chief companion. 
As a man that is going with another about some considerable business, sup- 
pose to Westminster, though he meets with several friends on the way, and 
salutes some, and with others with whom he hath some afiairs he spends a 
little time, yet he quickly returns to his companion, and both together go 
their intended stage, , Do thus in the present case. Our minds are active, 
and will be doing something, though to little purpose ; and if they be not 
fixed upon some noble object, they will, like madmen and fools, be mightily 
pleased in playing with straws. The thoughts of God were the first visitors 
David had in the morning, Ps. cxxxix. 17, 18. God and his heart met 
together as soon as he w^as awake, and kept company all the day after. In 
this meditation, look both to the matter and manner. 

First. Look to the matter of your meditation. Let it be some truth which will 
assist you in reviving some languishing grace, or fortify you against some 
triumphing corruption ; for it is our darling sin which doth most envenom our 
thoughts : Pi-ov. xxiii. 7, ' As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.' As if you have 
a thirst for honour, let your fancy represent the honour of being a child of God 
and heir of heaven. If you are inclined to covetousness, think of the riches 
stored up in a Saviour, and dispensed by him ; if to voluptuousness, fancy 
the pleasures in the ways of wisdom here, and at God's right hand hereafter. 
This is to deal with our hearts as Paul with his hearers, to catch them with 
guile. Stake your soul down to some serious and profitable mystery of re- 
ligion ; as the majesty of God, some particular attribute, his condescension 
in Christ, the love of our Redeemer, the value of his suff'erings, the virtue 
of his blood, the end of his ascension, the work of the Spirit, the excellency 
of the soul, beauty of holiness, certainty of death, terror of judgments, tor- 
ments of hell, and joys of heaven. f Why may not that which was the sub- 
ject of God's innumerable thoughts, Ps. xl. 5, be the subject of ours ? God's 
thoughts and counsels were concerning Christ, the end of his coming, his 
death, his precepts of holiness, and promises of hfe ; and that not only 
speculatively, but with an infinite pleasure in his own glory, and the crea- 
tures' good to be accomplished by him. Would it not be work enough for 
our thoughts all the day, to travel over the length, breadth, height, and 
depth of the love of Christ ? Would the greatness of the journey give us 
leisure to make any starts out of the way ? Having settled the theme for 
all the day, wc shall find occasional assistances, even from worldly busi- 
nesses ; as scholars, who have some exercises to make, find helps in their 

* Intus existens prohibet alienum. 

t The heads of tlje Catechism might be taken in order, which would both increase 
and actuate our knowledge. 



308 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

own course of reading, though the book hath no designed respect to their 
proper theme. Thus, by employing our minds about one thing chiefly, we 
shall not only hinder them from vain excursions, but make even common 
objects to be oil to our good thoughts, which otherwise would have been fuel 
for our bad. Such generous liquor would scent our minds and conversations 
all the day, that whatsoever motions came into our hearts would be tinctured 
with this spirit and savour of our morning thoughts ; as vessels, having been 
filled with a rich wine, communicate a relish of it to the liquors afterwards 
put into them. We might also more steadily go about our worldly business 
if we carry God in our minds ; as one foot of the compass will more regu- 
larly move about the circumference when the other remains firm in the 
centre. 

!Secondhj. Look to the manner of it. 

First, Let it be intent. Transitory thoughts are like the glances of the 
eye, soon on and soon ofi"; they make no clear discovery, and consequently 
raise no sprightly affections. Let it be one principal subject, and without 
flitting from it ; for if our thoughts be unsteady, we shall find but little 
warmth : a burning glass often shifted fires nothing. We must look at the 
things that are not seen, 2 Cor. iv. 18, (txottoui'twv, as wistly as men do at a 
mark they shoot at. Such an intent meditation would change us into the 
image, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and cast us into the mould, of those truths we think of; 
it would make our minds more busy about them all the day, as a glaring 
upon the sun fills our eyes for some time after with the image of it. To 
this purpose look upon yourselves as deeply concerned in the things you 
think of. Our minds dwell upon that whereof we apprehend an absolute 
necessity. A condemned person would scarce think of anything but pro- 
curing a reprieve, and his earnestness for this would bar the door against 
other intruders. 

Secondly, Let it be affectionate and practical. Meditation should excite 
a spiritual delight in God, as it did in the psalmist : Ps. civ. 34, ' My medi- 
tation of him shall be sweet : I will be glad in the Lord ;' and a divine 
delight would keep up good thoughts, and keep out impertinencies. A bare 
speculation will tire the soul ; and without application, and pressing upon 
the will and affections, will rather chill than warm devotion. It is only by 
this means that we shall have the efficacy of truth in our wills, and the 
sweetness in our affections, as well as the notion of it in our understandings. 
The more operative any truth is in this manner upon us, the less power will 
other thoughts have to interrupt, and the more disdainfully will the heart look 
upon them if they dare be impudent. Never, therefore, leave thinking of a 
spiritual subject till your heart be affected with it. If you think of the evil 
of sin, leave not till your heart loathe it ; if of God, cease not till it mount 
up in admirations of him. If you think of his mercy, melt for abusing it ; 
if of his sovereignty, awe your heart into obedient resolutions ; if of his pre- 
sence, double your watch over yourself. If you meditate on Christ, make 
no end till your hearts love him ; if of his death, plead the value of it for 
the justification of your persons, and apply the virtue of it for the sanctifica- 
tion of your natures. Without this practical stamp upon our affections, we 
f hall have light spirits, while we have opportunity to converse with the most 
serious objects. We often hear foolish thoughts breathing out themselves in 
a house of mourning, in the midst of cofiins and trophies of death, as if men 
were confident they should never die, whereas none are so ridiculous as to 
assert they shall live for ever. By this instance in a truth so certainly 
assented to, we may judge of the necessity of this direction in truths more 
doubtfully believed. 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 309 

(7.) Draw spiritual inferences from occasional objects. David did but 
wistly consider the heavens, and he breaks out into self-abasement and 
humble admirations of God, Ps. viii. 3, 4. Glean matter of instruction to 
yourselves, and praise to your Maker, from everything you see ; it will be a 
degree of restoration to a state of innocency, since this was Adam's task in 
paradise. Dwell not upon any created object only as a virtuoso, to gratify 
your rational curiosity, but as a Christian, call religion to the feast, and 
make a spiritual improvement. No creature can meet our eyes, but affords 
us lessons worthy of our thoughts, besides the general notices of the power 
and wisdom of the Creator. Thus may the sheep read us a lecture of patience, 
the dove of innocence, the ant and bee raise blushes in us for our slug- 
gishness, and the stupid ox and dull ass correct and shame our ungrateful 
ignorance, Isa. i. 8. And since our Saviour did set forth his own excellency 
in a sensible dress, the consideration of those metaphors by an acute fancy 
would garnish out divine truths more deliciously, and conduct us into a more 
inward knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel. He whose eyes are 
open cannot want an instructor, unless he wants a heart. Thus may a 
tradesman spiritualise the matter he works upon, and make his commodities 
serve in wholesome meditations to his mind, and at once enrich both his soul 
and his coffers ; yea, and in part restore the creatures to the happiness of 
answering a great end of their creation, which man deprived them of when 
he subjected them to vanity. Such a view of spiritual truths in sensible pic- 
tures, would clear our knowledge, purify our fancies, animate our affections, 
encourage our graces, disgrace our vices, and both argue and shame us into 
duty ; and thus take away all the causes of our wild wandering thoughts at 
once. And a frequent exercise of this method would beget and support a 
habit of thinking well, and weaken, if not expel, a habit of thinking ill. 

2. The second sort of directions are for the preventing bad thoughts. 
And to this purpose, 

(1.) Exercise frequent humiliations. Pride exposeth us to impatient and 
disquieting thoughts, whereas humility clears up a calm and serenity in the 
soul. It is Agur's advice to be humbled, particularly for evil thoughts, Prov. 
XXX. 32. Frequent humiliations will deaden the fire within, and make the 
sparks the fewer. The deeper the plough sinks, the more the weeds are 
killed, and the gi-ound fitted for good grain. Men do not easily fall into those 
sins for which they have been deeply humbled. Vain conceits love to reside 
most in jolly hearts, but ' by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made 
better,' Eccles. vii. 3, 4. There is more of wisdom or wise consideration in 
a composed and graciously mournful spirit, whereas carnal mirth and sports 
cause the heart to evaporate into lightness and folly. The more we are humbled 
for them, the more our hatred of them will be fomented, and consequently 
the more prepared shall we be to give them a repulse upon any bold intru- 
sion. 

(2.) Avoid entangling yourselves with the world. This clay will clog our 
minds, and a dirty happiness* will engender but dirty thoughts. Who 
were so foolish to have ' inward thoughts that their houses should con- 
tinue for ever,' but those that ' trusted in their riches' ? Ps. xlix. 6, 11. If 
the world possess our souls, it will breed carking thoughts ; much business 
meets with crosses, and then it breeds murmuring thoughts, and sometimes 
it is crowned with success, and then it starts proud and self-applauding 
thoughts. * Those that will be rich fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts,' 
1 Tim. vi. 9, such lusts as make men fools ; and one part of folly is to have 
wild and senseless fancies. Mists and fogs are in the lower region near the 
* Lutea felicitas. — Auff de Civ. Dei. 1. x. 



310 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

earth, but reach not that next the heavens. "Were we free from earthly affec- 
tions, these gross vapours could not so easily disturb our minds ; but if the 
world once settle in our hearts, we shall never want the fumes of it to fill our 
heads. And as covetous desires will stuff us with foolish imaginations, so 
they will smother any good thought cast into us, as the thorns of worldly 
cares choked the good seed and made it unfruitful, Mat. xiii. 22. As we are 
to rejoice in the world as though we rejoiced not, so, by the same reason, we 
should think of the world as though we tkought not. A conformity with the 
world in affection is inconsistent with a change of the frame of the mind, 
Eom. xii. 2. 

(3.) Avoid idleness. Serious callings do naturally compose men's spirits, 
but too much recreation makes them blaze out in vanity. Idle souls as well 
as idle spirits will be ranging. As idleness in a state is both the mother and 
nurse of faction, and in the natural body gives birth and increase to many 
diseases by enfeebling the natural heat, so it both kindles and foments many 
light and unprofitable imaginations in the soul, which would be sufficiently 
diverted if the active mind were kept intent upon some stated work. So 
truly may that which was said of the servant be applied to om- nobler part, 
that it will be wicked if once it degenerates into slothfulness in its proper 
charge, Mat. xxv. 26, ' Thou wicked and slothful servant.' As empty minds 
are the fittest subjects for extravagant fooleries, so vacant times are the fittest 
seasons. While we sleep, the importunate enemy within, as well as the 
envious adversaiy without us, will have a successful opportunity to sow the 
tares. Mat. xiii. 25, whereas a constant employment frustrates the attempt, 
and discourageth the devil, because he sees we are not at leisure. There- 
fore, when any sinful motion steps in, double thy vigour about thy present 
business, and the foolish impertinent will sneak out of thy heart at this dis- 
countenance. So true is that in this case, which Pharaoh falsely imagined in 
another, that the more we labour the less we shall regard vain words, Exod. 
V. 9. As Satan is prevented by diligence in our callings, so sometimes the 
Spirit visits us and fills us with holy affections at such seasons, as Christ 
appeared to Peter and other disciples when they were a-fishing, John xxi. 3, 4, 
and usually manifested his grace to men when they were engaged in their 
useful businesses or religious services. But these motions (as we may observe 
by the way) which come from the Spirit are not to put us out of our way, 
but to assist us in our walking in it, and further us both in our attendance 
on and success in our duties. To this end look upon the work of your call- 
ings as the work of God, which ought to be done in obedience to him, as he 
hath set you to be useful in the community. Thus a holy exercise of our 
callings would sanctify our minds, and by prepossessing them with solid 
business, we should leave little room for any spider to weave its cobwebs. 

(4.) Awe your hearts with tlie thoughts of God's omniscience, especially 
the discovery of it at the last judgment. We are very much atheists in the 
concern of this attribute, for though it be notionally believed, yet for the most 
part it is practically denied. God ' understands all our thoughts afar off,' 
Ps. cxxxix. 2, as he knew every creature which lay hid in the chaos and un- 
digested lump of matter. God is in us all, Eph. iv. 6, as much in us all as 
he is above us all, yea, in every creek and chink and point of our hearts. 
Not an atom in the spirits of all men in the world but is obvious to that all- 
seeing eye, which ' knows every one of those things that come into our minds,' 
Ezek. xi. 5. God knows both the order and confusiou of them, and can 
better tell their natures one by one than Adam named the creatures. Fancy 
then that you hear the sound of the last trumpet, that you see God's tribunal 
set, and his omniscience calling out singly all the secrets of your heart. 



Gen. VI. 5. J the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 311 

Would not the consideration of this allay the heat of all other imaginations ? 
If a foolish thought break in, consider, What if God, who knows this, should 
presently call me to judgment for this sinful glance ? Say with the church, 
Ps. xliv. 21, ' Shall not God search this out ?' Is it fit, either for God's glory 
or our interest, that when he comes to make inquisition in us, he should find 
such a nasty dunghill and swarms of Egyptian lice and frogs creeping up and 
down our chambers ? Were our heads and hearts possessed by this substan- 
tial truth, we should be ashamed to think what we shall be ashamed to own at 
the last day. 

(5.) Keep a constant watch over your hearts. David desires God to * set 
a watch before the door of his lips,' Ps. cxh. 3 : much more should we desire 
that God would keep the door of our hearts. We should have grace stand 
sentinel there especially, for words have an outward bridle : they may dis- 
grace a man and impair his interest and credit ; but thoughts are unknown if 
undiscovered by words. If a man knew what time the thief would come to 
rob him, he would watch. We know we have thieves within us to steal away 
our hearts ; therefore, when they are so near us, we should watch against a 
surprise, and the more carefully, because they are so extraordinary sudden 
in their rise and quick in their motion. Our minds are like idle schoolboys, 
that will be frisking from one place to another if the master's back be turned, 
and playing instead of learning. Let a strict hand be kept over our afiec- 
tions, those wild beasts'^ within us, because they many times force the under- 
standing to pass a judgment according to their pleasure, not its own sentiment. 
Young men should be most intent upon their guard, because their fancies 
gather vigour from their youthful heat, which fires a world of squibs in a 
day (which madmen and those which have hot diseases are subject to, be- 
cause of the excessive inflammation of their brains), and partly because they 
are not sprung up to a maturity of knowledge, which would breed and foster 
better thoughts, and discover the plausible pretences of vain afiections. 
There are particular seasons wherein we must double our guard, as when in- 
centives are present that may set some inward corruption on a flame. 
Timothy's ofiice was to exhort younger as well as elder women, 1 Tim. 
V. 2, and the apostle wisheth him to do it with all purity or chastity, Iv 'Ttdari 
uyvila, that a temptation lying in ambush for him might not take his thoughts 
and affections unguarded. Engage thy diligence more at solitary times and 
in the night, wherein freedom from business gives an opportunity to an un- 
sanctified imagination to conjure up a thousand evil spirits; whence perhaps 
it is that the psalmist tells us, Ps. xvii. 3, God had ' tried him in the night,' 
and found him holy. The solitary cave tainted Lot with incest, Gen xix. 30, 
who had preserved himself fresh in the midst of the salt lusts of Sodom. In 
ill company, wherein we may be occasionally cast, there is need of an exacter 
observation of our hearts, lest corrupt steams which rise from them, as va- 
pours from lakes and minerals, being breathed in by us, may tincture our 
spirits, or as those fuaajMarcc, which (as physicians tell us), exhaling from 
consumptive persons, do by inspiration steal into our blood and convey a 
contagion to us. And though, above all keepings and watchings, we are to 
keep and watch our hearts, f because ' out of them are the issues of life,' 
Prov. iv. 23, yet we must walk the rounds about our senses and members 
of the body, as the wise man there adviseth, ver. 24 : the mouth, which utters 
wickedness, the eyes, ver. 25, which are brokers to make bargains for the 
heart, and ver. 26, the feet, which are agents to run on the errands of sin. 
And the rather must we watch over our senses, because we are naturally 

* Bnpia rns •^'Ux/ii. — Plato. 

t Cellulam mearum cogitationum pertimescobam. — Hieron. 



312 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

more ready to follow the motions of them, as having had a longer acquaint- 
ance and familiarity with them before we grew up to the use of reason. 
Besides, most of our thoughts creep in first at the windows of sense. The 
eye and the ear robbed Eve of original righteousness, and the eye rifled 
David both of his justice and chastity.* ' If the eyes behold strange women, 
the heart will utter perverse things,' Prov. xxiii. 33. Perverse thoughts 
will sparkle from a rolling eye. Revel rout is usual where there is a negli- 
gent government. ' He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city 
that is broken down, and without walls,' Prov. xxv. 28, where any thieves 
may go in and out at pleasure. 

3. The third sort of directions are for the ordering of evil thoughts, when 
they do intrude ; and, 

(1.) Examine them. Look often into your heart to see what it is doing ; 
and what thoughts you find dabbling in it call to an account ; inquire what 
business they have, what their errand and design is, whence they come, and 
whither they tend. David asked his soul the reason of his troubled thoughts : 
Ps. xlii. 11, ' Why art thou disquieted, my soul ?' So ask thy heart the 
reason why it entertains such ill company, and by what authority they come 
there, and leave not chiding, till thou hast put it to the blush. Bring every 
thought to the test of the word. Asaph had envious thoughts at the pros- 
perity of the wicked, Ps. Ixxiii. 2, 3, which had almost tripped him up, and 
laid him on his back. And these had blown up atheistical thoughts, that 
God did not much regard whether his commands were kept or no ; as though 
God had untied the link between duty and reward, and the breach of his 
laws were the readiest means to a favourable recompence : ver. 13, ' I have 
cleansed my hands in vain.' But when he weighed things in the balance of 
the sanctuary, by the holy rules of God's patience and justice, ver. 17, he 
sees the brutishness of his former conceits : ver. 22, ' So foolish was I and 
ignorant, I was as a beast before thee ;' and, ver. 25, he makes an improve- 
ment of them to excite his desire for God, and dehght in him. Let us com- 
pare our thoughts with Scripture rules. Comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual, is the way to understand them ; comparing spiritual sins with spi- 
ritual commands, is the way to know them ; and comparing spiritual vices 
with spiritual graces, is the way to loathe them. Take not, then, anything 
upon trust from a crazy fancy ; nor, without a scrutiny, believe that faculty 
whereby dogs dream, and animals perform their natural exploits. 

(2.) Check them at the first appearance. If they bear upon them a pal- 
pable mark of sin, bestow not upon them the honour of an examination. If 
the leprosy appear in their foreheads, thrust them, as the priests did Uzziah, 
out of the temple ; or as David answered his wicked solicitors, Ps. cxix. 115, 
* Depart from me, ye evil doers : for I will keep the commandments of my God.' 
Though we cannot hinder them from haunting us, yet we may from lodging 
in us. The very sparkling of an abominable motion in our hearts is as little 
to be looked upon, as the colour of wine in a glass by a man inclined to 
drunkenness. Quench them instantly, as you would do a spark of fire in a 
heap of straw.f We must not treat with them. Paul's resolve is a good 
pattern, not to confer with flesh and blood, Gal. i. 16. We do not debate 
whether we should shake a viper ofi" our hands. If it be plainly a sinful 
motion, a treaty with it is a degree of disobedience ; for a putting it to the 
question whether we should suckle it, is to question whether God should be 
obeyed or no. If it savour not of the things of God, hear not its rea- 

* Plotinus describes thoughts thus : t»» 'i^iu t^o; t' 'inlet ifioiorn; *«' xonuna.. — JEnead, 
lib. i. Cor et oculi sunt proxenetse peccati. 
■(■ Hie Annibal virtute, non mora frangitur. 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 313 

sons, and compliment it with no less indignation than our Saviour did his 
officious disciple upon his carnal advice: ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' Mat. 
xvi. 22, 23. Excuse it not, because it is little. Small vapours may com- 
pact themselves into great clouds, and obstruct our sighi of heaven ; a little 
poison may spread its venom through a great quantity of meat. We know 
not how big a small motion, like a crocodile's egg, may grow, and how raven- 
ous the breed may prove. It may, if entertained, force our judgment, drag 
our will, and make all our affections bedlams.* Besides, since the fancy is that 
power in us upon which the devil can immediately imprint his suggestions, 
and that we know not what army he hath to back any sinful motion, if once 
the gate be set open, let us crush the brat betimes, and fling the head over 
the wall, to discourage the party. Well, then, let us be ashamed to cherish 
that in our thoughts, which we should be ashamed should break out in our 
words or actions. Therefore, as soon as you perceive it base, spit it out 
with detestation, as you do a thing you unexpectedly find UDgrateful to your 
palate. 

(3.) Improve them. Poisons may be made medicinable. Let the thoughts 
of old sins stir up a commotion of anger and hatred. We feel shiverings in 
our spirits, and a motion in our blood, at the very thought of a bitter potion 
we have formerly taken. Why may we not do that spiritually, which the 
very frame and constitution of our bodies doth naturally, upon the calling 
a loathsome thing to mind ? The Romans' sins were transient, but the shame 
was renewed every time they reflected on them : Rom. vi. 21, * Whereof you 
are now ashamed.' They reacted a detestation instead of the pleasure : so 
should the revivings of old sins in our memories be entertained with our 
sighs, rather than our joy. We should also manage the opportunity, so as 
to promote some further degrees of our conversion : Ps. cxix. 59, ' I thought 
on my ways, and turned my feet into thy testimonies.' There is not the 
most heUish motion, but we may strike some sparks from it, to kindle our 
love to God, renew our repentance, rai'se our thankfulness, or quicken our 
obedience. Is it a blasphemous motion against God ? It gives you a just 
occasion thence to awe your heart into a deeper reverence of his majesty. Is 
it a lustful thought ? Open the flood-gates of your godly sorrow, and groan 
for your original sin. Is it a remembrance of your former sin ? Let it wind 
up your heart in the praises of him who delivered you from it. Is it to 
tempt you from duty ? Endeavour to be more zealous in the performance 
of it. Is it to set you at a distance from God ? Resolve to be a light shin- 
ing the clearer in that darkness, and let it excite you to a closer adherence 
to him. Are they envious thoughts which steal upon you ? Let thankful- 
ness be the product, that you enjoy so much as you do, and more than you 
deserve. Let Satan's fiery darts inflame your love rather than your lust, 
and, like a skilful pilot, make use of the violence of the winds, and raging 
of the sea, to further you in your spiritual voyage. This is to beat tlie 
devil, and your own hearts, with their own weapons ; who will have little 
stomach to fight with those arms wherewith they see themselves wounded. 
There is not a remembrance of the worst objects but may be improved to 
humility and thankfulness ; as St Paul never thought of his old persecuting, 
but he sank down in humiliation, and mounted up in admirations of the 
riches of grace. 

(4.) Continue your resistance if they still importune thee, and lay not down 
thy weapons till they wholly shrink from thee. As the wise man speaks of 
a fool's words, Eccles. x. 13, so I may not only of our blacker, but our more 

* Ex Line nota est infirmitas mea : quia multo facilius irruuat abomiuaudae pban- 
tasiae quam diaceduut. — Kemp, de Imit. Chr. lib. iii. cap. xx. 



814 charnock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

aerial fancies. ' The beginning of them is foolishness,' but if suflfered to 
gather strength, they may end in ' mischievous madness ;' therefore, if they 
do continue, or reassume their arms, we must continue and reassume our 
shield : Eph. vi. 16, ' Above all, taking the shield of faith,' dvaXaCoi-T-Ee, tak- 
ing up again. Kesistance makes the devil and his imps fly, but forbearance 
makes them impudent. In a battle, when one party faints and retreats, it 
adds new spirits to the enemy that was almost broken before ; so will these 
motions be the more vigorous if they perceive we begin to flag. That en- 
couraging command, James iv. 7, 'Resist the devil, and he will fly from you,' 
implies not only the beginning a fight, but continuance in it till he doth fly. 
We must not leave the field till they cease their importunity, nor increase 
their courage by our own cowardice. 

(5.) Join supplication with your opposition. * Watch and pray' are 
sometimes linked together. Matt. xxvi. 41. The diligence and multitude of 
our enemies should urge us to wateh, that we be not surprised ; and our own 
weakness and proneness to presumption should make us pray, that we may 
be powerfully assisted. Be as frequent in soliciting God as they are in 
soliciting you ; as they knock at your heart for entrance, so do you knock 
at heaven for assistance. And take this for your comfort : as the devil takes 
their parts, so Christ will take yours at his Father's throne ; he that prayed 
that the devil might not winnow Peter's faith, will intercede that your own 
heart may not winnow yours. If the waves come upon you, and you are 
ready to sink, cry out with Peter, ' Master, I perish,' and you shall feel his 
hand raising you, and the winds and waves rebuked into obedience by him. 
The very motions of your hearts heavenward at such a time is a refusal of 
the thought that presseth upon you, and will be so put upon your account. 
When any of these buzzing flies discompose you, or more violent hurricanes 
shake your minds, cry out with David, Ps. Ixxxvi. 11, 12, 'Unite my heart 
to fear thy name,' and a powerful word will soon silence these disturbing 
enemies, and settle your souls in a calm and a praising posture. 

4. A fourth sort of directions is concerning good motions ; whether they 
spring naturally from a gracious principle, or are peculiarly breathed in by 
the Spirit. There are ordinary bubblings of grace in a renewed mind, as 
there are of sins in an unregenerate heart ; for grace is as active a principle 
as any, because it is a participation of the divine nature. But there are 
other thoughts darted in beyond the ordinary strain of thinking, which, like 
the beams of the sun, evidence both themselves and their original. And 
as concerning these motions joined together, take these directions in short : 

(1.) Welcome and entertain them. As it is our happiness, as well as our 
duty, to stifle evil motions, so it is our misery, as well as our sin, to extinguish 
heavenly. Strange fire should be presently quenched, but that which descends 
from heaven upon the altar of a holy soul* must be kept alive by quickening 
meditation. When a holy thought lights suddenly upon you, which hath 
no connection with any antecedent business in your mind (pi'ovided it be not 
unseasonable, nor hinder you from any absolutely necessary duty, either of 
religion or your calling), receive it as a messenger from heaven, and the 
rather because it is a stranger. You know not but you may entertain an 
angel, yea, something greater than an angel, even the Holy Ghost. Open 
all the powers of your souls, like so many organ-pipes, to receive the breath 
of this Spirit when he blows upon you. It is a sign of an agreeableness 
between the heart and heaven when we close with, and preserve, spiritual mo- 
tions. We need not stand long to examine them ; they are evident by their 
holiness, sweetness, and spirituality. We may as easily discern them as we 
* eufficLffTfiotaTou &10V. — Polycarp. Epist. ad Phil., terms holy persons. 



Gen. VI. 5.] the sinfulness and cure of thoughts. 315 

can exotic plants from those that grow naturally in our own soil, or as a 
palate, at the first taste, can distinguish between a rich and generous wine, 
and a rough water. The thoughts instilled by the Spirit of adoption. Gal. 
V. 22, are not violent, tumultuous, full of perturbation ; but, like himself, 
gentle and dove-hke solicitings, warm and holy impulses, and, when cherished, 
leave the soul in a more humble, heavenly, pure, and believing temper than 
they found it. It is a high aggravation of sin to ' resist the Holy Ghost,' 
Acts vii. 51. Yet we may quench his motions by neglect, as well as by op- 
position, and by that means lose both the profit and pleasure which would 
have attended the entertainment. Salvation came both to Zaccheus his house 
and heart, upon embracing the fixst motion our Saviour was pleased to make 
him. Had he slighted that, it is uncertain whether another should have 
been bestowed upon him. The more such sprouts are planted and nourished 
in us, the less room will stinking weeds have to root themselves, and dis- 
perse their influence. And for thy own good thoughts, feed them and keep 
them alive, that they may not be like a blaze of straw, which takes birth and 
expires the same minute. Brood upon them, and kill them not, as some 
birds do their young ones, by too often flying from their nests. David kept 
up a staple of sound and good thoughts ; he would scarce else have desired 
God to * try and know them,' Ps. cxxxix. 23, had they been only some few 
weak flashes at uncertain times. 

(2.) Improve them for those ends to which they naturally tend. It is 
not enough to give them a bare reception, and forbear the smothering of 
them ; but we must consider what affections are proper to be raised by them, 
either in the search of some truth, or performance of some duty. Those 
gleams which shoot into us on the sudden, have some lesson sealed up in 
them to be opened and learned by us. When Peter, upon the crowing of 
the cock, called to mind his Master's admonition, * he thought thereon, and 
wept,' Mark xiv. 72 ; he did not only receive the spark, but kindled a suit- 
able afiection. A choice graff, though kept very carefully by us, yet if not 
presently set, will wither, and disappoint our expectation of the desired fruit. 
No man is without some secret whispers to dissuade him from some alluring 
and busy sin : Job xxxiii. 14-17, ' God speaks once, yea, twice, that he may 
withdraw man from his purpose ;' as Cain had by an audible voice. Gen. iv. 
7, which, had he observed to the dam.ping the revengeful motion against his 
brother, he had prevented his brother's death, his own despair, and eternal 
ruin. Have you any motion to seek God's face, as David had ? Let your 
hearts reply, ' Thy face. Lord, will I seek,' Ps. xxvii. 8. The address will 
be most acceptable at such a time, when your heart is tuned by one that 
' searcheth the deep things of God,' 1 Gor. ii. 10, and knows his mind, and 
what airs are most dehghtful to him. Let our motion be quick in any duty 
which the Spirit doth suggest ; and while he heaves our hearts, and oils our 
wheels, we shall do more in any religious service, and that more pleasantly 
and successfully, than at another time, with all our own art and industry ; 
for his injections are like water poured into a pump to raise up more ; and 
as Satan's motions are not without a main body to second them, so neither 
do the Spirit's go unattended, without a sufficient strength to assist the en- 
tertainers of them. Well then, lie not at anchor when a fresh gale would fill 
thy sails, but lay hold of the present opportunity. These seasons are often 
like those influences from certain conjunctions of the planets, which, if not 
(according to the astrologer's opinion) presently applied, pass away, and re- 
turn not again in many ages. So the Spirit's breathings are often determined, 
that if they be not entertained with suitable affections, the time will be un- 
regainable, and the same gracious opportunities of a sweet intercourse may 



816 chaknock's works. [Gen. VI. 5. 

be for ever lost ; for God will not have his Holy Spirit dishonoured in always 
striving with wilful man, Gen. vi. 3. When Judas neglected our Saviour's 
advertisement, John xiii. 21, the devil quickly enters and hurries him to the 
execution of his traitorous project, ver. 27, and he never meets with any mo- 
tion afterwards but from his new master, and that eternally fatal both to his 
body and soul. 

(3.) Refer them, if possible, to assist your morning meditation ; that, like 
little brooks arising from several springs, they may meet in one channel, and 
compose a more useful stream. What straggling good thoughts arise, though 
they may owe their birth to several occasions, and tend divers ways, yet list 
them in the services of that truth, to which you have committed the govern- 
ment of your mind that day ; as constables in a time of necessary business 
for the king, take up men that are going about their honest and lawful occa- 
sions, and force them to join in one employ for the public service. Many 
accidental glances (as was observed before) will serve both to fix and illustrate 
your morning proposition ; but if it be an extraordinary injection, and cannot 
be referred to your standing thesia, follow it, and let your thoughts run whither 
it will lead you. A theme of the Spirit's setting is better than one of our 
own choosing. 

(4.) Record the choicer of them. We may have occasion to look back upon 
them another time, either as grounds of comfort in some hour of temptation, 
or directions in some sudden emergency ; but constantly as persuasive en- 
gagements to our necessary duty. Thus they may lie by us for further use, 
as money in our purse. Since Mary kept and pondered the short sayings of 
our Saviour in her heart, Luke ii. 19, 51, committing and fitting =;= them as 
it were in her commonplace book, why should not we also preserve the 
whisperings of that Spirit who receives from the same mouth and hand what 
he. both speaks and shews to us? It is pity the dust and fiUngs of choicer 
metals, which may one time be melted down into a mass, should be lost in 
a heap of drossy thoughts. If we do not remember them, but like children 
are taken with their novelty more than their substance, and like John Bap- 
tist's hearers, rejoice in their light only for a season, John v. 35, it will dis- 
courage the Spirit from sending any more ; and then our hearts will be empty, 
and we know who stands ready to clap in his hellish swarms and legions. 
But howsoever we do, God will record our good thoughts as our excusers, if 
we improve them ; as our accusers, if we reject them. And as he took notice 
how often he had appeared to Solomon, 1 Kings xi. 9, so he will take notice 
how often his Spirit hath appeared to us ; and write down every motion 
whereby we have been solicited, that they may be witnesses of his endeavours 
for our good, and our own wilfulness. 

(5.) Back them with ejaculations. Let our hearts be ready to attend every 
injection from heaven with a motion to it, since it is ingratitude to receive 
a present without returning an acknowledgment to the benefactor. As God 
turns his thoughts of us into promises, so let us turn our thoughts of him 
into prayers. And since his regards of us are darted in beams upon us, let 
them be reflected back upon him in thankfulness for the gift, and earnestness 
both for the continuance and increase of such impressions ; as David prayed 
that God would 'not take his holy Spirit from him,' Ps. li. 11, which had 
inspired him with his penitential resolutions. To what purpose doth the 
Holy Ghost descend upon us, but to declare to us ' the things which are 
freely given us of God ' ? 1 Cor. ii. 12. And is it fit for us to hear such a 
declaration without a quick suitable reflection ? Since the Comforter is to 
bring to our remembrance what Christ both spake and did, John xiv. 26, it 



Ps. LXXXYII. 5. J THE church's stability. 317 

must be for the same end for which they were both spoken and acted by him, 
■which was to bring us to a near converse with God.- Therefore when the 
Spirit renews in our minds a gospel truth, let us turn it into a present plea, 
and be God's remembrancers of his own promises, as the Spirit is our remem- 
brancer of divine truths. We need not doubt some rich fruit of the applica- 
tion at such a season ; since without question the impressions the Spirit stamps 
upon us are as much according to God's will, Rom. viii. 27, as the interces- 
sions he makes for us. Therefore when any holy thought doth advance itself 
in our souls, the most grateful reception we can bestow upon it will be to 
suffer our hearts to be immediately fired by it, and imitate, with a glowing 
devotion, the royal prophet in that form he hath drawn up to our hands : 
' Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel our f ithers, keep this for ever 
in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy servant, and prepare 
my heart unto thee,' 1 Chron. xxix. 18. This will be an encouragement to 
God to send more such guests into our hearts ; and by an affectionate enter- 
tainment of them, we shall gain both a habit of thinking well, and a stock too. 



A DISCOURSE OF THE CHURCH'S STABILITY. 

And of Sion it shall he said. This and that man was born in her; and the 
Highest himself shall establish her . — Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

The author of this psalm, and the time when it was penned, are uncertain. 
Some think it was composed after the return of the Jews from Babylon, upon 
the erection of the second temple, and designed to be sung in their constant 
public assemblies ; others think it was composed by David when he brought 
the ark to Sion as the repository for it, till the building of the temple, wherein 
it might honourably rest. It seems, whoever was the author, to be ecstatical. 
The penman breaks out into a holy rapture and admiration of the firmness 
and stability of the church. It is also prophetical of the Christian church, 
of the glory of it, the largeness of its bounds, and perpetual duration. The 
Jews ridiculously interpret it of literal Jerusalem, in regard of the excellency 
of its climate, the goodness of the air, being seated in the middle or navel of 
the earth, and the seat and spring of all the wise men, accounting all fools 
that were to be found in other parts. It is, true, others were not wise with a 
wisdom to salvation ; they were not instructed in the high mysteries of religion 
by God as those people were ; but was there not learning among the Greeks, 
and wisdom among the Chaldeans, and a ripeness in mechanic arts among 
the Tyrians, which lived in the same climate with the Jews ? It can by no 
means be understood of the material Jerusalem and Sion, that was ruined by 
the Babylonians, and though re-edified, yet afterwards subverted by the 
Romans, and the remainders of it at this day become a stable for Mahomet ; 
and the bringing in those nations mentioned, ver. 4, overthrows any such 
interpretation, which never were enrolled in the registers of Sion, nor became 
votaries to the true religion while the walls of that place were standing in 
their glory. Sion was the place whence the law was to come, Micah iv. 2, a 
law of another nature than that which was uttered with thunders from mount 
Sinai. Sion was the place where the throne of Christ was to be settled, 



818 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

where he was to be crowned king, Ps. ii. 6, and where he was to manage the 
sceptre, and ' rule in the midst of his enemies,' Ps. ex. 2 ; and therefore it 
is here celebrated as the figure of the Christian church, of that city which 
Abraham expected, ' whose builder and maker is God, Heb. xi. 10 ; and 
the Christian church is particularly called by this name of mount Sion, 
Heb. xii. 21, and believers are called the sons of Sion, Joel ii. 23. The 
psalmist speaks, 

1. Of the great love the Lord bears to Sion, ver. 2. 

2. Of the glory of the promises made to her, ver. 3. 

3. Of the confluence of new inhabitants to her, ver. 4. 

4. Of the duration and establishment of her, ver. 5. 

Ver. 1. His foundation. The foundation of God, i. e. that which God 
hath founded, that Jerusalem which is of God's building, is seated in the 
holy mountain. The city was built before Jehovah conquered Canaan ; but 
God is said to be the founder of it in regard of that peculiar glory to which 
it was designed, to be the rest of his ark, the place of his worship, the throne 
of the types of the Messiah, the seat whence the evangelic law was to be 
published to all nations, and the Messiah revealed as the redeemer and ruler 
of the world. 

In the holy mountains. Jerusalem was seated xapon high mountains. The 
palace of the kings was built upon Sion, and the temple, the house of the 
Most High, was built upon Moriah, and encompassed with mountains round 
about, Ps. cxxv. 2, an emblem of the strength and stability of the church. 
' Holy mountains ;' not that there was any inherent holiness in them more 
than in the other mountains of the earth,* or that they were naturally more 
beautiful and stately than other mountains, but because they were separated 
for the worship and service of God, and had been ennobled by the perfor- 
mance of a worship there before the building of the temple. It was upon 
Moriah that Isaac was designed for a sacrifice, and the most signal act of 
obedience performed to God by the father of the faithful. It was there also 
that David appeased the wrath of God by sacrifice, after it had issued out 
upon the people in a plague, for the numbering of them ; and the very name 
Moriah hath something sacred in it, signifying either God teaching or God 
manifested, which name might be given it by God with respect to the mani- 
festation of Christ, who was to come during the standing of the second temple. 

Ver. 2. The Lord loves the gates of Sion. By gates in Scripture is meant 
the strength, or wisdom, or justice of a place. Gates were the magazines of 
arms, and the places of judicature. He had manifested his love to her in 
choosing that city before all the cities of Israel and Judah wherein to place 
his name, and have his worship celebrated ; and that place in Jerusalem 
particularly where his law should be given by the Spirit to the apostles on 
the day of Pentecost ; and to apply it to the gospel church, it signifies the 
special respect God bears to her, above all the rites, observances, and cere- 
monies of the Judaic institution. It was in this gospel church, the true 
Sion, that he ' desired to dwell,' and will ' remain for ever,' Ps. Ixviii. 17, 
which is a prophetic psalm of the gospel times, and the ascension of Christ. 

1. The stability of the church is here asserted. f The church is not built 
upon the sand, which may fall with a storm, nor upon the waters, that may 
float with the waves, nor spread out as a tent in the desert, that may be 
taken up, and carried away to another place, but upon a mountain, not to be 
removed : Ps. cxxv, 1, 'Mount Sion cannot be removed.' It is built upon 
a rock, the Rock of ages, upon a mountain which is not shattered by waves 

* Daille Melange, part ii. page 354. f Geierus in loc. 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5. J THE church's stability. 319 

or shaken by storms ; upon Christ, who hath the strength of many mountains 
in himself. 

2. The necessity of holiness in a church. What though the church be a 
mountain for strength and eminency, have the honour and privilege of sacra- 
ments, and be the ark of the oracles of God, it is not established unless it 
be a holy mountain. Holiness is the only becoming thing in the house of 
God. As it is consecrated to the glory of God, so it must be exercised in 
things pertaining to the glory of God. As the foundation is holy, so ought 
the superstructure to be. There was no filth in the framing it ; there must 
be no filth in the continuance of it. 

Ver. 3. He speaks with some kind of astonishment of the glorious things 
spoken of her, or promised to her, and concludes it with a note of attention, 
or a mark of eminency, Selali ; ver. 3, ' Glorious things are spoken of thee, 
city of God.' No place enjoyed an equal happiness with Jerusalem while 
it remained faithful to its founder. It maintained its standing in the midst 
of its enemies ; no weapon formed against it was able to prosper. Heaven 
planted it, and the dews of heaven watered it ; it had a continual succession 
of prophets ; the best kings that ever were in the world swayed the sceptre 
in it ; it was blessed with more miraculous deliverances than any part of the 
universe ; the nations that loved it not yet feared its power, and feared the 
displeasure of its guardian. It was here the Son of God delivered the mes- 
sages of heaven by the order of his Father ; it was here the Spirit first filled 
the heads and hearts of the apostles, in order to the conversion of a world 
from idolatry to the sceptre of God. But more glorious things are spoken 
of the spiritual Sion than of the material Jerusalem ; that had Christ in the 
flesh, and the gospel- church hath Christ in the Spirit. He went from thence 
to heaven, but he comes from heaven to visit them with his comforts ; he 
hath left the walls of Jerusalem in its ruins, but he hath not, he will not 
leave his spiritual Sion fatherless and comfortless ; John xiv. 18, his Spirit 
abides for ever with his church. Glorious things are spoken of it, when he 
pronounced it impregnable, and that the gates of hell, the power and policy 
of all the apostate angels and their instruments, should not prevail against 
her ; when he assured her he would be present with her, not to the end of 
an age or two, but till the period of time, the consummation of the world ; 
privileges that material Jerusalem could never boast of. Whatsoever coun- 
tries have been applauded for secular excellencies, or been famous for wis- 
dom, none can claim such elogies as gospel Sion, where God hath declared 
his will, published himself a God of salvation, placed the laws of heaven, 
and poured out that wisdom which comes from above. These are glorious 
things, above human experience, above human desires. 

The glorious things mentioned of the gospel-church are in ver. 4, where 
he speaks of the enlargement of her bounds, the increase of her inhabitants, 
and the numerous muster-rolls of those that shall list themselves in her 
service : * I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know 
me. Behold Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia : this man was born there.' 

The time shall come when those nations that are most alienated from the 
profession of truth shall come under her wing, and pay allegiance to her 
empire. Strangers shall be brought into her bosom, not only Philistia and 
Tyre, nations upon her confines, but Egypt and Ethiopia, nations more re- 
mote. Nations born and bred at a distance shall be registered as born from 
her womb, and nursed in her lap ; distance of place shall not hinder the 
relation of her children ; and when God shall count the people of foreign 
nations, he shall set a mark upon every true believer, and reckon him as 
one born in Sion, a denizen of Jerusalem, though not a Jew in the flesh. 



820 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

1 ivill make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me ; or rather 
among them that know me,* or for them that know me, ''V"lv. I will re- 
member them as persons enlightened by me, and acquainted with me. 

The psalmist reckons up here nations that were greatest enemies to the 
church, Rahab or Egypt, for so Egypt is named, Isa. li. 9, her ancient enemy, 
Philistia her perpetual invader. Rahab signifies pride or fierceness ; the 
fiercest people shall be subdued to Sion by the power of the gospel ; Egypt, 
the wisest and learnedest nation, the most idolatrous and superstitious ; men 
that rest in their o\vn parts and strength shall cast away their idols ; Babylon, 
the strongest and most powerful empire, the subjects of which the Scripture 
often describes as luxurious, cruel, proud ; Tyre, the greatest mart, whose 
citizens were the greatest merchants ; the Ethiopians, the posterity of cursed 
Ham, whose souls are blacker than their bodies ; men buried in sin, be- 
nighted with ignorance, poisoned with pride ; the most fierce and envenomed 
enemies shall be brought in by an infinite grace, and make up one body 
with her, and shall be counted as related to her by a new birth, and be made 
members of her by regeneration ; this is properly to be born in Sion : ' This 
man was born there.' As without regeneration we have not God for our 
father, so neither have we Sion or the church for our mother. This is the 
great privilege we should inquire after, without which we are not in God's 
register. This second birth God only approves of; he enrols no man in the 
number of the citizens of Sion, nor endows them with the special privileges 
of it upon the account of their first, wherein they lie buried in the corruption 
of Adam, and are citizens of hell, not of Jerusalem. Again, this second 
birth is never without the knowledge of God : ' Among those that know me.' 
Ignorance is a bar to this enrolment ; he is no man that is not a rational 
creature, and he no regenerate man that hath not some knowledge in the 
great mysteries of God in Christ. 

In ver. 5. 1. The honour of Sion is described by her fruitfulness. 

1. In regard of the eminency of her births, she is not wholly barren ; she 
hath her births of men, and worthy men. The carnal world hath not ex- 
ceeded the church in men of raised intellectuals ; Sion hath not been a city 
of fools. Dionysius the Areopagite hath been her production, as well as 
Damaris a woman. Kings also have been nursed at her breasts, that they 
might be nursing fathers to her by their power ; but the honour of Sion con- 
sists in the inward change it makes on men, dispossessing them of the nature 
of wolves for that of lambs, rendering them the 'loyal subjects of God instead 
of his active enemies. It is the glory of Sion that this or that man born in 
her was changed to such principles and such afi'ections, that all the educa- 
tion and politeness of the most accomplished cities in the world could not 
furnish them with. 

2. In regard of the multitude of them ; ' this and that man,' of all sorts 
and conditions, and multitudes of them, so that ' more are the children of 
the desolate than of the married wife.' The tents were prophesied to be 
enlarged, the curtains of the habitations of Sion to be stretched out, and 
her cords to be lengthened, to receive and entertain that multitude of chil- 
dren that should be brought forth by her after the sacrifice of the Son of 
God, Isa. hv. 1, 2 ; for that exhortation follows upon the description of the 
death and exaltation of Christ, Isa. liii. 

2. The happiness of Sion. ' The Highest himself shall establish her.' 

(1.) Security in her glory. * Establish her.' 

(2.) The author of that security and perpetuity ; ' the Highest ;' and that 

* De Dieu in loc. 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 321 

exclusive of any other. ' The Highest himself;* all that are not the most 
high are excluded from having a share in the establishment of the church. 

It is a work peculiar to him. It is not the excellent learning, strength of 
the wise or mighty men that are born in her, that doth preserve her, but 
God alone. He spirits and acts them ; means God doth use in bringing in 
inward grace, means he doth use in settling the outward form : but such 
means that have in reason no strength to effect so great a business, means 
different from those which are used in the establishment of other kingdoms, 
whereby the hand that acts them is more visible and plain than the means 
that are used.f It is not the wit of man, which is folly, nor the strength 
of man, which is weakness, nor the holiness of man, which is nothing, can 
claim the honour of this work. God himself picks stones out of the quarry, 
smooths them for the building, fixeth them in their places. He himself is 
the only architect ; his wisdom contrives it, his grace erects it, his power 
preserves it, and accomplisheth his own work. It is the highest ; none 
higher to overpower him, none so high as to check and mate him. 

Shall establish her. This cannot be meant of the literal or local Sion 
(though that indeed was preserved while the legal service was to endure, 
excepting that interruption by the Babylonish captivity, but now Mahomet's 
horse tramples upon it, and it retains none of the ancient inhabitants), but 
of the true mystical Sion, the gospel state of the church, which shall con- 
tinue in being, as Christ the head of it hath settled it, till time shall be no 
more. Other kingdoms may crumble away, the foundations of them be 
dissolved ; but that God which laid the foundation of Sion, and built her 
walls, will preserve her palaces, that the gates of hell, the subtlety of here- 
tics, the fury of tyrants, the apostasy of some of her pretended children, 
all the locusts and spawn of the bottomless pit, shall not be able to root 
her up. 

Shall establish her. The word pi3 signifies the affording all things neces- 
sary for defence, increase of victory, preparations of it, the knitting of it. 

Doct. The gospel- church is a perpetual society, estabhshed by the highest 
power in heaven or earth. 

It shall continue as long as the world, and outlive the dissolution of nature ; 
she shall bring forth her man-child (maugre all the vigilancy of the dragon), 
which shall be caught up to God and his throne ; and though she be forced 
to fly into the wilderness, yet a place is prepared for her habitation, and food 
for her support during that state, no less than twelve hundred and sixty days, 
or years, and this by no weaker, no meaner a hand than that of God himself: 
Eev. xii. 3, 6, ' Where she hath a place prepared of God.' That hand that 
catches up Christ the man-child into heaven, that hand that sets him upon 
the throne of God, provides meat for the woman in the wilderness. The 
head and the body have the same defender, the same protector, the same 
hand to secure them.;]: Or by man-child is meant the whole number of the 
believers, whir^h were more numerous before she went into a wilderness- 
con^lition, t.hr .j- 1 liture using often the singular for the plural, and the Holy 
Gho^jt expres^;ilJg 1 imself here according to the property of the woman, which 
is to bring foith "ue at tl.u same time. The figure of the church notes sta- 
bihty ; it ]& ■,,. ?qii.ue, and the length is as large as the breadth,' Rev. 
jfxi. IG. ' J hi ;, ngtli, breacitb, and ijeight of it are equal ; ' the most perfect 
figure, notii -y |„ jlocti(»u and duration. So it was described in the prophecy, 
Kzek. xlviii. !>; exactly four thousfaiJ five hundred measures on each side. 
All belonging to this city or church is rckoned by the number twelve, a 
* Cocf-ei. m '" • t i''oiii.ng. t llibera in loo. 



322 chaenock's woeks. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

square number, equal on all sides ; twelve gates, twelve foundations, twelve 
tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, twelve stones to garnish it. Rev. xxi. 12-14, 
&c, A four-square figure is an emblem of unchangeable constancy. Things 
so framed remain always in the same posture, cast them which way you will, 
and among some of the heathens was reckoned as a divine figure ; * and the 
character of a virtuous man in regard of his constancy was rfr^dyuvog. 

The shutting of the gate of the new temple, Ezek. sliv. 2, after the God of 
Israel had entered in by it, is interpreted by some of the everlasting dwelling 
of the Lord in the church of the gospel among his people, and never depart- 
ing from it, as he had done from the first temple. -f None shall enter in to 
deface it, none shall prescribe new laws to it, none shall trample upon it. 
When God enters into the Christian church, he shuts the door after him ; 
his presence never departs from it ; his gospel shall never be rooted out of 
it. The church hath a security in its foundation, as being * built upon a 
rock,' Mat. xviii. 16. It hath an assurance of preservation by the presence 
of the God of Israel, of ' Christ in the midst of her,' Mat. xxviii. 19, 20. 
' The tabernacle of Sion shall not be taken down ; not one of the stakes 
thereof shall be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken ; ' 
and that because ' the glorious Lord shall be a place of broad rivers and 
streams to it,' Isa. xxxiii. 20, 21. 

The enemies of the church shall be consumed, that God may have his due 
praise. Hallelujahs are never sung with the highest note till the wicked and 
idolatrous generation be rooted out of the earth. Hallelujahs were never 
used, as the Jews observe, till the consummation of all things by the setting 
the church above the tossing of the waves, and the destruction of its troublers ; 
when the glory of the Lord should endure for ever, and God rejoice in his 
works, Ps. civ. 31, 35. And therefore, when the blood of his children is 
avenged by his justice upon his enemies, and the smoke of antichrist riseth 
up before him, and the kingdom of God is for ever settled. Hallelujah is 
pronounced and repeated with a loud voice. Rev. xix. 2, 3, 6. Such a time 
will be, and God will establish and secure his church till he hath perfected 
his own and her glory. 

This stabihty the church hath had experience of in all ages of the world : 
and it will always be said in her, Ps. xlviii. 8, < As we have heard, so have 
we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God ; God will 
establish it for ever.' 

In the handling this doctrine, these four things are to be done."" 

I. The explication. 11. The proof that it is so. III. Why it must needs 
be so. IV. Use. 

I. Explication. 

1. This stability must not be meant of any particular church in the world. 
Particular churches have their beginnings, progresses, and periods. Many 
churches, as well as many persons, have apostatised from the faith ; many 
candlesticks have been broken in pieces, and yet the candle not blown 
out, but removed and set in another socket. Particular churches have been 
corrupted by superstition and idolatry, rent by heresies, and scattered by 
persecutions. What remains are there of those seven churches in Asia which 
■were the walk of Christ, Rev. ii. 1, but deplorable ruins ? Tilere ' ^ no absu 
lute promise given to any particular church that it shall be free ' n defec- 
tion. The church of Rome, so flourishing in the apostles' time, v- * warned 
to be humble, lest it became as much apostate as that of the Jt^vs, Rom, 
xi. 21, 22. Nay, there are predictions of almost an universal apostasy : 
* The Arcadians made Jovis sigjium quadranffulum (Pausaiuas tie Arcadicis). 
t Lightfoot, Temple, cap, xxxviii. p. 252. 



Ps. LXXXVn. 5.] THE church's stability. 323 

' All the world wondered after the beast,' Rev. xiii. 3, * and worshipped him,* 
ver. 8. And just before the coming of Christ, it will be difficult to find a 
grain of faith among the multitude of chaff, Luke xviii. 8. There is not one 
place which was, in the primitive times, dignified with truth, but is now 
deformed by error. Yea, the universal church hath been forced by the 
fury of the dragon, though not to sink, yet to fly into the wilderness and 
obscurity, yet hath been preserved through all changes in the midst of thos 
desolations and deserts. It is not, indeed, so fixed in one place but the cords 
may be taken up, the stakes removed, and the tents pitched in another 
ground. It is spread through the world wherever God will set up the light 
of his gospel. Sion hath stood, though some synagogues of it have been 
pulled down ; it hath, like the sun, kept its station in the firmament, thougb 
not without eclipses and clouds to muffle it. The church is but one, though 
it be in divers countries, and named according to the places where it resides, 
as the church of Ephesus, the church of Sardis, &c., which all are as the 
beams of the sun darted from one body, branches growing from one root, 
streams flowing from one fountain. If you obstruct the light of one beam, 
or lop off one branch, or dam up the stream, yet the sun, root, fountain 
remains the same. So though the light of particular churches may be dim 
and extinguished, the beauty of them defaced, yet the universal church, that 
which is properly Sion, remains the same ; it remains upon Christ the rock, 
and is still upon the basis of the covenant ; it is still God's church, and God 
is her God. "When a people have forfeited their church privileges by barren- 
ness and wantonness, and God in justice strips- them of their ornaments, he 
will have another people, which he will form for his glory and fit for his resi- 
dence. The gospel shall never want an host to entertain it, nor a ground to 
be made fruitful by it : Mat. xxi. 43, * The kingdom of God shall be taken 
from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.' The 
kingdom of God is not destroyed when it is removed, but transplanted into a 
more fruitful soil. While Christ hath a body in the world, he will find a 
Joseph of Arimathea to embalm it, and preserve it for a resurrection. When 
the glory of the Lord goes ofi' from one cherub, it will find other cherubims 
whereon to settle, Ezek. x. 4, 18. That glory which had dwelt in the 
material ark of the sanctuary departs from thence to find a throne in that 
chariot which had been described, Ezek. i. Nay, the departure of God 
from one church renders his name more glorious in another.* The rejection 
of the carnal Israel was the preamble to the appearance of the spiritual 
Israel ; and the kingdom of the Messiah was rendered more large and illus- 
trious by the dissolving of that church that had confidence in the flesh, 
trusted in their external rites, and patched the beauty and purity of divine 
worship with their whorish additions ; just as the mortification of the flesh 
gives liveliness to the spirit, and the pulling up noisome weeds from a gar- 
den makes room for the setting and flourishing growth of good plants. 

2. Though God unstakes the church in one place, yet he will not only 
have a church, but a professing church in another. ' It shall be said of 
Sion, This and that man was born there.' It shall be said of Sion by God ; 
it shall be said of Sion by men. If Christ confesseth none before his Father 
but such as confess him before men, Luke xii. 8, shall he ever want em- 
ployment ? Shall the world ever be at that pass as to bear none that profess 
him, an( so none to be owned by him at the right hand of his Father ? 
Shall he by whom all things subsist, have none to acknowledge their sub- 
sistence by him ? The world may be the inheritance of Christ, but scarce 
counted his possession, if there were not in some parts of it a body of sub- 
* Rivet in Hos. 1. x. p. 518. 



324 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

jects to justify their allegiance to him in the face of a persecuting generation. 
Indeed, when the church was confined to the narrow limits of the carnal 
Israel, the profession of the truth was contracted to a few, though the faith 
of it might be alive in others ; only Caleb and Joshua among the whole 
body of the murmuring Israelites in the wilderness asserted the honour of 
God, and maintained the truth of his promise, though the belief of it might 
sparkle in the hearts of others under the ashes of their fears, that hindered 
their discovery of it to others. It was another time reduced to one, and 
Elijah only had the boldness to make a declaration of the name of God, 
though there were seven thousand who had retained their purity, while they 
had lost their courage to publish it, 1 Kings xix. 18. But in the Christian 
church, since the number of elect are more, the profession will be greater in 
the midst of an universal apostasy of pretenders : Kev. xiii. 18, 'All that 
dwell upon the earth shall worship him,' /. e. the beast, ' whose names are 
not written in the book of life of the Lamb.' If their election be a preser- 
vative against an adoration of the beast, it is also a security against the 
denial of any such worship, and an encouragement to profess the name of 
Christ when they shall be brought upon the stage. 

This profession may lie much in the dark, and not be so visible as before ; 
as a field of corn overtopped by weeds, looks at a distance as if there were 
nothing else but the blue and red cockle and darnel, but when we come near 
we see the good grain shews its head as well as the weeds ; but a professing 
people there will be one where or other. It is a standing law of Christianity, 
that a belief in the heart should be attended by confession with the mouth, 
Eom. X. 9. And the church is a congregation of people sounding the voice 
of Christ, as he was preached and confessed by the apostles. While there are 
believers, there will be professors in society together ; some ordinances 
settled in being during the continuance of the world, as the supper, 1 Cor. 
xi. 6, implies a society, as the seat of the administration ; baptism is a 
ceremony of admission into a society ; the supper, a feasting of several upon 
spiritual viands. Officers appointed imply a body professing some rules, 
Mat. xxviii. 20. To what purpose are all these settled during the continuance 
of the ijvorld, if they were not somewhere to be practised till that period of 
time ; and how can they be practised without a confederation and society ? 
Without such a body all the ordinances and rules of Christ would be in vain, 
and imply as little wisdom in enacting them, as a want of power in not keep- 
ing up a society in some part of the world to observe them according to his 
own prescriptions. There will therefore, be, in some part or other of the 
world, a church openly professing the doctrine of truth. 

3. This church or Sion shall have a numerous progeny. The spiritual 
Israel shall be ' as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or num- 
bered,' Hosea i. 10, which was the promise made to Abraham, Gen. xxii. 17, 
and renewed in the same terms to Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 12. The church is a 
little flock in comparison of the carnal world, yet it is numerous in itself, 
though not in every place ; for sometimes there may not be above three 
found to withstand the worship of a golden image ; yet in some one or other 
place of the world, and successively, it shall be numerous ; he will not lose the 
honour of the feast he hath prepared, though those that are invited prefer their 
farms and oxen before it, but will find guests in the highways ; he will spread 
his wings from east to west, and ' in every place incense shall be offered to his 
name,' Mai. i. 11. The church is compared to the morning, Cant. vi. 10, 
which from small beginnings in a short time fills the whole hemisphere with 
light ; and the promises concerning it run all that way. • The hills were to be 
covered with the shadow of it;' ' her boughs are to be sent out to the sea, and her 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE CHUECU'S STABILITY. 325 

branches to the river,' Ps, Ixxx. 10, 11. It was to spread itself ' Hke a 
goodly cedar, and be a dwelling-place to the fowl of every wing,' Ezek. 
xvii. 23. Yea, a numberless multitude from all nations, kindreds, people, 
and tongues, are to stand before the throne, and before the Lamb, ' clothed 
with white robes, and palms in their hands,' Piev. vii. 9, adorned with inno- 
cency, and crowned with victory. No monarchy ever did, ever can so far 
stretch her bounds ; nor hath the sun seen any place where it hath not seen 
some sprinkling of a church. Every kingdom hath met with unpassable 
bounds, but the ensigns of Christ have not been limited. The church was 
once crowded up in a narrow compass of Judea, but since that her territories 
are enlarged ; her ensigns have flourished over many countries, Rahab, 
Tyre, Ethiopia, the vast circuit of Asia, and the' deserts of Africa have^been 
added to her empire ; her progeny shall be hereafter as numerous as it hath 
been. When the devices of antichrist shall be more seen and perceived, 
they will be more nauseated ; and many with Ephraim shall say, ' What 
have I to do any more with idols ?' 

II. Second thing. That God has hitherto established Sion. 

1. It is testified by its present standing, when other empires have sunk 
by age or violence. 

God hath promised the stability and eminency of the mountain of the 
Lord's house above all the mountains, the strongest power, and most com- 
pacted empires of the world, sometimes signified to us by that title, Isa. ii. 2. 
And in the midst of his destroying plagues, and his milder anger with the 
church, she hath a charter of security : Jer. sxx. 11, ' Though I make a full 
end of all nations, yet will I not make an end of thee.' Further, the reasons 
why kingdoms and nations are pulled up by the roots and utterly wasted, is 
not only because they are inveterate enemies, but refuse her easy chains, and 
decline her service : Isa. Ix. 12, ' The nation and kingdom that will not 
serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.' The 
warrant for the execution of such is as firmly sealed by heaven, as the patent 
for the church's preservation ; it is repeated with an emphasis. The perse- 
cuted church hath .still been lifted up, when the Assyrian, Persian, and Greek 
monarchies have fallen in pieces, and left no footsteps of their grandeur. 
The prosperity of worldly kingdoms is no better than a fire of straw that 
blazeth and vauisheth ; it hath but the brittle foundation of human policy, 
and an establishment by a temporary providence. The everlasting covenant 
and the basis of divine truth and love cannot be claimed by any but the 
church. Not a kingdom can be pitched upon in all the records of history 
that hath maintained its standing and triumphed over its enemies, and sub- 
sisted at such a rate, and by unusual and unheard-of methods, as the church 
hath done. Those that have been best guarded by laws, hedged in with the 
best methods of government, and armed with a strong power to protect them, 
have found something or other rising from their bowels, or enemies' power 
to procure their dissolution. But the church, though dashed against so 
many rocks, has yet floated above the deluge of those commotions that have 
sunk other societies. The kings of the world could never yet boast of a full 
conquest of her, or brag that she hath been subjected to the same condition 
with themselves. She hath borne up her head in the midst of earthly revol- 
utions, and met with her preservation or resurrection where carnal interests 
have found their funeral. Those that have set their feet upon the church's 
breasts, or spilt her blood, have found their poison where they imagined 
they should find their safety. The Babylonish empire, which was God's rod 
for the correcting his people, saw herself in the chains of hor enemies that 
night she had been sacrilegiously carousing healths in the sacred vessels of 



326 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

the temple, Dan. v. 3, 30 ; and the Jews enjoyed a deliverer, where the 
Babylonians felt the force of a conqueror. Many such fatal periods may be 
reckoned up, both in sacred and human stoi-y, either for not protecting 
or persecuting that which is so dear to the Highest, who hath estabHshed 
her. 

2. No society but the church ever subsisted in the midst of a multitude 
of enemies. Has she not been like a little flock in the midst of many wolves, 
which, though they sucked the blood of some, yet could never reach the head 
or heart of the whole ? The devil hath attacked her, without vanquishing 
her ; shaken her, without ruining her. The biting of the serpent, according 
to the ancient promise, may bruise the heel, but not the head, and make an 
incuraWe wound in the mystical body. She hath been preserved in a haling 
world in spite of the enmity of it, by a divine wisdom that hath not regulated 
itself by the methods of flesh and blood. His feeding the Israelites in the 
wilderness was a figure of what he would do to his church, and he hath 
accomplished it to the gospel church as really as he did to the ancient Israel. 
While she hath been in a wilderness these twelve hundred years, and I hope 
somewhat upwards, she hath not wanted her manna, nor her rock ; she hath 
been fed in her straits, and preserved in her combats ; and as Christ reigns, 
so the church lives, and hath her table spread in the midst of her enemies. 
What is eleven hundred years' continuance of the Venetian government to 
so many thousand years' preservation of the church in the midst of atheism, 
paganism, antichristianism, ever since it was first born and nursed in Adam's 
family ; and this hath been when ier friends have forsaken her, when her 
enemies have been confident of her ruin, when herself hath expected Httle 
else than destruction, when she hath thought sometimes in her straits her God 
ignorant of her ; when hell hath poured out a flood, the carnal earth hath 
sometimes found it their interest to help her, though their enmity were irre- 
concileable against her, Rev. xii. 1-6. The subtilty and power of her enemies, 
that have found success in their other projects, have met with an unforeseen 
baffle when they have armed against her. Men of the greatest abilities have 
proved fools when they have exercised their wit against her. Ahithophel's 
wisdom was great when on David's side, and changed to folly when he shifted 
sides against him. A secret blast hath been upon the projects of men when 
they have turned against her upon secular interests. In the greatest judgments 
which have come and shall come upon the world, when wonders shall be 
shewn in the heavens and in the earth,. blood, fire, and pillars of smoke, 
when ' the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,' 
Joel ii. 80, 31 ; yet God will have a mount Sion and a Jerusalem, some * that 
call upon his name,' ver. 32. Not the malice of her enemies shall impair 
her, because of God's power, nor the common judgments of the world under 
which others sink shall extinguish her, because of God's truth ; ver. 32, ' As 
the Lord hath said.' Whence comes all this, but from God's having been her 
* dwelling-place in all generations' ?Ps.xc. 1. He was so to her from the time 
of Abraham to the introduction of his posterity into Canaan; he hath sheltered 
her as an house doth an inhabitant, or the ark did Noah in the midst of 
many waters. In all generations, Sion hath been impregnable ; for he that 
is her dwelling-place hath formed the mountains, and ' from everlasting to 
everlasting is only God,' ver. 2 ; and though one generation pass and another 
comes, he is the same dwelling-place, and never out of repair, never will 
want repair ; and therefore it is an astonishment that the devil, after so long 
an experience, should be such a fool as to engage in new attempts, when he 
hath found so little success in his former, and hath had so many ages to 
witness the baffles he hath received. What a fool is he, to think that her 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 327 

defender should be conquered by a revolted angel, that lies under an ever- 
lasting curse ! 

3. The violences against her, which have been fatal to otlfcr societies, have 
been useful to her. This bush hath burned without consuming, and 'preserved 
its verdure in the midst of fire ; not from the nature of the bush, but the 
presence of Him that dwelt in it. It hath not only subsisted in the bowels 
of her enemies, but hath been established by means of the violence of men, 
and grown greater in the midst of torments and death. She hath not only 
out-grown her afflictions, but grown greater and better by them. The last 
monarchy, composed of clay and iron, clay for its earthly and miry designs, 
and iron for its force and violence, is the immediate usher of the kingdom of 
God, that shall never be destroyed, but stand for ever, Daniel ii. 41, 44. 

(1.) She hath been often increased. Persecution hath lopped off some 
branches of the vine, but have been found more sprouting up instead of them 
that were cut off. Her blood hath been seed, and the pangs of her martyrs 
have been fruitful in bringing forth new witnesses. We have scarce read of 
more sudden conversions to Christianity, though indeed more numerous, by the 
preaching of the word, than by the shedding the blood of Christians. Emi- 
nent professors have sprung out of the martyrs' ashes. The storms have 
been so far from destroying her, that it hath been the occasion of spreading 
her tents in a larger ground. Saul's winnowing the church blew away 
some of the corn to take rooting in other places, Acts viii. 8, 4, like 
seeds of plants blown away by the wind, which have risen and brought forth 
their kind in another soil ; and it is no more than hath been predicted, Daniel 
xii. 1, 4, such ' a time of trouble that never was since there was a nation,' 
should be the time when ' many should run to and fro, and knowledge should 
be increased.' While other societies increase by persecuting their enemies, 
this increaseth by being persecuted herself : it * grows as a vine,' Hosea xiv. 7. 
Though it be cut, the cutting hath contributed to its thriving. This rose- 
bush hath not only stood in the wind which hath rooted up other oaks, but 
the fragrancy of it hath been carried by that wind to places at a greater dis- 
tance. When Antiochus commanded all the books of the Scripture in the 
hands of any to be burned, they were not only preserved, but presently after 
appeared out of their hidden places, as they were translated into the Greek 
tongue, the language then most known in the world, and made public to other 
nations. Truth hath been often rendered by such proceedings more clear 
and glorious. The persecution of Sion's head, the Captain of our salvation, 
to death, was the occasion of the discovery of the gospel to the whole world. 
He was the great seed, that being cast into the ground became so fruitful as 
to spread his branches in all corners of the earth, John xii. 24. And that 
persecution which I suppose remains yet to be acted, and which will be the 
smartest, shall be succeeded by the clearest eruption of gospel light, wherein 
the gospel shall recover its ancient and primitive glory. The slaying of the 
witnesses shall end in an evangelical success, Piev. xi. 9, 10, &c. The world 
* shall give glory to the God of heaven,' ver. 13 ; ' The kingdoms of the world 
shall become the kingdoms of Christ,' ver. 15 ; Christ shall more illustriously 
reign, ver. 17 ; the temple of God shall be opened in heaven, ver. 19. The 
spiritual Israel as well as the national, the antitype as well as the type, have 
multiplied under oppression ;* and, like an arched building, stood firmer by 
all the weights that have been designed to crush her. 

(2.) She has often been refined by the most violent persecutions of her 
enemies. 

She hath not only survived the flames that have been kindled against her, 
* Decay of Christian Piety, p. 23. 



828 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVIL 5. 

but, as refined gold, come out more beautiful from tbe furoace, left ber dross 
behind her, and batb been wrought into a more beautiful frame by the hand 
of ber great Artificer. Like the sand upon the sea shore, she hath not only 
broke the force of the waves, but been assisted by them to discharge her filth, 
and been washed more clean by those waves that rushed in to drown her. 
She hath been more conformed to the image of her Head ; and made fitter 
to glorify God here, and to enter into the glory of God hereafter. The 
church is to ' cast forth her roots like Lebanon,' Hosea xiv. 5. The cedar 
by its shakings grows up more in beauty as well as strength, and the torch 
by its knocks burns the clearer. Though the number of her children might 
sometimes decrease through fear, yet her true offspring that have remained, 
have increased in their zeal, courage, and love to God. Apostates themselves 
have proved refiners of them that they have deserted : Daniel xi. 35, ' And 
some of them of understanding shall fall to try them, and to purge and make 
them white.' The corn is the purer by the separation of the chaff; thus hath 
she grown purer by flames, and sounder by batteries. 

4. When she has seemed to be forlorn and dead, God has restored her. 
When Israel was at the lowest, a decree issued out in Egypt to destroy her 
males and root out her seed, deliverance began to dawn ; and when a knife 
was at her throat at the Red Sea, and scarce a valiant believer found among 
a multitude of despairers, God turned the back of the knife to his Israel, and 
the edge to the throat of the enemies. When the whole church as well as 
the whole world seemed to be at its last gasp, God preserved a Noah as a 
spark to kindle a new world and a new church by. When Jerusalem was 
sacked, the city destroyed, the people dispersed into several parts of the 
Babylonish empire, without any human probability of ever being gathered 
again into one body, yet she was preserved, restored, recollected, brought 
out of the sepulchre, resettled in her ancient soil, and recovered her beauty ; 
which can be said of no other society in the world but this, whose deliver- 
ance and restoration hung not upon the will and policy of man, but upon 
the word of God, who had limited their captivity to seventy years, and pro- 
mised a restoration. The blessing of God to Abraham and Sarah is set 
out as a ground of faith and comfort for the church's restoration and in- 
crease : Isa. li. 1-3, he will * comfort Sion, and comfort all her waste places; 
and make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of God, 
that joy and gladness may be found therein,' as well as he did enliven the 
dead body of Abraham and the barren womb of Sarah. When the church 
hath been so low that men have despaired of seeing any more of her than 
her ashes, God hath produced a new remnant, he hath reserved a tenth to 
return, Isa. -vi. 13 ; and from the hidden womb of the earth brought forth 
a new succession by the vigorous influence of the Sun of righteousness. And 
after the last attempt and success of the antichristian state, when they are 
jolly and merry at the church's funeral, Rev. xi. 10, they shall soon be 
amazed at her resurrection, ver. 11 ; as much as the high priests were at 
the resurrection of Christ, for the church can no more lie in the grave than 
her Head, the mystical body no more than the natural. His resurrection 
was an earnest of this, and this the accomplishment of that. Little difier- 
ence in the time of their grave state ; three days the natural body lay, three 
days and an half only the mystical shall lie before a full revival. 

5. God never wanted instruments for his church in the due season. If 
Abel be butchered by Cain, God will raise up Seth in his place to bring men 
to a public form of worship. Gen. iv. 26. If Nebuchadnezzar be the axe to 
hew down Jerusalem, Cyrus shall be the instrument to build her up ; when 
his time is come, he will not want an Ezra and Nehemiah to rear her walls, 



Ps. LXXXYII. 5. J THE church's stability. 329 

nor be wanting to them to inspire them with courage and assist their labour, 
in spite of the adversaries that would give checkmate to the work. If Stephen 
be stoned by the Jews, he will call out Paul, an abetter of that murder, to 
be a preacher of the gospel, and he that was all fire against it shall become 
as great a flame for the propagation of it : one phoenix shall arise out of the 
ashes of another. When Arianism like a deluge overflowed the world, the 
church wanted not an Athanasius to stand in the gap and be a champion for 
the truth of the deity of Christ. When enemies rise up against the church 
from all quarters to afliict it, God raised others from all quarters to defend 
it, Zech. i. 19, 20. Yea, those that have been the instruments to support 
the antichristian state against her, by giving their power and strength to the 
beast, shall turn their arms against that which they supported, to ' make her 
desolate, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire,' Rev. xvii. 12, 13, 16. It is 
the same Christ that is king in his church, and the Spirit is not dispossessed 
of his otfice to furnish men with gifts for the defence and increase of it ; he 
is still a spirit of government in magistrates, and the spirit of fire in minis- 
ters, for the church's interest. Now, since the church hath maintained 
its standing longer than any other empire, and that in the the midst of 
its enemies, and hath been both increased and refined by the violences 
used against her, since she hath been so often restored and never wanted 
instruments for the rearing and protecting her, who can doubt whether the 
Highest hath not, and whether the Highest will not, establish her and cover 
her with his mighty wings ? 

III. The third thing, Why it must needs be so. 

1. It is necessary for the honour of God. Those societies may moulder 
away, and those religions grow feeble, which have drawn their birth from the 
wisdom of man and been settled from the force of man, but a divine work 
must needs have a divine estabhshment. It is so, 

(1.) If you regard it as his main design in the creation of the world. Can 
we think God made the world for the world's sake, that he pitched taber- 
nacles here for a few creatures that could spell from all his works but a few 
and little letters of his name ? Could the bare creation shew to man so 
much as bis back parts ? The most glorious perfections of his nature could 
never be visible in a handful of creatures, though never so glorious, no, nor 
in multitudes of worlds of a more beautiful aspect, without the discovery of 
the gospel and the settling a gospel church. How should we have known 
his patience, been instructed in his mercy, have had any sense of his grace, 
or understood the depths of his wisdom, or heard the voice of the bowels of 
his love, so as they are linked together in his nature ? If God created the 
world for his glory, he created it for his highest glory: a bare creation, with- 
out a redeemed company of creatures, could never have given us a prospect 
of the great glory of his nature, nor have answered the end of God, which 
was the manifestation of his perfections. His wisdom broke out in the 
frame of all creatures, giving them life and motion ; but his eye, when he 
made the world, was upon the manifestation of a greater wisdom which then 
lay hid in his bosom, and was not to be discovered but in the publishing the 
gospel, Eph. iii. 9, 10. The wisdom that broke out in the creation was 
but a scaffold whereon in time his wisdom in the glory of a church peculiar 
to himself should appear. All things were created for Christ as well as by 
him, for him and his glory as mediator and as head of the church, and there- 
fore for the glory of his body. And his end in sending Christ was to 
' gather all things together in him,' those things which are in heaven as well 
as those which are on earth, Eph. i. 10 ; and in order to that end he works 
all things : ver. 11, 'He works all things according to the counsel of his 



330 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXYII. 5. 

own will.' This counsel and will of appointing Christ was the spring and 
rule of all his works, and therefore of creation, as well as the rest succeeding 
it. He that would upon occasion give the richest parts of the world for the 
ransom of Sion, as Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba, Isa. xxiii. 43, may well be thought 
to create those and other nations to lay a foundation for her. We know that 
soon after the creation the rest of God was disturbed by the entrance of sin, 
which could not come unexpected, unfoi-eseen, and unpermitted. There 
had not then been any ground of rejoicing in the habitable parts of the 
earth, Prov. viii. 31, if he had not designed something else. But he pro- 
vided in his counsel another rest, and in order to that suffered this first 
in the bare creation to be spoiled : Sion he chose, and Sion he desired as 
his rest for ever, wherein he would dwell, Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14. The end of 
God in creation was not certainly only to make a sun or stars, an earth 
bedecked with plants, and man, a rational creature, only to contemplate 
these works, but to render him the acknowledgments of his power and 
wisdom.-"' As a limner lays his chief design in the midst of the cloth, 
and fills the void places with many other fancies to beautify and set off his 
work, but those were not in his first intention, but his main design was the 
draught in the middle, surrounded with the rest. Now, when man by sin 
had made himself uncapable of performing the work he had to do, God 
orders things so as to have a rest, to have a people to acknowledge him. 
Hence, perhaps, the forming of such a people is called by the term of a new 
creation, not only as it is an act of creative power, but as it was the chief 
design of the exerting his power in the creation of the world. ' His founda- 
tion is in the holy mountain,' Ps. Ixxxv, 1; and shall the chief of his counsel 
be the conquest and triumph of Satan ? Shall he, at the closing up of the 
world, be defeated of his main contrivance ? Surely if there w^ere a greater 
opposition to Sion than ever there was, he would exert a greater strength 
than ever he did not to be crossed in his principal aim. 

(2.) As he hath been the author and builder of Sion. Great kings have 
a particular care of the cities they have founded, for the honour and preser- 
vation of their name, and a testimony of their magnificence ; with what 
choice privileges do they use to endow them ! With what strong garrisons 
do they use to secure them in time of danger ! And shall not the great God 
perpetuate that which he hath formed for his glory, to which he hath given 
a peculiar denomination of the City of God ?t Nebuchadnezzar cannot be 
more industrious to enrich Babylon, which he had built by the might of his 
power, than God will be to perpetuate Sion, which he hath built for the 
honour of his majesty. God was the architect of this city, and gave the 
model. Christ was the builder of this city, and raised the structure : Heb. 
iii. 3, 4, He, i. e. Christ, built the house, ' and he that built all things is 
God.' God laid the platform of all things, much more of that which is 
dearer to him than all things. He laid the foundation of it by his Son ; 
whereas the Jewish synagogue was formed by the ministry of Moses. He 
hath poured upon her greater treasures of knowledge, a fuller measure of the 
Spirit than he did before, that the knowledge of precedent ages was nothing 
in comparison of that which he lighted on the gospel Sion, in the fulness of 
time. The Spirit hath formed the church in the womb of the world, as he 
formed Christ in the womb of the virgin. The natural and the mystical 
body of the Son of God have the same author and original ; not a stone fitted 
to be a part in composing this temple, but was culled out and polished by 

* Charron. iii. Verit. lib. iii. cap i. p. 16. 

t Called by that title four times in the 48th Psalm, 1, 2, 8, 14, whence the psalmist 
concludes the establishment of her. 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE chukch's stability. 331 

God, 1 Peter iii. 5. He that laid the comer stone, fixeth the ' lively stones' 
to become a ' spiritual house.' Are built ; not built themselves ; it is his 
house, because he built it, as well as his house, because he dwells in it, and 
rules it as the master of the family. Though the whole fabric of nature is 
God's work, yet the church is peculiarly, and by way of distinction, called 
his work : Hab. iii. 2, ' revive thy work ;' and every stone in it is called his 
jewel : Mai. iii. 17, ' my jewels ;' made so by his power, in working a real 
change ; for by natui-e they were as unfit as the common pebbles of the earth. 
He is therefore peculiarly called the Creator of Israel, Isa. xhii. 15. As he 
hath maintained a creation revolted from him, notwithstanding all the pro- 
voking sins of men, so he will maintain a creation dear to him, notwith- 
standing all the bloody contrivances of men. Sion's inheritance is secured, 
because it is ' a branch of God's planting,' Isa. Ix. 21. Things are preserved 
by the same means whereby they are first settled. Is it not, then, for the 
honour of God, to be the establisher of that, by the power of his might, 
whereof he hath been the founder by the strength of his arm. He made not 
use of the riches, power, and wisdom of the world, to lay the foundation of 
Sion ; but as the Jews, he wrought, as it were, with a trowel in one hand, 
and a sword in the other, and erected her walls against the force and policy 
of hell and earth ; and as he founded it without worldly advantages, and 
against the stream of corrupt nature, he knows how to preserve it, when the 
wit and strength of the world are contrary to it. It would be too low a con- 
ceit of the wisdom and power of God, to imagine that he should undertake 
so great a work, to be baffled in the end he designed to himself. His wis- 
dom is as much concerned in honour to work wonders for the preservation 
of Sion, as his power was employed at first miraculously to lay the first cor- 
ner stone of her. 

(3.) As he hath been the preserver and enlarger of her to this day. Men 
think themselves concerned in honour to perfect those which they call their 
creatures, and often regard one act of kindness as an engagement upon them 
to successive acts of the like nature. It is not for the honour of any man 
to stand by a friend a long time, and to enjoy the glory of assisting him, and 
desert him at the last pinch. God set up the church after the fall in Adam's 
family, rather than create a new world to create a new church ; he raised up 
Seth to propagate it, when Abel was taken off by the bloody hands of his 
brother ; he preserved it in Noah's family in the midst of a corrupted and 
degenerate world, and settled it upon the foundation of the gospel in both. 
Upon the first promise in the family of Adam, Gen. iii. 15 ; upon the sweet- 
smelling sacrifice offered by Noah, Gen. viii. 20-22 ; not upon the symbol 
or type, the blood of the beasts, but upon the thing signified by it ; and the 
preservation of the world promised after that sacrifice, was chiefly in order 
to the preservation of a church in it, as the creation of the world was in 
order to the erecting it ; and therefore the rainbow, settled then as a sign of 
tho covenant for the world's preservation from a flood of waters, is made the 
sign of the everlasting covenant of peace both in Ezekiel, chap. i. 28, and 
in the Revelation, chap. iv. 3, as a sign he would preserve his church from 
the multitude of waters, from the rage of the people, signified by waters in 
the prophetic part of Scripture, and from the floods that the devil should cast 
out against her. And thence it is that this covenant of her establishment is 
compared with that covenant God swore to Noah, and the faith of the church 
strengthened by reflection upon that, Isa. liv. 9. After this settling it in 
Noah, he fixed it in Abraham, and cleared up the promise of the Messiah 
with a greater evidence than to the ages before. He multiplied it in the 
fleshly Israel, and enlarged the bounds of it to a whole nation. After that, 



332 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

he takes away the partition wall, and spreads her confines to the possession 
of the Gentiles, that ' the sons of Japhet might dwell in the tents of Sheni,' 
according to his promise. Gen. ix. 27 ; out of the forlorn Gentiles, as stupid 
as stocks and stones, he raiseth up children, a great posterity, to Abraham. 
Those that he employed in the erecting Sion, and establishing the law that 
went out from her in the rubbish of the Gentiles, he struck off from all 
human assistances, all strength and power in themselves, when he commanded 
them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait there for a ' power from on 
high,' before they ventured to be witnesses to him, and pubhsh his name not 
only in the uttermost parts of the earth, but in Jerusalem, the city where 
they were to abide, or in any part of Judea, Acts i. 4-8, They were not to 
speak a word of him in their own strength, or in any strength less than a 
power from heaven, which was to be given them by the sending the Spirit ; 
and this he calls ' the promise of the Father,' as signifying his purpose to 
enlarge his church, as well as build it at the first, by himself and his own 
power. It is this, the promise of the Father, our Saviour there pitches their 
faith upon, and it is this our faith should be established in, in all conditions 
of the church. 

Now hath God thus reared up a church out of the ashes" of man's original 
apostasy, settled it among the murmuring and ungrateful Israelites that in- 
dustriously longed for the garlic and onions of Egypt, as weary of the great- 
ness of his mercy to them, and propagated it to the idolatrous Gentiles, 
filled with all unrighteousness, as bad as bad could be, as is described Kom, 
i. 29-31 ? To what purpose was the enlarging the church's patent, if he 
did intend the footsteps of her should ever be rooted out of the world ? He 
picked out the weakest, poorest persons as the matter of it, that he might 
shew his own honour in preserving it ; he hath yet supported her all the 
while she hath carried the cross of her Lord ; he hath sent his Spirit to 
frame a succession of new materials for her. How fruitless would all this 
be, if he should let hell waste the temple erected for heaven ? What ! did 
he gather and enlarge the church only to make it a richer conquest, and a 
fatter morsel for the devil ? How vain would his former kindness appear, 
if he should let it uttei-ly sink as long as the world endures ! It cannot be 
imagined, with any semblance of reason, that God hath taken all this care 
about the nursing and growth of the church from small beginnings, to let 
his darling be a prey to the mouth of lions, and be of no other use than to 
fatten his enemies, 

(4,) In regard of the cost and pains he hath been at about Sion, Did the 
creation of the world ever cost him so much ? Was there one tear, one 
groan, one sigh, much less the blood of the Son of God, expended in laying 
the foundation of it ? When the matter of it was without form and void, 
the beauty of it was not wrought with a washing with blood. When God 
established the clouds above, and strengthened the foundations of the deep ; 
when he gave the sea his decree, and appointed the foundations of the earth, 
the Son of God was by him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and 
his delights were among the sons of men, Prov. viii. 28, 29, 31, Not bleed- 
ing and dying. But this he must do ; he must take human nature, be bruised 
in his heel by the serpent, and be a sacrifice himself, make an atonement 
for sin, before a stone for the building of spiritual Sion could be framed 
and laid. 

What pains have been taken also in the effecting it ! The birth of the 
church was a work of greater power than the fabric of the world, A few 
words went to the rearing of that. In the revolution of six days, it was set 
upon its feet ; but many a year was God in travail before Sion was brought 



Ps. LXXXYII. 5.] THE church's stability. 333 

forth. There was an enemy as potent as hell to deal with in setting it in 
Adam's family after man's apostasy ; the corrupt nature, that had then got 
the possession of the world, to contest with. The world must be drowned, 
to bring it to a second nativity and establishment in Noah. The forming 
the church of the Jews was not without some pangs of nature ; what signs 
and wonders, and great terrors, were wrought in its bringing forth out of 
Egypt, and striking off the chains of her captivity ! Deut. iv. 34. What fire, 
blackness, darkness, tempest, that made a convulsion in the souls of those 
that were to be her materials ! Heb. xii. 18, 19. And the bringing forth the 
Gentile church, and enlarging the cords and stakes of Sion, was preceded by 
the darkening the sun, the trembling of the earth, the opening of the graves, 
the suffering of that which was dearest to God himself. 

No power was ever employed so signally in the affairs of any worldly con- 
cern as in the settlement of Sion. The devouring waves of the Red Sea 
have been made her bulwarks, and the sand, the grave of her enemies, hath 
been a path for her passage. The sun hath forgotten his natural race, to 
gaze upon her victories, Josh. x. 13. Angels have been commissioned to 
be her champions, and fight her battles, 2 Kings xix. 35. The whole host 
of heaven have been arrayed to fight for Sion on earth. The merciless nature 
of the fire hath been cm-bed, to preserve her children, when she seemed to 
be reduced to a small number ; and the mouths of hunger-starved lions have 
been bridled for the same purpose, Dan. vi. 22. The proudest enemies to 
her have been vanquished by frogs and lice ; and tyrants, that would lay their 
bands upon her, have been made, to their disgrace, a living banquet for 
worms, the vilest creatures. Acts xii. 23. 

And indeed, after the mahce of the devil had usurped God's right in the 
creation, and had drawn the chiefest of his sublunary creatures into an apos- 
tasy with himself, no less than an infinite power could be engaged against 
the gi-eatest of created powers, if God would not forego his own honour, in 
sufiering himself to be deprived of the fruit of his works. No less than in- 
finite power could erect a church in the world. That God might have the 
fruit of his creation, he ordered this power to appear, struck down the gates 
of hell, sent his Son to rescue his honour, and his Spirit to polish stones 
for his temple. Every one that is fitted for this building, had almightiness 
at work with him before he was formed, Eph. i. 19, 20. Every stone was 
hewed by the Spirit, and the image of God was imprinted by a divine efii- 
cacy. Shall the fruit of so much power, and the mark of his own image, 
want an establishment? God would seem to be careless of the treasures of his 
own nature, wherewith he hath endowed her. Shall all this cost and pains 
be to no purpose ? "Were the gates of hell taken down to be set up again 
more strongly ? and the chargeable counsels of God to be pufi'ed away by 
the breath of Satan ? Doth it consist with his wisdom to let Sion fall out 
of his hands into the power of her old oppressor ? Men are more desirous 
to preserve the estate they have gotten by sweat, than that which is left them 
by inheritance, and are most careful in settling that which hath cost them 
more treasure and more labour. Jacob sets a value upon the portion he 
got with his sword and bow. Gen. xlviii. 22 ; no less will God upon that 
Sion he hath wrested out of the world by the might of his arm. 

(5.) In regard of faithfulness, his veracity is engaged. 

[1.] In regard of faithfulness to Christ the head. The Spirit was pro- 
mised to Christ : Acts ii. 33, ' Having received the promise of the Holy 
Ghost ; ' i.e. the Holy Ghost promised to him by the Father. He received 
that which was promised ; his receiving it from God implied the Spirit's 
being promised to him by God. To what end was this Spirit given him, 



834 chaknock's WORKS. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

and sent by him ? ' To convince the world of righteousness,' John xvi. 10, 
an effect necessary to the building of Sion. For this end he received it, 
for this end therefore it was promised to him. The promise would be vain, 
the performance of the promise, in the mission of the Holy Ghost, would be 
to no purpose, if the end for which he was promised, and for which he was 
sent, were not performed ; if there should not be a perpetual number con- 
vinced of, and embracing that righteousness of Christ, which hath been 
manifested by his going to the Father. 

Grod also promised him a great posterity after his ' making his soul an 
offering for sin,' Isa. liii. 10, 11. A seed that he should see, therefore 
stable and perpetual, because always visible to him. A posterity was to 
follow his sacrifice, his cross was to give them being, and his blood was to 
give them life. God pawned his word upon the condition of his death ; the 
condition was performed to the full satisfaction of God, his truth therefore 
hath no evasion, no plea to deny the performance of the promise in raising 
up a multitude of believers in the world, and such a multitude as shall 
always be seen with pleasure by him, as good and sound children, and the 
travail of the mother's womb, are by the parents. The truth of God is 
obliged by Christ's exact performance of the condition, as well as by the 
particular respect he hath to the glory of it ; it was for the church Christ 
' gave himself,' Eph. v. 25. It is necessary therefore that God should pre- 
serve and establish a church for him to the end of the world ; that Christ 
might not, by any default of his Father, lose the end and design of his death, 
there shall be a generation of believers, a little seed lying in the midst of 
all the chaff, so God promised : Ps. Ixxii. 17, ' His name shall be continued, 
'T'3'', as long as the world.' His name shall be propagated in a perpetual 
birth of children, it shall be found while the sun in the heaven keeps its 
station. 

[2. J In regard of faithfulness to the church itself. How doth the word 
sparkle with promises to Sion in all her concerns ! He hath promised an 
indissolvable marriage, the fixing a knot that shall never be untied : Hosea 
ii, 19, ' I will betroth thee unto me for ever, and that in judgment, right- 
eousness, loving-kindness, mercy, faithfulness.' A marriage that shall never 
end in widowhood, so that judgment, righteousness, loving-kindness, mercy, 
faithfulness must first fail, before the church meet with an entire dissolu- 
tion ; i.e. God and the glorious perfections of his nature shall fail, before the 
church be forsaken and left to her enemies. She is no less assured of con- 
tinual supplies and nourishment, and that by no meaner a hand than that of 
God himself: Isa. xxvii. 3, ' I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every 
moment, I will keep it night and day.' (Nor a meaner dew than himself, 
Hosea xiv. 5.) Also without the failing her a minute ; he would water her 
with doctrine to preserve her verdure and increase her growth. He would 
be her guardian night and day, in the darkness of adversity, in the sunshine 
of prosperity, so that Satan should not outwit, nor the craft and subtilty of 
heretics waste her; for it refers to ver. 1, wherein God promiseth her to 
punish * the piercing serpent, the crooked serpent,' that by various windings 
and turnings insinuates himself to the destruction of men. And he adds, 
ver. 4, ' Fury is not in me;' he lays by his anger against her, as considered 
in apostate nature ; the fury of hell shall not prevail where the anger of God 
is pacified, but her enemies shall be as briers and thorns before him. He 
hath a consuming fury for her enemies, though he hath none for his vine- 
yard. Protection is in no less measure promised, and that not a temporary 
one, nor a bare defence, but with the ruin of her enemies, and treading them 
down as straw is trodden down for the dunghill : Isa. xxv. 10, ' In this 



Ps. LXXXYII. 5.] THE church's stability. 335 

mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest.' . ^ By hand is meant his power, and 
by rest is meant the perpetual motion of it for her, and that against the most 
furious, malicious, and powerful of her enemies : Mat. xvi. 18, 'Against the 
gates of hell,' against the wisdom of hell, gates being the seat of council ; 
against the censures and sentences of hell, gates being the place of judica- 
ture; against the arms of hell, gates being the place of strength and guards. 
When Christ secures against hell, he secures against all that receive their 
commission from hell ; neither hell itself, nor the instruments ed^ed and 
envenomed by hell, shall prevail against her ; she is secured for her assem- 
blies in one part or other, when they gather together to hear the law, and 
to sacrifice : ' And I that am the Lord thy God, from the land of Egypt, will yet 
make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of solemn feasts,' Hosea 
xii. 9 ; it is a promise to the church ; it was never yet, nor appears like to 
be performed to the ten tribes as a nation, but to their posterity, as swallowed 
up in, and embodied with, the Gentiles. The conquest of her enemies is 
secured to her, Ps. ex. 1. The promise is made to Christ of making ' his 
enemies his footstool ; ' but made to him as David's Lord, and consequently 
as the Lord of his people, as King in Sion, and therefore made to the whole 
body of his loyal subjects. And all those things are of little comfort with- 
out duration and stability, which is also secured to her : Hosea vi. 3, ' His 
going forth,' i.e. the going forth of God in the church, ' is prepared as the 
morning,' p^^, stable ; his appearance for her, and in her, is as certain as 
the dawning of the morning light at the appointed hour. All the clouds 
which'threaten a perpetual night cannot hinder it ; all the workers of dark- 
ness cannot prevent it ; the morning will dawn whether they will or no. Her 
duration is compared to the most durable things, to that of the cedar, the 
most lasting of all plants. Three times it is compared to Lebanon in the 
promise, Hosea xiv. 5-7. The cedar never rots, worms eat it not. It is 
not only free from putrefaction itself, but the juice of it preserves other thintrs. 
Numa's books,*- though of paper, yet dipped in the juice of cedar, remained 
without corruption in the ground 500 years. How shall that God, who 
always remembers everything, yea, the meanest of his creatures, forget his 
own variety of expressions and multiplied promises concerning his Sion ? 

(6.) In regard it is the seat of his glory. It is ' the branch of his plantincr, 
the work of his hands, that he might be glorified,' Isa. Ix. 21. His glory 
would have a brush, if Sion should sink to ruin. He sows her for himself, 
Hos. ii. 23 ; speaking of the church in the time of the gospel, not to the 
devil, to sin, to the world, but to his own glory. As husbandmen sow their 
fields for their own use, to reap from them a fruitful crop ; and therefore till 
the harvest be in, they take care to make up the breaches, and preserve them 
from the incursions of beasts. Though God hath an objective glory from all 
creatures, yet he hath an active glory only from the church. It is Israel, 
the house of Aaron, and those that fear the Lord, that the psalmist calls upon 
to render God the praise of the eternity of his mercy, Ps. cxviii. 2-4. He 
forbids the profane and disobedient world to take his covenant in their mouth, 
Ps. 1. 16. None do, none can truly honour and acknowledge him but the 
church ; therefore the apostle, in his doxology, appropriates the glory that is 
to be given to God as the object, to the church as the subject: Eph. iii. 21, 
' Unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world 
without end.' So solemn a wish from so great an apostle, that it 'should be, 
amounts to a certainty that it will be. There cannot be a glory to God in 
the church throughout all ages, without the continuance of the church in all 
ages. God will have a revenue of glory paid him during the continuance of 
* Sanct. in loc. 



336 charnock's works. [Ps, LXXXVII. 5. 

the world ; there shall therefore be a standing church during the duration of 
the world ; while he therefore expects a glory from the midst of his people, 
he will be a wall of fire round about them, and keep Sion, one where or other, 
in a posture to glorify him. What is the apostle's motive to this glory ? It 
is not a remote power, such as can act, but will not ; but a power operative 
in the church, in doing those things for her which she could never ask, nor 
think for herself: ver. 20, * Now to him that is able to do exceeding abund- 
antly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in 
us.'"^ God hath a greater glory from the church than he can have from the 
world ; he therefore gives her more signal experiments of his power, wisdom, 
and love, than to the rest of the world. He had a glory from angels, but 
only as Creator, not as P^edeemer, till they were acquainted with his design, 
and were speculators of his actions in gathering a church in the world. The 
church therefore was the original of the new glory and praise the angels 
presented to God : ' Glory in the church by Christ.' Musculus thinks that 
is added to distinguish it from the Jewish church, which was settled by the 
ministry of Moses ; as much as to say, God had not so much glory by the 
tabernacles of Jacob, as he hath by the church as settled by Christ. Or, hy 
Christ notes the manner of the presenting our praise, and the ground of the 
acceptance of our praise. God accepts no glory but what is offered to him 
by the hand of Christ ; and Christ presents no glory but what is paid him by 
the church. It is the church, then, and the gospel-church, that preserves 
the glory of God in the world. If the church therefore ceaseth, the glory of 
God in the world ceaseth. But since God hath created all for his own glory, 
separated a church out of the world for his glory, appointed his Son the head 
of it, that he might be glorified, his church therefore is as dear to him as his 
glory, and dear to him in order to his glory ; in establishing it, therefore, he 
establishes his own honour and name. It shall therefore remain in this 
world to glorify him, afterwards in another to glorify him, and be glorified 
by him. 

(7.) In regard that it is the object of his peculiar afi'ection. Estabhsh- 
ment of a beloved object is inseparable from a real afi'ection. By this he 
secures the spiritual Sion, or gospel-church, both from being forsaken by him, 
or made desolate by her enemies, because she was Hephzihah, Isa. lxii.'4, 
imj delight, or, my will is in her, as if he had no will to anything but what 
concerned her and her safety. As men engrave upon their rings the image 
of those friends that are dearest to them, and as the Jews in their captivity 
engraved the eflSgies of their city upon their rings, to keep her in perpetual 
remembrance, so doth God engrave Sion ' upon the palms of his hands,' Isa. 
xlix. 16, to which the Holy Ghost seems to allude. He so loves his Israel, 
that he who will be commanded by none, stoops to be commanded by them 
in things concerning his sons, Isa. xlv. 10. Not only ask of me what you 
want, but command me in the things that are to come ; the pleas of my pro- 
mises of things to come, and your desires to bring them forth as the work of 
my hand, shall be as powerful a motive to me as a command from a superior 
is to an obedient inferior ; for it is to things to come, such things that God 
hath predicted, that he limits their asking, which he calls also here a com- 
manding of him. There was a real love in the first choice ; there is an 
intenseness of love in the first transaction : Jer. xxxi. 3, * I have loved thee 
with an everlasting love ; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.' 
His love, which had a being from eternity, is expressed by words of more 
tenderness, when he comes to frame her ; loving-kindness, as if his afi'ection 
seemed to be increased, when he came to the execution of his counsel. 
According to the vigour of his immutable love will be the strength of her 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 337 

immutable establishment. This promise is made, not to the church in general, 
but to all the families of the spiritual Israel, ver. 1. Men are concerned in 
honour for that upon which they have placed their aflfection. Shall there, 
then, be decays in the kindness of that God, whose glory it is to be immu- 
table ? Is it possible this fountain should be frozen in his breast ? Was 
there not a love of good will to Sion to frame her, to pick out their materials 
■when they lay like swine in the confused mass and dirty mjre of a corrupt 
world ? Is there not also a love of delight, since he hath refined and beauti- 
fied her, by imparting to her of his own comeliness, Ezek. xvi. 14. Is it 
likely this affection should sink into carelessness ? and the fruit of so much love 
be dashed in pieces ? Can such tenderness be so unconcerned, as to let the 
apple of his eye be plucked out ? to be a lazy spectator of the pillage of 
his jewels by the powers of hell ? to have the centre of his delight tossed 
about at the pleasure of men and devils ? Shall a mother be careless of her 
suckling child ? How then can that God, whose tenderness to the church 
cannot be equalled by the bowels of the most compassionate mother to her 
infants ? Surely God is concerned in honour to maintain against a feeble 
devil, and a decrepid world, that which is the object of his aknighty af- 
fection. 

(8.) In regard of the natural weakness of the church. No generous prince 
but will think himself bound in honour to support the weaker subject ; no 
tender parent but will acknowledge himself obliged in affection to take a greater 
care of the weaker than the stronger child. The gardener adds props to the 
feeblest plants, that are most exposed to the fury of the storms, and have least 
strength to withstand them. The powers of the world have always been the 
church's enemies ; the wise have set their reason, and the mighty their arms 
against her ; the devil, the god of this world, is so far from being her friend, 
that Sion hath been the only object of his spite. He contrives only floods to 
drown her, or mines to demolish her. Her own friends are often so darkened 
or divided, that they cannot sometimes for ignorance, and will not other 
times for peevishness, hit upon, and use the right means for her preserva- 
tion. It is an honourable thing, then, for that God who entitles himself 'the 
Father of the fatherless,' to shew his own power and grace in her establish- 
ment. The fatherless condition of the church is an argument she hath some- 
times used to procure the assistance she wanted : Hosea xiv. 3, ' With thee 
the fatherless finds mercy.' And the weakness of Jacob, urged by the pro- 
phet, excited repentance in God, and averted two judgments which were 
threatened against that people, Amos vii. 2, 3, 5, 6, It is no mean motive 
to him to help the helpless, this opportunity he delights to take ; when there 
was no man to help, no intercessor to plead, then ' his own arm brought sal- 
vation.' When he saw no defenders, but all ravishers, no physicians, but 
all wonders, then should the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard, Isa. 
lix. 16, 19. 

To conclude ; if Sion, the gospel church, were not of as long a duration 
as the standing of the world, God would lose the honour of his creation, after 
the devil, by sin, had made the creatures unuseful for those ends to which God 
had appointed them by his first institution. The wisdom of God had been 
blurred, the serpent would have triumphed, the kingdom of God had been 
dissolved, the enemy would have enjoyed a remediless tyranny, had not God 
put his hand to the work, and erected a new kingdom to himself out of the 
ruins of the fall. And since God was pleased to take this course, rather than 
create a new world, and hath laid the foundation of a new kingdom by drawing 
some out of that common rebellion the human nature was fallen into, and 



338 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

that he might do it with honour to himself, hath sent his Son upon that 
errand, by his blood to bring back man to God, and his Spirit to make men 
fit for a communion with him, and hath backed his aflfection to the church 
with so much cost and pains for her welfare. If, after all this, God should 
desert his church, the dishonour of God's wisdom, the loss of the fruit of all 
his cost and pains, the weakness of his afiection, or of his power to perform 
his promise, and the ruin of his glory intended by those methods, would be 
the issue, which would be attended with the triumph of his revolted creature 
and greatest enemy. This would be, if God should cease picking out some 
men for his praise, and keeping up his name and royalty in the earth. 

2. It is for the exercise of the offices of Christ that Sion should be estab- 
lished. He is prophet, priest, and king, which are all titles of relation. 
Prophet implies some to be instructed, a priest some to offer for, and a king 
some to be ruled ; put one relation, and you must necessarily put the other. 
If there were no church preserved in the world, he would be a nominal pro- 
phet without any disciples, a king without subjects, and a priest without 
suppliants to be atoned by him upon earth. Now Christ is the ' wonderful 
Counsellor, the everlasting Father,' and 'the government is laid upon his 
shoulders.' To what end ? ' To order and establish the kingdom of God,' Isa. 
ix. 6, 7. All the strength and vigour he had, as it was from God, so it was 
intended for God : Ps. Ixxx. 17, ' Thou madest the Son of man strong for 
thyself.' And the reason is, because, though God hath given up the adminis- 
stration of things to Christ, yet he hath not divested himself of his right, nor 
can ; for God is the chief Lord, and the relation of creatures not ceasing, 
the relation of Lord and Creator cannot cease. And therefore, since the 
right of God continues, the gi'ant of the uttermost ends of the earth to be 
the inheritance and possession of Christ, includes not only a gift, but an 
office, to preserve, protect, establish, and improve his possession for those 
ends for which he had the gi'ant, and to prevent all that may impair it. As 
he had a right and strength, by the order of God, to rear it, so he hath an 
office and power to establish it, as well as to erect it; and Christ is ' the 
same ' in all his offices, * yesterday, to-day, and for ever,' Heb. xiii. 8 ; the 
same in credit with God, in faithfulness to his office, the virtue of his blood, 
the force of his arm, and compassions to bleeding Sion. 

(1.) It is his part, as a prophet, to establish it in doctrine. It is his part 
externally to raise his truth when it lies gasping in the rubbish of error, and 
refine his worship when it is daubed with superstition and idolatry. Inter- 
nally to clear the understanding to know his truth, quicken the will to em- 
brace it, rivet the word in the conscience, and inflame the affections to love 
and delight in it. Certainly the promise of the abiding of his Spirit implies 
the efficacy of his operation while he abides. He is to provide against the 
subtilty and rapine of foxlike heretics, that they spoil not the tender vine, 
Cant. ii. 15; and to furnish the church with gifts for the preserving and 
increasing her. The perpetual exercise of this prophetical office he promised 
them, when he gave the apostles a charter for his presence ' to the end of 
the world,' Mat. xxviii. 20; which was in relation to their ministry'- and their 
office of teaching. Since he promised his presence with his ministry to the 
end of the world, he will have a church to the end of the world, to enjoy 
the benefit of that promise to be taught by them. It consisted not with the 
wisdom or faithfulness of Christ to promise a perpetuity to that, if he knew 
it were to be cut short before the end of the world. And this himself also 
assures the church of in all its variety of states : Rev. ii. 1, * These things 
saith he that holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst 
of the seven golden candlesticks.' Not only seven stars at one time, or seven 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 339 

golden candlesticks in being together, but in all the successions of the church 
to the consummation of the world. And as he describes himself by this 
title when he speaks of the church of Ephesus, which was the first state of 
the church, not only assuring her of his holding her star, and walking by 
her candlestick, but all the rest that were to follow, so he doth renew the 
same expression in part when he speaks of the church of Saidis, which is 
the rising of the church from the apostasy wherein it had been covered in 
the Thyatirian state : Rev. iii. 1, ' These things saith he that hath the seven 
spirits of God, and the seven stars.' The seven spirits of God signifies the 
gifts for the building and perfecting the church still in the hand of Christ, 
which should be in a more plentiful way poured out than for some time 
before, as they were in the first reformation. He is still, therefore, as a pro- 
phet, walkiog in the church in all ages ; not only in the first foundation of it 
by the apostles, but in the reformation of it, after it had been buried in 
superstition and idolatry. And at the restoration of the church in the 
world, there shall be ' a pure river of water, as clear as crystal, proceeding 
from the throne of God and the Lamb,' Rev. xxii. 1, i. e. pure doctrine, 
without any mud and mixtures. 

(2.) It is his part as a priest to establish it in the favour of God, and look 
to the reparations of his temple. The church is his temple. A temple is 
the proper seat and the proper care of a priest. He is 'a priest still upon 
his throne,' Zech. vi. 18, and that for ever. As he hath therefore something 
to oifer, so he hath always some for whom he ofiers. Who are they but his 
church? His prayer on earth, John xvii., was but a model or draught of 
his intercession in heaven ; one part of it is for preservation of them ' through 
the truth' of God, John xvii. 17. The keeping up the gospel in the world, 
in order to a sanctification of some, is the matter of his intercession, which 
is one part of his priestly office. And we cannot imagine his plea for his 
church to be weaker on his throne, it being also a throne of grace, than it 
was for his enemies when he was upon a cross of sufi"ering. The compas- 
sions annexed to his priesthood remain still, Heb. iv. 15. If his office be 
perpetual, the qualifications necessary to that office are as durable as the 
office itself, as long as there is any object for their exercise. To what pur- 
pose are his compassions, if he should not pity her for whom they were 
designed, and for whose behoof he was furnished with them ? He cannot 
be faithful to God in his office, if he be not merciful and tender to Sion in 
her distresses. He certainly pities her as he would himself, were it possible 
he should be in an infirm condition. He must lose his soul before he can 
lose his pity ; and the church must cease to he his body, before she can 
cease to be the object of his compassions. He hath the same sentiments 
now that he had when he called to Paul from heaven. Acts ix. 4. It was 
not then, Why persecutest thou mine, but ' Why persecutest thou me f ' 
Nor is it so now ; as the relation continues the same., so doth the compas- 
sion, so do his sentiments, so do his cares. To what purpose doth he as a 
priest sit upon a throne of grace, if he did not shew grace to his Sion against 
the cruel designs of her enemies ? As God pities us when he remembers 
our frame, Ps. ciii. 13, 14, so no question doth Christ, when he remembers 
Sion's oppressions, as a distressed child is the object of the father's pity. 
Add to this, that since the death of Christ was one part of his priestly per- 
formance, and that the virtue of his sacrifice is as eternal as his priesthood ; 
what a disparagement would it be to him, and the virtue of his death, if ever 
the world, while it stood, should be void of the fruits of it ? There can be 
no moment wherein it is not valid to expiate the sins of some men, and 
therefore not a moment wherein the world shall be without a Sion, whose 



340 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

sins are expiated by it. Should the standard of Sion be snatched away and 
torn by the powers of darkness, what would become of the glory, what would 
become of the virtue of the Redeemer's death ? Would God consecrate him 
BO solemnly by an oath to be a priest to so little pui-pose ? How could it be 
for ever, if the execution of that office should be interrupted by the cessation 
of a church, as long as the world stands upon its pillars ? Would it not be 
an empty title, if the end of it were not performed ? We eannot imagine the 
falling of Sion, but we must question the merit of his death, the truth of his 
exaltation, the strength of his intercession, the faithfulness of his office, and 
the^sincerity and candour of his compassions. 

(3.) It is his part as a king to establish Sion in being, and govern her. 
The prophets always testified that ' of his government there should be no 
end.' If the church should cease for one moment in the world, what sub- 
jects would he have to govern here ? Can he be a king without a kingdom, 
or a governor without subjects, to bear a voluntary and sincere witness to his 
name ? If he be king in Sion, he will also have a Sion to own him, and a 
Sion to rule in ; not only a conquest of the serpentine brood and infernal 
powers was promised, but the total and perpetual victory. Gen. iii. 1 5. * The 
seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head.' When the head is 
bruised, there is no more wisdom to guide, or force to spirit the arm and the 
other members of the body. It was a promise made not only of Christ to 
man, but of a complete victory to Christ, that he should outwit the serpent's 
wisdom, and utterly discomfit the serpent's power. If the conquest were not 
perfect and perpetual, it could not be called a spoihng of principalities and 
powers, as it is Col. ii. 15, but an interruption or temporary check, whence 
they might rescue themselves. He is therefore said to ' still the enemy 
and the avenger,' Ps. viii. 2,=!= i.e. make them utterly silent, not knowing 
what firm counsels to t&ke, or what successful orders to give. And it being 
his end to destroy the works of the devil, the destroying the works must be 
the root of the being and preservation of the church. Did Christ then rise 
as a conqueror out of the grave, and sit down as king upon his throne, to 
let the devil and the world run away with the fruits of his victory ? Will 
he be so injurious to himself as to let his throne be overturned by his 
enemies ? and to let the adversary of Sion repossess himself of that which he 
hath been so powerfully and successfully stripped of ? Christ, being king, 
cannot be chased out of his kingdom, nor wants power to keep it from being 
utterly wasted. To be the governor of Sion was as much in his first com- 
mission as to be her redeemer, Isa. xlix. 10. He was to feed and guide his 
flock, which is often in Scripture put for ruling. Christ, as king, will never 
leave beating up the quarters of hell till he hath utterly routed their force, 
and made the partizans of it his footstool, and thereby established Sion be- 
yond the fears of any tottering. Therefore, when he speaks of the church of 
Smyrna, which was to have a sore conflict with the devil, and feel the smart 
of him for ten days, understanding those ten ancient persecutions of the 
church, he assumes a new title for her encouragement : Kev. ii. 8, ' These 
things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive.' I was the 
first that hfted you and embodied you for the war, and I will be the last to 
bring up the rear ; I was first in raising you, and I will be the last in pre- 
serving you. Fear not the terror of those persecutions, though they be to 
blood and death ; I was used so ; I was dead, but I am now aUve, and I live 
for my church, to behold her battles, to procure her victory, and to crown 
those tiiat shall fall in the fight against her enemies. Christ, in encouraging 

* I make no scruple to understand the whole psalm of Christ, since the apostle 
hath interpreted part of it of him, Heb. ii. 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 341 

them to suffer for him, assures them of the security of a church ; the devil 
should not waste the whole, but cast some of them into prison, not all, and 
that for their refining: ver. 10, ' The devil shall cast some of you into prison, 
that you may be tried.' Christ lives still, and acts as king for the security 
of Sion, and preserving a generation to serve him, till the time comes that 
is promised. Rev. xxii. 3, that ' there shall be no more curse, but the throne 
of God Mid of the Lamb shall be in it,' and then ' his servants shall serve 
him ' with a full security from all trouble, 

3. The foundation of Sion is sure. It is founded upon Christ, the comer 
stone. Christ is called the foundation, 1 Cor. iii. 11. The apostles are the 
foundation, Eph. ii. 20. Christ is the foundation personally, the apostles 
doctrinally .; Christ meritoriously, the apostles ministerially ; the apostles in 
regard of the publication of th« doctrine, Christ in regard of the efficacy of 
the doctrine, whereby the church is established. 

(1.) The church is engrafted in Christ, united to him, one with him ; the 
parts of it are reckoned as his seed ; Ps. xxii. -30, ' A seed shall serve him ; 
it shall be accounted to the Lord as a generation.' As if they had sprung 
out of his loins, as men naturally did from Adam's ; that as Adam was the 
foundation of their con-uption, so shall Christ be the foundation of their 
restoration. They shall be looked upon as the children of Christ, and Christ 
as their Father, and, as father and children, legally counted one. 

The church is his own bodv, Eph. v. 29, 30. In loving and establishing 
the church, he loves and establisheth himself. Whatsoever is implanted in 
nature as a perfection, is eminently in God. Now, since he hath twisted 
with our natures a care of our own bodies, this care must be much more in 
the nature of Christ, because his church is as nearly united to him as our 
members to the flesh and the bones ; and he hath an higher affection to hia 
mystical than we can have to our natural bodies. Christ will no less secure 
and perfect his own body, than a man would improve the beauty and strength 
of his natural body, to preserve it from wounds, from being mangled or scari- 
fied, unless it be for the security of the whole. If he did not do it, it would 
be a hatred of his own flesh, which never any man in his right wits was ever 
guilty of. The -eternitv of Christ is made the foundation of the church's 
estabhshment: Ps. cii." 27, 28, ' Thou art the Son,* and thy years shall 
have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed 
shall be established before thee.' There could be no strength in the argu- 
ment, without union and communion with him. The church is settled upon 
him as a foundation, and therefore is of as long a duration as the foundation 
upon which it stands ; the conjunction is so strait, that if one fails, the other 
must, especially since, as Christ is the head, the church is his fulness, Eph. 
i. 22, 23, Sion cannot be complete but in him, and Christ cannot be com- 
plete without her. A foundation is of little use without a superstructure ; 
a building falls not without a discredit to the foundation upon which it stood. 
Sion's completeness depends upon the strength of Christ, and Christ's mys- 
tical completeness depends upon the stability of Sion ; he will not leave 
himself an imperfect and empty head. 

(2.) It is founded upon the covenant : upon that which endures for ever, 
and shall survive the funeral of the whole world. Heaven and earth shall 
pass away, but the church is founded upon that which shall not pass away, 
1 Peter i. 23, ' The word of God,' &c. Not such a word as that whereby he 
brought forth light in the world, and formed the stars at the creation ; a 
word that engaged him not to the perpetuating of it.f This covenant is more 
firm than the pillars of heaven, and the foundations of the earth. The stars 
• Qu ' same ' ?— Ed. t Turretin, Sermons, p. 330. 



342 charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

of heaven shall dissolve, the sun shall be turned into darkness, the elements 
shall change their order for confusion ; but the church, being founded upon 
an eternal and immutable covenant, shall subsist in the midst of the con- 
fusions and flames of the world : Isa. liv. 10, ' The mountains shall depart, 
and the hills be removed, but my covenant of peace shall not be removed.' 
It is more estabHshed than the world. The apostle clearly intimates it in his 
coinmendation of Abraham's faith, when he tells us, ' he looked for a city 
which hath foundations,' by virtue of the promise of a numerous seed, Heb. 
xi. 9, 10, as if the world had no foundation in comparison of the church. 
It is beyond the skill of hell to raze up the foundation, and therefore impos- 
sible for it to beat down the superstructure. Adam fell under the strength 
of the serpent's wit, but he could by no promise lay claim to stability, as 
the church can by an immutable covenant for her support. 

IV. The use. 1. Information, 

1. If the church hath a duration and stability, then ordinances and ministry 
are perpetual. Ministers maybe thrust into corners, clapped up in prison, hur- 
ried to their graves, but the sepulchres of ministers are not the graves of the 
ministry. A ministry and a church, ordinances and a church, cannot be 
separated ; they run parallel together to the end of the world ; for Sion can- 
not be supposed without divine officers and divine institutions ; the one can- 
not be established without the other. Christ ' walks in the midst of the seven 
golden candlesticks,' Rev. ii. 1, in the seven states of the church, to the end 
of the world.* As there are seven states of the church, so there are seven 
stars in the hand of Christ for all those states ; the ministry have the same 
support, the same guardian as the church herself. What was in the Ephesian 
and primitive state, is also in the Sardian state, the state of the church 
rising from corruption of doctrine and ordinances : Rev. iii. 1, ' These 
things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars.' 
Christ hath still stars to shine, and seven spirits to gift them ; liath at present, 
not had ; hath in the state we are, which seems to be the end of that Sardian 
state. It is true, the church is in a wilderness condition, and hath been so for 
above twelve hundred years ; but hath she yet seen her funeral ? No ; she 
hath a place for her residence, and food for her nourishment, and both pro- 
vided for her by that God that framed her, by that God that stood by her in 
the pangs of her travail, and sheltered her man-child from the fury of her 
enemies : Rev. xii. 6, ' And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she 
hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand 
two hundred and threescore days.' They should feed her ; she is not 
starved in the desert, she hath manna to comfort her, her caterer to provide 
her food, and some to administer the banquet of the word and sacraments 
to her. For any member of Sion to deny a ministry, and deny ordinances, 
atid therefore to neglect them, is to conclude her dead in a grave, and not 
living in a desert, utterly famished and not fed. Though there be a smoke 
in the temple, a cloud and obscurity, the truths and ordinances of God not 
60 clear, so efficacious as they have been, as some understand Rev. xv. 8, 
or as they shall be, yet there is a temple still. A smoke in the temple sup- 
poseth a temple standing, and ordinances in it ; the obscurity of a thing 
nulls not the being of it, nor a cloud upon the sun the stability and motion 
of it. He that denies a church, a ministry, and divine ordinances in it, 
must first charge Christ with falsehood, when he promised to be with them 
to the end of the world : Mat. xxviii. 19, 20, ' Alway, even to the end of the 
world.' Not to sustain their particular persons to the end of the world, but 
* I do not question but that the whole is prophetical ; it would not else be called 
mystery, as it is Rev. i. 20, were it meant of those particular churches. 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 343 

their doctrine, in a succession of some to teach and baptize by virtue of 
authority from him ; for to that doth the promise and command refer, and 
not unto the continuance of the apostolical dignity, or of their extrordinary 
gifts of miracles, but the duration of their standing work till the top-stone 
were laid with the loud acclamations of grace, grace. The church shall no 
more want a ministry in the desert, than she wanted a prophet in Babylon. 

2. The doctrine of the establishment of every member of Sion is clearly 
confirmed. He that establisheth Sion counts up every man that was born in 
her. Every child of Sion is in the same state and under the same promise 
as Sion herself. The promise of stability to Sion is not to be understood of 
the firmness of her palaces, but the duration of her inhabitants ; as when 
God is said to build a house, it is not to be understood of the rearing the 
walls, but increasing the family : Exod. ii. 21, ' God made them houses,' i. e. 
gave them children. Every renewed man, every one truly born in Sion, 
stands upon the same foundation of the covenant, hath the same charter with 
Sion herself, and therefore upon a surer ground than any particular society of 
men in the world: Ps. cxxv. 1, ' They that trust in the Lord shall be as 
mount Sion, which cannot be removed, but abides for ever.' He is upon a 
better foundation of security than the church at Ephesus or Smyrna, Per- 
gamos, or Sardis, which have lost their footing, and their places know them 
no more. A believer enjoys other privileges with Sion ; but the patent runs 
here for his stability in the favour of God, and runs high by removing all 
fears in the negative, * cannot be removed,' and confirming all confidence in 
the affirmative, ' abides for ever.' No name writ upon God's hand, no name 
presented on Christ's breast, shall be razed out, no fruit of his death shall be 
lost, no devil shall steal from him any part of his purchase. As he hath 
blood enough to redeem them, so he hath power enough to preserve them ; the 
same blood that is the cement of Sion, the same hand that built her, the same 
head that influenceth her, secures every one of her true-born children. They 
are all in the same posture and upon the same foundation with Sion herself. 

8. How great is the folly of Sion's enemies ! They judge of her by the 
weakness of her worldly interest, and not by the almightiness of her guardian. 
They stand against a God, that, in decreeing the stability of Sion, decreed the 
ruin of her opposers, and can with as much ease effect it as resolve it. The 
stone which is the foundation of this kingdom shall break in pieces the image 
of all worldly glory, the policy of all worldly wisdom, and the force of all 
worldly power, Dan. ii. 35, 44, 45. It shall make the mountains of the 
world as a level, and dust underneath it. Chaff may as well stop the wind, 
and force it to another quarter ; stubble may as well quench the fury of the 
flames, as the enemies of Sion be victorious over the God of Sion. As he 
hath a ' fire in Sion' to warm her, so he hath a * furnace in Jerusalem' to 
consume her enemies, Isa. xxxi. 9 ; a fire to burn his people's dross, but a 
furnace to dissolve his enemies' force. Pharaoh is an example to all genera- 
tions, to warn them not to struggle with those whom God resolves to pa- 
tronise. How did he further his own destruction by his hardness, and the 
deliverance of the oppressed by his fury ! How often is the violence of her 
enemies the occasion of the manifestation of God's glory, and the settling 
Sion's security ! Had not Pharaoh been so furious, God had not manifested 
the glory of his power, nor his Israel enjoyed so miraculous a safety. It is 
true, the church is weak, but the arm that holds her is the strongest in 
heaven and earth. Her outward interest is small, but her interest is twisted 
with that of her Lord. An enemy shall find more mischief from mud walls, 
under the protection of a valiant arm, than from stone walls under the guard 
of an infant. How foolish is it for a man to think to break a rock with hitJ 



3i4 chaenock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

fist for hurting his shins, whereby he bruiseth his hands as well as his legs ! 
How foolish is it for men to beat the bushes about a lion's den, whereby they 
will be sure to rouse him ! God dwells in Sion. From thence he * roars' 
to the ' shaking of heaven and earth,' the powers of the world, when he will 
manifest himself to be ' the hope of his people, and the stxength of the 
children of Israel,' Joel iii. 16. 

4. What a ground is here for prayer ! This sets an edge upon prayer. 
No petition can more comfortably, no petition can more confidently, be put 
up, than for Sion's establishment. Prayers for particular persons, or for 
ourselves, may want success ; but supplications for Sion never miscarry. 
They have the same foundation for an answer that 'Sion had for her stability, 
viz., the promise of God. They are agreeable to that afi"ection which shall 
never be removed from her. How believingly may we cry out, ' Be it unto 
Sion according to thy word ! ' There is no fear of a repulse. Whatsoever 
God denies, he will not deny that for which he hath so often engaged him- 
self. It may be for the good of the church that so great a person as Paul 
should lie in chains, and his fetters conduce ' to the furtherance of the gos- 
pel,' Philip, i. 12 ; but it can never be for the interest of Sion, or for the 
interest of Sion's God, that she should be crushed between the teeth of the 
lions, and that which he bath redeemed by tbe blood of his Son, be a prey to 
the jaws of the devil. God hath entitled Sion by the name of ' a city not 
forsaken,' Isa. kii. 12. And as we have his promise for her settlement, so 
we have his command for our earnestness : ver. 7, ' And give him no rest, 
till he doth establish Jerusalem a praise in the whole earth.' And he pre- 
scribes us to back that by our prayers, which he had promised : ver. 1, ' For 
Jerufalem's sate, I will not rest, till the righteousness thereof go forth as 
brightness.' Our desires in this case are suited to his resolves, and run in the 
same line with his immutable decree ; he will have no rest in himself, nor he 
would have no rest from us, till this be accomplished. We cannot call upon 
God with a greater confidence for anything than for that church that shall 
outlive the funeral of the world, and survive the frame of nature that shall 
lie in ashes. 

5. What a strong ground is here for trust ! Look not so much upon the 
condition of Sion's walls as upon her foundation ; not upon her present pos- 
ture, as upon her promise-charter; not upon her as a weak vine, but under 
tbe hand of the Highest as the vine-dresser. Look not upon the feebleness 
of the flock, but upon the care of the shepherd ; nor upon the fierceness of 
the lions, but upon the strength and affection of her guardian. 

(1.) Let not our faith rest upon appearances. Flesh will then make a 
wrong judgment of God. Providences are various, and should our faith be 
guided only by them, it would have a liveliness one moment, and faint the 
next. As the promise is the stability of the church, so it is only the stability 
of our faith. The authority of the word is the life of our faith, and not the 
sense of any particular providence in the world. A faith built upon protect- 
ing providences is a sensitive faith ; a faith built upon the promise is a 
spiritual faith. 

(2.) Yet the experiences God hath given us hitherto of the continuance of 
the church may be called in to bear witness to the truth of the promise. He 
hath before conducted his Israel into Canaan, when Pharaoh meditated their 
utter ruin, or their continuance under his chains. He fed them with manna, 
and watered them with a rock in a desert, that afforded no earthly assistance. 
The preserving the vine could never be ascribed to the vine itself, in which 
there is no strength, nor to the foxes, in whom there is no pity ; but to the 
keeper of the vineyard. We have reason, therefore, to trust God, but not 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5. J THE chukch's stability. 845 

at all to trust man. Is it from man or from God that the church hath sub- 
sisted so long in the world, a little flock in the midst of many wolves, among 
enemies more numerous than her friends ? What a small number hath the 
church had in any age to mate the multitude of her enemies, what wisdom 
to countermine their policy, and what power to repel their force ? The 
church is not weaker now than it hath been. The sons of Sion were always 
sheep. Sheep have not the strength of lions to resist, nor the swiftness of 
eagles to fly away from danger. The danger cannot be greater than it hath 
been. There were always dragons that spat out their venom, and lions that 
opened their mouths against her. The devil never wanted diligence, nor the 
world enmity, to overturn her. Could she for one moment have subsisted 
in the midst of so many furies, had not God been her shield and glory ? Call 
to mind how often God hath healed her diseases and bound'up her wounds. 
Let us rest in that promise, which hath so often been made good by his 
power, which he hath in many ages displayed upon as great occasions of 
danger as Sion can be- in. Let us live believingly under his wings, and fear 
not our own weakness or our enemies' strength. 

(3.) We have greater ground of confidence than the church of Israel had. 
In the day of Israel's trouble by Shalmanezer, the prophet comforts the 
church in her anguish by the consideration of the Messiah, who was to as- 
sume the government, though many years after, Isa. viii. 22, ix. 1, 6. Shall 
a promise, that was to stay so many ages for performance, be a ground of 
trust and confidence to a tottering church then ? And shall not the stagger- 
ing church have more ground to rest, since the Messiah is made the head of 
the comer, and hath the keys of hell and death delivered to him ? What a 
base thing is distrust, then, against so many assurances of stability, and the 
experience of a multitude of ages. Grasp the promise, plead it earnestly, 
shew God his written word which he hath sent from heaven ; he never yet 
disowned it, nor ever will. Methinks the voice, God is able to deliver Sion, 
sounds too much of distrust. If we know no more than God's power, we 
know not so much as the devil doth ; he knows his power, and he knows his 
promise. Let us therefore first eye the promise, which God loves, and the 
devil fears, and then call in his power to back his word. 

(4.) Regard not man. Too much eye upon him implies too little upon 
Gwi, as if God's word were not enough to create and support a confidence, 
without the buttresses of secular strength. All dependence on man is either 
upon a broken reed, that cannot support itself, or a piercing reed, that 
wounds instead of healing, Isa. xxxvi. 6. It is a dishonour to God, and pro- 
vokes him to lengthen a misery and retard a deliverance. The nearer Sion 
comes to a final settlement, the more God will act by himself, either without 
instruments, or in a more signally spiriting instruments, that himself shall 
be more visible in them than themselves. ' The Highest himself shall estab- 
lish her.' If he be the Highest, he is fit to be trusted by us ; if he will do 
it himself, it is fit we should couple none with him. The nearer the time 
comes wherein God will appear himself, the more we should depend upon 
him himself ; the exercise of faith should be strongest, when the promise, the 
object of faith, is nearest its meridian. Let us be more careful to keep our 
faith from sinking, and let God alone to keep his church from sinking. 

Use 2. Of comfort. The church's patent is singular ; the greatest worldly 
society could never shew the fellow of it : ' The Highest himself shall estab- 
lish her.' There is not such a clause in the settlement of any nation. Why 
should we be afraid, then, of the joint conspiracy of men or devils.- He that 
hath laid the foundation, can and will preserve the superstructure, not only 
because he formed it, but because he hath promised it. When Christ would 



846 ^ charnock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

reveal to John the future condition and conflicts of the church to the end of 
the world, he appears like a conqueror, with all the ensigns of authority and 
power about him, Rev. i. 13-16. He hath * eyes like a flame,' to pierce 
his enemies ; ' feet like brass,' to crush them; ' a two-edged sword out of 
his mouth,' to pierce them ; and this while he is in the midst of the seven 
candlesticks ; the several alterations and periods of the church to the end of 
the world, to preserve and cleanse them. 

1. Here is comfort in the confusions and troubles of the world. The 
shaking of heaven and earth were the harbingers of the appearance of Christ 
for redemption, and laying the corner-stone of Sion, Hag. ii. 7. The same 
methods will be used when he shall come to lay the top-stone, and complete 
all the fruits of redemption, Luke xxi. 25, 26, 28. The confusion of the 
world is the restoration of Sion. A storm or rushing mighty wind preceded 
the plentiful efi"usion of the Spirit upon the apostles, for the blowing the 
gospel into every corner. Acts ii. 2. Never were the disciples in so hopeless 
a condition as before the resurrection of Christ, the ground of the church's 
stability. They then expected to see his face no more. What commotions 
and thunders are described in the Revelation before the New Jerusalem comes 
down from heaven, and God pitch his tabernacle among men ! But he sufi'ers 
not those commotions to be raised in the world by the ministering angel till 
the servants of God be sealed in the forehead, for their preservation in those 
confusions which shall be the ruin of their enemies, Rev. vii. 2, 3. The ark 
may shake with the motion of the oxen, but it cannot fall. Noah's ark may 
be tossed by the waves that drown the world, but not sink, and at last ' rest 
upon the mountains of Ararat,' Gen. viii. 4, of 1"1N and 12D"i, i.e. the curse 
of terrors, the removal of fears. Christ came not to the disciples but in the 
fourth watch of the night, and that when the ship was tossed by the waves, 
and was tugging against a contrary wind, Mat. xiv. 24, 25. It is no hard- 
ship for Sion to be in a boat beaten by the sea, when Christ walks upon the 
waters, and bids her • be of good cheer,' saying, ' It is I, be not afraid.' An 
earthquake preceded the deliverance of Paul and Silas out of prison, Acts 
xvi. 26 ; and lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, earthquake, and great 
hail, shall accompany the opening of the temple of God in heaven, and the 
manifestation of the ark of the testament in that temple. Rev. xi. 19. 

2. Here is comfort in persecutions. Persecution is yet for a while the lot 
of the church ; a sea and a wilderness are yet the passage to Canaan. The 
first promise to Abraham of a numerous seed, was with the comparing it to 
' the dust of the earth,' Gen. xiii. 16 ; dust that is trampled upon, dust that 
is removed by a puff" of wind. But the next was by comparing it to ' the 
stars in heaven,' Gen. xv. 5, that are bright, and fixed, and have their orderly 
motions. Before the introduction of the Philadelphian state of the church, 
or brotherly state (which it is likely we are not far from), the promise of 
glory to them that overcome intimates a combat, and the promise of Christ's 
confessing the names of such before his Father implies a time before the 
period of the Sardian state, wherein the church is to bear a signal testimony 
to the truths of Christ in the way of a conflict. Rev. iii. 5. The glorious 
state of the church at the resurrection of the witnesses shall be preceded by 
such a calamity as shall be the terror of the godly, andj the triumph of an 
enemy devoted to a sudden and unexpected destruction. Rev. xi. 9-12. 

Persecutions make way for Sion's stabiHty. Never was she firmer and 
purer than in the time of the apostles, and those immediately following 
them, when the witnesses for the truth, to the loss of their blood, were as 
numerous as the survivors. She was then, when the flood was cast out 
against her, • clothed with the sun, and crowned with a crown of twelve stars,' 



Ps. LXXXVII. 5.] THE church's stability. 347 

Rev. xii. 1, 2. Such troubles now may dim the outward splendour, but 
increase her inward spirit, and refine her to that temper she was in in the 
primitive ages of Cbristianity. Prosperity was never much the church's 
friend. Poison was flung in her dish when she gained an earthly felicity, 
and the fondness of great ones. Her stability consists not in this, but in 
the graces and spirit of Christianity. That which established her head 
established the body. Her Captain ascended not from mount Olivet till he had 
suffered on mount Calvary. The church was never described so glorious in 
her outward attire as her greatest enemy, that is clothed in scarlet and 
decked with gold, Rev. xvii. 4. Sion's glory is internal : Ps. xlv. 13, ' The 
King's daughter is all glorious within.' All those persecutions that are yet 
to come upon her shall not demolish her walls. The rigours of her enemies, and 
the treasons of her pretended friends, have not yet expelled her out of the earth. 
She hath not yet sunk, though her masts have been sometimes cut close to the 
deck, and her visible pilots flung overboard into the sea ; and shall she sink 
when she is not far from an entrance into the harbour ? She hath been ' a 
brand plucked out of the fire,' Zech. iii. 2. She was plucked out of the fur- 
nace of Babylon, and shall be plucked out of the furnace of mystical Babylon. 
Though she should be mown down as grass by the scythe of her enemies, 
yet the presence of Christ shall be as rain upon her, to make her sprout 
and spread after all her afiiictions, Ps. Ixxii. 6. Though she had been in the 
midst of the fire, she never yet was, nor ever will be, consumed. She hath 
had joy in her disgraces, and greatness by her flames. She hath always had 
a God to inspire her with vigour, to sustain her weakness, and prop her by 
his arm, and hath often swam to a safe harbour in a tide of her own blood. 
Is not that God still a sufficient defence, and the promise a sufficient charter 
against the violence of the world : ' The Highest himself shall establish her ;' 
himself by his own arm, and himself by his own methods. 

3. Here is comfort in the deepest designs of her enemies : ' The Highest 
himself shall establish her.' 

If he be the Highest, and employs himself as the Highest, there is none so 
high as to overtop him, none so high as to outwit him. Though their union 
be never so close, and their projects never so deep, yet God's being with the 
church is curb enough for them, and comfort enough for Sion : Isa. viii. 9, 
' Associate yourselves together, O ye people, &c. Take counsel together, and 
it shall come to nought ; speak the word, and it shall not stand ; for God is 
with us.' God's presence with Sion blows away all. God was with the ark 
in its captivity, and made it victorious in its chains. It crippled Dagon,the 
Philistines' idol, ] Sam, v. 4, and made them return it to their disgrace, 
which they thought they had seized upon to their honour. While God is a 
strength to the poor, ' the branch of the terrible shall be brought low, and 
their blast be but as a storm against a wall,' Isa. xxv. 4, 5. He can hasten 
their ruin by their own subtilty, and catch them in their own net, Ps. xxxv. 8 ; 
or he can turn them to glorify the church as much as they hindered her, Isa. 
xxv. 3. They are sometimes compared to bees, Ps. cxviii. 12, Isa. vii. 18 ; 
and he can make them afford honey as well as a sting. They are bees for 
their wrath, and bees for their weakness, and many times bees for her profit. 
Sometimes he makes * the house of Jacob as fire, and the house of Esau as 
stubble before him,' Obad, 18, It is not more natural to the serpent's 
seed to spite the church, than it is natural to God to protect her ; their malice 
cannot engage them so much in attempts against her, as God's promise engageth 
him in the defence of her. What can weakness do against strength, folly against 
wisdom, hell against heaven, and a fallen Lucifer against the highest God ? 

4. Here is comfort to expect the glory of the church : ' The Highest himself 



848 chaknock's works. [Ps. LXXXVII. 5. 

shall establish her.' ' The mountain of the Lord's house shall be lifted up on the 
the top of the mountains,' Isa. ii. 2. In the last days it shall be more glorious 
than any mountain dignified by God : above mount Sinai, where the law was 
given, the terrestrial mount Sion, where the temple was built; mount Moriah, 
where Abraham had a type of the death and resurrection of Christ ; mount 
Horeb, where Moses by prayer discomfited Amalek ; and mount Pisgah, 
where Moses had a prospect of Canaan. Abraham's conquest of the four 
kings, Gen. xiv., seems to be a figure of the church's victories, when the 
captive Lots should be rescued, and Sodom itself should be something better 
for Sion, Then shall Christ meet her as King of Sakm, King of Peace, with 
the blessing of the most high God, Then shall he, as he did at the feast in 
Cana, turn the church's water into wine, ' Idols shall be utterly abolished,' 
Isa. ii, 18; dross and mixtures in doctrine and worship purged out: Rev. 
xxii. 1, ' The river of the water of life shall be as clear as crystal, proceeding 
from the throne of God, and of the Lamb;' 'the everlasting gospel preached,' 
Rev. xiv. 6 ; called cverlastinrj , because it shall never more be clouded and 
obscured by the foolish inventions of men, ' There shall be no more sea,' 
Rev. xxi. 1. The troubles of Sion, signified by a stormy sea, shall cease, 
and ' a new heaven and a new earth' be created. There shall be multitude 
of conversions : Rev. xi. 15, ' The kingdoms of the world shall become the 
kingdoms of Christ.' The breath of the Lord shall come in to many, and 
make them ' stand upon their feet,' Ezek. xxxvii. 9, 10. There shall be a 
greater presence of God in ordinances, for the earth ' shall shine with his 
glory,' Ezek, xliii, 2. Holiness shall sparkle in her, for ' the glory of the 
Lord shall be upon her,' Rev. xxi. 11. His ioliness to purify her, and his 
power to protect her. Persecutions without and divisions within shall cease. 
Satan shall be bound, his force restrained ; he shall not wander about with 
his cloven foot, Rev. xx. 3. The ' sea of glass,' which was mingled with 
fire, with the fire of worldly persecutions, with the fireof intestine animosities, 
shall be as ' clear as crystal,' Rev. xv. 2, Rev, xxii. 1. He will then have 
magistrates no longer carrying on the interest of the god of this world, but 
the interest of the church, whom he calls his princes, Ezek. xiv. 8 ; his, 
because set up by a more immediate providence ; his, because acting designedly 
and intentionally for his glory; no more pinching his people, and making a 
prey of his Sion, but laying down their crowns at the foot of his throne ; and, 
to complete all, there shall be a perpetuity in this spiritual prosperity ; only 
between the beginning and completing it, Satan shall be let loose, but for 
a little season, Rev. xx. 3 ; and after this it shall not have one blow more 
from hell, but the devil must for ever give over nibbling at her heel. Now 
the church never yet found such a state suitable to those promises and pre- 
dictions. Some great thing remains to be accomplished, which the world 
hath not yet seen, nor the church experienced ; but that truth that will not 
lie, that truth which, cannot lie, has assured it : * The mystery of God shall 
be finished,' Rev. x. 7. The church hath hitherto been gasping in the fire 
and in the water. She has lived, but as wrapped in a winding-sheet. The 
saints under the altar have cried a long time for the vengeance of the temple 
to recompensetheir blood. There is a time when this Lazarus, that hath lain 
begging at the door of the rich and mighty, shall be mounted up to a better 
state. Sion shall enjoy a resurrection, and fling ofi" all badges of a funeral, 
for ' the Highest himself shail establish her.' 

Third use of exhortation. 

1 . Take heed of apostatising from Sion ; from the doctrine and worship 
of Sion. 

If Gcd shall establisli her, stability is not to be found out of her. To 



Ps. LXXXVn. 5.] THE church's stability. 349 

depart from her, is to leave a firm rock to find security in a quicksand ; to 
leap out of a stout ship in a storm, to expect a preservation in the waves ; 
to turn our backs upon heaven, to seek ease in the bowels of hell. The 
altar at Damascus is cast down, and Jeroboam's altar is demolished, when 
that at Jerusalem stood. To stay in Sion, is to be exposed to the gunshot 
of men and devils ; to run from her, is to seek to the devil for protection, 
and run into the mouth of ail the artillery of God, that is set for the esta- 
blishment of Sion. If we are Christians, no force nor violence should 
separate us from her; 

2. Let us love Sion. There is nothing the Scripture uses more as an 
argument to separate our afiections from the world than the uncertainty and 
fading nature of it. The perpetuity, then, of the church should be a motive to 
place our afiections there, where they shall never want an object, and which 
we cannot love without loving her head and her establisher. The Jews in 
Babylon would rather forget themselves than their city and temple, Ps. 
cxxxvii. 5, 6. Our afiections to gospel Sion should be more tender, since 
God hath poured out more of his Spirit upon her, and she is more amiable 
in his eye. That which the Jews so much afiected is perished. But the 
true Sion is eternal, and shall flourish for ever. The Highest himself hath 
an estabHshing affection to her. Let our afiections to her equal the malice 
of the enemies against her, since we have greater incentives to love her than 
they can have to hate her. While others cry, ' Raze, raze it even to the 
ground,' let us at least testify our afiections, and if we have not her standing 
walls to love, let us not estrange our tenderness from 'her very dust,' Ps. 
cii. 14. There is a pleasure to be taken in her stones, because they shall 
be again set in their place, a favour to be shewn to her dust, because it shall 
be again compacted and enjoy a resurrection. For the Highest that hath 
promised to establish her, will not desert her in her ruins : ver. 16, * When 
the Lord shall build up Sion, he shall appear in glory.' We have therefore 
more ground to favour her dust than to admire the proudest palaces. 

3. Let us desire the estabUshment of Sion more than our own private 
establishment. 

It is the sign of a gracious spirit, to ' look not only on his own things, but 
the things of others,' Philip, ii. 4. And what things of others should be re- 
garded, if the things of Christ and his spouse be overlooked ? No private 
person hath any promise of establishment but as he is a denizen of Sion, as 
one born in her. In desiring therefore the welfare of Sion, we wish and 
make way for the establishing of ourselves ; our interests are common with 
hers. Her prosperity therefore should be the first and last of our wishes. 
When we wish the stability of Sion, we wish the honour of God, the con- 
tinuance of his worship, the glorifying his name which is deposited in that 
cabinet. The glory of God cannot flourish if the church perish. How base 
then are those, that if they can swim in a worldly prosperity, care not if the 
church be drowned in tears and blood ; that clothe themselves and regard 
not her nakedness ; that provide an earthly Canaan for themselves, and care 
not what desolate desert Sion sits weeping in ! 

4. Let us endeavour the establishment of Sion. It is a grateful thing to a 
prince to favour his favourite. Let us be as forward ta enlarge her terri- 
tories, as the devil and his instruments are to increase the suburbs of hell. 
The Highest himself will establish her by himself; we must therefore take 
those methods which are agreeable to the chief preserver, A compliance 
with the enemies of God was never the way to secure the interest of Sion. 
A divine work in a divine way will meet with divine assistance. To contri- 
bute to the establishment of Sion is a work honourable in itself, since it is 



350 chabnock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

the work of God himself; it is an imitation of the highest pattern. In this 
we are associates and co-workers with God. For the Highest himself shall 
estabhsh Sion. 



A DISCOURSE UPON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 

The enemy said, I will pursue, I ivill overtake, I icill divide the spoil ; my lust 
shall be satisfied upon them ; I will draw my sicord, my hand shall destroy 
them.. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them : they sank as 
lead in the mighty waters. — Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

An anniversary commemoration of a memorable deliverance falling upon this 
day, hath caused a diversion of my thoughts, to look back not only upon a 
mercy never to be forgotten, but to look forward to that deliverance which is 
to come, parallel to this in the text. Israel was a type of the church, Pharaoh 
a type of the church's enemies in all ages of the world, both of the spiritual 
enemy Satan, and of the temporal, his instruments. 

The deliverance was a type of the deliverance that Christ wrought upon the 
cross by his blood ; also of that Christ works upon his throne, the one from 
the reign of sin, the other from the empire of antichrist. 

This was the exemplar of all the deliverances the church was to have. As 
the Assyrian should ' lift up a staff against Jerusalem, after the manner of 
Egypt,' so the Lord should lift his rod up for them ' upon the sea, after the 
manner of Egpyt,' when ' the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anoint- 
ing,' Isa. x. 26, 27, when the power of the enemies shall be destroyed by the 
strength of Christ. The Lord himself makes it his pattern in those victories 
he is to gain for his people. When he calls upon his arm to ' awake as in 
the ancient days,' when he ' cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon, and made 
the depth of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over,' Isa. li. 9-11, then 
' the redeemed of the Lord shall come with singing unto Sion ;' the song of 
Moses, while they stand upon a sea of glass, a brittle, frail, and stormy world. 
Rev. XV. 3. And our Redeemer makes this his pattern and rule when he 
comes to tread the wine-press in wrath, and make them drunk with his fury, 
that then he would ' remember the days of old, Moses and his people, when 
he divided the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name,' Isa. 
Ixiii. 1, 2, 11, that his power may be as glorious in the latter as it was in 
the former, and all deliverances of the church from the beginning to the end 
he knit together to be an everlasting matter of praise to his name. 

This historical narration is to have a more universal accomplishment ; the 
deliverance from Egypt is promised to be fulfilled a second time, and God 
would act the same part over again, as also their deliverance from Og king 
of Bashan, after the ascension of Christ : Ps. vi. 22, ' The Lord said, I will 
bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people from the depths of the sea.' 
This is after he had ascended, ver. 18 ; when he came to ' wound the head 
of his enemies,' ver. 21. So Isa. xi. 15, 'The Lord shall utterly destroy 
the tongue of the Egyptian sea ; and with his mighty wind shall he shake 
his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams ; and make 
men go over dry-shod.' Nilus with its seven streams was the glory of Egypt, 
and Rome with its seven hills is the glory of the papacy, Rev. xvii. 9. So 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 351 

Zech. X. 10, ' I will bring them again out of the land of Egj'pt, and they 
shall pass through the sea with affliction, and the depths of the river shall 
dry up.' Pharaoh and his army cannot revive and stand up in their former 
ranks, but there shall be deliverances with resemblances to that, when the 
enemies shall be as arrogant and furious as Pharaoh, and the church as 
dejected and straitened as Israel. 

The text is a part of Moses his song ; a carmen, emvixiov, a song after vic- 
tory, a panegyric ; the praise of God, attended with dancing, at the sight of 
the Egyptian wi-ecks, ver. 20. 

1. It was then real ; the Israelites then sang it. 

2. It is typical ; the conquerors of antichrist shall- again triumph in the 
same manner. Rev. xv. 3. 

3. It was an earnest of future deliverance to the Israelites. When God 
appeared for them in their first exit, he would not fail in that work which 
should conduce so much to his glory ; it was a pledge that his purchased 
people should pass over, and be planted in the mountain of his inheritance, 
ver. 16, 17. There is in the words, 

1. A description of the enemy. 

2. His defeat. 

The enemy is introduced laying his counsel, and vaunting his resolution, 
by an elegant climax, and orderly proceeding: ' I will pursue, I will overtake, 
I will divide the spoil ; my lust shall be satisfied,' &c. They laid the foun- 
dation deep in counsel, built their resolves high in power, and then applaud 
themselves in their insolence. 

/ ivill pursue. Had he no reflections upon his former successless attempts 
to keep the Israehtes in slavery ? Or could he with any reason hope to 
reduce them with his baflBed strength to that yoke which had been broken 
by a powerful arm ? Had he not reason freshly to remember his own ina- 
bility to remove one of the plagues sent upon them, to promote Israel's res- 
cue ? Was that high arm which brought them out of Egypt broken, God's 
weapons blunted, his magazine of plaguing ammunition wasted, and his 
strength too feeble to preserve those he had by a strong hand redeemed ? 
These things be obvious to Pharaoh's thoughts. Yet, I will still pursue. 
How heady and rash are the church's enemies ! Infatuation is the usher to 
destruction. When you find the church's enemies lose their wits, y^ou may 
quickly expect they will lose their strength and lives. 

I uill divide the spoil. He promiseth them this victory before the con- 
flict, encourages his soldiers with hopes of the prey, which was the recovery 
of their jewels, which the Israelites had borrowed by God's order, and the 
Egyptians had lent them by a secret impression, and the flocks and herds of 
the poor Israelites to boot. 

How great is the pride of the church's enemies ! They strut without 
thinking of a superior power to curb them, and promise themselves the ac- 
complishment of their designs, without fearing the check of providence. Thus 
did Sisera's mother triumph in a presumptuous hope before a victory, 
Judges V. 30, and sing Te Deum before a conquest. Ventosa et insolens natio, 
is the title Pliny gives the Egyptian nation. 

My lust shall be satisfied upon them. ^D3 'lOX/'On, nay soul shall be satis- 
fied. How revengefully do they express themselves ! They apprehend them- 
selves cheated of their jewels by the Israelites : such an apprehension would 
increase rage and animosity. 

/ will draw my stvord, my hand shall destroy, '"1^ lOK'^lin, ray hand shall 
disinherit them. I will reduce them like a company of fearful fugitives, by 
brandishing a drawn sword, that they shall quickly return to their former 



852 charnock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

bondage, and become tbe perpetual inheritance of the Egyptians, How 
secure are the church's enemies ! The sight of a glittering sword, and an 
edict for a return, they thought, would quell their spirits. It is true they 
had to deal with an unarmed people, unprovided for defence, whose late sla- 
very had rendered them unfit for military exercises, an unequal match for a 
numerous and disciplined army. But what if they were ? Had they not the 
same power to protect them in their march, which had brought them out of 
their bondage ? This the^enemies never reflected on. Pride and security 
are always twins. 

In ver. 10 you have their defeat. The sea quenched the fire of their rage, 
and laid flat the towers of their proud confidence. God blows with his wind, 
the strong east wind, Exod. xiv. 21, a strength added to its natural fierce- 
ness, which made the meeting of the floods more swift and fierce. Some 
think thunders and lightnings burst out of the pillar of fire in the cloud, when 

• God looked upon them,' Exod. xiv. 24. 

They * sank like lead,' suddenly, easily, irrecoverably ; they were lashed 
before, now executed. Other plagues had a mixture of patience, this is a 
pure cup of the indignation of God. 

The defeat is described, 

1. By the author : ' Tho« didst blow.' 

2. Instrument : ' Thy wind, the sea ; ' wind and the sea conspire toge- 
ther against the enemies, when God orders them. 

3. Victory, or success of this order : ' The sea covered them ; they sank 
like lead in the mighty waters.' 

General observations. 

1. The greatest idolaters are the fiercest enemies against the church 
of God. It is the Egyptian is the enemy. No nation had more and 
more sordid idols.* The Persians adored the sun, the greatest benefactor 
to the world, in the rank of inanimate creatures ; other nations several stars, 
but none did so much abuse the reason of man as that accursed nation. 
Onions, garlic, cats, oxen, flies, and crocodiles ; those dunghill creatures 
were their adored deities. And how much better adoration is the swaddling 
clouts of our Saviour, or the straw which was in the manger, or the tail of 
the ass he rode upon, and so many splinters of the cross, which, if put to- 
gether, would make a Colossus ! For this, among the rest, may the church 
professing such worship be called spiritual Egypt. 

2. The church's enemies are not for her correction, but her destruction : 

* I will pursue ; my hand shall destroy them.' They breathe out nothing 
but slaughters ; ' My hand shall destroy them ;' down with it, down with it 
even to the ground, and * men are famous as they can lift up axes upon 
the thick trees,' Ps. Ixxiv. 5. 

3. How desperate are sometimes the straits of God's Israel in the eye of 
man ! How low their spirits before deliverance ! They here behold a deep 
Bea before them and a raging enemy behind them ; hear a confused noise of 
women and children in the midst of them ; feel the pantings of their own 
hearts, and perhaps see a consternation in the faces of their governors ; they 
see themselves disarmed of weapons, lying almost at the mercy of an op- 
pressor with a well-furnished army ; they repent of what God had done for 
them, and are more ambitious of slavery than liberty ; quarrel with Moses, 
■(and, as one of their historians saith, were about to stone him), Exod, xiv. 

10-12. Without doubt they then thought him a liar, and it is likely had 

no more honourable thoughts at that time of God ; for when they saw the 

happy success in the miraculous overthrow of the Egyptians, then ' they be- 

* .^gyptii diis fcecundi — Eicron. 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEIIBER, 353 

lieved God and his servant Moses,' Exod. xiv. 31, as if they gave credit to 
neither of them before. They had a pillar of fire and a cloud, the chariot of 
God, a greater argument to establish them than the preparation of their 
enemies to terrify them. But what a faithless creature is man under the 
visible guard of heaven, and so far naturally from living by faith that he will 
hardly draw establishments from sense ! 

4. God orders the lusts of men for his own praise. He had forced Pharaoh 
to let the people go ; he had stopped the streams of his fury ; when he re- 
moves his hand and pulls up the dam, Pharaoh returns to his former temper 
with more violence, thereby giving occasion for God's glory in his own de- 
struction. He serves himself of the desperate mahce of his enemies, to make 
his wisdom and other attributes more triumphant. 

5. The nearer the deliverance of the church is, the fiercer are God's judg- 
ments on the enemies of it, and the higher the enemies' rage. The former 
plagues were but small gashes in the Egyptian state ; but when the time 
approached of the Israelites' perfect deliverance, then the firstborn in every 
house, the delight and strength of the parents, is cut off ; and at the com- 
pleting of it, the glory, power, and strength of Egypt buried in the sea. 
The fuller beams of mercy on the one are attended with more scorching darts 
of judgment on the other. 

6. All creatures are absolutely under the sovereignty of God, and are acted 
by his power in all their services. ' Thy wind': all are subject to his con- 
duct, and are the guardians of his people, and the conquerors of his enemies. 
How easy is it for the arm of Omnipotency to demolish the strongest prepara- 
tions against his Israel, and with a blast reduce their power to nothing ! The 
sea sufi'ers violence to preserve his people, and the liquid element seems trans- 
formed into a wall of brass. God can make the meanest creatures ministers 
of his judgments, raise troops of flies to rout the Roman army, as it was in 
Trajan's siege of the Agarenes. 

7. By the same means God saves his people, whereby he destroys his ene- 
mies : the one sank, the other passed thorough. That which makes one balance 
sink makes the other rise the higher. The Red Sea was the guardian of 
Israel and the executioner of Egypt, the Israelites' gallery to Canaan and 
the Egyptians' grave. The cloud that led the Israelites through the Red 
Sea blinded the Egyptians ; the waters that were fifteen cubits high above 
the mountains kept the ark from dashing against them, whereby Noah might 
be endangered, and drowned the enemies, though never so high according to 
human stature. 

8. The strength and glory of a people is more wasted by opposing the in- 
terests of the church than in conflicts with any other enemy. Had the Egyp- 
tian arms been turned against any other enemy, they might have prospered, 
or at least retired with a more partial defeat, or saved their lives though 
under chains; but when they would prepare them against God's Israel, they 
meet with a total defeat where they expected victory, and find their graves 
where Israel found their bulwarks : the choicest of their youth, the flower of 
their nobility, the strongest of their chariots and horses, at one blow over- 
thrown by God. 

9. We may take notice of the folly of the church's enemies. Former 
plagues might have warned them of the power of God, they had but burned 
their own fingers by pinching her, yet they would set their force against 
almighty power, that so often had worsted them ; it is as if men would pull 
down a steeple with a string. 

But the observations I shall treat of are, 

VOL. V. z 



354 charnock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

1. When the enemies of the church are in the highest fury and resolution, 
and the church in the greatest extremity and dejection, then is the fittest 
time for God to work her deliverance fully and perfectly. When the enemy 
said, < I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil,' &c., then ' God 
blowed with his wind,' then ' they sank.' 

2. God is the author of all the deliverances of the church, whosoever are 
the instruments. ' Thou didst blow with thy wind ; who is like unto the 
Lord among the gods ?' 

1. For the first, When the enemies of the church are in the highest fury, 
&c. Great resolutions against God meet with great disappointments. The 
church's straits are the enemies' hopes, but God's opportunity. When their 
fury is highest, God's love is nearest. 

1. There are four seasons on the part of the enemy God takes hold of: 

(1.) Flourishing prosperity. Here is Pharaoh in the head of a gallant 
army, the Israelites in a pound, at his mercy. The Egyptians' prosperity is a 
forerunner of their destruction, the adversity of the other of their salvation. 
Haman is in the top of his favour when the Jews are marked out for slaugh- 
ter, and then himself is marked out for ruin. Prosperity, like rain, makes 
the weeds of pride and atheism to grow up, and then they are fit matter for 
God's sickle to cut down. When ' the clusters of the vine of the earth are 
ripe,' full of an outward glory and sweetness, then * the angel thrusts in his 
sharp sickle,' Rev. siv. 18. There is an ax/A?^ set them. When ' the great 
city is clothed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, decked with gold and precious 
stones,' Rev. xviii. 16, and come to the highest point of its glory and pros- 
perity, then shall God thicken the clouds of his vengeance, and bring their 
riches to nought in one hour. 

(2.) Swelling pride : ' I will pursue,' &c. Pride is provoking, because it 
is a self-deifying, and sets up the creature as God's mate. God stands upon 
his honour, and loves to attack those that would equal themselves with him. 
Pride sunk the glory of the fallen angels into misery, and so it will that of 
the serpent's seed. This is the immediate forerunner of destruction, Prov. 
xvi. 18. Men have their hairy scalp, the prime of their strength, and pride 
of their hearts, when God wounds them, Ps. Ixviii. 21. Egypt was become 
Rahab, pride itself, as the word signifies, and so God called it by that name, 
Isa. li. 9. When Egypt mounted to Rahab, to the top of pride, then God 
cut it. When the dragon bristled, and erected his stately head to seize upon 
the prey, then God wounded him, put an end to Egypt's pride and the 
Israelites' fear. He loves to beat down the pride of the one, and raise up 
the lowliness of the other. When Herod will assume the title of a god, 
given him by the acclamations of the people, an angel shall immediately 
make him a banquet for worms. Acts xi. 22, 23. When Sennacherib had 
prospered in his conquest of Judea, had taken many strong towns, closely 
beleaguered Jerusalem, thundered out blasphemies against God, and threat- 
enings against his people, then comes an angel, makes an horrible slaughter 
in a night, sends him back to his own country, where, after the loss of his 
army, he lost his life by the hands of his own children. A greater pride 
Cannot be expressed than what the apostle predicts of the man of sin, and 
that hath been extant for some time in the world : 2 Thes. ii. 4, ' Who op- 
poseth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,' in additions to the 
word, clipping the institutions of God, and adding new, and canonizing new 
mediators of intercession ; who sits in the temple of God in a profession of 
Christianity, shewing himself that he is God, assuming the name of God 
and the title of God in being called most holy. And perhaps it will yet 
amount to a higher step than it hath yet done before he be consumed by the 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.1 A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 355 

brightness of the Lord's coming, since all that yet lets and hinders is not 
taken out of the way. The higher the pride, the nearer the fall. When 
Goliath shall defy the God of Israel, a stone from a sling, thrown by the hand 
of David, our great David the antitype, shall lay him vomiting out his soul 
and blasphemies on the earth. We are many times more beholding to the 
enemies' insolence than our own innocence : Deut. xxxii. 27, ' Were it not 
that God feared the -wrath of the enemy,' i. e. in their pride, lest ' their 
adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and say. Our hand is high,' 
a sinful Israel should not have so many preservations.* When they will 
* ascend into heaven, and exalt their throne above the stars of God ;' when 
they will ' ascend above the heights of the clouds, and be like the Most 
High ; then shall they be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit,' 
Isa. xiv, 13-15. The highest towers are the fairest marks for thunder, and 
the readiest tinder for the lightning of heaven. When Tyrus had set her 
heart as the heart of God, then would God defile her brightness, and make 
her die the death of them that are slain in the midst of the sea, Ezek. 
xxviii. 6-8. 

(8.) Eager malice. Nothing would satisfy the Egyptians here but the 
blood of the Israelites. ' My hand shall destroy them ;' they were under a 
cruel bondage, attended with anguish of spirit, before God began their rescue. 
The serpent's seed have the same principles of craft and malice sown in their 
nature, that are resident in his ; ever since the beginning, he endeavoured 
to shape men into the same form and temper with himself ; their rage would 
raze out the very foundation of Israel, and not suffer the name to be had 
any more in remembrance,' Ps. Ixxxiii. 4. They love to be drunk with the 
blood of the saints, and are no more satisfied with blood than the grave 
with carcases ; they repair their arrows, and watch for an opportunity to dis- 
charge them, and never want poison but opportunity. This is God's time to 
deliver. When Pharaoh would pollute the land with the blood of the 
Hebrew males, and ordain them to be dragged from the womb to the slaughter, 
then God raises up himself to attempt the rescue of Israel ; yet he bears 
with his insolence, punisheth him, but not destroys him. But when he 
would be still stiff against a sense of the multitude of plagues, and a greater 
mercy of patience in them ; when he would arm for the field against that God 
the smart of whose force he had felt, and resolves to destroy or bring back 
the Israelites upon the point of his sword, God would then bear no longer, 
but make the water his sepulchre. When Haman designs the ruin of the 
Jews, procures the king's commission, sends despatches to all the governors 
of the provinces, sets up a gibbet for Mordecai, and wants nothing but an 
opportunity to request the execution, he tumbles down to exchange his 
prince's favours for an exaltation on the gallows, Esther vi. 4, vii. 10. 
When the serpent increased his malicious cruelty, and cast out a flood against 
the church, God makes the earth, the carnal world, to give her assistance, 
and repel the force that Satan used against her : Piev. xii. 15, 16, ' The earth 
helped^ the woman.' When * multitudes shall gather together in the valley 
of decision,' then shall • the Lord roar out of Sion, and be the hope of his 
people, and the strength of the children of Israel,' Joel iii. 14, 16. And 
when spiritual Egypt shall make a war against Christ, who sits upon the 
white horse, and combine all their force for the destruction of his people, 
then shall the beast and the false prophet be taken and brought to their 
final ruin, and their force be broken in a lake of fire, as that of Egypt was 
in a sea of water, liev. xix. 19, 20. The time of their greatest fierceness 
shall be the time of Christ's fury ; he will strike them sorest when he finds 
* Trap on Exod. p. Q. 



356 chaknock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

them cruellest ; their rage shall rouse up his revenge. When the men of 
Sodom, to which the antichristian state is likened, shall be resolutely bent 
to wickedness, they shall be struck with blii dness, and that bhndness suc- 
ceeded by destruction ; then will God set bounds to the outr-ageous waves, 
and snatch the prey out of the teeth of the lions. 

(4.) Confident security. ' I will divide the spoil, my lust shall be satis- 
fied upon them.' God lets the enemy ' come in like a flood' and torrent, 
with a confidence to carry all before him, before he ' lifts up a standard 
against him,' Isa. lix. 19. Then shall the Spirit of the Lord stir up himself 
gloriously in the principles and actions of his people, and the Redeemer 
shall come to Sion. God will set his force against their confidence, and 
break their impetuousness by his own power. When the enemies of the 
church think they have entangled it in such a snare, reduced it to so low a 
condition as to be secure of her ruin with a blast and puff, then God will 
' arise and set her in safety from them that pufi" at her,' Ps. xii. 5. This 
will be the case of Babylon, when she shall say, ' I sit as a queen, and am 
no widow, and shall see no sorrow," then ' shall her plagues come in one 
day, death, and mourning, and famine,' for then God will stir up his strength 
to judge her. Rev. xviii. 7. It is in the time of the antichristian polity, and 
mutual congratulations, with the highest security for their happy success, 
triumphing over the dead bodies of the witnesses, that they shall stand again 
upon their feet (the same persons, if politically dead, others witnessing the 
same doctrine, if they were corporeally dead), and damp all their mirth and 
triumph, and turn^ their security into fears ; then shall glory be given to the 
God of heaven, and the ark of his testament be seen in his temple, and the 
power of the Lord be magnified. Rev. xi. 10, 11. When they shall all be 
gathered together to the battle of the great day of the Lord, the place is 
called Armageddon, Rev. xvi. 14, 16, &c., DITI and |nJ, A .cursed troop, 
an army under God's anathema, when they have the greatest confidence. 
When Jerusalem shall be penned up by a siege, it shall be ' a cup of trem- 
bling in the hands of her enemies,' Zech. xii. 2. Fear shall seize upon them 
in the midst of their confidence. The sun was risen upon Sodom just before 
the devouring shower of fire and brimstone. With what derision would they 
have entertained any messenger, that should have assured them of such a 
shower in so clear a day ! No doubt but the Egyptian horses went pranc- 
ing into the sea, and their riders confident of catching their prey ; when 
they saw the waters congealed, they had not the least suspicion but that the 
division of the sea was made in their favour, till the chariot wheels were 
taken off", and the waters ready to roll upon them, Exod. xiv. 23, 25. 

2. As something on the part of the church's enemies forwards the deliver- 
ance, so there is some regard God hath to the church's straits : cum dupU- 
cantitr lateres, venit Moses. It is God's usual method to let the church be in 
great distress before he commands deliverance. The distress of the church 
was great in the concern of this day, though it was not sensible, the deliver- 
ance being known near as soon as the danger. 

The church is to be in the depths of the sea before she be fully delivered, 
Ps. Ixviii. 22. The Jews were to pass through the sea with affliction before 
the pride of Assyria should be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt 
depart away ; after that, he would strengthen them in the Lord, and they 
should walk up and down in his name, Zech. x. 11, 12. The sharpest 
pangs precede deliverance ; it was so when Christ came in the flesh, it will 
be so at every new rising of Christ in his Spirit. When things were at a 
low ebb ; when the sun set in the greatest darkness of error, idolatry, and 
profaneness ; when the Jews, the only spot of ground God had, was as a 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 357 

wilderness, almost bairen of anj grace ; when the great predictions of the 
prophets were unminded, and less understood ; when Urim and Thummim 
had ceased, and the spirit of prophecy was shut up ; then Christ comes in the 
fulness of time to work an universal relief for mankind. When the day of 
vengeance is in the heart of the Redeemer, he shall look and find none to 
help, he shall wonder to find none to uphold ; therefore his own arm shall 
bring salvation, Isa. Ixiii. 5. 

This has always been God's method. With his Son, the powers of dark- 
ness had their hour, and triumphed when they had laid him in the grave, 
before he was raised by the glory of his Father. The witnesses must be 
killed by the hand of their enemies, before they stand upon their feet, and 
ascend up into heaven, in the sight of their adversaries. Rev. xi. 7. When 
the church shall walk in darkness, ^ grope for the wall like the blind, mourn 
like doves, look for salvation, and it shall seem far ofi',' then will the Lord 
* put on a helmet of salvation on his head, and the garments of vengeance 
for clothing, and be clad with zeal as a cloak,' Isa. lix. 9, 10, 11, 17. The 
break of day is ushered in by a thicker darkness than that which clouded the 
night before. The sharpest persecution that ever the church had, was in the 
time of Diocletian, a little before Christianity was to rule his empire in the 
exaltation of Constantine. Abraham was in hardship, out of his country, 
when he received the promises of the Messiah ; and Israel in the wilderness, 
when the oracles of God were delivered to them. Confusion of the church 
precedes always the communication' of light. 

The reasons of the doctrine are these. 

1. This makes for God's glory. The creature cannot in this condition 
challenge any share in the hanour of the deliverance, or pare off so much as 
a splinter of his glory. Had the Israelites been armed, and drawn into a 
strong battalion, and so defeated the Egyptian army, the victory would rather 
have been challenged by them than ascribed to God ; but neither the strengtL 
of their multitude nor the wisdom of their guides were able to protect them. 
Counsel failed, and heads were feeble. Then did God get himself a name, 
when they were upon the point of a remediless ruin. It was manifest the 
name of the Lord got David the victory, since he encountered unarmed with 
Goliath, who could have crushed him like a fly had he been in his fingers. 

The time of the church's depression is the time of God's exaltation. He 
waits for the extremity to lift up himself. When paleness is upon the face 
of his people, when the cedars of Lebanon hang their heads, when the 
church's beauty seems a lamentable deformity, and Sharon is like a wilder- 
ness, then will God arise, Isa. xxxiii. 9, 10. God never builds' up Sion, but 
he ordains all things in a method for his appearance in the greatest glory : 
Ps. cii. IG, ' When the Lord shall build up Sion, he shall appear in his 
glory,' that is, when the church is destitute, ver. 17. 

(1.) God exalts his power. His right hand then becomes ' glorious in 
power,' Exod. xv. 6. He loves to appear in his dress as a Creator, when 
there is no fitness in the subject to answer his end but what he bestows upon 
it. When Jerusalem becomes ' a rejoicing, and her people a joy,' it is an 
act of creating power : Isa. Ixv. 18, ' For, behold, I create Jerusalem a 
rejoicing.' When the creature can give them not the least assistance, then 
will they be sensible of God's unbounded sufficiency, and their own necessary 
dependence. God never had too little help from his creature in a deliverance ; 
he hath sometimes complained of too much, and disbanded some of the 
church's forces, as in the case of Gideon, Judges vii. As Christ rules in the 
midst of his enemies, so doth God's power most visibly in the midst of dis- 
tresses. A physician's skill is most conspicuous when the disease is most 



358 charnock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

dangerous and most complicated, and nature at the lowest ebb. It is more 
glory to God to quencli the fire in its fullest rage than to extinguish it in its 
first smoke and sparkles. God loves the fairest mark to shoot at, and will 
rather down with Goliath than with the ordinary Philistines, grapple with the 
great rather than with a light danger, that the Lord may appear to be ' a 
man of war,' Exod. xv. 3. As God shews his mercy in his people's redemp- 
tion, he will shew his strength in their conduct, Exod. xv. 13. He that made 
this deliverance a standing monument of his power, entitles himself by it : 
Isa. xliii. 16, ' Thus saith the Lord, which makes a way in the sea, a path 
in the mighty waters.' 

(2.) His kindness to, and care of, his people. When the straits are remedi- 
less, and the counsels whereby the projects are laid not to be defeated by 
human skill ; when God seems to have forgot, then in a seasonable deliverance 
he shews himself the careful watchman of Israel. When the ship is in a 
raging storm, and Christ asleep, he will leave his own ease to keep his word 
and content his people. When the church thinks God hath forgotten his 
mercies, and they have forgotten their dependence ; when the misery is so 
pressing that there is no faith of a deliverance left ; then Christ comes, when 
faith is scarcely to be found upon the earth, Luke xviii. 8, to exalt his mercy 
in the depths of their misery, and work terrible things they looked not for, 
Isa. Ixiv. 3. The Israelites would not have understood God's care in their 
protection without this or the like strait, God had a new opportunity to 
shew his watchfulness over them, to turn the cloud, which went before them 
as their guide, behind them for their defence, Exod. xiv. 19. The scofi's of 
the enemy at the church's misery are God's motive to help her : ' I will 
restore health to thee, because they called thee an outcast,' Jer. xxx. 17. It 
is in straits we see God"s salvation, not man's : Exod. xiv. 13, ' Stand still, 
and see the salvation of the Lord.' 

(3.) His justice. He lets the church be encompassed with miseries, and 
the enemies in a combination against her, that he may overthrow them at 
once. God makes a quicker dispatch with the Egyptians when they were 
united than when they had assaulted Israel with a smaller body. His 
righteousness gets glory at one blow, when he makes them to lie down 
together, Isa. xliii. 17. His justice is unblemished in striking when their 
wickedness is visibly ripe ; the equity of it must needs be subscribed, that 
when the enemy's malice is greatest, when they have no mixture of compas- 
sion, it is the clearest righteousness to crush them without any mixture of 
mercy. God brings things to that pass that he may honour both his justice 
and mercy in the highest ; that the black horses and the white horses may 
march firm together, Zeeh. vi. 6 ; the black horses that brought death and 
judgment northward to Babylon, where the church was captive ; the white 
horses that followed them, and brought deliverance to his people : the one to 
be instruments of his judgments, the other of his mercies. God loves to 
glorify those two attributes together ; he did so in the redemption of mankind 
by the death of his Son, and he doth so in the deliverance of his church. 
There is a conformity of the church to Christ in her distress, that there may 
be a conformity of God's glory in temporal to his glory in eternal salvation. 
God singles out a full crop to be an harvest for both. A wicked man is said 
to be ' waited for' by the sword. Job xv. 22. God attends the best season for 
revenge, when mercy to the one shall appear most glorious, and vengeance on his 
enemies most equitable, and all disputes against his proceedings be silenced. 

2. It makes to the church's advantage. God had a work to do upon 
mount Sion and on Jerusalem, before he would ' punish the stout heart of the 
king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks," Isa. x. 12. His end shall 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOUESE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 359 

be attained in the correction of his church, before his glory shall be exalted 
in the destniction of her enemies. There are enemies in the hearts of his 
people to be conquered by his grace, before the enemies to her peace and 
prosperity shall be defeated by his power. He will let them be in the fire, 
till, like gold, they may have a purer honour in a brighter lustre. 

(1.) Humiliation is gained hereby. God would not presently raze out the 
Canaanites, lest the wild beasts should increase upon them, Deut. vii. 22. 
Too quick deliverances may be occasions lo multiply the wild beasts of pride, 
security, and wantonness in the heart ; humility would have but little foot- 
ing. There is need of a sharp winter to destroy the vermin before we can 
expect a fruitful spring. Without humiliation, the church knows not how to 
receive nor how to improve any mercy. The enemies hasten their own 
ruin by increasing the measure of their sins, and Israel's deliverance by being 
instruments to humble their hearts. The sooner the plaster hath drawn out 
the corrapt matter, the sooner it is cast into the fire. God hereby prevents 
the growth of weeds in that ground he intends to enrich with new mercies. 

(2.) A spirit of prayer is excited. Slight troubles make but drooping 
prayers ; great straits make it gush out, as the more the bladder is squeezed 
the higher the water springs. We hear not of the Israelites ciying to the 
Lord after their coming out of Egypt, till they had a sight of the formidable 
army : Exod. xiv. 10, ' They were sore afraid : and the children of Israel 
cried unto the Lord.' Prayer gains mercies, but scarce springs up free 
without sense of distress. We then have recourse to God's power, whereby 
he is able to relieve us, when we are sensible of our own weakness, whereby 
we are unable to relieve ourselves. Men will scarce seek to God, or trust 
him, while any creature, though but a reed, remains for their support ; they 
are destitute before they pray, or believe God regards their prayers : Ps. 
cii. 17, ' He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their 
prayer.' Distress causes importunity, and God will do much for impor- 
tunity's sake, Luke xi. 8. 

(3.) Discovery of sincerity. Hereby God discovers who are his people, and 
who are not ; who are in the highest form of Christianity, and who are not 
in the school, or at least but in the lowest form. He separates the good 
com from the useless chaff". No question but there were some among the 
Israelites that, in this extremity, acted faith upon the remembrance of the 
wonders God had wrought for them in Egypt before their departure. Cer- 
tainly they did not all murmur against Moses. Were there no Calebs and 
Joshuas that followed God fully in a way of faith and submission ? Their 
faith and courage had not been conspicuous without this extremity. Thun- 
derings and hghtnings, and terrible things in righteousness, are to prove us, 
whether the fear of God be before our faces that we sin not, Exod. xx. 18, 20. 
God separates the dross. You never know a new building without pulling 
down, to separate the rubbish and rotten rafters from the sound materials. 
Abraham was put upon hard work, the imbruing his hands in the blood of 
his only son, to prove his integrity. When God sees his sincerity, he diverts 
the blow ; not only deUvers him from his grief, his son from his danger, but 
renews the promise of the Messiah to him as a reward. Deliverance then 
comes when God hath separated the corn from the stubble. 

(4.) A standing encouragement for future faith. When the straits are 
greatest from whence God delivers us, there is a stronger foundation for a 
future trust. When the distress is inconsiderable, faith afterwards will be 
more feeble. A large experience heartens and strengthens faith in the pro- 
mise. When gloomy clouds are blown over, the brighter and thinner will 
not be much feared. When we see the sun melt the thickest over our heads, 



360 chaenock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

we shall not doubt its force to dissolve the lesser vapours which may after- 
wards assemble. When the ship hath escaped a raging storm, we shall not 
doubt it in a less. God often puts them in mind of their deliverance in the 
Red Sea, to strengthen their faith and dependence on him. It must needs 
be an establishment to faith, for deliverances from great straits are some 
kind of obligation on the honour of God. When the Israelites had i)rovoked 
God by murmuring, and wished they had died in Egypt, and not in the wil- 
derness, Moses intercedes with this argument, The Egyptians shall hear of 
it, from whom God brought up Israel with a strong hand ; and it would dis- 
parage God's power, and tax him with an inability to bring his people into 
the land he intended. Then God grants their pardon, Num. xiv. 13, 14, 15. 

(5.) Engagement to future obedience. It is upon this account God pre- 
faceth the law with his mercy in delivering them out of Egypt. The strongest 
vows are made in the greatest straits. Many obligations there are when the 
extremity forces us to cry. When we are in the jaws of death, God may 
have his terms of us ; when we are at some distance, we will have our own. 
The lower a person is, the more readily -mW he bend to any condition ; hope 
of deliverance will make him stoop. And when God snatches his people as 
firebrands out of the fire, they are more obliged to him from common 
ingenuity, and must be more ashamed of breaking their vows than if their 
mercies were of a great alloy. If common patience leads to repentance, a 
rescue from an amazing danger is a stronger cord to draw us to repentance 
and obedience. And it is certain that when the church in sincerity makes 
vows to God, it will not be long before God puts her into a condition to pay 
them, and furnish her with incentives to a holy ingenuity. 

(6.) The greater thankfulness. The more straitened, the greater thankful- 
ness for enlargement. As we hear not of the Israelites' prayers, after they 
came out of Egypt, till they were in the pound, so we read of none of their 
songs, though they had matter enough for them, in their first departure, till 
God had dashed in pieces the enemy, and * thrown the horse and the rider into 
the sea.' Then, and not till then, had they a deep sense, how ' glorious 
God was in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders,' Exod. xv. 11. Great 
mercies unveil God's face more to the view of his people. When Israel in- 
herits great salvation, then the Lord shall inherit the praise of Israel. When 
we have less mercies, we take little notice of the author. God hears the 
language of but one of our bones ; but when he ' delivers the poor from him 
that is too strong for him, and spoils him, then all my bones shall say. Lord, 
who is like unto thee ?' 

(7.) To prevent future mischief to the church. The destruction of the 
greatest enemies is a disarming the less. God, by this destruction, struck a 
terror into those nations, upon whose confines Israel was to march into 
Canaan, who, without so remarkable a rebuke of providence, would have 
been desirous to finger some of their prey. Then ' trembling took hold of 
the mighty men of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan did melt away ; 
fear and dread fell upon them by the greatness of the arm of God, that they 
should be as still as a stone, till they passed over the river,' Exod. xv. 15, 16. 
Their present deliverance was a passport for their future security in their 
journey ; and no enemies troubled them in the way but those upon whom 
God had a mind to shew his power. 

How doth God deliver when the season is thus ? 

1. Suddenly. They sank like lead in the mighty waters, which quickly 
reaches the bottom. Judgment comes like lightning. Death and hell are 
said to ' ride upon horses,' Rev. vi. 8. They are too swift for God's ene- 
mies, and will easily win the race of them. Destruction comes, ' as travail 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOUKSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 361 

upon a woman witli child,' 1 Thes. v. 3. How sudclenlT did God turn the 
Assyrian camp into an Aceldama, overthrow a powerful army, and make 
their tents their tombs in the space of a night ! He will dash them ' in pieces 
like a potter's vessel,' Ps. ii. 9, all in bits at a stroke. He comes suddenly'; 
he ' rides upon a cherub,' Ps. xviii. 10. But because the motion of an angel 
is not so intelligible, he adds another metaphor from the nimblest of sensible 
things ; ' he flies upon the wings of the wind,' to assist his people in extre- 
mity. The enemy comes like a ' whirlwind,'*' and God comes forth as a ' whirl- 
wind of fury,' Jer. xxx. 23. The whirlwind of his judgments shall be as 
quick as the whirlwind of their malice ; a continual whirlwind, when the 
other is vanishing ; it ' shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked,' 
when the other shall be as fruitless as a snowball against a wall of brass. The 
enemy beholds him not till he be upon him; for the ' clouds are as dust under 
his feet,' Nahum i. 3, and obscure his appearance, as the raising the dust 
doth the march of a troop. He comes unawares upon them in a cloud. The 
execution is sudden. They shall be ' cut down as grass,' Ps. xxxvii. 2, which 
this moment faceth the sun, triumphing in its natural bravery, and the next 
moment is cut off from its root with one shave of a scythe. He quencheth 
them as tow is quenched in water, Isa. xliii. 17, as the snuff of a candle is 
quenched by being bruised by the fingers. He cuts them off as foam, the 
excrement of the water, Hosea x. 7, which bursts in pieces like a bubble, 
on the sudden. Vengeance comes upon Tyre and Sidon swiftly and speedily, 
Joel iii. 4. Tyre comes of "I1^, which signifies to afilict, to straiten. Sidon 
of niV; the word signifies to pursue. All persecutors are threatened in 
Tyre and Sidon with a swift destruction. God delays the time to try the 
faith and patience of his people, to make the expected deliverance more sweet 
and welcome, and mercy more singular. He may have some of the seed of 
Christ in the loins of some of his enemies. But when he doth draw his 
sword, he gives a sudden blow before the enemy fears it, or his people ex- 
pect it. The Jews in Babylon, when the chains of their captivity were 
unloosed, were like those that dream, they could scarce believe they were 
freed when the enemy felt himself punished. In all other plagues, God sent 
Moses as an herald, with warning to Pharaoh ; but in this God surprised 
him, and hurried him to destruction, without giving him any caution. Like 
' chaff that the tempest carrieth away, and is seen no more,' Job xxi. 18 : 
so shall the plagues of spiritual Egypt ' come in one day,' Rev. xviii. 8 ; 
yea, ' in one hour,' ver. 17. And the church shall be like a lily, which, by 
the assistance of the dew, flourisheth in the morning, when over night it 
looked as if it were withered. 

2. Magnificently. Sometimes in deliverance God puts the frame of nature 
in confusion. ' He melts the mountains, cleaves the valleys, as wax before 
the fire, and as waters poured down a steep place,' Micah i. 4, i. e. he wastes 
the strength and riches of his enemies when he comes to judge. When he 
appears in the generation of the righteous, he shall appear in such glory, as 
to make the adversaries in great fear, and strike a terror into them, Ps. 
xiv. 5. God will perform it in a prodigious and unusual way. God might 
have taken off the wheels of the Egyptian chariots before they had entered 
the gap of the sea, and hindered them from approaching so near his 
beloved people ; he might have afflicted their hands with the palsy, and ren- 
dered them incapable to manage their weapons ; or might have sent a spirit 
of emulation among them, and made them sheathe their swords in one an- 
other's bowels. But though this had secured his people, it would not have 
rendered his operation so illustrious, as the making that which was a means 
* ' They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me.'— Hab. iii. 14. 



362 CHARNOCKS WORKS, [ExOD. XV. 9, 10. 

of his people's security to be his enemies' destruction, and the waters at 
once indulgent to the Israelites, and severe to the Egyptians. He magnifies 
his judgments and mercies by one and the same stroke, and drowns the ene- 
mies in the sea, whereby he delivers the Israelites. So he preserved Daniel 
in the midst of those lions which devoured his accusers. The more contrary 
things are to an eye of reason, the fitter subjects they are for the exaltation 
of God. As Christ, the head, so the church, the body, is raised out of the 
grave by the glory of God the Father, Rom. vi. 4. His right hand shall find 
his enemies, Ps. xxi. 8 ; his right hand shall teach him terrible things, 
Ps. xlv. 4. Then shall he come with a shout, as one refreshed with wine, re- 
cruited with new spirits, and risen from sleep, Ps. Ixxviii. 65. He calls upon 
all creatures to be assistant to Cyrus in the design of his people's deliver- 
ance, Isa. xlv. 8. He will perfect it by a way of creation, (' I have created 
righteousness' to deliverance) with the manifestation of his, and he makes 
things serve against their natm-al order appointed by God. Thus, when God 
shall appear for the final overthrow of spiritual Egypt, he shall come with 
voices, thunders, and lightnings, an earthquake out of the temple, and appear 
as magnificently in the garb of a judge as he did on Sinai in that of a law- 
giver. Rev. xvi. 19, and make the ten horns, which were the support of the 
beast, to be the instruments of her desolation. Rev. xvii. 16. 

3. Severely. They sank to the bottom like lead in the mighty waters. God 
sends out the greatest judgments against those that deal shai-ply with his 
people, greater than against any other part of the world, Zech. vi. 6. The 
black horses, the instrument of the execution of his anger, were sent towards 
Babylon, where his people were in captivity ; but the bay horses, of a mixed 
colour, noting a mixture of mercy and judgments, are sent towards other parts 
of the world, to walk, not to run, signifying the patience of God to those parts 
which had not yet oppressed his people. God deals not so smartly with those, 
as with them that are enemies to Israel. In such concerns he answers his 
people ' by terrible things in righteousness.' "WTien he appears as a God of 
salvation to his people, he appears terrible in his righteousness to his ene- 
mies : Ps. Ixv. 5, ' By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, 
God of our salvation.' His judgments shall be as terrible as they are 
righteous. The executioners of his vengeance ride upon horses, to shew their 
readiness to any warlike engagement ; upon red horses, of a bloody colour, 
to shew the severity of their commission against the enemies of God, Zech. 
i. 8. He will pay all an-ears together, that they shall be forced to say, God 
is true to the word of his threatening, as well as that of his promise ; as 
the Amalekites, in Samuel's time, paid the scores of their ancestors in the 
time of the Israelites' travel through the wilderness : 1 Sam. xv. 2, ' I re- 
member that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for them in the 
way when they came up from Egypt.' So when God reckons with Babylon 
for all the blood of the saints and prophets, — Rev. xviii. 20, * The blood of 
all the prophets and saints that were slain upon the earth, shall be found 
upon her skirts, and avenged on her,' — he gives unto her the cup of the 
wine of the fierceness of his wrath ; all that she hath done shall come into 
his remembrance. Rev. xvi. 19. And how severe it shall be is expressed, 
Rev. xiv. 19, 20 ; she shall be cast into the great wine-press of the wrath 
of God, as grapes bruised with the greatest strength, and crushed in pieces, 
both skin and stones. And to express it more sensibly to our understand- 
ings, he speaks of the flowing of the ' blood out of the wine-press into the 
horses' bridles,' by the space of a thousand and six hundi-ed furlongs, two 
hundred miles ; not that we should understand it literally, but the Spirit of 
God is so particular in describing the height of the deluge of blood to the 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10,] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 363 

bridles of the horses, the length of the flood to the space of two hundred 
miles, to set before our apprehension the severity of the wrath that shall be 
poured out upon theni. And as God never repented of his judgments upon 
Egypt, so never will he of those which are to come upon Babylon. 

4. Universally, and therefore severely. ' The horse and the rider did 
God cast into the sea ;' the chariots, the host, and the chosen captains were 
drowned there, Exod. xv. 1, 4. The waters covered the enemy, there was 
not one of them left, Ps. Ix. 11, Exod. xiv. 28. Not a messenger to can-y 
back the news ; their floating bodies and wrecks were the first that gave 
notice of the defeat to their remaining countrymen. God throws ofi" all ten- 
derness, his bowels are silent, he strikes like a wrathful enemy, lanceth not 
like a tender chirurgeon; so shall it be with the partners of their sins, every 
man that worships the beast and his image, shall drink of the wrath of God, 
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and who- 
ever receiveth the mark of his name. Rev. 'xiv. 9-11. The sun, the political 
power that defends it, shall be darkened ; the rivers, whereby their tratfic 
and riches come into them, shall be dried up ; all that have any dependence 
on them, recom-se to them, stand in the defence of the power of Egypt, shall 
fall under the indignation of God. 

5. Totally, irrecoverably. They sank as lead. God will make an utter 
end ; alfliction shall not rise up a second time, Nahum i. 9, 10. He over- 
takes them when they are drunk in the height of their pleasure, while they 
are making their confederacies against the church, while they are folden 
together like thoms, they shall be devoui'ed like stubble fully dry. Hoiridn 
Trjv sadiy.rjciv : Luke xviii. 7, ' He will avenge his own ; he will avenge them 
speedily ;' he will act so as if wrath were his only and proper work ; he will 
do it to purpose, and perfectly. The Egyptian carcases lay as trophies of 
the victory, Exod. xiv. 80. Their former plagues had something of patience ; 
punishment was inflicted, but life preserved ; judgments sent, but, upon pro- 
mise of reformation, quite removed. Now patience folds her hands, and 
stands spectator, while justice opens hers, and becomes a sole actor ; mercy 
runs on the side of Israel, and wi-ath marcheth without any impediment against 
the Egyptians. As they like lead, so irrecoverably shall Babylon fall like a 
millstone in the depths of the sea, and shall be found no more at all ; all 
her mirth and jollity shall for ever cease. Rev. xviii. 21-23. WTien things 
fall to the bottom of the sea, they are entombed there for ever ; no skill can 
restore them to their former station ; when judgment tumeth the key, and 
locks them in, there is no more opening the door. 

6. And all this justly. Pharaoh had commanded that the Hebrew male 
children should be exposed to the mercy of the river, to find their death in 
the water as soon as they had breathed in the air, Exod. i. 22 ; and God 
makes them perish in that element to which they had adjudged the harmless 
infants. Now God pays the law-maker and his counsellors with the same 
coin, and makes the malefactors food for the inhabitants of the deep, who 
had before fed the crocodiles with the blood of the innocent. God shall re- 
ward Babylon as she hath rewarded his people, and double unto her the cup 
she hath filled for others, Ptev. xviii. 6. Upon this account shall praise be 
given to God, that he hath given them blood to drink who have shed the 
blood of his saints and prophets. Rev. xvi. G. ' Thou art righteous, Lord, 
because thou hast judged thus.' As she hath kindled fii-es to consume the 
witnesses of Christ, so God shall kindle a fire to consume her, Rev. xvii. 10: 
* She shall be utterly burnt with fire,' Rev. xviii. 8. Some think Rome will 
at length be consumed with fire from heaven. She is indeed spiritual Sodom, 
R,ev. xi. 8 ; and as she answers it in carnal and spiritual sins, she may par- 



304 ' charxock's works, ^ [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

take of the same visible and spiritual judgments. Whether the punishment 
will be the same for kind I know not, but certainly it will be such a kind of 
punishment whereby the judgments of God shall be read, both in proportion 
and kind of it, as a retaliation for her sins ; and the Scripture speaks of fire 
coming down from God out of heaven upon the last enemies of the church 
that shall afflict the beloved city, alluding to the fire upon Sodom, and that 
which descended upon the persecutors of Elijah, Rev. xx. 9. 

7. Wisely. He cuts off the spirits of princes, as he took off the wheels 
of the Egyptian chariots, Ps. Ixxvi. 12, either by infatuating their counsels, 
or turning them as the rivers of waters into other channels. He stripped 
the Egyptians first of their wealth, and now spoils them of their strength; 
he kept a bridle upon the waters till the enemies were got into the midst of 
them, and then commands the sea to swallow them up in the depths of her 
bowels. When men lay their counsels deep, second them by an invincible 
strength, have almost brought them to their imagined period ready to bring 
forth, God disappoints their hopes, baffles their counsels, renders their pro- 
jects frothy, raiseth a storm and blows the ship from its harbour, contrary 
to its intended com-se, and glorifies his wisdom by overthrowing their designs 
when they have brought them to a birth. He watches upon the evil, to 
divert it from the innocent object upon the malicious actor. As God watches 
for the fittest season to bring evil upon his people, Dan. ix. 14, he will be as 
diligent to watch for the fittest opportunity to bring judgment on his enemies. 
God hath promised vengeance, but he hath reserved the knowledge of the 
' due time ' to himself, when he will make their foot to shde, Deut. xxxii. 35. 
Every mercy is then most seasonable. Usually God lets men bring the ball 
almost to the goal, and then kicks it from them, and them from it ; and the 
wisdom of God hath been, and will be, glorious in the overthrow of the re- 
maining enemies of the church, in making them which were horns to defend 
the beast to be carpenters to ruin him. Rev. xvii. 16. 

Use 1. Of comfort. How dear is the church to God ! "WTien God was 
engaged in the deliverance of his people, he sinks the strength of Egypt 
rather than one hair of the Israehtes' heads should perish ; they went safe 
over, while no man or horse of the enemies escaped. God gave Egypt for 
Israel's ransom, Isa. xliii. 3 ; and the sea should have drowned the whole 
land, rather than the enemies have hurt his people. So did the contrivers 
of the powder plot come to destruction, when not one hair of a head was lost, 
or one splinter of the place they intended was shaved off, by the prepared 
gunpowder. God sits in heaven and laughs at the little petty designs of 
men, Ps. ii. 4. God that is infinite to countermine them, infinitely powerful 
to defeat them, hath them in derision. Christ in glory mocks at the folly 
of earth-worms. The decree of God, which settles Christ a king, assures 
him a kingdom, and secures his people as it did his person, Ps. ii. 7. God 
is * a sun and shield,' Ps. Ixxxiv. 11 ; a shield to defend them, and a sun to 
extinguish the fire of the enemy's fury by shining upon it. God values no 
nation for the security of his people. The Babylonians, a warlike nation, 
shall sink under the army of Cyrus, for the restoration of the captive Jews : 
Isa. xliii. 4, ' I will give men for thee, and people for thy life.' He had 
given Egypt for their ransom before, and Ethiopa and Seba in the time of 
Asa ; and still, in after ages, God was of the same mind. God is as gi-acions 
to his people as terrible to his enemies ; he is light to the one, when he is 
fii-e to the souls and bodies of the other, Isa, x, 17. Christ still sits the 
Watchman of Ephraim with God, Hosea ix. 8. He inspects his chm-ch, and 
waits to bring the day of visitation upon his enemies. The covenant is of 
special force with God to move him to deliver his people : Isa. Ixiii. 8, * He 



EXOD. XV. 9, lO.j A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 3G5 

said, Surely they are roy people ; so he was their Saviour.' It seems to re- 
fer to the deliverance from Egypt. Shall I have so little regard to the league 
I have entered into with their fathers, as to be unconcerned in their misery ? 
There is hope in Israel till God forgets his covenant, and Christ strip him- 
self of the name of a Saviour. Christ hath his priestly habit in heaven for 
his people, but eyes as flames of fire, quick and piercing, to consume the 
very hearts of his enemies, and feet like fine brass to trample upon them. 
Rev. i. 13-15. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, to tear his enemies, 
as well as a Lamb slain, to expiate the sins of his people. He hath meek- 
ness for his friends, and terrible majesty for his enemies : Ps. xlv. 4, ' In 
thy majesty ride prosperously, because of meekness.' His kindness to his 
people makes him ride in majesty against the others. God will not be at 
rest till he hath revenged the cause of his people. Egypt will be drowned, 
Babylon will fall, Kev. xviii. 2. Christ can have no satisfaction without it. 
The executioners of his judgments in the north country, which was Babylon, 
lying northward from Jerusalem, do quiet his Spirit, both as tending to the 
glory of his justice and the manifestation of his mercy to his people, Zech. 
vi. 3. Christ will stain his garments in the blood of Edom and Bozrah, Isa. 
Ixiii. 2, 3 : Edom, the posterity of Esau ; Bozrah, a city of Moab, types of 
the church's enemies. The Jewish doctors, by Edom in the prophets, un- 
derstand Rome. Christ sits in heaven till his enemies be made his footstool. 
All the time of his sitting, God is acting and preparing things for a final 
issue. There is a strong cry of blood, and a file of prayers ; the one will 
be revenged, and the other will be answered. Their own pride and cruelty 
witness against them. God hath a noise of petitions every day for a full 
end ; a combined importunity will prevail. But clouds now hang over us ; 
a gloomy stonn seems to threaten us. God may indeed blow over the cloud. 
Our Saviour hath the command of the storms and winds in heaven, as well 
as he had upon the earth. The pillar of the cloud, which hath hitherto con- 
ducted us, may be our guardian in the rear to defend us. But yet, if he 
doth suifer them to prevail, they shall be but as whisks to brush off the 
dust, wisps of straw to cleanse the filthy pot. You know what is to be done 
with them when their work is done. Theii- language indeed is. Let Sion be 
defiled ; but they understand not the counsel of the Lord, who in time will 
make the horn of Sion u-on, and her hoofs brass, Micah iv. 11. Though 
the beasts that ascend out of the bottomless pit do kill God's people, Rev. 
xi. 7, yet, even in this victory of theirs, Satan himself shall be overcome. 
As when Christ was taken out from among the living by Satan's means, it 
was but for a time, but himself was cast out for ever, so, after this victory, 
the church shall overcome. Rev. xi., and God shall break the head of the 
leviathan in the waters ; and when he doth, by his wisdom, contrive ways 
of salvation, he will, by his power, execute them, and save in such a way as 
may most glorify himself, and witness that the salvation was the immediate 
work of his arm : Hosea ii. 7, ' I will save them by the Lord their God.' 

2, Remember former deliverances in time of straits. In our plenty of 
mercies, we should not be unmindful how near we were to the pit, nor let 
the impression of God's power, wisdom, and mercy wear off' from our hearts. 
The Israelites were apt to forget the most signal mercies, though they 
had seen them, and had more sensibly tasted the sweetness of them than 
their posterity. God, therefore, often puts them in mind of them ; the 
Lord that brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, 
Deut. iv. 20 : Hosea xii. 9, ' I the Lord your God from the land of Eg>'pt.' 
It was the more fit to be remembered by them, because many of them were 
fitter subjects for God's wrath with the Egyptians than for his delivering- 



366 charnock's works. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

kindness, since she committed whoredoms in Egypt in her youth, i. e. had 
been guilty of the Egyptian idolatry, Ezek. xxiii. 3. Unmindfulness of for- 
mer experiences may make you hopeless of future deliverances. The re- 
membrance of former mercies is a ground of confidence in God for the like 
mercies for the future. God recalls to his people's minds, in their afflictions, 
the memorable defeat of the Moabites by his sole power, in the time of 
Jehoshaphat's reign ; they should, from that deliverance, hope for as great 
from the hands of God in their straits. And, Zech. x. 11, God would have 
them consider their deliverance at the Red Sea as a ground of hope in the 
time of their distress. 

3. Thankfully remember former deliverances. If we have not some praise 
for God, we may suspect ourselves. It is observed that the city Shushan, 
the royal seat of the Persian monarchy, was portrayed upon the east gate 
of the temple,* not because of the Persian command, or because of their fear 
of that king, as some think, but to have a thankful remembrance of the 
wonderful deliverance of Purim, which was wrought in Shushan, Esth. ix, 26. 
If it had been only by the Persians' command, it would have been defaced 
after the fall of that monarchy, which held but thirty-four years after the 
building of the second temple. The 136th Psalm is a good copy, where is a 
threefold exhortation to thankfulness in the beginning, and one at the end ; 
and in the record of every mercy, the burden of every verse is, ' his mercy 
endureth for ever.' Hovv' should we imitate the psalmist 1 He broke the 
teeth of the invincible leviathan in '88, and sent a strong wind to disperse 
the fleet, ' for his mercy endureth for ever.' God prevented the dreadful 
blast of gunpowder, ' for his mercy endureth for ever.' God sent the light 
of the gospel into England, and freed it from the yoke of antichrist's tyranny, 
' for his mercy endures for ever.' God hath been a wall of fire about Ireland, 
in the protection of it, ' for his mercy endureth for ever.' Let mercy receive 
the praise of what our own wisdom and power could not efiiect. The way 
to overcome the same enemies we fear, is to praise God for what he hath 
before acted against them. The strength of a people consists in praises, as 
well as praying : Ps. viii. 2, ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast 
thou ordained strength ;' in the evangelist, ' thou hast perfected praise,' 
Mat. xxi. 16. The more hallelujahs we put up, the more occasion God may 
give us for them. If we have any fears of the overflowing deluge God for- 
merly delivered us from, our non-improvement of those deliverances, the 
fruits whereof we enjoy this day, may strengthen our fears. When Israel 
was idolatrous in Jeroboam's reign, yet God delivered them from the Syrians, 
because he saw their affliction was bitter, and there was no helper ; yet when 
they did not thankfully improve it to a reformation, God denounced judg- 
ments against them for their idolatry : 2 Kings xiv. 26, 27, ' The Lord said not 
that he would blot out the name of Israel;' so that he had not yet denounced 
it, for he waited to see the improvement of this mercy. But before the end 
of Jeroboam's reign, by the j)rophet Hosea, who began to prophesy in his 
time, he declared their final captivity, from whence they are not restored to 
this day. Praise for former mercies is a means to gain future ones ; the 
music of voices in Jehoshaphat's camp, praising the beauty of holiness, 
was a prologue of a deliverance from a formidable army, 2 Chron. xx. 21, 22, 
and more successful than the warlike music of drums and trumpets. 

4. Exercise faith on the power of God manifested in deliverances in the 
time of straits. It is not for want of ability in God, but for want of faith 
in us, that we at any time go groaning under misery. Faith would quiet 
the soul. When David relied upon God, and found by experience God sus- 

* Lightfoot, Temple, cap. iii. p. 9. 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 367 

taining him, he would not then be afraid of ten thousand, Ps. iii. 5, 6. Let 
that be our carriage which is recorded of the Israelites afcer this memorable 
defeat: Exod. xiv. 31, ' They believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.' 
We must never expect to see God's arm bare without faith in him. Christ 
can do no great work where unbelief is predominant. Unbelief doth not 
strip God of his power and mercy, but it stops the streams and effluxes of 
it. Unbelief against experience is a double sin. It is gross when against a 
bare word, worse when against the word confirmed by a witness. Israel was 
past thoughts of any relief in this strait, but expected to perish by the hand 
of their enemies, yet God brought them into straits in mercy, to bring them 
out of straits with power. He makes their distress a snare to their enemies, 
and a scafibld for their faith. That deliverance ought to be a foundation 
for our trust in God, though bestowed upon another nation ; yet not so much 
upon them as a state, but as a church, and a type of those future ones under 
the gospel which are yet expected. Well, then, trust upon this foundation. 
Great trust in God is a sort of obligation upon God. Men, out of generosity, 
will do much for them that depend upon them. Dependence on God mag- 
nifies his attributes ; this will bring deliverance, whereby God will magnify 
himself. Do not distrust him, till you meet with an enemy too strong for 
him to quell, a Bed Sea too deep for him to divide, an affliction too sturdy 
for him to rebuke, an Egyptian too proud for him to master ; then part with 
your faith, but not till God hath parted with his power, which he hath for- 
merly evidenced. 

5. Expect and provide for sharp conflicts. God brings into straits before 
he delivers. Another deliverance is yet to come ; the church's distresses are 
not come to a period ; Babylon hath another game to play. The right of 
the devil to tyrannise over the mystical body was taken away at the death of 
the head, yet he still bruiseth Christ's heel, and bites, though he cannot 
totally overcome. As long as Christ's enemies are not made his footstool 
as long as there is the seed of the serpent in the world, as long as Christ's 
members want a conformity to the head, Satan's pinches must be expected ; 
as long as the beast is in being, he will make war with the followers of tlio 
Lamb ; his power is to continue forty-two months, to make war with the 
saints, and to overcome them, Rev. xiii. 5, 7. Forty-two months, of years ; 
it is like the time is not expired. One thousand six hundred and twenty 
years, which make foriy-two months ; no ending since he tii-st had his power. 
When his time draws near to an end, he will bite sharpest. This delivei-ance 
from Egypt ig yet again to be acted over, and that must be at the end, when 
the whole Israel of God shall be freed from Antichrist, the antitype of Pharaoh. 

('). Yet let us not be afraid. Apostasies may be great. There will be 
but two witnesses ; not two in number, but in regai'd of the fewness of those 
that shall bear testimony to the doctrine of Christ. There may be no ad- 
vocate for the church. Sion may be an outcast, cast out of the affection of 
many that served or favoured her ; but the sharpest convulsions in the world 
are presages of an approaching redemption, Luke xxi. 28, and the gospel 
will shine clearer, as the sun doth after it hath been muffled with a thick 
cloud. The words in the mouths of the witnesses will be most killing and 
convincing. Fear not a natural above a supernatural power. Was not all 
the church God had in the world in as low a condition at the Red Sea ? Not 
a soul that we read of exempt (or but few, as Job, and some few others in 
other parts), yet the church was then delivered for a pattern, to shew forth 
the power of God in the ages to come. What though there may be a want 
of instruments ? Are not all instruments outlived by God ? Has God dis- 
missed the care of his people ? Is he not always the church's guardian ? 



3G8 chahnock's woeks. [Exod. XV. 9, 10. 

He must be dethroned before he can be disarmed. While heaven is too 
high for human hands to reach, the church is too well guarded for them to 
conquer. Fear not, till Christ lets his sceptre fall out of his hands, and 
ceases to rule in the midst of his enemies, and flings away the keys of death 
and hell ; fear not till God strips himself of his strength wherewith he is 
clothed ; he is clothed with strength, Ps. xciii. 1. Though there be little 
strength in the church, there is an almighty one in their confederate. It is 
no matter what the enemy resolves against what God ordains. Pharaoh 
intended to destroy, God intended to deliver. God will have his will, and 
Pharaoh's lust goes unsatisfied. When the enemies are most numerous, 
God shall darken their glory and strength, and then shall he be the hope 
and strength of his people, Joel iii. 14-16. The valley of Achor, the valley 
of the sharpest trouble, shall be a door of hope, Hosea ii. 15. That God 
that can create a world out of nothing, can create deliverance when there is 
no visible means to produce it. What can be too hard for him that can 
work without materials, that can make matter when it is wanting, and call 
non-entities into being ? He created the world with a word, and can destroy 
the sturdiest men in the world with a look. The strongest devil trembles 
before him, and the whole seed of the serpent is but as the dust of the 
balance before the breath of his mouth. He looked the Egyptian host into 
disorder, and their chariot wheels into a falling sickness, Exod. xiv. 24. He 
created the \Yorld by a word ; he restored Jerusalem by a word, Isa. xliv. 
26, 27, dispirited Egypt by a look. There is no need of an arm ; a word, 
and a look of omnipotency, will be efficacious both for the one and the other; 
one royal edict from him will perform it : Ps. xliv. 4, ' Thou art my King, 
command deliverance for Jacob.' He hath authority as a king, engagement 
as the church's king. As he hath right of dominion, so he hath an office of 
protection, which the church of right may claim. And is it Jacob that wants 
deliverance ? Be not afraid, but sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, Isa. 
viii. 12, 13. To trust in his power is to sanctify his name, and regard him 
as the sovereign of all creatures, and the Lord of hosts. If we sanctify his 
name by relying on his power, he will sanctify his name by engaging his power. 

7. To this end study the promises God hath made to his church, and what 
predictions are upon record. It is a title of the faithful, that they are such 
as keep the sayings of the book of the Revelation, Rev. xxii. 9. The angel 
that came to John owns himself his fellow- servant, and of the prophets, and 
those that keep the sayings of that book. See God's bond, and behold his 
witness ; compare the promise, the prophecy, and performance. See his 
mercy in making them, his truth in performing ^them ; let these be as the 
Hur and Aaron to support the glory of God in our souls. This will be a 
matter of praise, and furnish us with arguments to spread before God. 
Daniel first looked into the book for the set time of the Jews' return from 
Babylon, Dan. ix. 2, and took his rise for pleas from thence. You may have 
need of this food ; a divine promise is the best cordial at a stake or gibbet, 
or when a sword is at your breast, 

8. When a time of straits comes, wait patiently upon God. Let not hope 
sink when reason is nonplussed by storms, and sees nothing but wrecks. 
Wait upon God in the way of his judgments, Isa. xxvi, 8, in his storms as 
well as calms. God waits to be gracious, and therefore we should wait to 
be gratified. Not to wait, is to be partners in that sin which brought de- 
struction upon the church's enemies, viz. pride. It concerns God more in 
point of his glory to hasten deliverance in its due time, than us in point of 
security ; but there is as much danger in coming too soon as too late. By 
waiting, we imitate the highest pattern, who waits with patience for the refer- 



EXOD. XV. 9, 10.] A DISCOURSE ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. 3G9 

mation of his enemies, and Christ, who waits for the total victory. The 
longer God keeps the church at any time under the enemy's chains, the 
sweeter will be his mercy to the one, and the severer his justice on the other. 
The Israelites waited, and God followed Pharaoh with plagues, as he followed 
them with burdens, and took his time to cut off their oppressors, with most 
glory to himself, and most comfort to them. The vision hath its appointed 
time. Impatience will not make God break the chains of his resolves, but 
patience will bring down the blessing with great success, and big with noble 
births. God is not out of the way of his wisdom and grace, and we can 
never keep in our way but by patience in waiting ; by this we give him the 
honour of his wisdom ; by too much hastiness we check and control him, 
and will not let him be the master and conductor of his own blessings. We 
many times get more good by waiting than we do by enjoying a mercy. 
Such a posture keeps the soul humble and believing, whereas many times, 
when we receive a mercy too hastily with one hand, we let go faith and 
humility with the other. Sincere souls have the strongest and most heavenly 
raptures in a time of waiting : Isa. xl. 31, ' They mount up with wings Hke 
eagles.' 

9. In times of such straits, be found only in a way of duty. If our straits 
should ever prove as hard as the Israelites' at the Red Sea, i. e. have some- 
thing of a resemblance to their case, let us follow Moses his counsel to 
them : Exod. xiv. 13, ' Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.' 
Let us not anticipate God's gracious designs. If we will have our finger 
where God only will have his arm, God may withdraw this arm, and 
leave us to the weakness of our own fingers. Let them that want a God 
to relieve them use sinful and unworthy shifts for their deliverance. If any 
success be found out of the way of duty, it may be attended with a curse, 
and want that favour of God which only can sanctify it. We may pur- 
chase a present deliverance with a more durable plague at the end of it, 
because we forfeit that favour which only can work a real freedom. Sinful 
ways do not glorify God, but disparage him. Our actions at such a time 
particularly should adorn the gospel, not discredit it, for it is by the sword 
of his mouth that such enemies will be destroyed, and every sword cuts best 
when it is sharpest and cleanest, not when it is blunt and rusty. Not but 
that lawful means may, nay, they must be used. Noah, though he went 
into the ark by God's command, and was not to stir out without his order, 
yet he sets open the windows, and sends forth a raven and a dove, to bring 
him notice when the waters were dried up. It is a foolish thing to ofi"end 
God, who only can help us in our straits, and by our sin to hold his sword 
in his sheath, which, upon our obedience, would be drawn for our relief. 
We know not how soon we may need him, and our distress be such, that 
none but he can bring salvation. Let no sin be a bar in the way. 

10. Be much in prayer. Israel cried unto the Lord before God did relieve, 
Exod. xiv. 10. The persecuted church cried, travailing in birth, and found 
a security both for herself and her oflfspring, Rev. xii. 2, &c. The distress 
of the time is an argument to be used : Ps. cxxiii. 3, 4, * Have mercy upon us, 
Lord, for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.' When enemies are high, 
and access to God free, it is an high contempt of God not to use the privilege 
he allows us, and it is to trust in an arm of flesh rather than an arm of 
omnipotence ; to think him either inexorable or unable. And for encouriige- 
ment, consider you have Christ armed against his spouse's enemies, and pro- 
vided with merit to make her prayers successful. Our prayers may at last 
be turned into praises, and we may say with David, Ps. ix. 6, ' thou 
enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end.' 

VOL. V. A a 



370 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXVII. 4. 



A DISCOURSE OF DELIGHT IN PRAYER. 

Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 
— Ps. XXXVII. 4. 

This psalm in the beginning is a heap of instructions. The great lesson 
intended in it is placed in verse 1 : ' Fret not thyself because of evil doers, 
neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.' It is resumed, verses 
7, 8, where many reasons are alleged to enforce it. 
Fret not. 

1. Do not envy them. Be not troubled at their prosperity. 

2. Do not imitate them. Be not provoked by their glow-worm happiness 
to practise the same wickedness, to arrive to the same prosperity. 

3. Be not sinfully impatient, and quarrel not with God, because he hath 
not by his providence allowed thee the same measures of prosperity in the 
world. Accuse him not of injustice and cruelty, because he afflicts the 
good, and is indulgent to the wicked. Leave him to dispense his blessings 
according to his own mind. 

4. Condemn not the way of piety and religion wherein thou art. Think 
not the worse of thy profession because it is attended with affliction. 

The reason of this exhortation is rendered, ver. 2, ' For they shall soon be 
cut down as the grass, and wither as the green herb ;' amplified by a simili- 
tude or resemblance of their prosperity to grass. Their happiness has no 
stability ; it hath, like grass, more of colour and show, than strength and 
substance. Grass nods this and that way with every wind. The mouth 
of a beast may pull it up, or the foot of a beast may tread it down. The 
scorching sun in summer, or the fainting sun in winter, will deface its com- 
plexion. 

The psalmist then proceeds to positive duties, ver. 3. 

1 . Faith. Trust in the Lord . This is a grace most fit to quell such impatien- 
cies. The stronger the faith, the weaker the passion. Impatient motions 
are signs of a flagging faith. Many times men are ready to cast ofi" their 
help in Jehovah, and address to the god of Ekron, multitudes of friends or 
riches ; but trust thou in the Lord, in the promises of God, in the providence 
of God. 

2. Obedience. Do good. Trust in God's promises, and observance of 
his precepts, must be linked together. It is but a pretended trust in God 
where there is a real walking in the paths of wickedness. Let not the glister 
of the world render thee faint and languid in a course of piety. 

3. The keeping our station. Do good. Because wicked men flourish, 
hide not thyself therefore in a corner, but keep thy sphere, run thy race, 
' and verily thou shalt be fed,' have eveijthing needful for thee. And now 
because men delight in that wherein they trust, the psalmist diverts us from 
all other objects of delight to God as the true object : ' Delight thyself in the 
Lord ;' place all thy pleasure and joy in him. And because the motive 
expresseth the answer of prayer, the duty enjoined seems to respect the act 
of prayer as well as the object of prayer ; prayer coming from a delight in 
God, and a delight in seeking him. Trust is both the spring of joy and the 
spring of supplication. When we trust him for sustenance and preservation, 



Ps. XXXVII. 4.] DELIGHT IN PKAYEE. 371 

we shall receive them ; so when we delight in seeking him, we shall be 
answered by him. 

1. The duty. In the act, ' delight ;' in the object, ' the Lord.' 

2. The motive : ' he shall give thee the desires of thy heart ;' the most 
substantial desires, those desires which he approves of. The desire of 
thy heart as gracious, though not the desire of thy heart as carnal ; the 
desire of thy heart as a Christian, though not the desire of thy heart as a 
creature. He shall give ; God is the object of our joy, and the author of our 
comfort. 

Doct. Dehght in God, in seeking him only, procures gracious answers ; 
or, without cheerful prayers, we cannot have gracious answers. 

There are two parts : 1, cheerfulness on our parts ; 2, grants on God's 
part. 

1. Cheerfulness and delight on our parts. Joy is the tuning the soul. 
The command to rejoice precedes the command to pray : 1 Thes. v. 16, 17, 
' Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing.' Delight makes the melody ; 
prayer else will be but a harsh sound. God accepts the heart only when it 
is a gift given, not forced. Delight is the marrow of religion. 

1. Dulness is not suitable to the great things we are chiefly to beg for. 
Gospel discoveries are a feast, Isa. xxv. 6. Dulness becomes not such a 
solemnity. Manna must not be sought for with a dumpish heart. With 
joy we are to draw water out of the wells of salvation, Isa. xii. 3. Faith is 
the bucket, but joy and love are the hands that move it. They are the Hur 
and Aaron that hold up the hands of this Moses. God doth not value that 
man's service, who accounts not his service a privilege and a pleasure. 

2. Dulness is not suitable to the duty. Gospel duties are to be performed 
with a gospel temper. God's people ought to be a willing people, Ps. ex. 3, 
Villi, a people of willingness, as though in prayer no other faculty of the 
soul had its exercise but the will. This must breathe fully in every word, 
as the spirit in Ezekiel's wheels. Delight, like the angel, Judges xiii. 20, 
must ascend in the smoke and flame of the soul. Though there be a kind of 
union by contemplation, yet the real union is by afiection. A man cannot 
be said to be a spiritual king if he doth not present his performances with a 
royal and prince-like spirit. It is for vigorous wrestling that Jacob is called 
a prince. Gen. xxxii. 28. 

This temper is essential to grace. Natural men are described to be of a 
heavy and weary temper in the ofi'ering of sacrifices, Mai. i. 13. It was but 
a sickly lame lamb they brought for an ofi'ering, and yet weary of it ; that 
which was not fit for their table they thought fit for the altar. 

In the handling this doctrine I will shew, 

I. What this delight is. 

II. Whence it springs. 

III. The reasons of the doctrine. 

IV. The use. 

I. What this delight is. Delight properly is an affection of the mind that 
springs from the possession of a good which hath been ardently desired. 
This is the top-stone, the highest step. Delight is but an embryo till it 
come to fruition, and that certain and immutable ; otherwise, if there be 
probability or possibility of losing that which we have present possession of, 
the fear of it is as a drop of gall that infects the sweetness of this passion. 
Delight properly is a silencing of desire, and the banquet of the soul on the 
presence of its desired object. 

But there is a delight of a lower stamp. 

1. In desires. There is a delight in desire as well as in fruition, a 



872 chaenock's works. [Ps. XXXVII. 4. 

cheerfulness in labour as well as in attainment. The desire of Canaan made 
the good Israelites cheerful in the wilderness. There is an inchoate delight 
in motion, but a consummate delight in rest and fruition. 

2. In hopes. Desired happiness aflects the soul ; much more expected 
happiness : Kom. v. 2, ' We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.' Joy 
is the natural issue of a well-grounded hope. A tottering expectation will 
engender but a tottering delight. Such a delight will madmen have, which 
is rather to be pitied than desired ; but if an imaginary hope can affect the 
heart with some real joy, much more a hope settled upon a sure bottom, and 
raised upon a good foundation. There may be joy in a title as well as in 
possession. 

3. In contemplation. The consideration and serious thoughts of heaven 
do afiect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure, though itself be as if in a 
wilderness. The near approach to a desired good doth much affect the 
heart. Moses was surely more pleased with the sight of Canaan from mount 
Pisgah than with the hopes of it in the desert. A traveller's delight is more 
raised when he is nearest his journey's end, and a hungry stomach hath a 
greater joy when he sees the meat approaching which must satisfy the appe- 
tite. As the union with the object is nearer, so the delight is stronger. Now, 
this delight the soul hath in duty is not a delight of fruition, but of desire, 
hope or contemplation, gaudium vicr,, not patrim. 

1. We may consider delight as active or passive. 

(1.) Active, which is an act of our souls in our approaches to God, when 
the heart, like the sun, rouseth up itself, as a giant to run a spiritual race. 

(2.) Passive. Which is God's dispensation in approaches to us, and often 
met with in our cheerful addresses to God : Isa. Ixiv. 6, ' Thou meetest him 
that rejoiceth and works righteousness.' When we delightfully clasp about 
the throne of grace, God doth often cast his arms about our necks, especially 
when cheerful prayer is accompanied with a cheerful obedience. This joy is, 
when Christ meets us in prayer with a ' Be of good cheer, thy sins are for- 
given,' thy request granted. The active delight is the health of the soul, the 
passive is the good complexion of the soul. The one is man's duty, the other 
God's pecuhar gift ; the one is the inseparable property of the new birth, 
the other a separable privilege. There may be a joy in God when there is 
little joy from God ; there may be gold in the mine when no flowers on the 
surface. 

2. We may consider delight as settled or transient, as spiritual or sensitive. 

(1.) A settled delight. In strong and grown Christians, when prayer pro- 
ceeds out of a thankfulness to God, a judicious knowledge and apprehension 
of God. The nearer to God, the more delight ; as the motion of a stone is 
most speedy when nearest its centre. 

(2.) A sensitive delight. As in persons troubled in mind there may be a 
kind of delight in prayer, because there is some sense of ease in the very 
venting itself ; and in some, because of the novelty of a duty they were not 
accustomed to before. Many prayers may be put up by persons in necessity 
without any spiritual delight in them ; as crazy persons take more physic 
than those that are healthful, and observe the spring and fall, yet they delight 
not in that physic. The pharisee could praj^ longer, and perhaps with some 
delight too, but upon a sensual ground, with a proud and vaunting kind of 
cheerfulness, a delight in himself, when the publican had a more spiritual 
delight ; though a humble sorrow, in the consideration of his own vileness, 
yet a delight in the consideration of God's mercy. This sensitive delight 
may be more sensible in a young than in a grown Christian, There is a 
more sensible affection at the first meeting of friends, though more solid after 



Ps. XXXVII. 4.] DELIGHT IN PRAYEB. 373 

some converse ; as there is a love which is called the love of the espousals. 
As it is in sorrow for sin, so in this delight ; a young convert hath a greater 
torrent, a grown Christian a more constant stream. As at the first conver- 
sion of a sinner there is an overflowing joy among the angels, which we read 
not of after, though without question there is a settled joy in them at the 
growth of a Christian. An elder son may have a delight in his father's pre- 
sence more rooted, firm, and rational, than a younger child that chngs more 
about him with affectionate expressions. As sincerity is the soul of all graces 
and duties, so this delight is the lustre and embroidery of them. 
Now, this delight in prayer, 

1. It is an inward and hearty delight. As to the subject of it, it is seated 
in the heart. A man in prayer may have a cheerful countenance and a drowsy 
spirit. The Spirit of God dwells in the heart, and love and joy are the first- 
fruits of it, Gal. V. 22. Love to duty, and joy in it ; joy as a grace, not as a 
mere comfort. As God is hearty in offering mercy, so is the soul in petition- 
ing for it. There is a harmony between God and the heart. Where there 
is delight, there is great pains taken with the heart ; a gracious heart strilies 
itself again and again, as Moses did the rock twice. Those ends which God 
hath in giving are a Christian's ends in asking. Now, the more of our hearts 
in the requests, the more of God's heart in the grants. The emphasis of 
mercy is God's whole heart and whole soul in it, Jer. xxii. 41. So the em- 
phasis of duty is our whole heart and whole soul. As without God's cheerful 
answering a gracious soul would not relish a mercy, so without our hearty 
asking God doth not relish our prayer. 

2. It is a delight in God, who is the object of prayer. The glory of God, 
communion with him, enjoyment of him, is the great end of a believer in his 
supplications. That delight which is in prayer is chiefly in it as a means 
conducing to such an end, and is but a spark of that delight which the soul 
hath in the object of prayer. God is the centre wherein the soul rests, and 
the end which the soul aims at. According to our apprehensions of God are 
our desires for him ; when we apprehend him as the chiefest good, we shall 
desire him, and delight in him as the chiefest good. There must first be a 
delight in God before there can be a spiritual delight or a permanency in duty : 
Job xxvii. 10, ' Will he delight himself in the Almighty ? will he always call 
upon God ? ' Delight is a grace ; and as faith, desire, and love have God 
for their object, so hath this ; and according to the strength of our delight 
in the object or end, is the strength of our delight in the means of attain- 
ment. When we delight in God as glorious, we shall delight to honour him ; 
when we regard him as good, we shall dehght to pursue and enjoy him, and 
delight in that which brings us to an intercourse with him. He that rejoices 
in God, will rejoice in every approach to him : ' The joy of the Lord is our 
strength,' Neh. viii. 10. The more joy in God, the more strength to come 
to him. The want of this is the reason of our snail-like motion to him. 
Men have no sweet thoughts of God, and therefore no mind to converse with 
him. We cannot judge our delight in prayer to be right if we have not a 
delight in God, for natural men may have a delight in prayer when they have 
corrupt and selfish ends. They may have a delight in a duty as it is a means, 
according to their apprehensions, to gain such an end ; as Balaam and Balak 
offered their sacrifices cheerfully, hoping to ingratiate themselves with God, 
and to have liberty to curse his people. 

3. A delight in the precepts and promises of God, which are the ground 
and rules of prayer. First, David delights in God's testimonies, and then 
calls upon him with his whole heart. A gracious heart must first delight in 
precepts and promises before it can turn them into prayers ; for prayer is 



374 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXYII. 4. 

nothing else but a presenting God with his own promise, desiring to work 
that in us and for us which he hath promised to us. None was more cheerful 
in prayer than David, because none was more rejoicing in the statutes of God. 
God's statutes were his songs, Ps. cxix. 54 ; and the divine word was sweeter 
to him than the honey, and honey- comb. If our hearts leap not at divine 
promises, we are like to have but drowsy souls in desiring them. If our 
eye be not upon the dainties God sets before us, our desires cannot be strong 
for him. If we have no delight in the great charters of heaven, the rich 
legacies of God, how can we sue for them ? If we delight not in the cove- 
nant of grace, we shall not delight in prayers for grace. It was the hopes of 
reward made Moses so valiant in suffering ; and the joy set before Christ in 
a promise made him so cheerful in enduring the shame, Heb. xii. 1, 2. 

4. A delight in prayer itself. A Christian's heart is in secret ravished into 
heaven. There is a delight in coming near God, and warming the soul by 
the fii'e of his love. The angels are cheerful in the act of praise ; their work 
is their glory. A holy soul doth so delight in this duty, that if there were no 
comm.and to engage him, no promise to encourage him, he would be stepping 
into God's courts ; he thinks it not a good day that passeth without some 
intercourse with God. David would have taken up his lodgings in the courts 
of God, and regards it as the only blessedness, Ps. Ixv. 4. And so great a de- 
hght he had in being in God's presence, that he envies the birds the happi- 
ness of building their nests near his tabernacle. A delight there is in the 
holiness of prayer ; a natural man under some troubles may delight in God's 
comforting and easing presence, but not in his sanctifying presence ; 
he may delight to pray to God as a storehouse to supply his wants, but not 
as a refiner's fire to purge away his dross. Prayer, as praise, is a melody 
to God in the heai't, Eph. v. 19 ; and the soul loves to be fingering the 
instrument and touching the strings. 

5. A dehght in the things asked. This heavenly cheerfulness is most in 
heavenly things. What delight others have in asking worldly goods, that a 
gracious heart hath in begging the light of God's countenance. That soul 
cannot be dull in prayer that seriously considers he prays for no less than 
heaven and happiness, no less than the gloiy of the great God. A gracious 
man is never weary of spiritual things, as men are never weary of the sun, 
but though it is enjoyed every day, yet long for the rising of it again. From 
this delight in the matter of prayer it is that the saints have redoubled and 
repeated their petitions, and often double the Amm at the end of prayer, to 
manifest the great affections to those things they have asked. The soul loves 
to think of those things the heart is set upon, and frequent thoughts express 
a delight. 

6. A delight] in those gi-aces and affections which are exercised in prayer. 
A gracious heart is most delighted with that prayer wherein grace hath been 
more stirring, and gracious affections have been boiling over. The soul de- 
sires not only to speak to God, but to make melody to God ; the heart is 
the instrument, but graces are the strings, and prayer the touching them; 
and therefore he is more displeased with the flagging of his graces than with 
missing an answer. There may be a delight in gifts, in a man's own gifts, in 
the gifts of another, in the pomp and vamish of devotion, but a delight in 
exercising spiritual graces is an ingredient in this true delight. The pharisees 
are marked by Christ to make long prayers, vaunting in outward bravery of 
W'Ords, as if they were playing the courtiers with God, and compHmenting 
him ; but the publican had a short prayer, but more grace, ' Lord, be merci- 
ful to me a sinner.' There is reliance and humility. A gracious heart 
labours to bring flaming affections, and if he cannot bring flaming grace, 



Ps. XXXVn. 4.] DELIGHT IN PEAYEB. 375 

he will bring smoking grace ; he desires the preparation of his heart as well 
as the answer of his prayer, Ps. x. 17. 
II. Whence this delight springs. 

1. From the Spirit of God. Not a spark of fire upon our own hearth 
that is able to kindle this spiritual delight. It is the Holy Ghost that 
breathes such an heavenly heat into our afiections. The Spirit is the fire 
that kindles the soul, the spring that moves the watch, the wind that drives 
the ship. The swiftest ship with spread sails will be but sluggish in its 
motion unless the wind fills its sails. Without this Spirit, we are but in a 
weak and sickly condition, our breath but short, a heavy and troublesome 
asthma is upon us : Ps. cxxxviii. 3, ' When I cried unto thee, thou didst 
strengthen me with strength in my soul.' As prayer is the work of the 
Spirit in the heart, so doth delight in prayer owe itself to the same author, 
God will make them joyful in his house of prayer, Isa. Ivi. 7. 

2. From grace. The Spirit kindles, but gives us the oil of grace to make 
the lamp burn clear. There must not only be wind to drive, but sails to 
catch it. A prayer without grace is a prayer without wings. There must be 
grace to begin it. A dead man cannot rejoice in his land, money, or food ,* 
he cannot act, and therefore cannot be cheerful in action. Cheerfulness sup- 
poseth life ; dead men cannot perform a duty (Ps. cxv. 17, ' The dead praise 
not the Lord '), nor dead souls a cheerful duty. There must not only be 
grace infused, but grace actuated. No man in a sleep or swoon can re- 
joice. There must not only be a living principle, but a lively operation. 
If the sap lurk only in the root, the branches can bring forth no fruit ; 
our best prayers, without the sap of grace diffusing itself, will be but as 
withered branches. Grace actuated puts heat into performances, without 
which they are but benumbed and frozen.* Rusty grace, as a rusty key, 
will not unlock, will not enlarge the heart : there must be grace to maintain 
it. There is not only need of fire to kindle the lamp, but of oil to preserve 
the flame ; natural men may have then- affections kindled in a way of com- 
mon working, but they will presently faint and die, as the flame of cotton 
will dim and vanish, if there be no oil to nourish it. There is a temporary 
joy in hearing the word ; and if in'one duty, why not in another, why not in 
prayer ? Mat. xiii. 20. Like a fire of thorns that makes a great blaze, but a 
short stay. 

3. From a good conscience. A good heart is a continual feast, Prov. 
XV. 15. He that hath a good conscience must needs be cheerful in his 
religious and civil duties. Guilt will come trembling, and with a sad coun- 
tenance, into the presence of God's majesty. A guilty child cannot with 
cheerfulness come into a displeased father's presence. A soul smoked 
with heU cannot with delight approach to heaven. Guilty souls, in re- 
gard of the injury they have done to God, will be afraid to come ; and in 
regard of the foot of sin wherewith they are defiled, and the blackness they 
have contracted, they will be ashamed to come ; they know that by their 
sins they should provoke his anger, not allure his love. A soul under con- 
science of sin cannot look up to God, Ps. xl. 12 ; nor will God with favour 
look down upon it, Ps. lix. 2, It must be a pure heart that must see him 
with pleasure. Mat. v. 8 ; and pure hands must be lifted up to him, 1 Tim. 
ii. 8. Jonah was asleep after his sin, and was outstripped in quickness to 
pray, even by idolaters. The mariners jog him, but could not get him, that 
we read of, to call upon that God whom he had offended, Jonah, i. Where 
there is corruption, the sparks of sin will kindle that tinder, and weaken a 

* Reynolds. 



376 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXVII. 4. 

spiritual delight. '' A perfect heart and a willing mind are put together, 
1 Chron. xxix. 2. There cannot be wilUngness without sincerity, nor sin- 
cerity without willingness. 

4. From a holy and frequent familiarity with God. Where there is a 
great familiarity, there is a great delight ; delight in one another's company, 
and delight in one another's converse : strangeness contracts, and familiarity 
dilates the soul. There is more alacrity in going to a God with whom we 
are acquainted than to a God to whom we are strangers. This doth en- 
courage the soul to go to God. I go to a God whose face I have seen, whose 
goodness I have tasted, with whom I have often met in prayer. Frequent fami- 
liarity makes us more apprehensive of the excellency of another ; an excellency 
apprehended will be beloved, and being beloved, will be delighted in. 

5. From hopes of speeding. There is an expectative delight which ariseth 
from hopes of enjoying : Rom. xii. 12, ' Rejoicing in hope.' There cannot 
be a pleasant motion where there is a palsy of doubts. How full of delight 
must that soul be that can plead a promise, and carry God's hand and seal 
to heaven, and shew him his own bond, when it can be pleaded, not only as 
a favour to engage his mercy, but in some sense to engage his truth and 
righteousness ! Christ in his prayer, which was his swan-like song, John 
xvii., pleads the terms of the covenant between his Father and himself: ' I 
have glorified thee on earth, glorify me with that glory I had with thee before 
the world was.' This is the case of a delighful approach, when we carry a 
covenant of grace with us for ourselves, and a promise of security and per- 
petuity for the church. Upon this account we have more cause of a pleasant 
motion to God than ancient believers had. Fear acted them under the law, 
love us under the gospel. He cannot but dehght in prayer that hath argu- 
ments of God's own framing to plead with God, who cannot deny his own 
arguments and reasonings. Little comfort can be sucked from a j)erhaps ; 
but when we come to seek covenant mercies, God's faithfulness to his cove- 
nant puts the mercy past a perhaps. We come to a God sitting upon a 
throne of grace, upon mount Sion, not on mount Sinai ; to a God that desires 
our presence, more than we desire his assistance, 

6. From a sense of former mercies and acceptation. If manna be rained 
down, it doth not only take olf our thoughts from Egyptian garlic, but 
quickens our desires for a second shower. A sense of God's majesty will 
make us lose our garishness, and a sense of God's love will make us lose 
our dumpishness. We may as well come again with a merry heart, when 
God accepts our prayers, as go away and eat our bread with joy when God 
accepts our works, Eccles. ix. 7. The doves will readily fly to the windows 
where they have formerly found shelter, and the beggar to the door where he hath 
often received an alms : ' Because he hath inclined his ear to hear me, there- 
fore will I call upon him as long as I live,' Ps. cxvi. 2. I have found refuge 
with God before ; I have found my wants supplied, my soul raised, my 
temptations checked, my doubts answered, and my prayers accepted, there- 
fore I will repeat my addresses with cheerfulness. 

I might add, also, other causes : as a love to God, a heavenliness of spirit, 
a consideration of Christ's intercession, a deep humiliation. The more un- 
pleasant sin is to our relish, the more delightful will God be, and the more 
cheerful our souls in addresses to him. The more unpleasant sin is to us, 
the more spiritual our souls are ; and the more spiritual our souls, the more 
spiritual our affections : the more stony, the more lumpish and unapt for 
motion ; the more contrite, the more agile. From a spiritual taste ; report 
of a thing may contribute some pleasure, but a taste greater, 

III. Reasons. Without cheerful seeking, we cannot have a gracious answer. 



Ps. XXXVII. 4. J DELIGHT IN PRAYEE. 377 

1. God will not give an answer to those prayers that dishonour him. A 
flat and dumpish temper is not for his honour. The heathens themselves 
thought their gods should not be put off with a sacrifice dragged to the altar. 
We read of no lead, that lumpish, earthly metal, employed about the taber- 
nacle or temple, but the purest and most glistering sorts of metals. God will 
have the most excellent service, because he is the most excellent being ; he 
will have the most delighful service, because he bestows the most delightful 
and excellent gifts. All sacrifices were to be offered up with fire, which is 
the quickest and most active element. It is a dishonour to so great, so 
glorious a majesty, to put him off with such low and dead-hearted services. 
Those petitions cannot expect an answer which are offered in a manner 
injurious to the person we address to. It is not for the credit of our great 
Master, to have his servants dejected in his work ; as though his service 
were an uncomfortable thing ; as though God were a wilderness, and the 
world a paradise. 

2. Dull and lumpish prayer doth not reach him, and therefore cannot 
expect an answer. Such desires are as arrows that sink down at our feet. 
There is no force to carry them to heaven. The heart is an unbent bow that 
hath no strength. When God will hear, he makes first a prepared heart, 
Ps. X. 17. He first strings the instrument, and then receives the sound. 
An enlarged heart only runs, Ps. cxix. 32 ; a contracted heart moves slowly, 
and often faints in the journey. 

3. Lumpishness speaks an unwillingness that God should hear us. It 
speaks a kind of fear that God should grant our petitions. He that puts up 
a petition to a prince coldly and dully, gives him good reason to think that 
he doth not care for an answer. The husbandman hath no great mind to a 
harvest, that is lazy in tilling his ground and sowing his seed. How can we 
think God should delight to read over our petitions, when we take so little 
delight in presenting them? God gives not mercy to the unwilling person. 
The first thing God doth is to make his people willing. Dull spirits seek 
God as if they did not care for finding him : such tempers either account not 
God real, or their petitions unnecessary. 

4. Without delight we are not fit to receive a mercy. Delight in a mercy 
wanted makes room for desire, and large desires make room for mercy. If 
no delight in begging, there will be no delight in enjoying ; if there be no 
cheerfulness to quicken our prayers when we need a blessing, there will be 
little joy to quicken our praise when we receive a blessing. A weak, sickly 
stomach is not fit to be seated at a plentiful table. Where there is a dull 
asking supply, there is none, or a very dull sense of wants. Now, God will 
not send his mercies but to a soul that will welcome them. The deeper the 
sense of our wants, the higher the estimation of our supplies. A cheerful 
soul is fit to receive the least, and fit to receive the greatest mercy. He will 
more prize a little mercy than a dull petitioner shall prize a greater, because 
he hath a sense of his wants. Had not Zaccheus had a great joy at the news 
of Christ's coming by his door, he had not so readily entertained and wel- 
comed him. 

IV. Use. 1. Of information. 

1. There is a great pleasure in the ways of God, if rightly understood. 
Prayer, which is a duty wherein we express our wants, is delightful. There 
is more sweetness in a Christian's asking, than in a wicked man's enjoying, 
blessings. 

2. What delight will there be in heaven ! If there be such sweetness in 
desire, what will there be in full fruition ! There is joy in seeking ; what 
is there then iu finding ! Duty hath its sweets, its thousands, but glory its 



378 charnock's woeks. [Ps. XXXVII. 4. 

ten thousands. If the pleasure of the seed-time be so great, what will the 
pleasure of the harvest be. 

3. The miserable condition of those that can delight in anything but 
prayer. It is an aggravation of our enmity to God-, (vh'ftn we can sin cheer- 
fully and pray dully, when duty is more loathsome than iniquity. 

Use 2. Of examination. We pray, but how are our hearts ? If it be for 
what concerns our momentary being, is not our running like the running of 
Ahimaaz ? But when for spiritual things, do not our hearts sink within us, 
like Nabal's ? Let us therefore follow our hearts close, suffer them not to 
give us the slip in our examination of them, resolve not to take the first 
answer, but search to the bottom. 

1. Whether we delight at all in prayer. 

1. How do we prize the opportunities of duty ? There is an opportunity 
of an earthly, and an opportunity of an heavenly, gain. Consider which our 
hearts more readily close with. Can we with much pleasure follow a vain 
world, and heartlessly welcome an opportunity of duty, delight more with 
Judas in bags, than in Christ's company ? This is sad. But are praying 
opportunities our festival times ? Do we go to the house of God with the 
voice of joy and praise ? 

2 Whether we study excuses to waive a present duty, when conscience and 
opportunity urge and invite us to it. Are our souls more skilful in delays 
than in performances ? Are there no excuses when sin calls us, and studied 
put-offs when God invites us, like the sluggard, folding our ai-ms yet a little 
while longer ? or do our hearts rise and beat quick against frivolous excuses 
that step in to hinder us from prayer '? 

3. How are our hearts affected in prayer ? Are we more ready to pray 
ourselves asleep than into a vigorous frame ? Do we enter into it with some 
life, and find our hearts quickly tire and jade us? Are we more awake when 
we are up than we were all the time upon our knees ? Are our hearts in 
prayer like withered, sapless things, and very quick afterwards if any worldly 
business invite us ? Ai-e we like logs and blocks in prayer, and like a roe 
upon the mountains in earthly concerns ? Surely what our pulse beats 
quickest to, is the object most delighted in. 

4. What time is it we choose for prayer ? Is it not our drowsiest, laziest 
time, when our nods are as many or more than our petitions, as though the 
dullest time and the deadest frame were most suitable to a living God ? Do 
we come with our hearts full of the world to pray for heaven ? or do we pick 
out the most lively seasons ? Luther chose those hours for prayer and 
meditation wherein he found himself most lively for study. 

5. Do we not often wish a duty over, as those in the prophet that were 
glad when the Sabbath was over, that they might run to their buying and 
selling ? or are we of Peter's temper, and express Peter's language, ' It is 
good to be here' with Christ on the mount ? 

6. Do we prepare ourselves by delightful and enlivening considerations ? 
Do we think of the precept of God, which should spur us, and of the promise 
of God, which should allure us ? Do we rub our souls to heat them ? Do 
we blow them, to kindle them into a flame ? Do we send up ejaculations for 
a quickening spirit ? If thoughts of God be a burden, requests to him will 
not be a pleasure. If we have a coldness in our thoughts of God and duty, 
we can have no warmth in our desire, no delight in our petitions. 

7. Do we content ourselves with dull motions, or do we give check to 
them ? Can we, though our hearts be never so lazy, stroke ourselves at the 
end, and call ourselves good and faithful servants ? Do we take our souls 
to task afterwards, and examine why they are so lazy, why so heavy ? Do 



Ps. XXXVn. 4.] DELIGHT IN PRAYER. 379 

we inquire into the causes of our deadness ? A gracious soul is more troubled 
at its dulness in prayer than a natural conscience is at the omission of 
prayer. He ■will complain of his sluggishness, and. mend his pace. 

2. If we find we have a delight, let us examine whether it be a delight of 
the right kind. 

1. Do we delight in it because of the gifts we have ourselves, or the gifts 
of others we join with ? A man may rejoice in hearing the word, not because 
of the holiness and spirituahty of the matter, but because of the goodness of 
the dress, and the elegancy of the expression, Ezek. xxxiii. 32. The prophet 
was unto them as a lovely song, as one that had a pleasant voice. He may 
upon the same ground delight in prayer. But this is a temper not kindled 
by the true fire of the sanctuary. Or do we delight in it, not when our tongues 
are most quick, but our hearts most warm ; not because we have the best 
words, but the most spiritualized affections ? We may have angels' gifts in 
prayer, without an angel's spirit. 

2. Is there a delight in all parts of a duty, not only in asking temporal 
blessings, or some spiritual, as pardoning mercy, but in begging for refining 
grace ? Are we earnest only when we have bosom quarrels and conscience 
convulsions, but flag when we come to pray for sanctifying mercy ? The 
rise of this is a displacency with the trouble and danger, not with the sin and 
cause. 

3. Doth our delight in prayer and spiritual things outdo our delight in out- 
ward things ? The psalmist's joy in God was more than his delight in the 
harvest or vintage, Ps. vii. 4. Are we like ravens, that delight to hover in 
the air sometimes, but our greatest delight is to feed upon carrion ? Though 
we have, and may have, a sensible delight in worldly things, yet is it as solid 
and rational as that we have in duty ? 

4. Is onr delight in prayer an humble delight ? Is it a rejoicing with 
humbling ? Ps. ii. 11, ' Serve the Lord with gladness, and rejoice before him 
with trembling.' If our service be right, it will be cheerful, and if truly 
cheerful, it will be humble. 

5. Is our delight in prayer accompanied with a delight in waiting ? Do 
we, like merchants, not only delight in the first launching of a ship, or the 
setting it out of the haven with a full freight, but also in expectations of a 
rich return of spiritual mercies ? Do we delight to pray, though God for 
the present doth not delight to give, and wait like David with an owning 
God's wisdom in delaying ? Ps. cxxx. 6 ; or do we shoot them only as arrows 
at random, and never look after them where they light, or where to find them ? 

6. Is our delight in praising God, when mercy comes, answerable to the 
delight in praying, when a wanted mercy was begged ? The ten lepers 
desired mercy with an equal cheerfulness, in hopes of having their leprosy 
cured, but his delight that returned only was genuine. As he prayed with a 
loud voice, so he praised with a loud voice, Luke xvii. 13, 15 ; and Christ 
tells him his faith had made him whole. As he had an answer in a way of 
grace, so he had before a gracious delight in his asking. The others had a 
natural delight, and so a return in a way of common providence. 

Use 3, of exhortation. Let us delight in prayer. God loves a cheerful 
giver in alms, and a cheerful petitioner in prayer. God would have his chil- 
dren free with him. He takes special notice of a spiritual frame : Jer. 
XXX. 21, ' Who hath engaged his heart ?' The more dehght we have in God, 
the more delight he will have in us. He takes no pleasure in a lumpish 
service. It is an uncomely sight to see a joyful sinner and a dumpish peti- 
tioner. Why should we not exercise as much joy in holy duties as formerly 
we did in sinful practices ? How delightfully will men sit at their games, 



380 charnock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

and spend their da3's in gluttony and luxury ! And shall not a Christian 
find much more delight in applying himself to God ? We should delight 
that we can, and have hearts to ask, such gifts, that thousands in the world 
never dream of begging. To be dull is a discontentedness with our own 
petitions. Delight in prayer is the way to gain assurance. To seek God, 
and treat him as our chiefest good, endears the soul to him. Delighting in 
accesses to him will inflame our love ; and there is no greater sign of an in- 
terest in him than a prevalent estimation of him. God casts off none that 
affectionately clasp about his throne. 
To this purpose, 

1. Pray for quickening grace. How often do we find David upon his 
knees for it ! God only gives this grace, and God only stirs this grace. 

2. Meditate on the promises you intend to plead. Unbelief is the great 
root of all dumpishness. It was by the belief of the word we had life at 
fijst, and by an exercise of that belief we gain liveliness. What maintains 
our love will maintain our delight ; the amiableness of God and the excel- 
lency of the promises are the incentives and fuel both of the one and of the 
other. Think that they are eternal things you are to pray for, and that you 
have as much invitation to beg them, and as good promise to attain them, 
as David, Paul, or any other ever had. How would this awaken our drowsy 
souls, and elevate our heavy hearts, and open the lazy eyelids to look up ! 
And whatever meditation we find begin to kindle our souls, let us follow it 
on, that the spark may not go out. 

3. Choose the time when your hearts are most revived. Observe when 
God sends an invitation, and hoist up the sails when the wind begins to 
blow. There is no Christian but hath one time or another a greater active- 
ness of spirit. Choose none of those seasons which may quench the heat 
and dull the sprightliness of your affections. Resolve beforehand this, to 
delight yourselves in the Lord, and thereby you shall gain the desire of your 
hearts. 



A DISCOURSE OF MOURNING FOR OTHER 

MEN'S SINS. 

And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the 
midst of Jerusalem., and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh 
and that cry for all the abominations that he done in the midst thereof. — 
EZEKIEL IX. 4. 

When God in the former chapter had charged the Jews with their idolatrv, 
and the multiplicity of abominations committed in his temple ; and, ver. 18, 
had passed a resolve that he would not spare them, but deal in fury with 
them, though they should solicit him with the strongest and most importu- 
nate supplications ; in this chapter he calls and commissions the executioners 
of his just decree : ver. 1, ' He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, 
saying. Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every 
man with his destroying weapon in his hand ;' and declares whom, and in 
what manner, he would punish, and whom he would pardon. The execu- 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURNING FOR OTHEE MEn's SINS. 381 

tioners of God's vengeance are the Chaldeans, described by the situation of 
them from Judea, and the direct road from that country to Jerusalem : 
Ter. 2, ' Six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lies towards 
the north.' Babylon lay north-east from Jerusalem, and this gate was the 
way of entrance for travellers from those parts. It led also into the court of 
the priests, which shews from whence the judgment should come, and upon 
whom it should light. 

Six men. A certain number. Whether the Holy Ghost alludes to a 
particular number of nations, which the Chaldean army might be composed 
of under their prince, who reigned over several countries ; or respects the 
other chief captains or marshals of his army which are named, Jer. xxxix. 3, 
or speaks with reference to the other places wherein the city was assaulted 
by that army, as some think, is uncertain. 

Atid evert/ man a slaughter-weapon in his hand. A hammer of destruction, 
an instrument of death ; the word seems to signify a weapon much like a 
pole-axe. 

And one of them clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side. 
Christ, say the ancients (and so they understood it before, and in Jerome's 
time), who appears here in his priestly habit, a linen garment being the 
vestment of the priests. Lev. xvi. 4. White is an emblem of peace. Christ 
seals his people with his Spirit, the Spirit of peace. Calvin rejects not this 
interpretation, but rather understands it of an angel whom God commissioned 
to secure his people in this destroying judgment. And indeed angels have 
often appeared in the form of men, and clothed with linen ; as to Daniel, 
chap. X. 5 ; xii. 6, 7. Christ's royal power is founded upon his priestly 
office, which is the ground of all the spiritual and temporal salvation 
believers have from God. 

Inkhorn. The word is so translated. Though the word, say some, 
signifies a table, such as they then used to write upon with a pen of iron ; 
or rather it signifies a case to put those pens in wherewith they wrote. 

And tliey went and stood beside the brazen altar. It is uncertain whether 
this respects the original cause of their punishment, viz., their ofi'ering 
sacrifices to their idols upon that altar which was consecrated to the service 
of God, or else respects the sacrifices of vengeance, those were instru- 
mentally to offer to God's justice. The judicial punishment of God's 
enemies is called a sacrifice in Scripture, Isa. xxxiv. 6 ; a sacrifice in Bozrah ; 
Jer. xlvi. 10, God's day of vengeance is called God's sacrifice in the north 
country. 

Obs. 1. With what a small number, if God please, can he destroy a city 
or nation. But six mentioned. Almightiness needs not great numbers to 
efiect his will ; no, not a man, since he can do it by his immediate hand, 
and command judgment in a trice. 

2. How quick are God's creatures to obey his call for the punishment of 
a rebellious people. He calls those six men, and they presently appear 
ready to execute God's pleasure. 

3. God doth not bring judgments on a people till their wickedness hath 
overgrown the goodness of his own children. Six to destroy, but one to 
preserve ; a sixfold work of judgment to one of preservation, intimating that 
there were six bad to one good in the city. 

4. The security of God's people in this world, as well as that to come, 
depends upon the priestly office of Christ. 

Ver. 3. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone vp from the cherub, 
whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. The glory of God, which 
was in the propitiatory above the cherub ims, went from one cherub to 



382 charnock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

another till it came to the threshold ; as birds that are leaving their nests 
leap from one branch to another till they fly quite away. 

Obs. 1. God is not fixed to any one place ; he hath his temple among his 
people ; discovers himself in his ordinances, but upon provocations departs. 
The glory of God and his ordinances are not entailed upon any nation 
longer than they walk worthy of them. 

2. The glory of God's ordinances is obscured among a people before 
judgments come upon them. The glory of God went up from the cherub. 
' I will take away the hedge of my vineyard, and it shall be eaten up ; and 
break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down,' Isa. v. 6. The 
ordinances of God are understood by some interpreters to be the hedge and 
wall of a people ; when God takes away the hedge, the breach is made wide 
for every wild beast to enter and tread it down. The presence of God in 
his ordinances, the presence of Grod in his providences, is the hedge of a 
people. The temple is forjjaken by God, and then polluted, in judgment, 
by men, ver. 7. God then comes to the man clothed with linen, that had 
the writer's inkhorn by his side, and said unto him, ' Go through the midst 
of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and 
that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof,' ver. 4 ; 
and ver. 5, he commands the executioners of his wrath to go after him, and 
smite without any pity both small and great, beginning at his sanctuary, 
in ; interpreters trouble themselves much what this mark should be, and 
tell us from Origen, that a believing Jew told him the ancient Samaritan 
letter called tau was written Uke a cross ; but that is a fancy, the ancient 
Samaritan letter being the same with the Phenician, was not writ in that 
form. Some say it was the law, because the Hebrew word miD, signifying 
the law, begins with that letter, to shew that such were to be marked that 
were devoted to the observance of the law.* Marked they were, saith Calvin, 
with a tau ; because that being the last letter in the alphabet, shews that 
the people of God are of the lowest account among men, and the ofFscouring 
of the world ; n being the first letter of HTin, vives, noted the preservation 
of them. On the foreheads. Alluding to the custom of the eastern countries 
to mark their servants on the foreheads with the names of their masters ;t 
not on their visible foreheads, but on their invisible consciences. The con- 
science is the forehead of the soul, as eminent in the heart as a forehead in 
the body.| 

The blood of Christ upon the conscience is the best mark of distinction, 
as the blood of the paschal lamb upon the posts was the mark whereby the 
Israelites were discerned from the Egyptians, and the edge of the angel's 
destrojang sword diverted from them. It was a mark of a special providence 
of God. The destroying judgments were to follow the sealing angel, and not 
touch those that were marked by him on the forehead. 

Ohs. 1. All judgments have their commissions from God, whom to touch, 
whom to overthrow. God doth not strike at random. The man in the 
linen garment was to bridle the Chaldeans, and dkect their swords to 
the right objects. God overpowers the natural inclinations of all his crea- 
tures, whom he appoints executioners. God hath a hook in the nostrils of 
leviathan ; nothing can be done without the leave of providence, * man forms 
the weapons, God gives the edge and directs the stroke. 

2. In the highest fury and vengeance, God hath reserves of mercy for his 
own people. Angels are appointed to be preservers of his children in the 
midst of the destroying of a people. Invisible angels are joined with visible 
enemies, to conduct and govern their motions according to the command of 

* Vossius de Arte Grammat. lib. i. cap. t Grotius. J OEcolampad. 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOUBNING FOR OTHER MEN's SINS. 383 

their great general. God's judgments are dispensed with greater kindness 
to his people, than desires to take vengeance upon his enemies. He hath a 
heart of mercy as well as a hand of justice. 

3. God is more careful of his people than revengeful against his enemies. 
He first orders the sealing of the mourners, before he orders the destraction 
of the rebels ; he will first honour his mercy in the protection of the one, 
before he will glorify his justice in the destruction of the other. The angel 
hath orders to secure Lot before Sodom was fired. The executioners of his 
wrath were to march after the securing angel, not before him, nor equal with 
him, and were only to cut off those whom the angel had passed by. 

4. If you take this mark for a mark on the conscience, then observe, that 
serenity of conscience is a gift of God to his people in the time of severe 
judgments. As when death is near, the conscience of a good man is most 
serene, and sings sweetly in his breast the notes of his own integrity. In 
judgments as well as in death, God sets conscience upon its pleasant notes. 
But this mark is not properly meant here ; the conscience is a mark to our- 
selves, but this is a mark to the executioners. 

5. The places where God hath manifested the glory of his ordinances, are 
the subjects of his greatest judgments upon their provocations. Go through 
the city, through Jerusalem ; that Jerusalem wherein I have manifested my 
glory, which I have entrusted with my oracles, which I have protected in 
the midst of enemies, like a spark in the midst of many waters. Go through 
that city, into the midst of it, and let not your eye spare. 

6. The greatest fury of God in a time of judgment often lights upon the 
sanctuary, ver. 6. Begin at the sanctuary, defile the house. Not a man of 
them escaped, as fficolampadius notes : ver. 7, ' I was left.' He saw not in 
the vision what was done in the city, but he was left alone in the temple. 
The whole Sanhedrim, the seventy ancients, had revolted to idolatrv, Ezek. 
viii. 11, and the stroke first lights upon them : ver. 6, ' Then they began at 
the ancient men which were before the house.' 

In the verse observe, 

1. God's care in the preserving his people. He commands the an»el to 
go through the midst of the city, and set a mark, a visible mark, upon their 
foreheads. 

2. The qualification of the persons so preserved. He doth not say, all 
that have not committed idolatry, but such as sigh, which signifies, 

1. The intenseness of their grief: 'Sigh and cry,' pJX, notes an intense 
groaning and sorrow. 

2. The extensiveness of the object : ' all the abominations.' 

Doct. Lamenting the sins of the times and places wherein we live, is a 
duty incumbent on us, acceptable to God, and a great means of preservation 
under public judgments. 

There are three branches. 

1. It is a duty. 

2. A duty acceptable to God. God has his eye particularly upon them 
that practise it. 

3. It is a means of preservation under public judgments. 

1. It is a duty. If we are by the prescript of God to bewail in confession 
the sins of our forefathers, committed before our being in the world, certainly 
much more are we to lament the sins of the age wherein we live, as well as 
our own : Lev. xxvi. 40, ' If they shall confess their iniquity, and the 
iniquity of their fathers. If then their uncircumcised be humbled, then will 
I remember my covenant.' Posterity are part of the same body with their 
ancestors, and every member in a nation is part of the body of a nation ; 



384 chaenock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

every drop in the sea is a part of the ocean. God made a standing law for 
an annual fast, wherein they should afflict their souls, the ' tenth day of the 
seventh month,' answering to our September, and backed it with a severe 
penalty. ' He whose soul was not afHicted in that day, should be cut off 
from among his people,' which the Jews understand of ' cutting off by the 
hand of the Lord,' Lev. xxiii. 27, 29. The particular sin for which they 
were thus annually to afflict their souls, was that national sin of the golden 
calf, in the judgment of the Jewish doctors. 

It was also the practice of holy men in their private retirements ; as 
Daniel, chap. ix. 5, 6. He bewails the sins of his ancestors ; and Nehemiah, 
chap. i. 6. Much more it is our duty to bewail a present guilt. The 
church's eyes are compared to the fish-pools of Heshbon, Cant. vii. 4, in 
her weeping for her own and others' sins. To what purpose has God given 
us passions, but to honour him withal ? And our affections of grief and 
anger cannot be better employed, than for the interest, nor better bestowed, 
than for the service of him who implanted those passions, in us. Our 
natural motions should be ordered for the God of nature, and spiritual 
ordered for the God of grace. 

1. This was the practice of believers in all ages. Before the deluge,* 
Seth called the name of his son, which was born at the time of the profaning 
the name of God in worship, Enos, which signifies sorrowful or miserable, 
that he might in the sight of his son have a constant monitor to excite him 
to an holy grief for the profaneness and idolatry that entered into the wor- 
ship of God : Gen. iv. 26, * He called his name Enos : then began men to 
call upon the name of the Lord;' "Pnin, profane it by calling upon it. 

The rational and most precious part of Lot was vexed with the unlawful 
deeds of the generation of Sodom, among whom he lived, 2 Peter ii. 7, 8 ; 
he had a horror and torment in his righteous soul at the execrable villanies 
he saw committed by his neighbours, xarairowviMivov, afflicted under it, as 
under a grievous burden. It was a rack to him, as the other word, ver. 8, 
iSaedvi^iv, signifies. The meekest man upon earth, with grief and indigna- 
tion, breaks the tables of the law, when he saw the holiness of it broken by 
the Israelites, and expresseth more his regret for that, than his honour for 
the material stones, wherein God bad with his own finger engraven the 
orders of his will. He is more desirous to destroy the idol, than preserve 
the tables ; such an indignation against their sin could not well be without 
grief for it. David, a man of the greatest goodness upon record, had a 
deluge of tears, because they kept not God's law : Ps. cxix. 136, * Eivers of 
waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.' Besides his 
grief, which was not a small one, horror seized upon him upon the same 
account, Ps. cxix. 53, like a storm that tossed him to and fro. How doth 
poor Isaiah bewail himself, and the people among whom he lived, as ' men 
of polluted lips ! ' Isa. vi. 5. Perhaps such as could hardly speak a word 
without an oath, or by hypocritical lip service, mocked God in the very 
temple. 

Jeremiah is upon the same practice, Jer. xiii. 17, when his soul should 
weep in secret for the pride of the people ; and, as if he was not satisfied 
with a few tears, wisheth his head were a full springing fountain to weep for 
the slain of the daughter of his people ; for the sin the cause, as well as the 
calamity the effect, Jer. ix. 1. He wishes his head to be filled with the 
vapours from his heart, and become a fountain. 

What a transport of sorrow had Ezra, when he heard of the people's sins, 
and the mingling the holy seed with that of idolaters ! A horror ran through 
* Broughton, Lives of the Fathers, p. 7. Grit in loc. 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURNING FOR OTHER MEn's SINS. 385 

his whole soul. His astonishment is twice repeated, Ezra ix. 3, 4. Every 
faculty was alarmed at the sin of the people. 

It is probable John Baptist used himself to those severities which are 
mentioned, Mat. iii. 4, because of the sinfulness of that generation among 
whom he lived. 

Paul discovers it to be a duty, when he reproves the Corinthians for being 
puffed up, instead of mourning for that fornication which had been committed 
by one of their profession, 1 Cor. v. 2. And when he writes of some that 
made the glorious gospel subservient to their own bellies, he mixes his tears 
with his ink : Philip, iii. 18, 19, ' I tell you weeping, they are enemies to the 
cross of Christ. The primitive Christians did much bewail the lapses of 
their fellows. Celerinus, among the epistles of Cyprian, acquaints Lucian 
of his great grief for the apostasy of a w^oman, through fear of persecution, 
which afflicted him so, that in the time of Easter, the time of their joy in 
that age, he wept night and day, and was resolved that no delight should 
enter into his heart, till through the mercy of Christ she should be recovered 
to the church. And we find the witnesses clothed in sackcloth when they 
prophesied in a sinful time, to shew their grief for the public abominations, 
Rev. xi. 3. The kingdom of Satan can be no pleasui-e to a Christian, and 
must therefore be a torment. 

2. It was our Saviour's practice. As he had the highest love to God, so 
he must needs have the greatest grief for his dishonour. He sighed in his 
spirit for the incredulity of that generation, when they asked a sign, after so 
many had been presented to their eyes : Mark viii. 12, ' He sighed deeply 
in his spirit.' And the hardness of their hearts at another time raised his 
grief as well as his indignation, Mark iii. 5. He was sensible of the least 
dishonour to his Father : Ps. Ixix. 9, ' The reproaches of them that reproached 
thee, fell upon me.' I took them to heart. Christ pleased not himself when 
his Father was injured ; as the apostle descants upon it, when he applies it 
to Christ, Rom, xv. 3. His soul was more pierced with the wrongs done to 
God, than the reproaches which were directed against his own person. His 
grief was inexpressibly greater than can be in any creature, because of the 
inimitable ardency of his love to God, the nearness of his relation to him, 
and the unspotted purity of his soul. Christ had a double relation : to man, 
to God. His compassion to men afflicted him with groans and tears at their 
bodily distempers ; his affection to his Father would make him grieve as 
much to see him dishonoured, as his love to man made him groan to see 
man afflicted. This grief for sin was one part of Christ's sacrifice and suffer- 
ing ; for he came to make a full satisfaction to the justice of God by enduring 
his wrath, to the holiness of God by offering up an infinite sorrow for sin, 
which it was impossible for a creature to do. We cannot suppose that 
Christ should only accept the punishment, but not bewail the offence which 
was the cause of it. A sacrifice for the sins of others, without remorse for 
those sins, had not been acceptable ; it had not been agreeable to the purity 
of his human nature. He wept at Jerusalem's obstinacy, as well as for her 
misery, and that in the time of his triumph. The loud hosannas could not 
silence his grief, and stop the expressions of it, Luke xix. 41. It was hke 
a shower when the sun shined. If Christ as our head was filled with inward 
sorrow for men's displeasing the holiness of God, it is surely our duty, as 
his members, to imitate the afflictions of the head. He is unworthy of the 
name of Christ, who is not afflicted as Christ was, nor can call Christ his 
master, who doth not imitate his graces, as well as pretend to believe his 
doctrine ; he cannot see that God, who hath distinguished him from the 

VOL. Y. B b 



386 chaknock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

world, clishonoured, his precepts contemned, but he must have his Boul 
overcast with a gloomy cloud. It is our glory to value the things he esteemed, 
to despise the things he condemned, to rejoice in that wherein he was 
delighted, and to grieve for that which was the matter of his sorrow and 
indignation. Thus was he afflicted, though he had a joy in the assurance 
of his Father's favour, and the assistance of his Father's power. The highest 
assurance of God's love in particular to us, ought not to hinder the impres- 
sions of grief for the dishonour of his name. Did Christ ever look upon 
the swinish world without melting into pity ? Did he bleed for the sins of 
the world, and shall not we mourn for them ? 

3. Angels, as far as they are capable, have their grief for the sins of men. 
The Jewish doctors often bring in the angels weeping for sin.* And one 
tells us, that in an ancient Mahomedan book he finds an answer of God to 
Moses, Even about this throne of mine there stand those, and they are 
many, that shed tears for the sins of men. But the Scripture tells us they 
rejoice at the repentance of men, Luke xv. 10. The Lord is glorified by the 
return of a subject ; the subject advantaged by casting down his arms at the 
feet of his Lord. They do therefore, as far as they are capable, mourn for 
the revolts of men, sno modo, as Beza upon the place. They can scarce 
rejoice at men's repentance without having a contrary affection for men's pro- 
faneness. If they are glad at men's return, because God is thereby glorified, 
it cannot be conceived but they mourn for, and are angry with their sins, 
because God is thereby slighted. Unconcernedness at the dishonour of 
God cannot consist with their shining knowledge and burning love. They 
cannot behold a God so holy, so glorious, so worthy to be beloved, without 
having some regret for the neglects and abuses of him by the sons of men. 
How can they be instruments of God's justice if they are without anger 
against the deservers of it ? 

II. It is an acceptable duty to God. Since it is an imitating the copy of 
our Saviour, it is acceptable to God ; nothing can please him more than to 
see his creatures tread in the steps of his Son. 

1. It is a fulfilling the whole law, which consists of love to God and love 
to our neighbours. It is set down as a character of charity, both as it re- 
spects God and man, not to rejoice in iniquity, 1 Cor. xiii. 5, i. e. to be 
mightily troubled at it. 

(1.) It is a high testimony of love to God. The nature of true love is to 
wish all good to them we love, to rejoice when any good we wish doth arrive 
unto them, to mourn when any evil afflicts them, and that with a respect to 
the beloved object. To (piXiTv, rh (iovXicdai nvi a o'hrai ayada, sxihov 'hi/.a, 
aX'/M %a] avrov GwaXyuv roTg XwTTTj^oTg.f Where there is this love, there is a 
rejoicing at one another's happiness, a grieving at one another's misfortunes. 
If it be a part of love to rejoice at that whereby God is glorified, it is no less 
a part of love to mourn for that whereby God is vilified. So strait is the 
union of affection between God and a righteous soul, that their blessings and 
injuries, joys and sorrows, are twisted together. The increase of God's 
glory is the gi-eatest good that can happen to a soul enamoured of him ; his 
dishonour, then, is the greatest misery. A gi-acious soul is like John 
Baptist, content to decrease that Christ might increase in the esteem of men. 
He is like Jonathan, that would rather have the crown upon David's head 
than his own, as the words intimate, 1 Sam. xxiii. 17, ' Thou shalt be king 
over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee.' And grieved more for his 
father's displeasure against David than against himself. So doth a Christian 

* Grotius, Luc. xv. 7. Ob peccatum Hebraei angelos flentes inducunt. 
t Aiiritut. Rhetor, lib. i. cap. iv. 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURNING FOR OTHER MEN's SINS. 387 

grieve more for the wrongs of God than for those of his own liberty, estate, 
or life. 

Joshua was more careful of the name of God than of the safety of the 
people singly considered : Joshua vii. 9, ' What wilt thou do unto thy great 
name ?' The glory of God is not dear to that man that can without any 
regret look upon his bespattered name. What affection hath he to his 
friend, who can see him torn in pieces by dogs, and stand unconcerned at 
his calamity ? God indeed is incapable of sufl'ering ; but what rending is to 
a creature, that is sin to the divine Majesty. Can that man be said to love 
God, who hath no reflection when he sees others tumbling God from his 
throne, and setting up the devil in his stead ; who can hear the tremen- 
dous name of God belched out by polluted lips upon every vile occasion, and 
made the sport of stage and stews, without any inward resentment ? 

He only esteems God as his king who cannot see his laws broken without 
remorse. How loyally did Moses his affection to God work when he heard 
the name of God blasphemed, and saw a calf usurp the adoration due to 
the God of heaven ! And David felt the stroke of that sword in his own 
bowels which was directed against the heart of God, Ps. cxxxix. 20-22» 
The dearer God's name is to any, the more affected they are that God and 
Christ are loved and honoured less than they desire they should be. 

It is hard sometimes to discern this love to God when God's interest and 
ours are joined, when we would mask our displeasure against some men's 
offences with a care of God's honour, which is nothing but a hatred of the 
person sinning, or revenge against him for some conceived injury to us. 
The apostles' calling for fire from heaven upon the Samaritans when they 
refused Christ, Luke ix. 53-55, might seem to be a generous concern for 
their Master's honour, but Christ knew it proceeded much from their natural 
enmity which the Jews bore to the Samaritans. The best way to judge is, 
when the interest is purely God's, and hath no fuel of our own discontents 
to boil up, either grief or anger. Such an affection cannot but be highly 
acceptable to God, who is affected with the love of the creature, and honours 
them that honour him, as well as despises those that lightly concern them- 
selves for him. 

(2.) Love to our neighbour. Nothing can evidence our love to man more 
than a sorrowful reflection upon that wickedness which is the ruin of his 
soul, the disturbance of human society, and unlocks the treasures of God's 
judgments to fall upon mankind. • Sin is a reproach to a people,' Prov. 
xiv. 34. It is always an act of charity to mourn for the reproaches and ruin 
of a people. It is a gross enmity to others to see them stab themselves to 
the heart, jest with eternal flames, wish their damnation at every word, run 
merrily to the bottomless gulf, and all this without bestowing a sigh upon 
them, and pitying their madness ; the greater should be our grief, by how 
much the further they are from any for their own destruction. If Cain dis- 
covered both his enmity to God and also to his brother, in grieving that his 
brother's works were so good, Abel must needs, in the practice of the con- 
trary duty, manifest his love to Cain in grieving that his works were so bad. 
Our Saviour's tears for the Jews discovered no less a concern for their 
misery than for God's dishonour. Anger for sin may have something of 
revenge in it ; grief for sin discovers an affection both to God and the 
sinner. A duty which respects at once the substance of both the tables 
cannot but be pleasing to God. 

2. It is an imitating return for God's affection. How doth God resent 
the injuries done to his people, as much as those done to himself ? Tho.se 
sins that immediately strike at his glory are not accompanied with such 



388 chaknock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

quick judgments as those that grate upon his servants. Sharp persecutions 
that tear the people of God in pieces, have fuller vials of judgment here 
than volleys of other sins which rend the name of God. When Cain 
•affronted God by his sacrifice, God comes not to a reckoning with him till 
he had added the murder of his brother to his former crimes against his 
Maker. A sweeter and more thankful return, and a more affectionate imita- 
tion of God, there cannot be, than to resent the injuries done to God more 
than those done to ourselves. The pinching of his people doth most pierce 
his heart, a stab to his honour, in gratitude, should most pierce theirs. 
The four kings that came against Sodom, Gen. xiv. 9, &c., sped well enough 
in their invasion, gained the victory, and had been in a fair \Yay to have 
enjoyed the spoil, had they not laid their hands upon Lot, which was the 
occasion of their disgorging their prey. As God engaged himself in the 
recovery of Lot, so Lot concerned himself in the honour of God ; God's 
anger is stirred at the captivity of Lot, and Lot's vexation is awak-ened at 
the injuries against God. What troubles his children, raises sensible com- 
passion in him to the sufferer, and revenge upon the persecutor. Whatso- 
.•ever doth blaspheme the name of God, doth at the same time rack a sincere 
heai-t. A persecutor cannot injure a believer, but Ohrist records it as a 
wrong done to himself; and Christ cannot be dishonoured by men, but a 
righteous soul doubles his grief. Here is a mutual return of affection and 
estimation which is highly pleasing. 

3. This temper justifies God's law and his justice. David's grief being 
for man's forsaking the law, testified his choice valuation of it. When we 
dislike and disapprove of others' sins as well as our own, we acknowledge 
the glory of the law, that it is just, holy, and good, and set our seal of appro- 
bation to it. It justifies the holiness of the law in prohibiting sin, the 
righteousness of the law in condemning sin ; it owns the sovereignty of God 
in commanding, and the justice of God in punishing. The law requires two 
things, obedience to it, and suffering for the transgression of it. This frame 
of heart approves of the obedience the law requires of men as rational 
creatures, and justifies the sufferings the law inflicts upon men as impeni- 
tent sinners. Unless we mourn for the sins of others, and thereby shew our 
distaste, we cannot give God the glory of his judgments which he sends upon 
a people. This disowning of sin is very acceptable to God, because by it 
men honour that law for whose violations they are so troubled, and own 
God's right of imposing a law upon his creatures, and the creatures' vile- 
ness in disgracing that law. 

4. It is a sign of such a temper God hath evidenced himself in Scripture 
much affected with. It is a sign of a heart of flesh, the noblest work of God 
in the creature. A sign of a contrite heart, the best sacrifice that can smoke 
upon his altar, next to that of his Son. This he will not despise, because it 
is a beam of glory dropped down from him, and ascending in a sweet savour 
to him, Ps. li. 17. Without this, we cannot have a sufficient evidence 4hat 
we are truly broken-hearted. We may mourn for our own sins for secret 
by-ends, because they are against our worldly interests, and have reproaches 
treading upon the heels of them ; we may mourn for the sins of our friends, 
out of a natural compassion to them, and as they are the prognostics of some 
approaching misery to them ; but in sorrowing for the sins of the world, we 
have not so many and so affecting obligations to divert us from a sound aim 
in our sorrow. To be affected with the dishonour of God in the sins of 
others, is a distinguishing character of a spiritual constitution from a natural 
tenderness. It is both our duty and God's pleasure. No grief is sweeter to 
God, nor more becoming us. 



EZEK. IX. 4. J MOURNING FOR OTHER MEn's SINS. 389 

III. It is a means of preservation from public judgments. Noah did not 
preach righteousness without a sensible reflection on that unrighteousness he 
preached against ; and he of all the world had the security of an ark for him 
and his family, when all the rest struggled for life, and sunk in the waters. 
No mere man ever wore more black for the funeral of God's honour than 
David, nor was any blessed with more gracious deliverances. The more zeal 
we have for God (which is an affection made up of grief and anger) the more 
protection we have from him. ' The steps of a man ' (good man, our translation 
renders it ; but the word is "I2J, a valiant man) ' are ordered by the Lord, and he 
delights in his way,' Ps. xxxvii. 23. The more courage we have for God, the 
more we may expect both his conduct and security. If there be any hope 
in a time of actual or threatened judgments, it is by laying our mouths in 
the dust, Lam. iii. 29. If there be any ground of hope, it will shine forth 
when we are in such a posture. There might be others in Jerusalem who 
had not complied with the idolatry of that age, but none exempted from the 
stroke of the six destroyers^ but those whose mouths lay in the dust, and 
whose cries against the common sin ascended to heaven. Only the mourners 
among the good men are marked by the angel for indemnity from the public 
punishment. 

1. Sincerity always escapes best in common judgments, and this temper 
of mourniog for public sins is the greatest note of it. This is the greatest 
note of sincerity. We read of an Ahab who put on sackcloth for his own 
sin, and humbled himself before the Lord ; of a Judas sorrowing that he 
betrayed his master. Self interest might broach their tears, and force out their 
sorrow ; but never an Ahab, or Judas, or any other ungodly person in Scrip- 
ture, lamented the sins of others. Nay, they were all eminent for holiness 
that were noted for this frame, whom we have mentioned before : Moses, a 
non-such for speaking with God face to face ; David, who only had that 
honourable title of a man after God's own heart ; Isaiah, who had the fullest 
prospect of evangelical glory of all the prophets ; Ezra, a restorer of his 
country ; Daniel, a man greatly beloved ; Christ, the Redeemer of the world ; 
and Paul, the only apostle rapt up in the third heaven; he was also 
humbled, for the sins of the Corinthians, 2 Cor. xii. 21. Ezra hath a mighty 
character : Ezra vii. 10, he ' prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, 
and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.' And he both 
mourned for and prayed against the common sin. Lot is not recorded for 
this without a glorious epithet ; the Spirit of God overlooks 'those sins of his 
mentioned in Scripture, and speaks not of him by his single name, but 'just 
Lot,' ' his righteous soul,' 2 Peter ii. 7, 8 ; a sincere righteousness gUttered in 
his vexation for the wronged interest of God. What a mark, of honour doth 
the Holy Ghost set upon this temper ! It is not drunken Lot, or incestuous 
Lot, with which sins he is taxed in Scripture ; this publicly-religious spirit 
covered those temporary spots in his scutcheon. When all other signs of 
righteousness may have their exceptions, this temper is the utmost term, 
which we cannot go beyond in our self-examination. The utmost prospect 
David had of his sincerity, when he was upon a diligent inquiry after it, was 
his anger and grief for the sin of others. When he had reached so far, he 
was at a stand, and knew not what more to add : Ps. cxxxix. 21-24, ' Am I 
not grieved with those that rise up against thee ? I hate them with perfect 
hatred ; I count them mine enemies. Search me, God, and know my 
heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way 
in me.' If there be anything that better can evidence my sincerity than this, 
Lord, acquaint me with it ; ' know my heart,' i. e. make me to know it. He 
whose sorrow is only for matter confined within his own breast, or streams 



390 chaenock's works, [Ezek. IX. 4. 

■with it in his life, has reason many times to question the truth of it ; but 
when a man cannot behold sin as sin in another without sensible regret, it is 
a sign he hath savingly felt the bitterness of it in his own soul. It is a high 
pit-ch and growth, and a consent between tbe Spirit of God and the soul of a 
Christian, when he can lament those sins in others whereby the Spirit is 
grieved ; when he can rejoice with the Spirit rejoicing, and mourn with the 
Spirit mourning. This is a clear testimony that we have not self-ends in the 
service of God ; that we take not up religion to serve a turn ; that God is our 
aim, and Christ our beloved. Now, upright persons have special promises 
for protection: Ps. xxxvii. 18, 19, ' The Lord knows the way of the upright ; 
they shall not be ashamed in an evil time.' They shall not be ashamed in 
it, though they may be dashed by it; they shall have a blessed inward 
security, though they may not always have an outward, when the wicked 
shall consume away as the fat of lambs, and exhale in the smoke. God's 
eyes are upon them in the worst of straits. If ever he shew himself strong, 
it is for those that are ' perfect in heart' before him. This is the end of the 
rolling and running of his ' eyes about the earth,' 2 Chron. xvi. 9. To such 
he is both a sun and a shield ; a sun to comfort them, and a shield to defend 
them that walk uprightly, Ps. Isxxiv. 11. There may be an uprightness in 
the heart, when there is an unknown or a negligent crookedness in some 
particular path ; and when men are negligent in reproving others for such 
sins as open the clouds of judgments, God may be a sun to such, to give 
them some comfort in a common calamity, but scarce a shield to defend them 
from it. 

2. This frame clears us from the guilt of common sins. He that is not 
afflicted with them contracts a guilt of those insolences against God by a 
tacit approbation, or not hindering the torrent by his prayers, tears, endea- 
vours. Sin is not to be viewed without horror ; we share in the guilt if we 
manifest not our detestation of the practice. The Corinthians had not 
approved themselves clear in the matter of the incestuous person till they had 
mourned for it, 2 Cor. vii. 11. Jacob was afraid he should be charged by 
God as a murderer and thief^ as well as Simeon and Levi, if he did not 
profess his loathing of it : Gen. xlix. 6, * my soul, come not thou into their 
secrets ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united I for in their 
anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall.' His 
soul should bear a testimony against their secrets ; he would count it his dis- 
honour to give their sin any countenance before God or man. David inti- 
mates, Ps. ci. 3, that if he did not hate the works of those that turn aside, 
the guilt of them would cleave to him. If we can patiently bear the dis- 
honour of God without marks of our displeasure, we shall be reckoned in the 
common infection, as one lump with the greatest sinners. He that is not with 
Christ is against him ; he that is not on the side of God by a holy grief, is 
on the side of sin by a silent consent. A thorough distaste of sins, upon the 
account of their abomination to God, frees us from the guilt of them in the 
sight of God. To mourn for them, and pray against them, is a sign we 
would have prevented them if it had lain in our power ; and where we have 
contributed to them, we, by those acts, revoke the crime. When we cannot 
be reformers, all that we can do is to turn mourners, and in our places 
admonishers and reprovers ; and God is righteous not to charge the guilt 
where it is not contracted or revoked. But where any are infected with com- 
mon sins, they must expect to taste of some common judgments.* The 
Israelites did partake of some of the Egyptian sins ; and though God was 
upon their deliverance, yet he inflicteth upon them some of the Egyptian 
* Lightfoot, Glean, on Exod. vi. 13. 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURNING FOR OTHER MEn's SINS. 391 

plagues. The plague of lice, which was the first God brought, without being 
imitated by th« magicians, was common upon the Israelites as well as the 
Egyptians ; for God did not sever Goshen from Egypt till the plague of flies : 
Exod, viii. 12, 23, ' In that day will I sever the land of Goshen ; I will put 
a division between my people and thy people.' And therefore, in Ps. Ixxviii., 
the psalmist, reckoning those plagues, never mentions the lice, because that 
was inflicted upon Israel as well as Egypt. This is a way to keep the soul 
from common infection. It is difficult for a soul to defile itself with the sins 
of the times, when tears are continually running down the eyes for them. It 
is an antidote against the sin, and against the plague which follows at the 
heels of it. If we look not upon them with grief, we are in danger to be 
snared in the same temptation. Besides, not sorrowing for them is an im- 
plicit consent to them ; and by consenting to them, we are little better than 
actors in them. By grieving for them, we enter our dissent, and pass our vote 
against them. When any sin becomes national, it is imputed to the body of 
the nation ; as, in some transgressions of the law, the whole body of the 
nation of the Jews was involved ; and there is no way for any particular 
person to remove the guilt from him, but by disowning it before God. 

3. A grief for common sins is an endeavour to repair the honour God has 
lost. It is a paying to God that, by repentance (as much as lies in a creature), 
which is due from the worst sinner himself ; it is to keep up some of God's 
glory, when so much is trodden down. And when the gi-ief is accompanied 
with a more exact obedience, it repairs the honour God hath lost by the mis- 
carriage of others. It is an endeavour to wipe off the stains from the robe 
of the glory of God. And those that bear up God's glory in the world shall 
find, if need be, the creative, omnipotent power of God stretched out for their 
defence in as eminent a manner as the cloud by day, which preserved the 
Israelites from the scorching of the sun, or the flaming fire by night, which 
prevented their wandering into by-ways and precipices ; for upon all the 
glory shall be a defence, Isa. iv. 5, i. e. upon those that bear the mark of 
his glorious redemption, and bear up his honour among the sons of men. 
When we concern ourselves for God's honour, God will concern himself for 
our protection. God never was, or ever will be, behind-hand with his creature 
in affection. Moses was zealous for God's glory against the golden «alf, and 
God concerned himself for his honour against Aaron and Miriam, Numb, xii., 
and then against the tumults of the people. 

4. The mourners in Sion are humble, and humility is preventive of Judg- 
ments. To lie flat upon the ground, is a means to avoid the stroke of a 
cannon-bullet. ' When men are cast down, he shall save the humble person,' 
Job xxii. 29. They lie lowest in the dust before God, who concern them- 
selves not only with the weight of their own sins, but with that of others. 
Pride is a preparation for judgment ; the higher the tower aspires, the fitter 
tinder it is for lightning ; the bigger anything swells, the nearer it is to burst- 
ing ; the prouder any man is, the plainer butt he is for an arrow of God's 
wrath. Pride lifts up itself against God's laws and sovereignty, as much as 
this frame of spirit acknowledges and submits to him. It was a temper con- 
trary to this caused God to send worms to banquet upon Herod : Acts xii. 
23, ' He gave not God the glory.' He was not afflicted with the sin of the 
people, nor reproved them for ascribing to him the honour of God. A soul 
affliction for common sins is a bar to judgments. God revives the spirit of 
the humble, Isa. Ivii. 15. They that share in the griefs of the Spirit, shall 
not want the comforts of the Spirit. God is concerned in honour, by virtue 
of his promise, not to neglect those whom he hath promised to revive. He 
dwells with the contrite spirit ; who more contrite than he that grieves for 



392 chaenock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

public sins, and family sins, and city sins, as well as his own private ? Men 
do not use to fire their own houses, much less God the house and heart, 
which is dearer to him than either first or second temple, or local heaven 
itself. I might add, 

5. That such keep covenant with God. The contract runs on God's 
part to be an enemy to his people's enemies, Exod. xxiii. 22. It must run 
on our parts to love that which God loves, hate that which God hates, grieve 
for that which grieves and dishonours him ; who can do this by an uncon- 
cernedness ? Those that keep covenant with God shall not fail of one tittle 
of it on God's pai't. 6. Such also fear God's judgments, and fear is a good 
means to prevent them. The old world feared not God's threatening of the 
deluge,^ and that came and swallowed them up. The Sodomites feared not 
God's judgments, and that hastened the destroying shower. The advice of 
the angel upon the approach of judgments, is to fear God, and give glory to 
him, Eev. xiv. 7. And then follows another, ver. 8, with the news of Baby- 
lon's fall : ' Babylon is fallen, is fallen.' The fall of Babylon is the preser- 
vation of his people. 

IV. The use. 1. Keproof for us. Where is the man that hangs his harp 
upon the willows at the time the temple of Groi is profaned ? A head, a 
fountain of tears for common sins, is a commodity rare to be found even in 
hearts otherwise gracious. The mourners have been for number but a few, 
like the gleanings, of the vintage ; but the sinners in Sion for multitude, like 
the weeds in fallow ground. What multitudes of those that disparage God, 
and trample upon his sovereign commands, rend in pieces the very law of 
nature, as well as the rights of religion ! It were well if there were one to six, 
as was intimated in the beginning there might be in Jerusalem ; but we have 
reason to fear that one marker for the secret mourners would be too much 
for an hundred destroyers. I do not question but there are some that sigh 
for the abominations they see and hear of, and that because they are dis- 
honourable to God, as well as injurious to themselves. But who of us pre- 
sent here can say, we have been deeply enough, and graciously enough, 
affected with them ? Certainly, both you and I may bring a charge against 
ourselves before the throne of God for this neglect, that we have not been 
thoroughly humbled for, and frequently bewailed public iniquities, and spread 
them before God in secret. If we are unconcerned in common sins, can 
we imagine God will leave us unconcerned in common judgments ? If we 
endeavour not to keep up the glory of God, he will extract glory to him- 
self out of our ashes. If this frame be so little regarded among pro- 
fessors, what shall we say to many others, that have as little remorse for 
the stabs of God's honour as they would have for the tragedy of an East 
India prince, nay, for the death of some inconsiderable fly; that have resent- 
ments for wrongs done to themselves, and sorrow at command for any 
worldly loss, but not one spark of regret for afix'onts ofi'ered to God ? In 
this cause their hearts are as dry as heath in a parching summer. Who 
laments the tearing the name of God in pieces by execrable oaths ? Who 
bewails the impudent uncleanness boasted of by concubines in the face of 
the sun ? Who mourns for so many thousand foreheads bearing the mark of 
the beast, and so many thousands more preparing to receive it ? It reproves, 
then, 

1. Those that make a mock and sport of sin, so far they are from mourn- 
ing for it. The wise man gives them the title of fools : Prov. xiv. 9, 
* Fools make a mock at sin ;' which, though it seems too low a character for 
such abominable works, yet in Scripture it hath a greater import than in our 
common discourse ; it signifies an atheist, Ps. xiv. 1. Prodigious madness! 



EZEK. IX. 4. J MOURNING FOR OTHER MFn's SINS. 393 

to make that our sport which is the dishonour of God, the niurderer of 
Christ, the grief of the Spirit, and the destruction of the soul ; that -which 
opens the flood-gates of wrath, and brings famines, plagues, wars upon a 
people ! If mourning for others' sins be an affection like that of angels, 
delighting in others' sins is an affection like that of devils. He is at the 
greatest distance from Christ that looks pleasantly upon that which Chi-ist 
could not regard without grief and anger. God seems to seal up such to 
destruction, as well as the mourners to preservation : Isa. xxii. 12, 13, 'And 
in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and mourning, to bald- 
ness and girding with sackcloth : and behold jpy and gladness, slaying oxen 
and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine : let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of 
hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die.' They 
were ranters instead of mourners, and God passes this sentence on them, 
' Their iniquity shall not be purged from them till they die.' If we carry our- 
selves joUily at the sins of others, we evidence that the concerns of God are 
of little concern to us, that we have slight thoughts of his glory, and cast it 
at the heels of our own passions. 

2. Those that make others' sins the matter of invectives, rather than of 
lamentations, and bespatter the man without bewailing the sin. We should 
consider common sins with affection to God, and pity to the offenders, with 
a desire that they may restore, by a true conversion, the glory they have 
robbed God of by an accursed rebellion. While we hate the sin, we should 
evidence that we love the man.* We must never love the wickedness, nor 
hate the person. We pity a sick man, though we loathe his disease. Sinners 
are miserable enough without our hatred, and by hating them we make our- 
selves more miserable, by committing a fault against reason and nature, and 
do them no good. The more wicked any man is, the more worthy of pity, 
by how much the more his crime is our hatred. God, who is infinite purity, 
hates men's sins, because they are enemies to his holiness ; but he hath a 
common affection to their persons, as they are the effects of his goodness and 
creative power. Our exclamations against common sins ought not to exceed 
lamentations for them. There ought to be more grief in our hearts, than 
fire in our tongues. They break the whole law that lament not the crime 
out of love to the law-maker, and grieve not for the sinner out of love to their 
neighbour. 

3. Those who are imitators of common sins, instead of being mourners 
for them ; as though others did not pilfer God's right fast enough, and were 
too slow in pulling him from his throne ; as if they grieved that others had 
got the start of them in wickedness. It is a pious sadness, and a blessed 
grief, to be affected with common sins, without being fettered by them ; to 
mourn for them, without cleaving to them ; to be transported with sorrow 
for them, without being drawn by a love to them. 

4. Those that fret against God, instead of fretting against their own 
foolishness, Prov. xix. 3. The sins of good men are many times provoca- 
tions to God to draw up the sluice from the hearts of wicked men, and give 
liberty to their lusts, for the chastening of others ; and therefore, in grieving 
for the sins of others, they implicitly grieve for their own. 

5. Those who are more transported against others' sins, as they are, or 
may be, occasions of hurt to them, than as they are injuries to God. How 
warm are we often in our own cause, and how cold in God's ! We partly 
satisfy our own discontent by such a carriage, but not our duty. 

6. Those who are so far from mourning for common sins, that they never 

* Nonnunquam sacvituri in culpam Eaovinius in Lominem. — Frosper. 



894 chaPwNock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

truly mourned for their own; who have yet the treasures of wickedness, after 
the rod of God hath been upon them : Micah vi. 9, 10, ' Are there yet the 
treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked ?' reflecting upon the rod 
they had felt. Common sins are but a glass wherein we may see our com- 
mon nature. The best men have the worst sins in their nature, though, by 
grace, they have them not in their practice. He that gi'ieves not for other 
men's sins, more or less, never grieved truly for his own. He that is not 
concerned for the dishonours of God by others, is little concerned for the 
dishonour of God by himself. Let us use our eyes for those ends for which 
God hath given them ,' they are instruments of sight, and instruments of 
sorrow. 

It is necessary for us to mourn for our own sins. We can never mourn 
for others' sins unless we mourn for our own. If we sorrow not for our own, 
the sorrow we may pretend to have for others proceeds not fi'om a right cause. 
We have that one sin of Adam in oui- nature, which subjected the whole world 
to an anathema. Let us nut stay in generals ; every man will lay the fault 
upon sin in the bulk, without reflecting on the sin in his own bowels. We 
can complain particularly of those sins that are common, and why should 
we rest in generals when we come to our own ? Dolus versatur in univer- 
salibus, it is a deceitful sorrow that is for sin in a heap. Is there not perfi- 
diousness to God, coldness in his ways, too much slighting the gospel, want of 
bowels and compassion, incorrigibleness under judgments, houses fired and 
pride not consumed ; falseness in resolutions, like oxen moving with the touch 
of the goad, and presently standing still ; deceitful bows, letting the string 
slip after they have stood fully bent ? Hosea x. 4. There may be sins among 
us that may cause a storm that we little thiuk of; the mariners little suspected 
Jonah to be the cause of the tempest till he discovered it himself. He that 
never mourned for his own sins cannot perform this duty so necessary for his 
preservation, and therefore cannot expect the mark of God in a time of public 
judgment. He that would rightly mourn for the corruptions of others, must 
inquire whether he hath not the same in his own bowels, and fling the hardest 
stone at them. Judah calls for Tamar to the flames for that crime which 
himself had been a partner and actor in ; so apt are we to be severe against 
others' sins, and indulgent to our own. The best have need to mourn for 
their own sins in relation to the public ; the only good man in the ship was 
Jonah, and for his sin was the storm sent, and the rest like to be wrecked. 

Use 2. Of comfort to such as mourn for common sins. All the carnal 
world hath not such a writ of protection to shew in the whole strength of 
nature, as the meanest mourner in Sion hath in his sighs and tears. Christ's 
mark is above all the shields of the earth ; and those that are stamped with 
it have his wisdom to guard them against folly, his power against weak- 
ness, the everlasting Father against man, whose breath is in his nostrils. 
We see that God doth not strike at random, but reserves a sweetness for his 
servants in the midst of his fmy against his enemies ; he hath his messengers 
to mark as well as his executioners to strike ; the issuing the resolute orders 
of his fury hinders not those of his grace and compassion to his own. He 
will have a care of his balsam trees that distil this precious Hquor, no less 
than he commanded the Israelites in their sharpest wars to have a care of 
the * fruitful trees of a land,' Deut. xx. 19. God in the six verses following 
the text gives the like charge to the executioners of his judgments, as David 
did to the army concerning Absalom : 2 Sam. xviii. 5, ' Deal gently with the 
young man ;' Ezek. ix. 6, ' Come not near any man upon whom is the mark.' 
He makes provision first for the security of those, before he unsheathes his 
sword against his enemies. The deluge flows not from heaven till Noah be 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURXIXG FOB OTHER JIEN's SINS. 395 

cased in the ark, nor is Sodom on fire till Lot be lodged in the mountain. 
God will always have a church in the world, and suffer a generation of his 
own to inhabit the earth. God's attributes shall not interfere one with an- 
other ; his truth remains firm notwithstanding the provocations of men. 
When those people were ripe for judgments, God had his mourners among 
the idolaters, which he marks for preservation. When he had threatened 
great judgments, Joel ii. 30, 31, the turning the sun into darkness and the 
moon into blood, he promises a remnant in Jerusalem and Sion : ver. 32, 
' And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the 
Lord shall be delivered ; for in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, shall be 
deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall 
call.' Neither the fuiy of men shall, nor the judgments of God will, extin- 
guish the church ; nor the malice of men, because of God's power ; nor God 
himself, because of his truth : ' The Lord hath said.' God will either pre- 
serve under judgments, or take away in them to a place of happiness. It is 
thought by some that the reason Enoch was snatched to heaven in the midst 
of his life, according to the rate of living in that age, was because he was 
afflicted with the sins of those among whom he lived. And indeed he could 
scarce walk with God without grieving that others disdained to walk with 
him, and acted contrary to him. God would take him from that affliction, 
as well as from the danger of being corrupted by the age. He will either 
have his chambers wherein to hide them here till the indignation be overpast, 
Isa. xxvi. 20, 21 ; or his mansions to lodge them in for ever with himself. 
What hurt is it to any to be refused a hiding-place here, that he may be 
conducted to the possession of a glorious residence for ever ? That judgment 
that takes off the fetters of a wicked man for execution, knocks off the fetters 
of the godly for a jail delivery ; like fire, it consumes the dross and refines 
the gold. The day of God's wrath is ' a day of gloominess to the wicked,' 
Joel ii. 2 ; but as the morning spread upon the mountains to the godly 
mourners, the dawning of comfort to them. God, out of the same pillar of 
the cloud, diffused light upon the Israelites, and shot thunders and lightnings 
upon the Egyptians, to which perhaps the prophet might here allude. 

Use 3. Mourn for the sins of the time and place where you live. It is the 
least dislike we can shew to them. A flood of grief becomes us in a flood of 
sin. How well would it be if we were as loud in crying for mercy, as our 
sins at the present are in crying for vengeance ! While judgments run to 
seize our persons, our grief should run to damp the judgments ; moist walls 
choke the bullet. It is far better to moum for the cause of judgments, than 
to mourn under them. The jolly blades were the first prey to the enemy : 
Amos vi. 1-3 to verse 7, ' They that chaunt to the sound of the viol, and 
drink wine in bowls, shall go captive with the first that go captive.' We of 
this city have most reason to mourn ; the metropolis of a nation is the metro- 
polis usually of sin, and the fairest mark for the arrows of God's indignation. 
The chief city of a nation is usually threatened in Scripture : Rabbah of the 
Ammonites, Damascus of Syria, Tyrus of Phenicia, Babylon of the Chaldean 
empire, Jerusalem of Judea ; and, suitably, why not London of England ? 
And let no man think that mourning is a degenerate and effeminate disposi- 
tion. Doth Solomon ever imprint the same character on mourning as he 
doth on laughter ? Eccles. ii. 2. Doth he ever vilify that with a term of 
madness, and call the mourners bedlams ? How can any, who hath not 
put off the title and nature of man, behold without amazement and grief men 
80 bold as to pull down the judgments of God upon them, and force his in- 
dignation ! This temper is a pious embalming Christ's crucified honour ; 
shall any man that professeth Christ have so httle love to him, as not to 



396 charnock's works. [Ezek. IX. 4. 

bestow a groan upon him when he sees him freshly dishonoured and abused ? 
If we had not committed any sin in our whole life, there is cause of mourn- 
ing for the abominations of the world. Christ had an unspotted innocence 
and an unexpressible grief for Jerusalem's sins and misery : ' Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee, and thou wouldest not ! ' 
Never doth sorrow more appear in love than when it is more for what dis- 
honours God than what piucheth us. Men may pretend a grief for the sins 
of the -times, when it is only for themselves, that they have not those pleas- 
ing opportunities of greatening themselves, and that estimation in the world, 
that stage for pride and covetousness to act upon, which they desire. Our 
mourning is then right, when we grieve not so much that we, as that God, is 
a sufferer. It should be proportionable where there are great breaches of 
God's law ; our grief should be as full as, if possible, to fill up the ditch that 
is digged. The Septuagint in the text implies it, /caraarsi/a^'ji/rwi/. Paul and 
Barnabas tore their garments (a sign of a great grief and indignation) when 
the heathens would have sacrificed to them as gods. Acts xiv. 13. They used 
not the same expressions in smaller sins ; but this was against the nature of 
God, and a multitude engaged in it. The gi-eater the &in, the greater the 
sorrow, I need not mention the sins among us ; the impudent atheism, con- 
tempt of the gospel, putrefying lust, barefaced pride, rending divisions^ many 
sins visible enough to be grieved for, and too many to be spoken of. The 
sorrow should be universal. Not for one sin which may be against any man's 
particular interest ; but for all, even those that our carnal advantage is not 
concerned in. God is dishonoured by one as well as by another, and Christ 
is crucified by one as well as by another. It must be attended with a more 
strict obedience. It is the highest generosity to wear Christ's livery when 
others put it off and lay it aside as useless. No doubt but Joseph of Arima- 
thea mourned as well as the rest for the sufferings of our Saviour ; but he 
testified also an heroic affection to him in going boldly to Pilate to beg- the 
body of Jesus for an honourable burial, when none of the other disciples 
sought after it, but trusted more to the swiftness of their heels for their ovra 
security, than concerned themselves for the honour of their Master. While 
others therefore are defiling the world with their abominations,^ let us be 
washing it with our tears, and fiUing heaven with our cries ; that when God 
marcheth in his fury, we may be secure by his acceptance of our humiliations. 
Motives. 

1. This is a means to have great tokens of the love of God. No question 
but Christ in his agony bewailed the sins of the world, and then was an angel 
sent to comfort him, and assure him of an happy issue. It was just after the 
testimony of his displeasure against Peter for dissuading him from that death, 
whereby he was to honour God, and wash off the stain of sin, and repair the 
violations of the law, whereby he manifested a concern for his Father's honour, 
that he was transfigured, and had therein the earnest of an heavenly glory, 
and that transporting voice, ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased, hear you him,' Mat. xvi. 23, xvii. 1,^ 2, &c. 

2. It is a means to prevent judgments. Tears cleansed by the blood of 
Christ are a good means to quench that justice which is a consuming fire. 
Sin puts a stop to the working of God's bowels, and opens the magazines of 
wrath ; grief for it disarms God's hand of his thundei-s, and may divert his 
darts from our hearts. No other defence is often left against the strength of 
judgments after sin hath made its entrance. A * holy seed in Jerusalem ' is 
the guard of it in the time of Sennacherib's invasion : Isa. vi. 13, * The holy 
seed shall be the substance thereof.' Growth in sin ripens judgments, turns 
blossoms and buds into fruit, rods into scorpions ; grief for it turns scorpions 



EZEK. IX. 4.] MOURNING FOE OTHER MEN's SINS. 397 

into rods, lessens a judgment if not wholly prevents it. The water of repent- 
ance is the best way to quench the flames of sin and sparks of v/rath. If 
good men fall under a common judgment, it may be often for a defect in this 
temper. This was Austin's opinion : that many good men are taken awav 
with the wicked in common judgments ; because, though they do not commit 
the same sins, yet they connive at their iniquities, and so are lashed with 
rods ; temporally chastened, but not eternally punished. *•' 

3. It will sweeten judgments. Such may say of judgment as Paul of 
death, judgment, where is thy sting ! It is a double burden to lie under 
the weight of common judgments and the weight of common sins ; grief for 
them is a means to remove the guilt, and thereby to ease thee of a judgment. 
If we are concerned in mourning for sin, we shall be more fit to honour 
God, if he makes us fall under his stroke. A holy sorrow will bring us into 
a submissive frame. Aaron had been, without question, humbled for his 
timorous compliance with the people in the making of the golden calf; and 
when God came to strike him near in his own children, he held his peace, 
Lev. X. 3. No doubt but his former humiliation fitted him for his present 
patience. 

4. Our repentance for our own sins was never right, unless we are of this 
temper. Repentance is a justice towards God, and therefore is conversant 
about other men's sins in a hatred of them. It is for sin as sin, and sin is 
sin in whatsoever subject it be, and worthy of hatred according to right 
reason, and therefore that grace whereby a man hates it in his own person, 
will engage him to hate it wheresoever it is ; and we always grieve for the 
increase of that which is the object of our hatred. A truly just man hates 
the injury committed against another as well as that against himself. That 
filtbiness which displeaseth a penitent in his own act, displeaseth him in 
another's act, there being the same adequate reason, and sin being of the 
same nature against God in another as in himself. It is all abominations 
in the text ; this is an argument of sincerity. To mourn for one may be 
from self-interest, to mourn for all must be from a pure affection. 

5. It is an argument of a true affection to God. To mourn for sin when 
it is rare, though gross, is not so much a sign of sincerity as to mourn for 
it when it is epidemical, when the foundations of godliness are out of course, 
and the graces contrary to those sins are generally discountenanced ; as it is 
a greater sign of sincerity to love the word when it is generally slighted, 
than to love it when all admire it. What a noble affection had that lady in 
Samuel, 1 Sam. iv. 19, &c., that grieved not so much for the loss of her 
father, husband, friends, but bewailed the departure of the glory of Israel, 
and, implicitly at least, the sin that occasioned it ! How did her affection to 
God drown all carnal affections ! Her sorrow for the ark stifled the sorrow 
of her travail, and the joy at the birth of her son. She regarded it not. 
This is an evident token of affectic«i, when we mourn most for the sins which 
most dishonour God, and the sins of those persons that seem to be nearer 
to God, and cast most reproaches upon his name. 

6. Shall we be outstripped by idolaters ? The mourning for others' sins 
was a custom kept up in Israel after their revolt from God unto Jeroboam. 
When Naboth was put to death for a pretended crime of blasphemy, a fast 
was proclaimed, to lament his sin, 1 Kings xxi. 12 ; and though with a 
wicked intention, to palliate a murder with the cloak of religion, yet it 
evidenceth this mourning for the gross sins of others to be a common sen- 
timent among them, and practised upon the like occasions. 

7. We have just fears of judgments; we know not whence they will come^ 

* August, de Civit. Dei. lib. i. cap. ix. 



398 ch.^enock's works. fl Tim. II. 15. 

from the north or from the south. God sets up his warnings in the heavens; 
we behold him frowning and preparing his arrows, and are we careless in 
what posture we shall meet him ? He hath spit in our faces, made us a 
by-word and reproach ; should we not be humbled ? Num. xii. 14, ' If her 
father had spit in her face, should she not be ashamed ?' God seems to be 
departing. He hath, as it were, kept open market a long time ; he seems 
now to be putting up his wares, removing his candlestick, withdrawing the 
power of his ordinances, recalling his messengers ; the light is almost in the 
socket. The voice of God is received with a deaf ear, the reproofs and ad- 
monitions of God have not a kindly operation, the signs of judgment amaze 
us, and the amazement quite vanishes. We start like a man in a dream, 
and fall back upon our pillow, and snort out our sleep. Can we expect God 
to stay ? He seems to be upon the threshold of the temple, come down 
ah'eady from the cherubims, and is it not high time to bewail our own sins, 
and the common abominations that have so polluted the place of his habita- 
tion, that we may say we cannot see how God can stay with honour to him- 
self ? If we bewail the sins that provoke him to it, God may stay ; if he 
will not, let us at least shew this affection to him at parting. This is not a 
thing unbecoming the highest Christian. Doth not the Spirit grieve for the 
sins of others, which play the wantons with the grace of God ? Eph. iv. 30, 
' Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.' The Holy Spirit hath no sins of his 
own to grieve for. Shall we be above that which the Spii'it of God thinks 
himself not above ? Shall we refuse mourning for that which goes to the 
heart of the Holy Ghost ? Let us therefore examine what are our own sins, 
what are the abominations of the times and places wherein we live ; make 
inquisition for the one, that we may di-ag them out before the Lord, and in 
our places endeavour to stop and reform the other. As the true fire of love 
to God will melt us into tears, so it will heat us into zeal. He is no friend 
that wall complain of a toad's being in another's bosom, but not strive to kill 
it. It will shew either cowardice or falseness. That zeal is wild-fire that 
is not accompanied with an holy sorrow, and that sorrow is crude which is 
not accompanied with a godly zeal. 



A DISCOURSE FOR THE COMFORT OF 
CHILD-BEARING WOMEN. 

Kottvithstanding she shall he saved in child-hearmg , if they continue in faith, 
and charity, and holiness, with sobriety. — 1 Tim. II. 15. 

I SHALL not take my rise any higher than ver. 12, where the apostle 
orders that a woman should not teach : ' But I suffer not a woman to teach,' 
i.e. publicly. 

Two reasons are rendered. 

1. She was last in creation.* * Adam was first formed, then Eve.' 

2. First in defection : ver. 14, ' And Adam was not deceived, but the 
woman being deceived, was in the transgression.' The fall of man was the 
fruit of the woman's first doctrine, and therefore she is not suffered to teach 

* Eierom. 



1 Tim. II. 15,] comfort of child-beaeing women. 399 

any more. The ■woman was deceived by the serpent, and so drew her hus- 
band and whole posterity into ruin. Some of the papists bring this place 
as an argument against women's reading the Scripture ; but no reason can 
conclude it from this place. How can the Spirit of God prohibit their 
reading the Scripture in private, and the instruction of their families, since 
women are among those who are commended for reading the Scripture ? 
Acts xvii. 11, 12, where the honourable women are mentioned; and Lois 
and Eunice are applauded for their instruction of Timothy. Are not women 
bound, by that command of Peter, to give a reason of their faith to any 
that shall ask them, unless they would have women Christians without 
reason ? What was the office of those ecclesiastical widows in the primitive 
times, but to instruct the younger women ? But this is not to be charged 
upon all the papists : Becanus only is the man that Rivet mentions.* And 
because, upon this declaration of the apostle, some might be dejected by 
the consideration of the deep hand the woman had in the first fall, in the 
punishment inflicted upon them for it, the apostle in the text brings in a 
' notwithstanding ' for their comfort. Notwithstanding her guilt in defection, 
her punishment in child-bearing, she hath as good a right to salvation as 
the man ; so that the apostle here answers, by way of anticipation, an ob- 
jection which might be made, whether the guilt contracted by the woman, 
and the punishment inflicted, might not hinder her eternal salvation. The 
apostle answers, No. Though she was first in the transgression, and the 
pain of child-bearing was the punishment of that first sm, yet the woman 
may arrive to everlasting salvation notwithstanding that pain, if she be 
adorned with those graces which are necessary for all Christians. Though 
the punishment remain, yet the believing woman is in the covenant of gi-ace, 
under the wings of the mediator of that covenant, if she have faith, the con- 
dition of the covenant, which works by love and charity, and is attended 
with holiness and renewal of the heart. 

Observe, God hath gracious cordials to cheer up the hearts of believers 
in their distress, and in the midst of those cases which are sufficient of them- 
selves to cast them down. The apostle here alludes to that curse upon the 
woman : Gen. iii. 16, ' Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy 
sorrow and thy conception : in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.' The 
punishment is pecuHar to the married woman, besides that punishment which 
was common to her with the man. 

Thy sorrotv and thy conception. Hendiadis, say some; the sorrow of 
thy conception. The word l^in signifies the whole time of the woman's 
bearing in the womb, and so includes not only those pains in the very time 
of labour, but also all those precursory indispositions, as the weakness of 
the stomach, heaviness of the head, irregular longings, and those other 
symptoms which accompany conceptions. Though this pain seems to be 
natural, from the constitution of the body, yet since some other creatures 
do bring forth with little or no pain,f it would not have been so with the 
woman in innocency, because all pain, which is a punishment of sin, had 
not been incident to a sinless and immortal body. 

We will consider the words apart. 

Saved. It may either note the salvation of the soul, or the preservation 
of the woman in child-bearing. The first, I suppose, is principally intended ; 
for the apostle here would signify some special comfort to women under 
that curse. But the preservation of women in child-bearing was a common 
thing testified by daily experience in the worst, as well as in the best women, 
and Christianity did not bring the professors of it into a worse estate in those 

* Isagog. ad Script, c xiii. pp. 990,. 991. t Arist. Hist. Animal. 1. vii. c. ix. 



400 chaenock's woees. [1 Tim. II. 15. 

things which immediately depended upon God, or make the children vipers, 
not to come into the world without the death of their mothers ; yet a tem- 
poral preservation may be included, for when an eternal salvation is pro- 
mised, temporal salvation is also promised, according to the methods of God's 
wisdom and goodness in the course of his providence, there being in all such 
promises a tacit reserve, viz., if God sees it good for us ; and the manner of 
their preservation also, wherein the preservation of a believer differs from 
that of an unregenerate person. Others are preserved by God, as a mer- 
ciful Creator and Governor, in a way of common providence, for the keeping 
up of the world ; but believers are preserved in the way of promise and 
covenant, in the exercise of faith, and by the special love of God, as a tender 
Father, and their God in covenant with them through Christ. 

In child- beariug. A/a Tsxvoyoviag, through child-bearing. The preposition 
8ia is often taken for sv, as Rom. iv. 11, ' That he might be the Father of 
all that believe,' though they be not circumcised, <7risTsv6vTuv di d'/.^o(3vsTiac, 
believing in uncircumcision, where it notes the state wherein they shall be 
saved. So it notes here, not the cause of the salvation of the woman, but 
the state wherein she shall be saved, and amounts to this much : the punish- 
ment inflicted upon the woman for her first sin shall not be removed in this 
life, yet notwithstanding this, there is a certain way of salvation by faith, 
though she pass through this punishment. For by nKvoycvia is not meant a 
simple child-bearing, but a child-bearing in such a manner as God hath 
threatened with sorrow and grief. 

If they continue. By they is not meant the children, as some imagine, 
because of the change of the singular to the plural ; the sense then should 
run thus : she shall be saved, if the children remain in faith, &c. That 
would be absurd to think that the salvation of the mother should depend 
upon the faith and grace of the children, when it is sometimes seen that 
the children of a godly mother may prove as wicked as hell itself. But by 
they is meant the woman. The name woman is taken collectively for all 
women, and therefore the plural number is added. The apostle passes from 
the singular number to the plural, as he had done from the plural to the 
singular, ver. 9, ' In like manner let the women adorn themselves' in modesty, 
where he uses the plural, but ver. 11, reassumes the other number again in 
his discourse. The graces which are here put as the conditions, are faith, 
charity, sanctification, sobriety ; where the apostle seems to oppose those 
to the first causes or ingredients of the defection. 

1 . Faith opposed to unbelief of the precept of God and the threatening 
annexed. 

2. Charity, opposed to disaffection to God ; as though God were an 
enemy to their happiness, and commanded a thing which did prejudice their 
happiness, whereupon must arise ill surmises of God, and an aversion from 
him. 

3. Sanctification. In opposition to this filthiness and pollution brought 
upon the soul by that first defection, there must therefore be in them an aim 
and endeavour to attain that primitive integrity and purity they then lost. 

4. Sobriety, Sw^pocuhj, temperance. Because the giving the reins to 
sense, and obeying the longings thereof, was the cause of the fall. Gen. iii. 6. 
She saw that it was pleasant to the eye. Original sin is called concupiscence, 
and lusting, and to this is opposed sobriety. 

1. Faith. This is put first, because it is a fundamental grace. It is the 
employer of charity, for it works by it ; the root of sanctification, for by 
faith the heart is purified. By faitla is chiefly meant the grace of faith : 
(1.) faith in the habit, (2.) faith in the exercise. 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-bearing women. 401 

2. Charily. The first sin was an enmity against God, therefore there is 
now necessary a love to God. The first sin was virtually an enmity to all 
the posterity of man, which were to come out of his loins, therefore love to 
mankind is necessary, and faith always infers love to God and man. 

3. Sanctijication is here added, because by that both the truth of faith 
and love appears to ourselves and others ; and justification by faith is 
thereby ratified, James ii. 24. By sanctifieation is not here meant a parti- 
cular holiness or chastity due to the marriage bed, as some of the papists 
assert, but an universal sanctity of heart and life. 

4. Sobriety. This is a natural means for preservation. Intemperance 
makes bodily distempers more dangerous in their assaults. True faith is 
accompanied with temperance and sobriety in the use of lawful comforts. 
The papists, though without any good ground, frame an argument from 
hence to prove marriage to be a sacrament, asserting that those graces of 
faith and charity, &c., are conferred upon the women by virtue of marriage, 
and ex vi institutioyiis. How severe a doctrine is it then to engage any in 
vows of a single life, when they might have a readier way to attain grace with 
the satisfaction of nature ? Are not the virtues mentioned here as necessary 
to the single as the married Christians ? Who ever heard that marriage 
was appointed to confer those Christian graces which are necessary for men 
and women in all conditions ? Besides, is it probable that that was insti^ 
tuted to confer Christian graces, which was instituted in paradise before 
Christianity was in being, and had been valid if man had stood in innocency, 
where there had been no need of a justifying faith ? 

Obs. 1. The punishment of the woman : ' in child-bearing.' 

2. The comfort of the woman : ' she shall be saved.' 

3. The condition of the salvation : ' if they continue.' Wherein is implied 
an exhortation to continue in faith, &c. 

Voct. Many observations might be raised. 

1. The pain in child-bearing is a punishment inflicted upon the woman 
for the first sin. 

2. The continuance of this punishment after redemption by Christ, doth 
not hinder the salvation of the woman, if there be the gospel- conditions 
requisite. 

3. The exercise of faith, with other Christian graces, is a peculiar means 
for the preservation of believers under God's aflSicting hand. 

I shall sum them up into this one 

Doct. The continuance of the punishment inflicted upon the woman for 
the first sin, doth not prejudice her eternal salvation, nor her preservation 
in child-bearing, where there are the conditions of faith, and other graces. , 

Here I shall speak, 

I. Concerning the punishment, and the cause of it. 

II. The nature of it. 

III. It is not prejudicing eternal salvation. 

I. Concerning the punishment. Child-bearing itself is not the punish- 
ment, but the pain in it. For the blessing, increase and multiply, was given 
in innocency. This punishment is peculiar to the woman, and superadded 
to that inflicted upon the man, wherein the woman also hath her share, 
though it lay heaviest upon Adam's shoulders. And because this punish- 
ment is the greater, it is disputed in the schools whether Adam's or Eve's 
sin were the greater. Various opinions there are. We may, I think, safely 
make these conclusions. 

1. In regard of the kind of sin, it was equal in both. They both had an 
VOL. V. c c 



402 charnock's works. [1 Tim. II. 15. 

equal pride, an equal aspiring to be like God ; for in all probability, Eve 
gave not her husband the fruit to eat, without acquainting him with the 
reasons which moved her to eat it, as also the advantage she expected from 
it. And God chargeth this aspiring humour upon the man : Gen. iii. 22, 
' The man, D"tN*n, is become like one of us.' Both of them, therefore, em- 
braced the temptation as it was directed, and swallowed the fruit, with an 
expectation to be like, not the angels (as some think, from Gen. iii. 5, ' ye 
shall be as gods,' Elohim), but like God himself, as appears by ver. 22, in 
that ironical speech where the Lord God Jehovah saith, ' The man is become 
like one of us.' They both believed the serpent, both broke the command 
in eating the fruit, both were guilty of this aspiring ambition. Some indeed 
think Eve ate twice of the fruit, once before the serpent, and the other time 
when she gave her husband : Gen. iii. 6, ' She did eat. and gave to her hus- 
band with her, and he did eat.'* But that is not so clear in the text. 

2. In regard of the first motion to this sin, Eve's sin was the greater. 
She was the seducer of Adam, which the apostle expresseth in the verse 
before the text. ' The woman being deceived, was in the transgression.' 
Where the apostle intimates the woman's in that respect to be greater than 
the man's. Adam was in it too, but the woman deeper. 

3. In regard of the woman's condition, the sin was greater on Adam's 
part.f 

(1.) Because he, being the man, had more power to resist, more strength 
to argue the case. 

(2.) Eve had a stronger and craftier adversary to deal with, the subtlest 
of all the beasts of the field. Gen. iii. 1, animated and inspired by a craftier 
devil. The stronger the tempter, the more excusable the sin. Adam was 
tempted by Eve, but Eve by the serpent. 

(3.) Eve had the command of not eating immediately from her husband, 
which laid not altogether so strong a tie upon her as it did upon him, who 
had it immediately from the mouth of God, and therefore was more certain 
of the verity of the precept. 

II. Of what nature is this punishment ? 

1. It is not a punishment in a rigid sense, nor continued as such. 

(1.) Because it is not commensurate to the nature of the sin, neither is it 
that penalty which the law reqaired. Death was due, and death imme- 
diately upon the ofi'ence ; but death was kept ofi" by the interposition of the 
Mediator, and this which is less than death, inflicted at present. The 
Mediator orday's-man interposed before this sentence, for the promise of the 
seed which should bruise the serpent's head preceded the pronouncing of 
this sentence. Gen. iii. 15, 16. God arms himself against both, but not 
with those weapons they had deserved. Capital crimes are usually attended 
with capital punishments, which draw a destruction upon the offender. 
Where death is deserved, and a lighter punishment inflicted, it is rather an 
act of clemency than strict justice, and may be called by the name of a 
partial pardon or reprieve, as well as a punishment. It is indeed a punish- 
ment when conscience racks a man with further expectation of torment, 
when it is but a prologue to everlasting burnings, when through those pains 
any fall into the place of everlasting horror. It is then more properly a 
punishment, when it proceeds from an irreconcileable justice, armed with 
omnipotency in the execution, not when it proceeds from an anger mixed 
with mildness, and mitigated by the intercessions of a Mediator. 

(2.) It is not a reparation of the injury done to God. One reason of the 
institution of punishment is to repair the damage the person offended sus- 
* Mariana in loc. t Estius in senten. 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-bearing women, 403 

tains by the malefactor, as far as he is capable. The injury done to God 
cannot be repaired by any temporary punishment ; no, nor indeed actually 
by an eternal one, though an eternal suffering is all the reparation a finite 
creature is capable to make to the honour of God. A man is capable of 
making some kind of amends to his neighbour for an offence done, but God 
being infinitely our superior, cannot have his honour repaired by anything a 
creature can do or suffer. 

(3.) It is not continued as a part of satisfaction to the justice of God ; as 
though Christ needed the sufferings of the creature to make up the sum 
which he was to pay for us, and which he hath already paid. It is not, on 
the account of the death of Christ, purely a vindictive, but a medicinal act 
to a believer : it is rather to awaken us than to satisfy justice ; as we wring 
a man by the nose who is fallen into a swoon, not to have satisfaction from 
him for any injury he may have done us, but to fetch him out of his fit. 
These punishments are to awaken men to a sight of their first sin. 

(4.) The proper impulsive cause of punishment is wrath. Though this was 
the first cause of this sentence, yet it is not inflicted in wrath upon a behever. 
Though at first it was an effect of God's anger, yet in a believer it is a fruit 
of God's fatherly anger, wherein he acts with a composition of Judge and 
Father. In inflicting it, he preserves the authority of a judge ; in preserving 
under it, and pardoning the sin for which it was inflicted, he evidenceth the 
affection of a Father. Punishment, as such, is only to hurt, and make men 
reap the fruit of their iniquity ; but the end of affliction, in the intention of 
the person that doth afflict, is oftentimes to benefit. 

2. Yet it is in some sort a punishment, and something more than an 
affliction. 

(1.) In respect of the meritorious cause, sin. This is not inflicted ratione 
absoliiti domiiiii, but ratione vieriti ; it is not an act of absolute sovereignty, 
but a judicial legal act upon the demerit of sin. There are some afflictions 
which are not punishments, as in the case of the man that was bom blind : 
Christ tells us that it was neither for his own sin, nor for the sins of his 
parents, but that God might be glorified, John ix. 2, 3, i. e. God in inflicting 
that blindness, respected neither the sin of the man, nor the sin of the parents, 
but the making him a passive subject of his glory in our Saviour's miraculous 
cure. But in this case God respected the sin of the woman as the cause and 
reason of the punishment. 

(2.) Because if man had stood in innocency, neither this grief, nor indeed 
any other, had been. The birth in innocency would have been without 
soiTow and grief, as the hunger and thirst which would have been in Adam 
in that state, would have been without that gnawing in the stomach, and that 
pain which we find in those defects, because a state of integrity and perfect 
righteousness must needs be without grief. But after the fall, all those pains 
incident to man or woman are fruits of the curse of sin. 

III. This punishment doth not hinder salvation, though it be continued. 

I shall lay down these propositions to clear up this matter. 

1. God intended not in the acceptance of Christ's mediation to remove in 
this life all the punishments denounced after the fall. God takes away the 
eternal, but not the temporal. For this very punishment was threatened 
after his acceptance of Christ's mediation ; and after the compact and cove- 
nant between the Father and the Son about the redemption of mankind, 
because the promise preceded the threatening, and the mediatory covenant 
preceded the promise. Some parts of Christ's purchase are only payable in 
another life, and some fruits of redemption God intends for growth only in 
another soil ; such are freedom from pain, diseases, death, and sin. And 



404 charnock's works. [1 Tim. IL 15. 

therefore the last day, when believers shall be gathered together, is called, 
by way of excelleney, the day of redemption, Eph. iv. 30, as if we had 
nothing of redemption properly in this life, because we have it not complete. 
And it is called upon this account, the ' time of refreshing,' and ' the time of 
the restitution of all things,' Acts iii. 19, 21 ; when all things shall be 
restored to their primitive completeness, and we shall have a full refreshment 
by a removal of all the evils which we suffer by reason of sin ; so that the 
satisfaction made by Christ extends not to a present removal of all the effects 
of the curse, pains of the body, death of relations, &c. The ground is not 
restored to its original vigour and fruitfulness, man must still eat his bread 
in the sweat of his brows, women must still bring forth with sorrow, our 
lives must waste by a continual invasion of weaknesses and diseases, we 
must drop one after another into the grave, send some before us, and leave 
others to come after us ; though God in mercy doth mitigate these, in some 
more, in some less, according to his sovereign pleasure ; and though those 
curses do materially continue, yet they are attended with a blessing, the 
fruits of Christ's purchase. But the full value of Christ's satisfaction will 
appear when there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, when the day of 
redemption shall dawn, and all tears be wiped from believers' eyes. But 
God never promised the total removal of them in this life to any saint ; nO, 
though he should have all the faith and holiness of all the catalogue of saints 
in the book of life centred in him. 

2. Christ never intended, in the payment of the price of our redemption, 
the present removal of them. He interposed himself before this sentence was 
pronounced, for the promise preceded the threatening, and therefore shewed 
himself content that those marks should be set upon that sin, though he pre- 
wnted by his mediation the dreadful sentence of eternal death. Christ never 
expected it; £or the compact between the Father and the Son did not run in 
this strain. Christ's enemies were not presently upon his ascension to be 
made his footstool, whereof death is not the least ; but he was to sit at the 
right hand of God expecting it : neither can we expect to be rid of our bur- 
dens till Christ's victory over his enemies be fully complete. He sent, after 
his ascension, the Spirit to be our comforter, which supposeth a state wherein 
we should need comfort ; and when are we under a greater necessity of com- 
fort than when the punishment of sin is actually inflicted on us ? The Spirit 
was to comfort us in the absence of our Saviour, and consequently in the 
absence and want of those fruits of redemption which are not yet completed. 

3. Christ intended, and did actually take away the curse of those punish- 
ments from every believer. As Christ came to take away the guilt of sin, so 
by consequence he took away the curse of punishment ; for as he was not a 
minister of sin, so he was not a minister of the curse, Gal. ii. 17 ; for he 
himself, by taking the curse upon himself, took it off from us ; so that 
though the curse remains materially, yet it doth not formally. As when man 
fell, his understanding and will were not destroyed, but the purity and health- 
fulness of those faculties which made up his well-being were lost ; so in re- 
demption, the temporal punishment is not removed, but the curse, which is 
the sting in that punishment, and is indeed the essential part of it, is removed, 
since the anger of God is pacified by the djeath of Christ. Death was a curse 
upon man for sin, yet the death of a believer falls not under that title, be- 
cause Christ hath taken away the sting : 1 Cor. xv. 55, 56, ' death, where 
is thy sting ?' &c. And the victory over it, he saith, is given us through our 
Jjord Jesus Christ ; whence the apostle puts even death itself, and things 
present, into the catalogue of privileges, upon the account of Christ : 1 Cor. 
iii. 22, * l^ie^ or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-beaeing women. 405 

and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' Not that death simply in itself 
is a privilege, but death as conquered, and as attended with consequent bless- 
ings, is so to a believer. Now the same reason is for all the other parts of 
the curse, which were either prologues to, or attendants upon, death. And 
as Christ destroyed death by raising his own body from the grave, thereby 
taking from death the power of perpetually retaining man, so in the same 
manner he hath took away those punishments, that they shall not perpetually 
remain, though they do for a time ; but when death is swallowed up in victory, 
all the attendants on it shall undergo the same fate. Though the curse was 
not immediately the work of the devil, yet that which procured it was ; and 
Christ's intention being to take away sin, it was also to take away the curse, 
which was intentionally the devil's work, his chief aim being to bring men 
under the curse, by enticing them to sin. The end of his manifestation was 
to destroy the works of the devil, 1 John iii. 8. Christ therefore bore our 
infirmities, our natural penal infirmities, though not our natural sinful ones, 
unless morally, i. e. by sufiering for them ; he bore the infirmity of our nature, 
though not our personal infirmities. He endured pain, and grief, and death, 
and greater than we can endure ; but he did not bear every particular pain 
and disease which ariseth from sin, and a particular cause ; yet by satisfying 
the justice of God, which required death, he satisfied for all other pains which 
were parts of the curse, though he did not formally feel them ; so that no 
longer they remain as a curse, no more than death itself is a curse to a be- 
liever. Now, as Christ by his death upon the cross did remove the sting of 
death from every behever, and sanctify it, though he did not die every kind 
of death which a man may die ; so by enduring pain and grief, and beinc a 
man of sorrows, he took away the sting of all those pains which are fruits of 
the curse, though they were of a difi'erent kind from those he hath himself 
endured. This I have added to prevent an objection that may be made, 
that Christ endured not this particular pain, and therefore the curse is not 
taken away. 

4. Hence it will follow, that to a believer the very nature of these punish- 
ments is altered. Whence ariseth a mighty difference between the same 
punishments, when sufiered by a believer and by an unregenerate man. Though 
they are materially the same, yet not formally, nor eventually. In the one, 
the sting remains ; in the other, it is pulled out. The one is an earnest of 
eternal torture, and a sprinkling of hell ; the other is in order to salvation, 
and sanctified by the blood of Christ. Christ by his cross hath made our 
judgments to become physic, and turned a believer's punishments into purges. 
The intention of the agent makes a vast difference. There is a great diff'er- 
ence between a punishment edged with a prince's wrath, and those which 
are sweetened with a father's affection; much diSerence between a chirurgeon's 
lance, and a tyrant's wound. The cord that binds a malefactor and a patient 
may be made of the same hemp, and a knife only go between; but it binds 
the malefactor to execution, the other to a cure. In a believer, they bring 
forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, Heb. xii. 11, such fruits of right- 
eousness which engender peace and joy in the soul. That which brings such 
excellent effects is rather an argument of love in the inflicter, and so cannot 
come under the full notion of a punishment. God comforts the Israelites 
that were to go into captivity by a gospel promise : Hosea xiv. 4, ' I will 
heal their backslidings ; I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned 
away from them.' The punishment was continued, for they never returned 
into their country in the form of a commonwealth ; but the anger was re- 
moved, so that the captivity of the believers among them was not the eff'ect 
of God's wrath as a judge, since they were under his magnificent love as a 



406 charnook's works. [1 Tim, II. 15. 

Father. The change in our relation to God, makes a change in the nature 
of the punishment ; though the punishment threatened may be inflicted and 
continued, yet the anger in that punishment may be turned away. 

5. Therefore all temporal punishments of original sin, though they remain, 
do not prejudice a believer's present interest. 

(1.) They cut not off his relation to God, A son is as much a son under the 
rod as in the bosom : neither the father's stroke nor the child's grief dissolve 
that near relation : nay, a father may shew more of a true paternal affection 
in his chastisements than in his caresses. The branches which are battered 
with sticks may be nearer the root than those that flourish at their ease. 
Christ, while a man of sorrows, was pronounced by God his well -beloved 
Son, and bore our punishment, not only without forfeiting his Father's affec- 
tion, but with a high gratification of him ; neither doth God's visiting the 
seed of Christ with stripes cut off their relation to him : Ps. Ixxxix. 32, 
' Then will I visit their transgressions with rods.' Whose transgressions ? 
Ver. 80, his children. Whose children ? Even the children of him whom 
he would make ' the first-born, higher than the kings of the earth,' ver. 27 ; 
which cannot be understood literally of David or his lineal posterity in the 
Jewish kingdom, who were never higher than the kings of the earth. 

(2.) They debar not from the presence of God, God may be and is as near 
to us in supporting as he is in punishing. It is not the cloud that inter- 
poseth between the sun and us that alters the sun's course or obstructs its 
influences, Christ took not off the badges of original guilt from those dis- 
ciples which had the greatest interest in his affections ; be left them in a 
sinful world to endure the fruits of sin ; he sent them not to ease, pleasure, 
and a quiet and painless hfe, but to labour, toil, and sweat, yet promised 
that he would abide with them, that he and his Father would manifest them- 
selves to them. And he turned that sweat and pain, which was the fruit of 
sin, by his presence with them, to be instrumental for the glory of God and 
the good of themselves in the world, 

(3.) They break not the covenant. His rod and his stripes, though they 
seem to break our backs, make no breaches in his covenant, Ps. Ixxxix. 
32-34 ; he will visit transgression with rods, but he will not suffer his faith- 
fulness to fail, nor break his covenant. No ; they are rather covenant mer- 
cies when they break our hearts, and are means by his grace to make our 
stony hearts more fleshy. He makes even those dispensations which were 
pronounced for punishment_ to bring forth covenant mercies, and the rich 
fruits of his gi-ace to grow upon the sour crab-stock of his judgments. 
Jacob, in Gen, xlix,, is said to bless his children, though he predicts smart 
afflictions to come upon them ; they are ranked among the blessings, because 
the covenant should remain firm. The lash removes not the inheritance. 
Austin saith well. Noli attendere quain j)Oinam habes in flagello, sed quern 
locum in testamento. 

6. Add to all this, that the first promise secures a believer under the suf- 
ferings of those punishments. God's affection in the promise of bruising the 
serpent's head was more illustrious in his wrath than the threatening. There 
are the bowels of a father in the promise, before there was the voice of a 
judge in the sentence. God brought sugar with his potion, and administered 
his cordial before he struck with his lance ; and therefore that threatening 
which commenced after the promise can no more prejudice the fruits of the 
promise to a believer, than the law, which was given four hundred and thirty 
years after the promise to Abraham, could disannul that and make it of no 
efl'ect, as the apostle argues in another case. Gal. iii. 17. Much less can 
the threatening denounced immediately after the promise change the veracity 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-bearing women. 407 

of God in that which was fresh in his mind at the very time of his threaten- 
ing. 

Obs. But it may be asked, What is the reason these punishments are con- 
tinued since the redemption wi-ought by Christ ? 

Ans. It is frequent with God to inflict a temporal punishment after pardon, 
not, as the papists assert, in orrler to satisfaction, Moses his unbelief hin- 
dered him from coming unto Canaan, so that when he desired to go over 
Jordan, God was wroth with him, cut him off short, and commands him 
silence : Deut. iii. 25, 26, ' Speak to me no more of this matter,' 
There are reasons : 
1. On God's part. 2. On our part. 
1. On God's part. 

(1.) It is congruous to the wisdom of God to leave them upon us while we 
are in the world. Since God created man to gain glory by his actions, but 
was presently after his creation disgraced and disparaged by him, it seems 
agreeable to the wisdom of God not immediately to bring him to his former 
state, but to leave some marks of his displeasure upon man, to mind him of 
the state whence he was fallen, the misery he contracted, and the necessity 
of flying to his mei-cy for succour. 

(2.) It is congruous to the holiness of God. God keeps up those punish- 
ments as the rector and governor of the world, to shew his detestation of 
that sin which brought a disorder and deformity upon the creation, and was 
the first act of dishonour to God, and the first pollution of the creature. It 
is an high vindication of the holiness and authority of God, and the majesty 
and purity of his law, to punish sin in them that are dear to him upon an- 
other's righteousness, whereby he evidenceth that he hates sin in all, and 
will not wink at it or approve of it. So he pardoned David ; but for the 
honour of his name, which had been blasphemed by occasion of David's sin, 
he would leave the smart of it upon his family, 2 Sam. xii. 10, 14. 

(3.) It is a declaration of his justice. It is not congruous to the justice of 
God not to leave some marks of his anger against that sin which caused him 
to be at the expense of his Son's blood, and is the source of all those evils 
whereby God is injured, for which the Kedeemer bled, and by which the 
Spirit is grieved, since pardon doth not, neither can, alter the demerit of 
sin ; but that will continue, and what is once meritoriously a capital crime in 
its own nature can never be otherwise. God may for the demonstration of 
his justice inflict and continue something upon the creature, though he free 
him from actual condemnation. We should not be so sensible of the justice 
of God in the death of Christ, did we not feel some strokes of it upon our- 
selves, nor what the purchase of our redemption did cost our Saviour. What 
we hear doth not so much affect as what we feel. That which brought dis- 
order into God's government of the world, and made him change the scene 
of his providence, may very justly have some signal remark upon it notwith- 
standing the redemption, especially when the fruits of it are not fully com- 
plete ; for since man was the immediate end of the creation of this lower 
world, and since all creatures were made for the service of man, that he 
might be tit for the service of his righteous Creator, he did by his fall 
violate the order of the creation, and subjected it to the service of the 
devil, a corrupt creature, and an enemy to God, the chief Lord of the 
world, and so did deprave the order of the universe, and endeavoured to 
frustrate the end of God and the end of all the creatures. It is very 
rational to think that though God, out of his infinite compassion, would 
not lose his creature, yet that he should set such a badge upon him that 
should make him sensible of a depravation he had wrought in the world. 



408 chaenock's works. [1 Tim. II. 15. 

(4.) It is useful to magnify his love. We should not be sensible of what 
our Saviour suffered, nor how transcendently he loved us, if the punishment 
of sin had been presently removed upon the first promise. Nay, how then 
could he have died in the fulness of time, which was necessary to the demon- 
stration of God's love, satisfaction of his justice, and the security of the 
creature's happiness ? God adds the threatening to the promise, as a dark 
colour to set off and beautify the brighter. As Christ suffered that he might 
have compassion on us, so are we punished that we might have an esti- 
mation of him. When Paul cries out of the body of death, so when we cry 
out of the punishment of sin, it should raise our thankfulness for redeeming 
love : ' I thank God through Jesus Christ,' Rom. -vii. 24, 25. We never 
know the worth of mercy till we feel the weight of misery. The sharper the 
pains of sin, the higher are our valuations of redeeming mercy. Inlsa. iv. 2, 
' In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious.' In 
what day ? After great punishments, ver. 1, and in the foregoing chapter. 
He appears most beautiful to us when we are under the lash for sin. As 
sin continues in us that the justifying grace of Christ's righteousness might 
more appear to us, so punishment continues on us that redeeming love might 
be more prized by us. 

2. On our parts. It is useful to us, 

1. To make us abhor our first defection and sin. It was great, and is not 
duly considered by us. This sin of Adam is the worst that ever was com- 
mitted in the world, extensively, though not intensively, worse than the sin 
of Judas or the sin against the Holy Ghost,* in respect that those are but 
the effects of it, and branches of that corrupt root ; also because those sins 
hurt only the persons sinning. But this drew down destruction upon the 
whole world, and drove thousands into everlasting fire and brimstone. It is 
not fit that this, which was the murder of all mankind, the disorder of the 
creation, the disturbing of God's rest in the works of his hands, should be 
passed over without a scar left upon us to make us sensible of the greatness 
of the evil. Though the wounds be great upon our souls, yet they do not so 
much affect us as those strokes upon our bodies. This certainly was one 
main end of God in this ; to what purpose else did he (after the promise of 
restoration, and giving our first parents the comfort of hearing the head of 
their great seducer threatened to be bruised by the seed of the woman) order 
this punishment, but to put them in mind of the cause of it, and stir up a 
standing abhorrency of it in all ages of the world ? Had not this been his 
intent, he would never have ushered it in by a promise, but ipso facto have 
showered down a destroying judgment upon the world, as he did upon 
Sodom, without any comfortable word preceding. God inflicts those punish- 
ments both to shew his own and excite our detestation of this sin. ' He 
binds us in those fetters to shew us our work and our transgression wherein 
we have exceeded,' Job xxxvi. 8, 9. 

2. To make us fear to sin, and to purge it out. Sin hath riveted itself 
so deep, that easy medicines will not displace it. It hath so much of our 
affections, that gentle means will not divorce us from it. We shall hate it 
most when we reap the punishment of it. Punishment is inflicted as a 
guard to the law, and the security of righteousness from the corrupt inclina- 
tions of the creature ; so it is lar^ila -^u^ng, as Plato calls punishment. As 
death is continued for the destruction of sin in the body, so are the lesser 
punishments continued for the restraint of sin in our lives. We need fur- 
ther conversions, closer applications of ourselves to God, more quick walks 
to him, and fixedness with him. God's smitings are to quicken our turn- 
* Kellet Miscel. 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfobt of child-bearing women. ' 409 

ings. As it was the fruit of Jacob's trouble to take away sin, Isa. xxvii. 9, 
so it is a great end of God in those common punishments of mankind to 
weaken corruption in a believer by them ; therefore, when we have any 
more remarkable sense of those punishments, let us see what wounds our 
sin gets thereby ; how our hatred of it is increased. If we find such gra- 
cious effects we shall have more reason to bless God for it than complain of 
it. Oh happy troubles, when they repair, not ruin us, when they pinch us 
and cure us, like thunder, which, though it trouble the air, disperses the 
infectious vapours mixed with it, or the tide, which, though turning the 
stream of the river against its natural course, carries away much of the filth 
with it at its departure. 

3. To exercise grace. Punishments of themselves have no power to set 
any grace on work, but rather excite our corruptions ; but the grace of God 
accompanying them makes them beneficial for such an end. God hath to a 
believer altered the commission of such punishments ; they are to exercise 
our faith, improve our patience, draw us nearer in acts of recumbency, but 
he hath given them no order to impair our grace, waste our faith, or deaden 
our hopes. 

(1.) Faith and trust: 1 Tim. v. 5, ' She that is desolate trusts in God.' 
The lower the state, the greater necessity and greater obligation to trust ; 
such exercises manifest -that the condition we are in is sanctified to us. As 
sin is suffered to dwell in a regenerate man, to occasion the exercise of faith, 
so is the punishment of sin continued for the same end. The continuance 
of it is a mighty ground of our confidence in God. We experiment the 
righteousness of God in his threatening, and it is an evidence he will be the 
same in his promise. When we bear the marks of his punitive justice, it is 
an evidence that he will keep up the credit of his mercy in the promise, as 
well as of his justice in the punishment, both being pronounced at the same 
time ; the good of the one is as sure by God's grace to our faith, as the 
smart of the other is by our desert to that sin. The continuance, therefore, 
of those punishments may be used by a believer as a means to fix a stronger 
confidence in God, for if he were not true to the one, we might suspect his 
truth in the other ; if God should be careless of maintaining the honour of 
his truth in his threatenings, we should have reason to think that he would 
be careless of maintaining the honour of it in his promises, and thereupon be 
filled with despondencies. What comfort could we have in an unrighteous 
God ? The righteousness of God in inflicting punishment is but a branch of 
that essential righteousness of his nature, which obligeth him to be righteous 
in the performing his promise too. It is a mighty support to faith, that the 
righteous God loveth righteousness. 

(2.) Obedience in a believer hath a greater lustre by them. It was the 
glory of Job, that he preserved his integrity under the smartest troubles. To 
obey a God always smiling, is not so great an act of loyalty as to obey a God 
frowning and striking. It is the crown of our obedience to follow our God 
though he visits us with stripes. It is a noble temper to love that hand 
which strikes us, and cheerfully serve that Father which lasheth us. Our 
obedience is too low when it must be excited by a succession of favours, and 
cannot run to God unless he allures it by smiles. It is then a generous and 
sincere obedience, when we can embrace him with a sword in his hand, trust 
him though he kill us, love him thongh he stone us, and, as the Persians did 
by the sun, adore him when he scorcheth, as well as when he refresheth us. 
Were these punishments wholly absent, we should not have a rise for so 
heroic faith and love, and our holiness in this state would want much of its 
lustre. 



410 chaenock's woeks. [1 Tim. II. 15. 

(3.) Humility. These punishments are left upon us to allay our pride, and 
be our remembrancers of our deplorable miscarriage. It had been an occa- 
sion of pride in us to be freed from punishment at the first appearance of a 
mediator. It is reasonable the soul should have occasions to exercise itself 
in a grace contrary to that first sin, pride, which was the cause of the fall. 
We affected to be gods, and punishment is left that we may know we are but 
men, which is the end of judgments : Ps. ix. 20, • Put them in fear, Lord, 
that the nations may know they are but men ;' we should otherwise think 
ourselves gods. We are so inclined to sin that we need strong restraints, 
and so swelled with a natural pride against God, that we need thorns in the 
flesh to let out the corrupt matter. The constant hanging the rod over us 
makes us lick the dust, and acknowledge ourselves to be altogether at the 
Lord's mercy. Though God hath pardoned us, he will make us wear the 
halter about our necks to humble us. 

(4.) Patience. Were there no punishments, there would be but little occa- 
sion for patience. This grace would not have had its extensive exercise, its 
full formation, without such strokes left upon the creature. Resignation to 
God, which is the beauty of grace, would not come to its due maturity and 
stature without such trials. So that in these reasons of the continuance, 
we see they are rather advantages to salvation than hindrances, by promoting, 
through the influence of God's grace, those graces in us which are necessary 
to a happy state. 

Use 1. See the infinite mercy of God, who, when upon the defection of our 
first parents he might have burnt up the whole world as he did Sodom, would 
upon the Redeemer's account, who stepped in, impose so light a punishment 
upon that sin; it is but light in comparison of what the natui'e of sin deserves, 
every sin being a contempt of the majesty of God, and a slight of his authority, 
and that sin having greater aggravations attending it. It is a merciful 
punishment, it might have been everlasting damnation ; God might have left 
us to the first sentence of the law, and made no exchange of eternal death 
for temporal pains ; he might have been deaf to the voice of a mediator, and 
put his mercy to silence, as he did Moses, ' Speak no more of this matter ;' 
but his bowels pull his justice by the arm, and hinder that fatal stroke, and 
a Mediator, by his interposition, breaks oif the full blow from us by taking 
it upon himself, and suflers only some few smart drops to light upon us. 
Oh wonderful mercy, that our punishment should not hinder, but rather 
further, our everlasting happiness by incomprehensible grace ! Let not, then, 
our punishments for sin hinder our thankfulness. Let our mouths swell 
with praise, while our bodies crumble away by diseases, and relations drop 
from us by death. Let us love God's glory, admire his mercy, while we feel 
his arrows ; whatever our punishments are, there is more matter for praise 
than murmuring. 

2. How should we bewail original sin, the first fall of man. It is a great 
slighting of God not to take notice either of his judicial or fatherly proceed- 
ings. As we are to lament any particular sin more especially when the 
judgments of God, which bear the marks of that sin in their foreheads, are 
upon a nation or person, so, thongh we are to bewail the sin of our nature 
at all times, yet more signally when the strokes of God, the remembrancers 
of it, are most signally upon us. A child doth more particularly think of 
his fault when he is under the correcting rod for it. We should scarce think 
of original sin, if we did not feel original punishment. All the pains of sin 
should be considered as God's sermon to us, and we should under them be 
afflicted with that sin, as we may suppose Adam and Eve were when they 
first heard the punishment denounced in paradise, when they had a sense of 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-bearing women. 411 

the flourishing condition they had lost for a slight temptation. To turn 
sorrow for pain into sorrow for our first sin, is to spiritualize our grief, and 
sanctify our passion. 

3. What an argument for patience under punishments is here ! The con- 
tinuance of them doth not hinder our salvation. ' Shall a living man com- 
plain, a man for the punishment of his sin ?' For such a punishment that 
doth not hinder his eternal welfare, but by the grace of God, and the exercise 
of faith, rather promote it. God promised as well as threatened ; both his 
mercy and righteousness directs him to that which is most for his honour 
and our good. Let us not by any impatience charge infinite wisdom with 
blindness or unrighteousness. They were punishments at first, but by faith 
in Christ, the deportment of a judge is changed into that of a father. 
Drusius hath an observation : Ps. Ivi. 10, * In God will I praise his word ; 
in the Lord will I praise his word.' The first word, Elohim, is a name be- 
longing to God as a judge, the second word, Jehovah, is a name of mercy ; 
I will praise God, whether he deal with me in a way of justice or in a way 
of mercy, when he hath thunder in his voice as well as when he hath honey 
under his tongue. Oh how should we praise God, and pleasure ourselves by 
such a frame ! When our distresses lie hard upon us, we should justify God's 
holiness. So the psalmist, or rather Christ, in the bearing our punish- 
ment, Ps. xxii. 1, 'But thou art holy,' when he expostulates with God why 
he had forsaken him, justifies God's holiness. Howsoever thou dealest with 
me, thou art holy in all thy ways. Thou doest me no wrong ; why should I 
complain, when holiness and hatred of sin guides thee in all those actings 
with me ? 

4. How earnest should we be to get rid of sin! By pardon, by sanctifi- 
cation. Guilt is the sting of punishment. Sin only embitters trouble. The 
remission and mortification of sin is the health of the soul. If the arrow's 
head be out of a wound, the cure will be more easy. ' Look upon my afilic- 
tion, and my pain, and forgive all my sin,' saith the psalmist, Ps. xxv. 8 ; 
forgiveness of sin would mitigate the sharpness of his pain. 

5. How should we act faith on God in Christ, before, and under, such a 
condition of punishment ! As we can never love God too much, because he 
is the highest good, so we can never trust God too much, because he is one 
of immutable truth. When we are in straits, it is not for want of faithfulness 
in God, but for want of faith in us, that we are many times not preserved. 
We distrust God, and this is the cause we fall into many distresses, which 
otherwise would not come upon us, or be quickly removed from us. . Did 
we grasp the promises closely, and plead them earnestly, we should often 
find the deliverance we desire. We pray, but we pray not in faith ; we cry 
for deliverance, but not with confidence ; we plead God's power, but forget 
his promise. Many temporal promises are not performed to us, not for want 
of truth in God, but for want of faith in us. Particular fiduciary acts will 
draw out the riches of a promise, for want of which we remain poor in the 
midst of abundance. Some think that the promise made to Josiah of his 
dying in peace, which phrase is usually meant in Scripture of a peaceable 
deatk upon the bed, was not performed, because Josiah was out of the way 
against the precept of God, and therefore could not act faith requisite to the 
fulfilling of that promise, for faith is much damped in its actings under 
present contracted guilt.* This faith in promises for outward preservation 
is not an absolute, infallible assurance that God will bestow such outward 
things (because the promises themselves are not absolute), but it is rather 
an indefinite act of recumbency, and submission, referring it to bis good 

* Tho. Goodwin. 



412 chaenock's wobks. [1 Tim. II. 15. 

pleasure towards ns. But it is certain we are very much defective in acting 
faith upon promises for temporal mercies, because it is an epidemical dis- 
temper in us to trust God with our souls rather than with our bodies and 
outward concerns. 

1. Exercise faith before such a time. Furnish yourselves with the com- 
forts of the covenant, and the efficacy of the death of Christ. In bodily dis- 
tempers, our minds are discomposed, and we cannot have that freedom of 
thoughts and spiritual reflections. This is the way to engage Grod, who is 
the best assistant, ' a very present help in time of trouble.' 

2. Exercise it in the use of spiritual means. God never commanded us 
to trust him but in his own methods. That is not trust in God which is at- 
tended with any wilful omissions. If we be careful in doing our duty, God 
will be careful in doing what belongs to him. Prayer is the best means for 
faith to exercise itself in. A spirit ef prayer beforehand is a sign of good 
success. When the heart is drawn eut to cry, it is a sign God stands ready 
with the mercy in his hand. Times of distress are times of calling upon 
God : Ps. xviii. 6, ' In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my 
cry.' God is to be acknowledged in all our ways, Prov. iii. 6 : in the begin- 
ning by prayer for his direction ; in the end, by praises for the success. We 
are usually more earnest in trouble. We have not at all times an equal fer- 
vency. Christ himself (some say) had not ; for when he was in his agony, 
he prayed more earnestly than before, Luke xxii. 44. 

3. Act faith upon the relation God bears to you. He is our Father. We 
trust earthly fathers, and are confident they will not abuse us. How much 
more ought we to trust our heavenly Father, and not doubt of his sincerity 
towards us ! The greater the trouble, the more we should plead God's rela- 
tion to us. Our Saviour in the garden. Mat. xxvi. 29, 42, at his entrance 
into his passion for us, prays to God by the title of mij Father, whereas at 
other times he calls God Father, without that appropriation. But now he 
would excite his confidence, and trust in God, and those promises he had 
made him to assist him in that hour. 

4. Act faith upon the attributes of God. There is nothing in God can 
affright a believer. There is not an attribute but seems fixed in God to en- 
courage our dependence on him in any strait ; wisdom, mercy, truth, omni- 
science, power, justice too (for what comfort could we have to trust an unjust 
God ?). All which attributes are promised to be assistant to a believer in 
any case of need, in the covenant of grace, where God -makes himself over 
to us as our God, and therefore all that God hath, and is, is promised there 
for oiir good. Upon the power of God : God's omnipotence was the ground of 
our Saviour's prayer to him in his distress, and that which the apostle seems 
to intimate his eyeing of : Heb. v. 7, ' He offered up prayers unto him that 
was able to save him from death.' And, Ps. xvi. 1, the psalmist, or rather 
Christ, pleads the power of God: ' Preserve me, Lord, for in thee do I 
put my trust.' ^^, 'iGyjjii. Aquila renders it strong. Plead the truth of God 
in his promise, the promise that preceded the threatening, viz., the bruis- 
ing the serpent's head, the defeating all his plots and designs, whereof this 
was one, to bring man into a state of punishment. There is a promise which 
has been especially tried and made good, though all in the book of God 
have been found true : Ps. xviii. 30, ' The word of the Lord is tried.' Not 
one word but the truth of it hath been tried, but especially this word, * that 
God is a buckler to them that trust in him,' i. e. that he will preserve and 
defend depending believers. 

5. Act faith upon Christ. Hath God delivered Christ to death ? It must 
be for some glorious end, not for destruction of the creature, that might 



1 Tim. II. 15.] comfort of child-beamng women. 413 

have been done without the death of his Son, but for remission ; if so, there 
is sufficient ground to trust him for everything else. We have a merciful 
high Priest, which encourageth us to make our addresses known to him. He 
cannot but be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, our penal infirmi- 
ties which he suffered, our sinful infirmities for which he suffered. "Where 
can he shew his mercy but in our misery ? Are we under God's strokes ? 
Christ himself felt them, that he might the better pity us. Are we in such 
cases tempted to despond and distrust ? He felt such fiery darts of the devil, 
that he might the better commiserate us. Run to him and cry out. Blessed 
Redeemer, compassionate High Priest, let thy pity break out to allay my 
grief, and support my weakness. 

Take a few encouragements to fiduciary acts. 

1. Nothing is more pleasing to Grod. The continuance in faith is the ne- 
cessary condition of our salvation. Nothing more honours him. We honour 
his wisdom and goodness, when we acknowledge that he hath a singular care 
of his creatures, and trust him in his own methods ; we own his skill in 
governing, and his goodness in bringing every thing about to the best end. 
Christ hath given us the highest example of trust, and highly pleased God 
in it, in coming into the world to die upon G-od's bare word and oath. It is 
all we can do to glorify God. Other graces glorify some particular attribute, 
but confidence in God glorifies all in the lump ; his vdsdom, righteousness, 
faithfulness, mercy, truth, omniscience, and power. There is no attribute 
but gives a particular encouragement to faith, and there is no attribute but 
faith returns a revenue of glory to. Despondency disparageth the Father's 
affection and the Redeemer's love. If we do not trust him, we imply that 
he hath not either wisdom, or love, or power, or faithfulness enough to be 
trusted by us, and that his wor4 is of no value. 

2. Nothing is more successful. It is the argument the psalmist, or 
rather Christ, useth, Ps. xvi. 1, * Preserve me.' Why ? ' Because I trust in 
thee.' Trust in God is a strong argument to prevail with God for preserva- 
tion. All the ancient fathers were deUvered by God upon their trust : Ps. 
xxii. 4, 5, ' Our fathers trusted in thee : they trusted, and thou didst deliver 
them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered : they trusted in thee, and 
were not confounded.' Faith in gospel promises is not a grace of a new date. 
It is as old as Adam's fall, as old as the patriarchs, and successful in all ages 
of the world. They were under new-covenant promises, and had new-covenant 
deliverances before the promises were actually sealed by the blood of Christ. 
How much stronger ground have we of trust now ! Faith draws out the 
treasures of God, and sets God on work to display both his wisdom, good- 
ness, and power : Ps. xxxi. 19, ' How great is thy goodness which thou hast 
laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that 
trust in thee !' Much more when faith is vigorously acted. Unbelief 
binds God's hands. Faith then draws forth that power which unbelief locks 
np. God is first the hope of Israel, and then ' the Saviour thereof in times 
of trouble,' Jer. xiv. 8, of every one of Israel. Where God inspires with a 
humble confidence in himself, there is hope of success, for God will not frus- 
trate the expectation of that which he hath been the author of in his creature. 
David had found such good evidence of this, that he tells God he would 
make bold with him upon every occasion of fear : Ps. Ivii. 3, ' What time I 
am afraid, I will trust in thee.' 

3. Nothing more calms the spirit. A fiduciary reliance on God is the way 
to live free from fears and anxieties. Faith is an estabhshing grace. By 
faith we stand. What storms would be in the minds of poor passengers in 
a ship, as great as those in the sea, if they had no pilot to direct them ! 



414 charnock's works. [1 John III. 9. 

How soon would the arrival of a skilful steersman, in whom they could 
confide, and that knew the shelves and rocks upon the coast, calm their 
disquiets ! 

Well, then, to sum up all. This very scripture is a letter of comfort, writ 
only to women in the state of child-bearing ; claim it as your right by faith. 
What comfort is here to appeal from the threatening to the promise, from 
God as a judge to God as a father, from G-od angry to God pacified in 
Christ ! How comfortable is this, that when God seems to fight against you 
with his punishments, you can take oif the edge of his weapons by the pleas 
of his promise ! Oh blessed God, who arms a believer against himself, be- 
fore he arms himself against a behever ! You can never be under the curse 
if you have faith, as long as God is sensible of his own credit in the pro- 
mise. In the material part of the punishment, there is no diflerence 
between a believer and an unbeliever. Jacob is pinched with famine as well 
as the Canaanite ; but Jacob is in covenant, and hath a God in heaven and a 
Joseph in Egypt to preserve him. God directs every pain in all by his pro- 
vidence, in believers by a particular love ; every gripe in all the physic he 
gives us. He orders even his contendings with his creature in such a mea- 
sure as the Spirit may not fail before him, Isa. Ivii. 16. 



A DISCOURSE OF THE SINS OF THE 
REGENERATE. 

Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him: 
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. — 1 John III. 9. 

The apostle, having exhorted the saints to whom he writes in the former 
chapter to abide in Christ, and to do righteousness, ver. 28, 29, follows on 
this exhortation with several arguments and demonstrations, that a true 
Christian is not only bound to do so, but that he indeed doth so. 

1. From that hope which hath eternal happiness for its object, ver. 2, 3. 
Where this hope is truly founded, it will inflame us with a desire and endea- 
vour after holiness, which is a necessary means to attain it. There will be 
an endeavour to be hke that head here, which they hope to be perfectly like 
hereafter. 

2. From the contrariety of sin to the law of God. It is not reasonable, 
neither can there be -such a disingenuous disposition in any to transgress the 
laws of that person from whom only he expects his highest felicity ; and the 
law of God, being pure and perfect, sin being contrary unto it, must be filthy 
and unreasonable. A Christian, who is guided by this law, will not trans- 
gress it. 

3. From the end of Christ's coming, which was to take away sin, ver. 5. 
And a Christian ought not to endeavour to frustrate the ends of Christ's 
coming by the nourishment of that which he came to destroy. 

4. From the communion they have with Christ. Abiding in him, they 
sin not. If any man sin, it is an evident sign he hath not the knowledge of 
Christ, ver 6, nor ever was conformed to that pattern. Where there is a 
communion with Christ, it is necessary such an one should be righteous, 
because Christ was so. 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the regenerate. 415 

5. From the first author of sin, the devil. He that sins hath a communion 
with the devil, ver. 8, as he that doth righteousness hath a communion with 
Christ. And to maintain the design and works of the devil is to walk con- 
trary to the end and design of Christ, which was to destroy the works of the 
devil. Those therefore that indulge themselves in sin, are the seed of the 
devil. 

6. From the new nature of a Christian, which hinders him from sin : ver. 9, 
' Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,' &c. Various expositions 
there are of this. The greatest difficulty lies in those words, doih not comiuit 
sin, and cannot sin. 

1. He ought not to sin. Cannot indeed is sometimes taken for ought not, 
as Acts iv. 20, ' For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and 
heard.' They had a physical ability to hold their peace, but morally they 
could not, because of Christ's precept to them to publish those things. What 
we cannot lawfully do, we cannot do. Non possumus quod non jure possumm, 
what we cannot honourably do, we are said not to be able to do : Mark vi. 5, 
' He could there do no mighty work,' Christ had natural ability to do 
mighty works there, but morally he could not, honourably he could not, 
because of their unbelief, which was a moral hindrance ; and according to 
God's methods there was no hope of doing any good among them. Their 
unbelief was so strong, they gave him no opportunity to do any mighty 
work. But this is not the meaning of cannot here, ought not ; for an unre- 
newed man ought not to sin any more than a regenerate man. But the 
apostle attributes here something peculiar to the regenerate, adding the 
reason, ' because he is born of God.' Though it carry in it something of an 
obligation in a higher manner than upon a mere natural man, he ought not 
to sin, not only upon the general obligation which Hes upon all men not to 
sin, but upon the more special one of his state, being a son of God, which 
ought to be counted a moral impossib-ility by a righteous man. Regeneration 
gives a man no advantage to sin, no external licence, no internal liberty 
or ability to sin ; for the apostle useth this as an argument to them as 
well as an establishment not to sin, because they are born of God, which 
was a more special obligation upon them not to sin than what they had by 
nature. 

2. He cannot sin so easily. It is not impossible but difficult for him to 
sin, because by receiving grace he receives a principle contrary to sin, and 
so hath a principle of resistance against it ; or because by that grace he is 
inclined not to sin, and so there is inchoative, an impossibility of sinning, 
which shall hereafter be perfected ; not a simple impossibility, but secundum, 
quid. He endeavours to work as one born of God^ and follows the motions 
of the Spirit against the sin to which he is tempted. 

He cannot sin, i. e. it is a hard matter for him to sin ; for considering the 
efficacy of grace, and the assistances attending it, it is a difficult thing for a 
righteous man to be brought under the power of sin. He may sin easily in 
respect of the frailty of the flesh, but not so easily in regard of the abiding of 
the seed in him, which helps him to beware of sin. Grace being a divine 
habit, hath the nature of a habit, which is to incline the person to acts proper 
to that habit, and facilitate those acts, as a man that hath the habit of an art 
or trade can with more ease work in it than any other. 

3. He cannot sin in sensii formali, as he is regenerate, ex vi talis nativi- 
tatis. Grace cannot sin, because it can do nothing but what pertains to the 
nature of it. As the heat cannot cool, unrighteousness cannot do good. 
Fire doth not moisten per se, nor water naturally heat. But it is not said, 
' The seed of God cannot sin,' but in the concrete, ' He that is born of God, 



416 charnook's works. [1 John III. 9. 

and he that hath the seed remaining in him, cannot sin." A gracious man, as 
a gracious man, cannot sin, for grace, being a good habit, is not capable of 
producing acts contrary to its nature. Sin in a regenerate man proceeds not 
from his grace, but from his corruption. Grace cannot be the principle of 
evil ; but because his grace is imperfect, dwelling among remainders of sin ; 
therefore a man's sins, though his principle in him keeps sin from attaining 
a full dominion and superiority, yet though he doth sin, his sin is not the 
proper fruit of the form whereby he is regenerate. 

4. He cannot sin in sensu composito, as long as be is regenerate, as long 
as the seed remains in him, as long as he follows the motions of the Spirit 
and grace, which are able to overcome the motions of concupiscence, but he 
may give up the grace ; as an impregnable tower cannot be taken as long 
as it is defended by those within, but they may fling away their arms and 
deliver it up. Grace, quantum est ex parte sua, renders a man impeccable as 
long as it continues in him, as innocency did render Adam immortal as long 
as he persisted in it ; but we may ex culpa nostra, lose it by mortal sin, and 
so perish, as Adam by his own will lost the integrity of his nature, and was 
thereby made subject to death. This is founded upon a false hypothesis, 
viz. that grace may be lost ; and the text renders the being born of God and 
the seed remaining in us to be the reason why we cannot sin, not the condition 
of our not sinning ; for if it remains, and we cannot sin therefore, how can 
any sin come in to expel that which preserves us, from it? A man must 
cease, according to what the apostle here writes, to be born of God before he 
can sin in that sense the apostle means. 

5. He doth not commit &in, and cannot sin, i. e. grave peccatwn, the mortal 
sin, and persist in it. The sin of unbelief, which is called in Scripture, by 
way of eminency, sin^ and the sin ; it is the chief sin the Spirit convinceth 
of ; it is the sin that ' easily besets us :' Heb. xii. 1, ' Let us lay aside every 
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,' i. e. especially unbelief. 
Though this be true, yet it is not the full meaning and sense of it. 

6. He doth not commit sin, and cannot sin, as the devil doth, or as one 
that is of a diabolical nature, as one that is acted by the devil, which is clear 
by the antithesis : ver. 8, * He that commits sin is of the devil, for the devil 
sins from the beginning.' He cannot set himself against Christ, as the devil 
doth, as the pharisees did, in which respect our Saviour calls them the 
children of the devil, for their remarkable and constant opposition to him. 
He cannot make a practice of sin, and persist in it, as the devil doth, who 
began to sin presently after the creation, and continueth in it ever since. 
He sins, the present tense noting the continued act of the devil. Sin may 
be considered two ways, viz., as to, 

1. The act of sin. Thus a believer sins. 

2. The habit of sin, or custom in it, when a man runs to sin freely, 
willingly, and is not displeased with it. Thus a believer doth not commit 
sin, nor cannot sin ; he commits it not : potius patitur qud,mfacit, he gives 
not a full consent to it ; he hates it while he cannot escape it. He is not 
such a committer of it as to be the servant of sin : John viii. 34, ' He that 
commits sin is the servant of sin,' because he serves with his mind the law 
of God. He bestows not all his thoughts and labour upon sin, in making 
* provision for the flesh,' Rom. xiii. 14, in being a caterer for sin ; he yields 
not up his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin ; he doth 
not let sin reign in his mortal body, nor yield a voluntary obedience to it in 
the lusts thereof, Rom. vi. 12, 13, for, being God's son, he cannot be sin's 
servant ; he cannot sin in such a manner, and so absolutely, as one of the 
devil's children, one born of the devil. 



1 John III. 9.J sins of the regenerate. 417 

' His seed remains in him.' Bis, refers to God, or the person born of 
God. God's seed efficiently, man's seed subjectively. 

' Bom of God.' Twice repeated : in the first is chiefly intended the de- 
claration of the state ; in the second, the disposition, or likeness to G-od. ^ 

Observe, 1. The description of a Christian : ' born of God.' 

2. The privilege of this birth, or effects of it. 
(1.) Inactivity to sin : he * doth not ' commit it. 
(2.) Inability to sin : he ' cannot.' 

3. The ground and reasons of those privileges. 

(1.) The inward form or principle whereby he is regenerate, which makes 
him unactive. 

(2.) The efficient cause, which makes him unable : ' born of God,' or like- 
ness to God, makes him unable. 

4. The latitude of them in regard of the subject : ' whosoever,' every re^ 
generate man. I intend not to run through all the parts of this text, having 
only chose it as a bar to presumption, which may be occasioned by the 
former doctrine, upon men's false suppositions of their having grace. There 
needs not any doctrine from the text ; but, if you please, take this : 

Doct. There is a mighty difierence between the sinning of a regenerate and 
a natural man. A regenerate man doth not, neither can, commit sin in the 
same manner as an unregenerate man doth. 

That I may not be mistaken, observe, when I use the word may sin, I 
understand it of a may of possibility, not a may of lawfulness. And when 
I say a regenerate man cannot sin so and so, understand it of a settled, 
habitual frame ; distinguish between passion and surprise, a sudden effort of 
nature and an habitual and deliberate determination. The sense of this 
cannot, I shall lay down in several propositions. 

1. It is not meant exclusively of lesser sins, or sins of infirmity. There 
are sins of daily incursion, and lighter skirmishes ; there are some open, 
some secret assaults, a multitude of secret faults, Ps. xix. 12, undiscernible 
and unknown. Every good man is like Jacob; though he hath one thigh 
sound, he hath another halting. I do not find that ever God intended to 
free any in this life from the remainders of sin. What he hath not evidenced 
to have done in any, we may suppose he intended not to do. It is a total 
apostasy, not a partial fall, that the covenant provides against. Christ, in 
his last prayer, prays for believers' preservation, and gradual sanctification, 
not for their present perfection. The very office of advocacy erected in 
heaven, supposeth sins after regeneration, and during our continuance in the 
world : 1 John ii. 1, ' My little children, I write unto you, that you sin not; 
and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.' ' In many things 
we offend all,' James iii. 2 ; not only you that are the inferior sort of Chris- 
tians, but we apostles. We is extensive ; all ofiend in many things. It is 
implied in the Lord's prayer, the daily standing pattern. As we are to pray 
for our daily bread, so for a daily pardon, and against daily temptations, 
which supposeth our being subject to the one, and our commission of the 
other. The brightest eun hath its spots ; the clearest moon, her dark parts. 
The church, in her highest comeliness in this world, hath her blackness of 
sin, as well as of affliction, because, though sin be dismounted from its 
throne by grace, it is not expelled out of its residence. It dwells in us, 
though it doth not rule over us, Rom. vii. 20 ; and it cannot but manifest 
itself by its fruits while it remains. Yet those sins do not destroy our adoption. 
Christ, in his sermon on the mount to his disciples, supposeth the inherency 
of sin, with the continuance of the relation of children : Mat. vii. 11, ' If, 

VOL. V. D d 



418 chaenock's wobks. [1 John III. 9. 

then, you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how 
much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them 
that ask him ?' He doth acknowledge them evil while he calls God their 
father, and gives them the title of children. To sin is to decline from that 
rectitude in an act which the agent ought to observe. In this respect we sin, 
according to the tenor of the law, in everything we do, though not according 
to the tenor of the gospel. 

2. A regenerate man cannot live in the customary practice of any known 
sin, either of omission or commission. 

1. Not in a constant omission of known duties. If a good man falls into 
a gross sin, he doth not totally omit the performance of common duties to 
God. Not that this attendance on God in his ordinances doth of itself argue 
a man to be a good man ; for many that walk in a constant course of sin 
may, from natural conscience and education, be as constant in the perform- 
ing external services as he is. It is a proper note of an hypocrite, that he 
will not always delight himself in the Almighty, nor always call upon God, 
Job xxvii. 10, i.e. not customarily. Whence it follows, that a delight in 
God in duties of worship is a property of a regenerate man. An act of sin 
may impair his liveliness in them, but not cause him wholly to omit them. 
We need not question but Da\dd, in the time of his impenitency, did go to 
the tabernacle, attend upon the worship of God. It is not likely that for ten 
months together he should wholly omit it, though no doubt but he was dead- 
hearted in it, which is intimated when he desires a free spirit, Ps. li., and 
prays for quickening, Ps. cxliii. 11, one of his penitential psalms. A total 
neglect of ordinances and duties is a shrewd sign of a total apostasy, and 
that grace was never in such a man's heart, especially a total omission of 
prayer. This is an high contempt of God, denying him to be the author of 
our mercies, depriving him of the prerogative of governing the world, dis- 
owning any need of him, any sufficiency in him, declaring we can be our 
own gods, and subsist of ourselves without him, and that there is no need of 
bis blessing. G-race, though sunk under a sin, will more or less desire its 
proper nom-ishment, the milk of the word, and other institutions of God. 
Nature, though oppressed by a disease, will require food to keep it alive. 
A good man, in this case, is like the planets, which, though they be turned 
about daily from east to west, by the motion of the primwn mobile, yet 
they still keep up their proper motion from west to east, either slower or 
quicker. 

2. Not in a customary commission of any known sin. To work iniquity, 
is the proper character of natural men, hence called workers of iniquity : 
Ps. v. 5, ' Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.' And by the same title 
are they called by Christ at the day of judgment : ' Depart from me, all 
you workers of iniquity,' that contrive, lay the platform of it, and work at 
it as at a trade, or as a curious piece of art. It is one thing to sin, another to 
commit or do a sin : Ps. cxix. 3, ' They do not iniquity, they walk in his 
ways ;' their usual, constant course is in the way of God ; they do not 
iniquity, they settle not to it, take not pleasure in it as their work, and way 
of livelihood. So it is the character of an ungodly man to walk in the ways 
of sin. Walking according to the course of the world, and fulfilling the 
desires of the flesh, are one and the same thing, Eph. ii. 2, 3. A good 
man may step into a way of sin, but he walks not in it, to make it either 
his business or recreation. So walking in sin, and living in sin, are put 
together. What is called ' walking after the flesh,' Rom. viii. 1, is called 
' living after the flesh,' ver. 13, which is the same with committing sin in 
the text. So ways and doings are joined together, Zech. i. 6. To make sin 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the eegenerate. 419 

our way or walk, is when a man chooses it as a particular trade and way of 
living. A good man in sin is out of his way ; a wicked man in sin is in 
his way ; a good man will not have so much as one way of sin ; a wicked 
bath many ways, for he seeks out many inventions. Not one example of 
the gross fall of a good man in Scripture will countenance any pretence for 
a course in sin ; for either they were not in a course of sin, or it was not 
a course of known sins. 

Noah was drunk but once, yet that was not a sin of the same hue with 
that among us. He first found out the fruits of the vine, Gen. ix. 20, knew 
nothing of the strength of the grape, and therefore might easily be overcome 
by an unusual Hquor. 

Lot's incest was but twice, and that unwillingly. He knew not his 
daughters' lying down or rising, neither time. Gen xix. 33, 35. And for his 
daughters, some think that they thought there was no man left upon the 
earth but their father ; but that is not clear, for Lot had been in Zoar, and 
departed thence to the mountain where their fact was committed. His 
drunkenness admits of some aggravations ; it was no fit season for him to 
swill after so sharp a judgment upon Sodom, so severe a remark of God 
upon his wife, and so great a deliverance to himself. Yet this was not a 
course of sin ; you read no more of it. There is difference between a man's 
being drunk, and being a drunkard : the one notes the act, the other the 
habit and love of it. 

Peter denied Christ, yet but three times together ; not three times with con- 
siderable intervals for a full deliberation. It is probable Peter's faith was so 
stupefied (as well as the faith of those disciples that were going to Emmaus : 
Luke xxiv. 21, ' We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed 
Israel,' who, and indeed all the disciples in several passages, seemed to expect 
a temporal kingdom to be erected by him), as therefore not to judge it fit to 
hazard himself for a person he thought himself so much mistaken in. How- 
soever it was, it was not a course of sin, and his repentance overrules the 
plea for any customary transgression. 

And though the Corinthians were charged with fornication, and eating 
things sacrificed to idols, yet it seems to be out of a con-upt judgment, as 
appears by the apostles' disputing against the one, 1 Cor. vi. 13-15, and 
against the other, 1 Cor. viii. And that neither of those were generally 
judged to be sins by the converted Gentiles, as appears' by the decree of the 
apostles, Acts xv. 28, 29, where they determine against both these ; though 
this was a course of sin, yet not a course of known sins. And after they 
were informed by the apostle of the sinfulness of them, they abstained ; 
therefore in the second epistle,* writ the year after to them, he charges them 
not with those former crimes, but comforts them for their being so much 
cast down with sorrow. 

David's sin, though lying upon him for about ten or twelve months, yet 
it was not a course of sin ; and we find a signal repentance afterwards ; but 
of that after. To walk in a road of known sins is the next step to commit- 
ting sin as sin, and manifests the habit of sin to have a strong and fixed 
dominion in the will. 

I shall confirm this by some reasons, because upon this proposition depend 
all the following. 

1. Regeneration gives not a man a dispensation from the law of God, 
As Christ came not to destroy the law, but to establish it, so grace doth not 
dispense with the law, but confirms the authority of it. Habitual grace is 

* The first epistle was writ the twenty-fifth year after the death of Christ, and tho 
second epistle, the twenty-sixth year, according to Baroniits. 



420 ohaknock's works. [1 John III. 9. 

not given ns to assist us in the breaches of it, but to enable us to the per- 
formance of it. As the grace of God, which hath appeared to all men, teaches 
the doctrine of holiness, so the grace of God in us enables us to walk in the 
way of holiness. Grace in a believer embraceth what the grace of God 
teaches. The moral laws of God are indispensable in themselves, and of 
eternal verity. Therefore as no rational creature, much less can a regenerate 
person, be exempted from that obedience to the law, which, as a rational 
creature, he is bound to observe. The grace of God justifying is never con- 
ferred without grace sanctifying. It is certain, where Christ is made right- 
eousness, he is made sanctification. It is not congruous to the divine holi- 
ness, to look upon a person as righteous, who hath not a renewed principle 
in him, no more than it is congruous to the divine justice and holiness to 
look upon him as righteous, merely for this principle so imperfect. 

2. It is not for the honour of God to suffer a custom and course of sin in 
a renewed man. It is true, a renewed man should not voluntarily, nor doth 
commit willingly, even sins of lighter infirmities ; but God suffers those, 
because they do not wound the honour of Christianity, though they discover 
a remoteness from a state of perfection. But they do not customarily fall into 
great sins ; for it seems not congruous to permit such courses commonly in 
any one which would disgrace religion, and make that despicable in the eyes 
of the world which God hath designed in all ages to honour. Since he hath 
delivered his Son to death, to preserve the honour of his law, it seems not 
to consist with his wisdom to let those who enjoy the fruits of his death walk 
in a customary contempt of his law. Neither can we think that God would 
permit that in a believer which is against the very essence of grace, though 
he may permit that which is against the beauty and accidental perfection 
of it. 

3. It is against the nature of the covenant. In the covenant, we are to take 
God for our God, ?. e. for our chief good and last end. But a course of sin 
is an adoration of the sinful object as the chief good and last end, because a 
man prefers the creatui-e before God, and loves it supremely, contrary to the 
will of God. It is essential for one in covenant with God to have an high 
valuation of God and his will. But a custom of known sins evidenceth that 
there is not a worthy and practical esteem of God, How can any condition 
of the covenant consist with a constant practice of sin ? How can there be 
faith, where the precept is not believed ? How can there be love, if the plea- 
sure of God be not regarded ? How can there be fear, if his authority be wil- 
fully contemned ? How can there be a new heart, when there is nothing but 
an old frame and a diabolical nature ? It is a renouncing those conditions 
upon which a right to heaven is founded ; for a worker of iniquity walks in 
those ways which are prohibited upon pain of not entering into that place of 
glory, and so doth wilfully refuse the acceptance of the conditions on God's 
part, and the performance of the conditions on his own part, which are 
necessary to God's glory and his own interest. It is an invasion of God's 
right, whereby he refuseth God for his God and Lord, and sets up himself as 
his own governor; an affecting virtually an equality with God, and inde- 
pendency on him, which, in the common nature of sin, is virtually the same 
with that of the devil, who sinned from the beginning; and, therefore, a 
course of sin one that is born of God doth not continue in. Perhaps the 
apostle, in the text, might have some such respect upon his opposing the 
believer's not committing sin to the sin of the devil from the beginning, viz., 
such a course of sin whereby a man declares, as the devil did, that he will be 
his own governor, as indeed, in every course of sin, a man doth practically 
declare. 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the regeneeate. 421 

4. It is against the nature of our first repentance and conversion to God. 
True repentance is ' a breaking off iniquity by righteousness,' Dau. iv. 27, a 
turning from sin to holiness, from ourselves to God, from our own wills to 
the will of God ; from everything else, as the chief good and last end, to God 
as both these. Now, though a particular act of sin be against the watchful- 
ness which attends repentance, yet a course of sin is against the nature of 
it ; * the one is against the liveliness of repentance, the other against the life 
of it. A delightful walking in any known sin, though never so little, is a 
defiance of God, and therefore contrary to the nature of conversion, and is a 
virtual embracing of all sin whatsoever ; because he that, in his ordinary 
walk in sin, hath no respect to the will and pleasure of God, though he knows 
it, and will not be restrained from, his delight by any such regard of God, 
would be restrained from no other sin whatsoever, if he did conceive them 
as pleasant, advantageous, and suitable to him, as he doth that which is his 
darling. As he that ' breaks one point of the law is guilty of all,' James ii. 10, 
because be shews thereby a will and disposition to break all, if the same 
occasions were offered ; so he that commits one known sin wilfully, much 
more he that walks in a course of sin, is guilty of all sins virtually. For he 
would boggle at no temptations upon a respect to God ; because, if a regard 
to God doth not prevail upon him against a course in one kind, it will not 
detain him from a course in all other kinds of sin, if he come under the same 
circumstances for it. Let me add this too : if he that offends in one point of 
the law be guilty of all, i. e. as much delight and eagerness as he hath in the 
breach of that one, it is to be supposed that he would have in the breach of 
all the rest upon the former reason, can then such a disposition, which is in 
every course of known sin, be consistent with the nature of repentance and 
conversion ? 

5. It is against the nature of habitual grace, which is the principle and 
form of onr regeneration. If he doth not commit sin because the seed of 
God remains in him, then such a course of sin is against the nature of this 
seed, inconsistent with the birth of God. A crooked and perverse spirit in 
Bin is a sign of a putrefied soul, a spot of a different nature from that of 
God's children : Deut. xxxii. 5, ' They have corrupted themselves ; their spot 
is not the spot of his children : they are a perverse and crooked generation.' 
It is a stain peculiar to the children of the devil, not the sons of God. A 
trade in sin is an evidence of a diabolical nature: 1 John iii. 8, '^ He that 
commits sin is of the devil.' It is not, therefore, consistent with grace, 
which is a divine nature. The reign of sin is inconsistent with the reign of 
grace, though the rebellion of sin be not. It is against the nature of regene- 
ration for sin to guide our wills, though it be not against the nature of it for 
sin to reside in our flesh. To ' walk after the flesh,' Eom. viii. 1, is an 
inseparable character of a natural man. The apostle, Eom. vii. 25, had been 
complaining of the law of his members, the serving sin with his flesh. He 
comforts himself with this, that he obeyed it not, and that they were in 
Christ, whose ordinary walk was as the Spirit led, not as the flesh allured. f 
And, indeed, every tree brings forth fruit suitable to its nature. A vine 
brings not forth thorns ; and he that hath the eeed of God is under an im- 
possibility of bringing forth the fruits of sin with delight, since he hath a 
root of righteousness planted in him. 

1. It is against the nature of a renewed understanding. A regenerate 

man hath a new light in his mind, whereby he hath a fairer prospect of God, 

and a fouler of sin. He was an enemy to God in his mind before. Col. i. 21, 

He had dishonourable opinions and conceits of God and goodness, and 

* Taylor of Repentance, p: 188. t Amyraut. in Joh. viii. 9. 



422 charnock's works. [1 John III. 9. 

honourable thoughts of sin above its merit ; he thought ill of the one and 
well of the other. But now he is ' renewed in the spirit of his mind,' Eph. 
iv. 23 ; and he hath the ' spirit of a sound mind,' 2 Tim. i. 7. His 
judgment is regulated by the law of God ; he judges of sin as it is, in its 
nature, a transgression of the law. Can we imagine that a man restored to a 
sound mind, and that hath his natural madness and folly cured, should act, after 
this cure, as much out of his wits as before ? If he hath his constant frenzies 
and madness as much as before, where is his cure ? Can any man in the 
world act always against his judgment ? Though he may be overpowered by 
the importunity of others, or overruled by a fit of passion, to do something 
against his judgment, can you expect always to find him in the road of cross- 
ing the dictates of his understanding ? An unregenerate man hath a natural 
light in his mind and conscience, and so a judgment of sin ; but he hath not 
a judgment of sin adequate to the object, he doth not judge of sin in the 
whole latitude of it, he hath not a settled judgment of the contrariety of his 
beloved sin to God. He looks not upon it in the extent of it, as, malum 
injucundum, inhonestmn, inutile. If he looks upon sin as dishonest, he 
regards it as profitable ; if neither as honest or profitable, yet as pleasant ; 
so that the natural light, which is in the understanding when it dictates right, 
is mated and overruled by some other principle, the pleasure or profit of it, 
and swayed by the inherent habits of sin in the will. The devil that works 
in them hath some principle to stir up, or dim this natural light and cast a 
mist before the eye ; and so they direct their course according to that par- 
ticular judgment which is befriended in its vote by sense. 

2. It is against the nature of a renewed will. Grace is the law of God in 
the heart, and is put in to enable us to walk in the ways of God ; and shall 
it endure such wilful pollutions in the creature, when it is the end of its being 
there to preserve from them ? The Spirit is given in the heart, 2 Cor. i. 22, 
sent into the heart. Gal. iv. 6 ; the law put into the heart, Heb. x. 16. 
Since, therefore, there is an habit of grace in the will, a man cannot fre- 
quently and easily launch into sin ; because he cannot do it habitually, the 
remainders of sin being mated with a powerful habit, which watcbes their 
motions to resist them. Doth God put such a habit there, such a seed, an 
abiding seed, to no purpose but to let the soul be wounded by every tempta- 
tion, to be deserted in every time of need ? Grace is an habit superadded to 
that natural and moral strength which is in the will. Man, by nature's 
strength merely, or with the assistance of common grace, hath power to avoid 
the acts of gross sins ; for he is master of his own actions, though he is not 
of the motions tending to them. The devil cannot force a man's will. And 
when grace, a greater strength, comes in, shall there be no efi'ects of this 
strength, but the reins be as stiff in the hands of old lust, and the will as 
much captive to the sinful habit of it, as before ? Grace being a new nature, 
it is as absurd to think that a gracious man should wallow in a course of sin, as 
it is to think that any creature should constantly and willingly do that which is 
against its nature. A gracious man ' delights in the law of God': Ps. i. 2, 
' His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day 
and night.' If he delights in it, can he delight to break it ? Do men fling 
that which they delight in every day in the dirt, and trample upon it ; or, 
rather, do they not keep it choicely in their cabinets ? If it be also the 
character of a good man to ' meditate in the law' of God, he must have fre- 
quent exercises of faith, reflections upon himself, motions to God, which 
cannot consist with a course of sin. Grace doth essentially include a con- 
trariety to sin, and a love to God in the will. It is a principle of doing good 
and eschewing evil ; and these being essential properties of grace, are essen- 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the begenebate. 423 

tial to every regenerate man, and in every one. As a drop of water or one 
spark of fire hath the essential properties of a great mass of water or a great 
quantity of fire, so every renewed man hath the same love to God and the 
same hatred to sin essentially as the most eminent saint, though not in 
degree ; yea, which those in heaven have, though not in the same degree. 
As a spark of fire will burn, a drop of water will moisten, though not in so 
eminent a measure. Now, upon the whole, consider whether is it possible 
to bare reason that a regenerate man should customarily do those things 
which are against the essential properties of that which is in him, in his will, 
and doth denominate him a new creature ? 

Prop. 3. A regenerate man cannot have a fixed resolution to walk 
in j^such a way of sin, were the impediments to it removed. Though 
unregenerate men may actually, as to the outward exercise, abstain from 
some sins, yet it is usually upon low and mean conditions. If it were not 
for such or such an obstacle in the way, I would do such and such an act. 
This temper is not in a good man ; he cannot have a fixed and determinate 
resolution to commit such an act if such bars were taken away. Such reso- 
lutions are common in unregenerate men : Jer. xliv. 25, ' We will surely 
perform our vows which we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of 
heaven ;' and Isa. Ivi. 12, ' We will fill ourselves with strong drink, and 
to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant ;' we will have as 
merry a meeting as we had to-day. The same character is ascribed to such 
an one : Ps. xxxvi. 4, ' He deviseth mischief upon his bed. He sets him- 
self in a way that is not good. He abhorreth not evil.' He models out his 
sinful designs with head and heart ; he settles himself as an army settles in 
their ground when they resolve to fight, DND'' ; he abhors not evil ; he 
starts not at such motions, but by a meiosis, he hugs and caresseth them 
with a wonderful delight. Regenerate men fear to sin, wicked men contrive 
to sin. One would starve it, the other makes provision for it. This temper 
cannot be in a regenerate man. 

1. It is diabohcal, and so falls under that in the text. He cannot commit 
sin as the devil doth. It is a stain of the devil, who is resolved in his way 
of malice to God, and mischief to man, but for the strait chains God holds 
him in. His resolution is fixed, though the execution restrained : ' He goes 
about seeking whom he may devour,' 1 Pet. v. 8, xaraTiri, to drink at one 
draught ; seeking both for an opportunity and permission. Unwearied 
searches manifest fixed resolutions. His throat is ready to swallow, if he 
had a morsel for it. 

2. It is a sign of habitual sin, a state of sin. This temper manifests that 
the will is habituated in sin, though the hand doth not outwardly act it. 
The inherent power of sin must be great, when a man is greedy to commit 
that to which he hath no outward allurements, or when those allurements 
are balanced with contrary considerations ; when he hath either no outward 
temptation to it, or the cross impediments are as strong, or stronger, than 
the temptation. When men, in the midst of such bars, long for a tempta- 
tion, it is such a kind of desire in one way as the creature hath in another 
for the manifestation of the sons of God : Rom. viii. 19, ' For the earnest 
expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation ;' it is ocTroxa^adoxla, 
a putting out the head to see if he can find any coming to knock ofl" the 
fetters, not of his sin, but of his forced moi-ality. In this case take two 
men ; one commits a great sin upon a temptation, even as it were over- 
powered by it, and had no thoughts, no inclinations, before that tempta- 
tion appeared which began first to spirit him ; another commits a Hghter 
sin, or would fain commit it, upon a weak temptation, and many bars 



424 charnock's works. [1 John III. 9. 

lying in the way, and his heart was hankering and thirsting for some op- 
portunity to commit it ; which do you think really is the greater oflfence iu 
point of heart and affection ? The first appears blacker, but it is an in- 
vasion ; the other is really blacker, because it is an affection, and shews 
sin to be rooted in the heart as its proper soil, wherein sin delights to grow, 
and the soil delights to nourish it. The one shews sin to be a stranger 
and a thief, which hath waylaid him, the other evidenceth sin to be an in- 
mate and intimate friend. Such a man is not obliged to his will for his 
abstinence from sin, but to the outward hindrances ; and the resolving act 
of the will to commit it, were those impediments removed, is as real an act 
of sin in the sight of God as any outward act can be in the sight of man, 
because God measures the greatness of sin by the proportion of the will 
allowed to it ; therefore many sins which may be little in our account may 
be greater in God's account than the seemingly blacker sins of others, be- 
cause there may be a greater ingrediency of the heart and affection in them 
than in the other. 

3. It is against the nature of our repentance and first closing with God. 
Repentance is a change of the purpose of the heart not to commit the same 
iniquity again, nor any other : Job xxxiv. 82, ' If I have done iniquity, I 
will do no more.' It is the property of converting grace to make the soul 
cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart, Acts xi. 23. This is essential 
to it, though there may be some startings out by passion and temptation, 
A pilot's intention stands right for the port, though, by the violence of the 
wind, he may be forced another way. It alters not his purpose, though it 
defer his performance. This purpose is a perpetual intent: Ps. cxix. 112, 
* I have inclined my heart to keep thy statutes alway, even to the end.' It 
was an heart-purpose and inclination. It regarded all God's statutes, not 
for a fit, but perpetually, which he manifests by two words, always, even to 
the end, to shew that the perpetuity of it doth difference it from the 
resolutions of wicked men, who may indeed have some fits to do good, but 
not a fixed purpose to cleave to the Lord. These flashy purposes are like 
the flight of a bird, which seems to touch heaven, and in a moment falls 
down to the earth ; as Saul resolved not to persecute David, but we soon 
find him again upon his old game and pursuit. Where there is true grace, 
there is hatred of all sin, for hatred is crg6$ ro yhog. Can a man be resolved 
to commit what he hates ? No ; for his inward aversion would secure him 
more against it than all outward obstacles. As this inward purpose of a 
good man is against all sin, so more particularly against that which doth so 
easily beset him. David seems in several places to be naturally inclined to 
lying, but he takes up a particular resolution against it : Ps. xvii. 3, ' I am 
purposed that my mouth shall not transgress ;' TlDT, I have contrived to way- 
lay and intercept the sin of lying when it hath an occasion to approach me. 
A good man hath not only purposes, but he endeavours to fasten and 
strengthen those purposes by prayer ; so David, ver. 5, ' Hold up my goings 
in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.' He strengthens himself by stir- 
ring up a liveliness in duty, and by avoiding occasions of sin ; ver. 4, ' I 
have kept me from the paths of the destroyer ;' whereas a wicked man 
neither steps out of the way of a temptation, nor steps up to God for strength 
against it. Now if all this be true, that in conversion the heart hath a 
fixed resolution for God and his ways, and that perpetually, against all sin, 
and particularly against the sin of our natural inclination, and all this backed 
with strong cries, how can it have a fixed resolution to commit it, if the 
way were outwardly fair for it ? 

4. It is absolutely against the terms of the covenant. God requires in 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the regenerate. 425 

that a giving np ourselves to him to be his people with our whole heart and 
soul, as he gives himself to us with his whole heart. He will not be a 
sharer of the heart with sin, much less an underling to it. God will not 
endure a competitor in the affections. To serve God and mammon are in- 
consistent, by the infallible axiom of our Saviour, Luke xvi. 13. Now as 
God cannot be true to his covenant if he had purposes against the articles 
of it on his part, so neither can we be true to our covenanting with him if 
we have settled purposes of heart against the conditions of it. Therefore 
the instability in the covenant ariseth only from the falseness of the heart : 
Ps. Ixxviii. 37, ' Their heart was not right with him, neither were they 
Btedfast in his covenant.' The iniquity of our heels may compass us about, 
and make us stumble in our walk, yet our fears of being out with God may 
receive no establishment : Ps. xlix. 5, ' Wherefore should I fear, when the 
iniquity of my heels shall compass me about ?' Whether he means by ini- 
quity the sins of his ordinary walk, or the punishment of them, is all one. 
But yet if purposes of iniquity settle their residence in the heart, though we 
never act it, by reason of obstacles, it is a sign we never sincerely closed 
with God in covenant, nor God with us. The very regards of iniquity in 
the heart put a bar to the regards of God towards us. It hinders all cove- 
nant acts on God's part, because it is a manifest breach of it: Ps. Ixvi. 18, 
'If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,' Tl^N") ; if I 
have curiously and intently looked upon iniquity with pleasure in my heart, 

6. It is against the nature of regeneration. Regeneration is a change of 
nature, and consequently of resolutions. A lion chained up hath an inclina- 
tion to ravage, but a lion changed into the nature of a lamb loses his in- 
clinations with that change of his nature ,' so that it is as impossible a 
regenerate man can have the fixed and determinate resolutions that a wicked 
man hath, as it is impossible that a lamb should have the ravenous disposi- 
tion of a lion. You know the Scripture makes the change as great. How 
can any man resolve to do a thing against that law which at the same time 
he hath an habitual approbation of as holy, just, and good ? against a law 
natural to him, viz. the law of the heart ? If a delight in the law of God be 
a constitutive part of regeneration, then any settled purpose to sin is incon- 
sistent with regeneration, because such a purpose, being a testimony of an 
inward delight in that which is contrary to the law of God, cannot consist 
with a delight in that which forbids what his heart is set upon. 

Prop. 4. A regenerate man cannot walk in a way doubtful to him, 
without inquiries whether it be a way of sin or a way of duty, and without 
admitting of reproofs and admonitions, according to his circumstances. 
This consists of two parts. 

1. He cannot walk in a way doubtful to him, without inquiries whether 
it be a way of sin or of duty. If the nature of conversion be an inclination 
of the heart to keep God's statutes always, even to the end, Ps. cxix. 112, 
the natural result then will be an inquiry what are the statutes of God which 
the soul is to keep. A natural man, for fear of being disturbed in his sinful 
pleasure, refuseth to understand the way of the Lord, and delights to be 
under the power of a wilful darkness : Job xxi. 14, 15, ' We desire not the 
knowledge of thy ways : what is the Almighty that we should serve him ? 
and what profit should we have if we pray to him ?' This unwillingness to 
know the ways of God arises from u 'contempt of the Almighty and his ser- 
vice. They judged it not profitable to serve and worship God, and therefore 
were loath to receive any instruction, for fear any light should spring up in 
them, by way of conviction, to disturb thera. Men love sin, and therefore 
hate any knowledge which may deprive them of the sweetness of it : Prov. 



426 chaenock's wokks. [1 John III. 9. 

i. 22, ' The scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge.' 
They delight in sin, and therefore hate any knowledge which may check 
their delight. And this unwillingness to choose the fear of the Lord is the 
ground of their hating' the knowledge of it: ver. 30, ' For that they hated 
knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord.' They are afraid to 
be convinced that the way of their delight is a way of sin ; they would have 
no gall in their conscience to embitter the honey of their lusts. This hatred 
of knowledge is inconsistent with true conversion, because conversion is an 
election or choice of the fear of God, and therefore cannot resist any means 
tending to promote that which is chosen. It is essential to true grace to 
inquire into the mind and will of God, to understand what is pleasing to 
him : Job. xxxiv. 32, ' That which I see not, teach thou me : if I have done 
iniquity, I will do no more.' Inform me in what I know not, and if I under- 
stand it is iniquity which I have walked ignorantly in, I will do it no more. 
He will not return to folly when he shall hear what God the Lord shall speak. 
It is certainly incompatible to the new nature to act in a contrariety to God. 
Grace is always attended with an universal desire to know his will, and plea- 
sure him in performing it ; hence will follow an inquiry, what behaviour 
and what acts are most agreeable to him: John xiv. 21, ' He that hath my 
commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me ; 'Exihog sari. The 
antithesis is. He that hath no mind to have my commandments, because he 
would not keep them, hath no love to me. He it is, emphatically, exclu- 
sively, that is the man, and none else, that loves me. Now if a man be afraid 
of making inquiry into the lawfulness of a course he is wedded to, for fear his 
beloved object should appear to be a sin, it is a sign he abstains from what 
he knows certainly to be a sin out of a servile fear, not out of a generous, 
divine love, a principle as essential to the new nature as fear is to an en- 
lightened carnalist. 

2. A regenerate man cannot despise admonitions and reproofs, which 
would inform him and withdraw him from a sinful course. If he be in the 
way of Hfe that keeps instruction, then he that refuseth reproof is in the way 
of death : Prov. x. 17, ' He is in the way of life that keeps instruction : but 
he that refuseth reproof erreth.' It is put in a milder expression, but if you 
observe the opposition, it amounts to the inference I make : so, Prov. xv. 
9, 10, ' The Lord loves them that follow after righteousness. Correction is 
grievous unto them that forsake the way : and he that hates reproof shall 
die.' Here is a plain opposition made between them that follow after right- 
eousness, which is the character of a regenerate man, who is therefore the 
object of God's love; and that person that accounts correction grievous, and 
hates reproof, he is not one that follows after righteousness (to pursue is to 
embrace it), and therefore not the object of God's love, but the mark of 
death ; so that it is impossible a righteous man should hate reproof. Nay, 
the hating of reproof, whereby a man might be informed of his duty, is a 
sign, not of a bare unregeneracy, but of one at the very bottom of it, wallowing 
in the very dregs and mud of it, farthest from the kingdom of heaven ; one 
that scarce looks like a rational creature: Prov. xii. 1, ' Whoso loves instruc- 
tion, loves knowledge : but he that hates reproof is brutish.' Whereas 
Solomon's wise man, which is a regenerate man, will love the reprover for 
the reproof's sake, and grow wiser by instruction : Prov. ix. 8, 9, ' Reprove 
not a scorner, lest he hate thee : rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. 
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser : teach a just man, 
and he will increase in learning.' Just men change their intentions upon a 
discovery of the sinfulness of their way ; and though it may not at the first 
assault of an admonition appear to be a sin, yet it will check somewhat their 



1 John III. 9.j sins of the regenerate. 427 

violence in it. But where sin hath a dominion, every check and discovery 
of it doth rather inflame than quench it ; and the heart, like a stream, rises 
the higher for the dam. Judas had an admonition from Christ that informed 
him of what wickedness he was about, and the danger of it, Mark xiv. 21. 
He pronouDceth a woe against him. Compare this with John xiii. 27, 30, 
when he gives him the sop, which was at the same time he informed him of 
the danger, Satan entered into him, and he went more roundly to work to 
accomplish it ; he went immediately out. Observe, by the way, that the 
Spirit of God enters into a man's heart often upon admonitions from friends, 
and the devil also more powerfully upon the same occasions than at other 
times. A good man cannot habitually hate the reprover. There is one ex- 
ample of a good man dealing hardly with a prophet for reproving him in the 
name of the Lord : 2 Chron. xvi. 10, ' Then Asa was wroth with the seer, 
and put him into a prison-house ; for he was in a rage with him because of 
this thing ;' and partly for the judgment of war against him. But the Scrip- 
ture gives an allay to it ; ' for he was in a rage ;' he was in a passion, because 
of the threatening and the plainness of the speech, ' thou hast done foolishly.' 
To say such a word to an inferior, would ordinarily now a days swell many 
a professor to a fury, much more a prince. This very proposition will discover 
that there are many more pretenders to a regenerate state than possessors 
of it, so strangely is not only human nature, but the Christian religion, de- 
praved among us. 

Prop. 5. A regenerate man cannot have a settled, deliberate love to any 
one act of sin, though he may fall into it. Thus the devil sins ; he loves 
what he doth. Though a good man may fall into a sin, and even such a 
sin, which he was much guilty of before his conversion, and which he hath 
repented of, yet never into a love of it, or the allowance of any one act of it ; 
for by regeneration the soul becomes like God in disposition, and therefore 
cannot love anything which he hates, whose hatred and love being always 
just, are unerring rules to the love and hatred of every one of his children. 
He can never account a sin his ornament, but his fetter ; never his delight, 
but his grief. I add this proposition, because there may be a love of an 
act of sin where there is not a constant course in it ; as a man that hath 
committed a murder out of revenge, may love afterwards the very thoughts 
of that revenge, though he never murder any more. And a man that hath 
committed an act of adultery, may review it with pleasure, though he never 
commit an act again ; but a good man cannot. David is supposed to be in- 
clined to the way of lying and dissembling ; though he may falter some- 
times, and look that way, and perhaps fall into it, yet never into a love of 
it ; therefore observe, Ps. cxix. 163, ' I hate and abhor lying ; but thy law 
do I love.' A ^single hatred would not serve the turn ; but, ' I hate and 
abhor.' I have not tbe least afiection to this of any, though I have the 
greatest natural inclination to it. What was the reason ? ' Thy law do I 
love.' There was another afi'ection planted in his soul, which could not 
consist with a love to, or allowance either of the habit, or any one act of 
lying. A good man hath yielded his soul up to the government of Christ, 
his affections are fully engaged ; he cannot see an equal amiableness in any 
other object, for he cannot lose his eyes again ; his enlightened mind cannot 
be wholly blinded and deceived by Satan ; he walks not by the inveiglements of 
sense, but by the unerring rule of faith ; so that, though by some mists 
before his eyes, he may for a while be deluded, yet as he cannot have a 
settled false judgment, so he cannot have a settled affection to any one act 
of sin. It is one thing for a city to surrender itself to the enemy out of 
affection, and another thing to be forced by them : under a force they may 



428 chaenock's works. [1 John III. 9. 

retain their loyalty to their lawful prince. There may be some passionate 
approbations of an act of sin. Jonah was an advocate for his own passion 
against God, and made a very peremptory apology for it : Jonah iv. 9, ' I 
do well to be angry, even to the death.' Yet, if we may judge by his former 
temper, we cannot think he did afterwards defend it out of judgment, as he 
did then out of passion ; for when the lot fell upon him, Jonah ii. 9, 12, he 
made no defence for his sin ; he very calmly wishes them to cast him into 
the sea. Where there is a passionate approbation, it cannot be constant in 
a good man ; for when he returns to himself, his abhorrences of the sin, and 
himself for it, are greater, as if by the greatness of his grief he would endea- 
vour to make some recompence for the folly of his passion. 

Observe, by the way, a good man may commit a sin with much eagerness, 
and yet have a less affection to it in the very act, than another who acts 
that sin more calmly ; because it may arise, not "from any particular inclination 
he hath in his temper to that sin, but from the general violence of his natural 
temper, which is common to him in that action. This seems to be the case 
of Jonah, both in this and the former act. But if a man be more violent in 
that act of sin than he is in other things by his natural temper, there is 
ground both for himself and others to think, that sin hath got a great 
mastery over his affec/ions. 

Peter seems to be a man of great affections, and of a forward natural 
temper ; he was very hasty to have tabernacles built in the mountain for his 
Master, Moses, and Elias, and have resided there. He hastily rebukes his 
Master ; he flung himself out of a ship to meet our Saviour walking upon 
the water; and after his resurrection he leapt into the sea to get to him ; 
so that Peter's denying his Master was not such an evidence of disaffection 
to him, or love to the sinful act he was then surprised by, as it would have 
been in John, or any other disciple of a more sedate temper. But this only 
by the way, as a rule both to judge yourselves by, and to moderate your 
censures of others ; and consider, that such acts of sin are not frequent. 
The violence of a man's temper, if godly, cannot carry him out into a course 
of sin, or a love to any one act. As a wicked man may hit upon a good 
duty, and perform it, but not out of a settled love to God, or habitual obe- 
dience to his law ; so a good man may by surprise do an evil work, not out 
of obedience to the law of sin, or any love to the sin itself. What considera- 
tions may move a wicked man to a good duty, may in some respect move a 
good man to a sinful act ; yet it is not to be called a duty in the one, no 
more than it is to be called a sin in the other of the sam« hue, of the same 
hue, I say, with that in a natural man. 

Prop. 6. A regenerate man cannot commit any sin with a full consent and 
bent of will. A man may consent to that which he doth not love. Hereby 
I distinguish it from the former proposition. I mean not that he cannot 
commit any sin wilfully as sin, for so I believe no man doth ; it being against 
the nature of the creature to do evil, as eyil formaliter, but under some other 
notion of it. Some consent of the will I do acknowledge,, because the will, 
as well as the other faculties, is but in part regenerate. As there is not a 
triumphant light in the understanding, so neither is the grace of the will 
at present triumphant, but militant ; yet it may be rather called the will of 
sin, than a man's own will. Sometimes a good man is by some sudden 
motion hurried on to sin, before he can consult law and reason, before he 
hath his wits well at liberty, before he can compare the temptation or sin 
with the prohibition of it by the divine law. But generally there is a resist- 
ance in him, as well as a provocation in sin ; for the two contrary principles 
exert themselves in some measure. Grace resists, and sin provokes, whereas 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the regenerate. 429 

another, that hath no grace, sins with a full consent, because he hath no 
spiritual resisting principle in him ; for he is flesh, and not spirit, and what- 
soever is born of the flesh, is flesh, and wholly flesh. There is a resisting 
indeed in a natural man, but it is a resistance of natural light, not of grace ; 
a resistance not of the will, but of the conscience ; the will is bent to sin, 
Lut natural conscience puts rubs in the way. Neither is this resistance in 
spiritual sins (which is the greatest character I know whereby to distinguish 
a resistance of natural conscience from, a resistance by a principle of grace), 
which natural conscience doth not so much trouble itself about, as not having 
light without a spiritual illumination to discern them, but only in gross sins, 
such as are condemned by common reason ; so that if he hath any resistance, 
it is not in the will of the man, but the will of his interest, will of his credit, 
or the will of his conscience ; not in the rational will, complying with and 
delighting in the will of God. 

A regenerate man cannot commit any sin with, 

1. An habitual consent, because he hath a principle of grace within him 
which opposes that tide of nature which did forcibly carry him down before. 
This opposite principle doth remain, though the present opposition may not 
be discerned by reason of the prevalency of the temptation. As in a room 
warmed by the fire in winter^ there is a principle in the air doth resist that 
heat, and reduce it after the Are is out to its former rawness and coldness. 
A renewed man being passed into another nature, it cannot be supposed he 
can do anything with an habitual bent of will against his nature. Grace hath 
put a stop to that Paul distinguisheth himself from sin in the acts of it ; it 
is not ' I,' or my will, but ' sin ' : Rom. vii. 20, ' Now, if I do that I would 
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.' 'Kan^yd^oiMai signifies 
to perfect and complete a work, to work industriously and politely. Had I 
my will, I should not do thus. There is a divorce made between will and 
sin, so that sin acts upon a single score. Now, 'it is no more I' : a divorce 
is made between my will and sin. The law of sin is therefore called a law 
in the members, not of the members ; a law found working there : ver. 21, 
* I find a law in my members ' ; I did not enact it, I placed it not there, I 
consent not to its being there, but there I find it, and know not how to be 
rid of it, but it shall never have my will. But the law of grace is called a 
law of the mind, not in the mind, a law which is settled there by the consent 
of the soul, and to whose sovereignty and guidance it yields itself. The law 
of sin is in the members ; the vigour of it is seen in the inferior faculties of 
the soul, not in the higher, the mind and will ; it is a law imposed upon me, 
not embraced by me ; a law of disturbance, not of obedience ; a law that 
troubles me, doth not delight me, ver. 21, 22. It resides as an enemy 
warring, but hath no intimacy with me as a friend, ver. 23, yet it is an 
enemy driven to the outworks, to the members ; so that where all this is, you 
cannot suppose an habitual consent to sin when the will is formed into an- 
other nature. As the will of the wicked is possessed by habits of sin under 
the restraints from it, so the will of the godly is possessed by habits of grace 
even under the rape of a prevailing temptation. 

2. Nor an actual consent both antecedent and consequent. The interest 
of sin may seem to be actually higher and stronger in the soul than the inte- 
rest of God, though this latter is habitually stronger than the interest of sin. 
Though there may be an antecedent delight in the motion, a present delight 
in the action, yet there is not a permanent consequent delight after it ; yet 
the two first are rare. It is seldom that a renewed soul and sin do so friendly 
conspire together without any spirital reluctancy. Suppose he may have by 
the suspension of grace a whole actual consent of will to one particular sin 



430 chaknock's works. [1 John III. 9- 

upon some strong provocation, yet lie gives not up himself to the will or way 
of that sin. He is only under a temporary, not a perpetual power of it, as 
a man in a fight may by a fall be under the power of his enemy, yet in the 
struggle get up again and reduce him to the same necessity. Though there 
be not an express dissent at the motion nor in the action, yet there is always 
after, for it is as much against the terms of the covenant to have a perpetual 
delight in any sin committed as to commit it often, because this delight in it 
is an approbation of it, and every act of delight is a new act of approbation, 
and consequently a recommission of it, and a making a man's self a perpetual 
accessory to that first act. 

(1.) Sometimes he hath an antecedent dissent. A renewed man is troubled 
and displeased at the first motion to a sin ; he is sometimes troubled that 
any sin should so much as ask him the question to have entertainment in 
him. It is so many times with a natural man, much more with a regenerate 
man ; yet afterwards, that displicency abating, the sin creeps upon him by 
degrees and ensnares him. Paul had an act of will against that which he did 
before he did it ; he did that which was preceded by an act of his will nilling 
it, as there was an act of his will for the doing good preceding his not doing 
it : Rom. vii. 19, ' The good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I 
would not, that I do.' The act of his will was present : ver. 18, 'To will 
is present with me ; I have that standing in a readiness to do good, but the 
executive power is at a distance, I know not how to have it ; but how to 
perform that which is good I find not.' He speaks as a man that was search- 
ing for something which he had a great desire to find, and could not meet 
with it. Many times a good man is tired out with the importunity of a 
temptation, and is fain to fling down his weapons and sink under the oppres- 
sion, till he receive a new recruit of strength by exciting and assisting grace. 

(2.) Sometimes concomitant in the very commission of a sin. Peter seems 
to have had some resistance in the very act of denying his master. The 
Spirit of God blew up some sparks of shame in him at that very time, for 
alter the very first denial he went out into the porch, Mark xiv. 68. By his 
retirement he discovers some willingness to have avoided a further tempta- 
tion. There is many times an exercise of displeasure against it while a man 
cannot avoid it : Rom. vii. 15, ' That which I do, I allow not ; that which 
I hate, that I do.' I hate it even while I do it, and my hatred is excited 
against it in the very act ; he means it of sins of infirmity. The seed of God 
in the heart cannot consent to sin, but will many times in the veiy acting of 
it be shewing its displeasure, weakly or strongly, against it. As a needle 
touched with a loadstone, if it be disturbed in its standing to the north pole, 
will shake and tremble while the impediment is upon it.* Some demurrers 
were made in Peter's heart, but fear overruled the plea ; and it is probable 
his heart was not wholly asleep even in the very act, else it is not likely he 
should have been so suddenly roused. There is a voice in him : grace 
speaks for God, but it is overruled and oppressed by a temptation ; there 
are some pull-backs, some spiritual whisperers, even when it presses hard. 
' Why art thou cast down, my soul ?' Ps. xliii. 5 ; there is the carnal part 
stirring in distrust : ' hope thou in God ;' there is a spiritual part rising in 
faith. A neat person may by stumbling be bemired in a dirty hole, but 
while he stumbles there is a natural impetus which endeavours to keep him 
upright ; and if he doth fall, he struggles till he be delivered ; but when a 
swine falls into a puddle, he lies grunting with pleasure, and grumbles at 
any that will drag him out. Which leads me to a third thing : 

(3.) But there is always a consequent dissent after the fall. He hath many 
* Smith on the Creed. 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the eegeneeate. 431 

rebukes in his conscience, whereas a natural man's sin is brought up and 
nurtured with him : Eccles. v. 1, ' They consider not that they do evil ;' 
they lay it not to heart, especially if it break not out in some foul and noto- 
rious manner. A renewed man is displeased at the very first motion that 
clambered up into his heart to entice him to sin : not only the fruit but the 
root that bears it is odious to him : Ps. li. 5, ' Behold, I was shapen in ini- 
quity. By the same reason that he directs his hatred to the sin of his 
nature, by the same reason he will do it to the first motion that immediately 
brought forth that bitter fruit, which a natural man doth not. It is the 
character of a wicked man to rejoice that he hath done evil, Prov. ii. 14, 
which I think is never found in a renewed man, for this is indeed to be 
under the power of Satan, and like their father the devil. But he condemns 
what he hath committed, and the greater his delight in it the greater will 
his abhorrency be of it, and the more earnest his cry to be rid of his burden. 
When he comes to see what contrariety there was in his act to the law of 
God, it is impossible but his heart should smite him. It cannot be, but that 
delight in the law of God, which is a constitutive part of a regenerate man, 
Rom, vii. 22^ must revive when the weights which did suspend it are re- 
moved, and according to the degrees of his revived delight there will be 
suitable degrees of displeasure with what was contrary to the object of it, 
for since a delight in the law of God is essential to a renewed nature, that 
delight must needs produce an aversion from everything contrary to that 
law, otherwise it is not a delight. If there be not such workings after a 
review of sin, I dare pronounce that such a man is not regenerate. But 
how long he may lie in a sin without acting consideration about it, I cannot 
determine. He must needs have torment in his soul and a high disaffection 
to his sin and himself for it, because upon a review he cannot but see how 
unlike to God it hath made him, how much it hath defiled his soul, and im- 
paired the divine image. No disease can be more grievous to the body than 
a sin fallen into is to the new nature ; it grieves and pains the new creature, 
which is restless till it be rid of the disease. The new nature is a tender 
thing. Though he be assured of its pardon, he is in anxiety till he finds 
it purged : Ps. li. 7, ' Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.' 
David had been assured of the pardon of his sin by Nathan : that would 
not quiet him as long as the filth remained ; he would not only have the 
guilt removed, but the stain washed off, as a man fallen in the dirt is 
desirous not only to be raised up, but to be washed clean from any re- 
mainders of the mire. A good man hath a disquietness in his heart, and is 
as much troubled at his sin as at a stinking wound or a loathsome disease, 
Ps. xxxviii. 5-8, and his ' sorrow is continually before him,' ver. 17. He is 
more displeased with that sin than he is pleased at present with all the grace 
he hath. David's sin was ever before him, Ps. li. 3. Peter brought forth 
no other fruit immediately after the review of his sin but sorrow, and exer- 
cised more grief for that than he did joy at the present for the not failing of 
his faith, as a man is more troubled with a pain of the tooth or a fit of the 
gout than pleased with all the health in his vital parts, which is far greater 
than his pain. Here then is adifierence; regenerate men have pain in their 
sins, natural men pleasure ; the one is ashamed of his sin, the other at best 
but ashamed of his discredit ; he condemns himself for it with so much 
severity, rips his heart open before God, that if a wicked man should hear 
him praying in his closet after some sin, he would think he did belie him- 
self, or else that he were the vilest villain in the world. He will study no 
excuses, and present no pleas to God for his sin. If he hath not strength to 
conquer it, he hath a voice to cry against it : prayers are doubled, one mes- 



432 charnock's wokks. [1 John III. 9. 

senger goes to heaven upon the heels of another, and so moderation, which 
was in his requests before, is turned to an unsatisfied importunity ; so that, 
you see, there is not a plenary consent of will, but the dissent is habitual 
and actual ; if not antecedent or concomitant, yet always consequent. 
What, then, doth the regenerate man's sin arise from ? It ariseth, 

1. Either from a strong passion, which many times bears down the bars 
both of grace and reason. That is not wholly voluntary which is done by 
the prevalency of passion, which suspends the determination of the under- 
standing, and consequently the regular and free motion of the will. Such 
was the accusation of God in his prophet, which David was guilty of : Ps. 
cxvi. 11, ' I said in my haste. All men are liars.' ' I said,' it is true : ' all 
men are liars,' even the prophet too, but it was in ' my haste.' And in his 
haste he accuseth God of the breach of his promises : Ps. xxxi. 22, * I said 
in my haste, I am cut off from before thy eyes' : God hath either forgot his 
promise or changed his resolutions, for not one of them will be made good 
unto me. It was a passion in Moses which made him guilty of that act of 
unbelief that cost him his exclusion from the land of promise, Num. xx. 8, 10, 
11, 12. God commands him to use his tongue, not his rod, on the rock, 
but the passion the good man was in by the provocation of the people trans- 
ported him beyond his bounds. Peter's heart was not so full of courage as 
of loyalty : his zeal was put out of countenance by his fear. A strong fit of 
passion may make a man as good and meek as Moses fiing away both the 
tables of the law, which otherwise would be as dear to him as the apple of 
his eye. 

2. From inconsiderateness. There cannot be a full consent of will where 
a deliberate judgment doth not precede. Many a man, through an incon- 
siderate indulging his appetite, eats that meat which foments his humours 
into some dangerous disease. Sin creeps upon a good man when the liveli- 
ness and activity of his spirit in former duties is in a slumber ; but another 
hath as great inclinations to sin when his understanding is in its strength. 
Peter had the grace of faith, but he fell into his sin for want of acting it. 
Upon his repentance it is said, Luke xxii. 6, 'And Peter remembered the 
words of the Lord.' He had forgot Christ's words, and that made him forget 
himself and his Master in that act of sin. If our Saviour had cast his eye 
upon Peter, and excited his slumbering grace before the maid had spoken to 
him, he might have prevented Peter's fall as well as afterwards recovered him. 
If God had sent Nathan with a message to David when his corruption began 
first to put on its arms, to have shewed him the vileness of his intentions, 
and excited him to a stout resistance, he might have prevented the loss of 
his innocency, as well as restored him after he had lain in the dust so long. 
David might have kept his standing, and dismissed those inclinations, as he 
did his inconsiderate design of murdering Nabal and his family upon Abigail's 
admonition, for which he blesseth God, 1 Samuel xxv. 32, 33. In short, 
the motion of a regenerate man to sin is violent, like a stone upward ; the 
motion of an unrenewed man is natural, like a stone downwards. The godly 
are violently pursued, but the wicked sottishly infatuated by a temptation. 
And certainly when the strength of the passion is abated, and the free exer- 
cise of reason recovered, there will be the exercise of grace again ; for it is 
not conceivable that the habit of grace and repentance should be without the 
actual exercise of it, when the impediments are removed, and an occasion 
presented ; so that he that doth not recover himself to his former exercise, 
never had this true seed of God infused into him.*' 

Prop. 7. Though a regenerate man may fall, and sin have a temporary 
* Greenbam. 



1 John III. 9.] sins of the regenerate. 433 

dominion, yet he recovers out of this state, and for the most part returns to 
his former holiness, and an increase of it, though not always to his former 
comforts. There are none whose sins are recorded in Scripture, but there 
are some evidences of their repentance for it, or the acting the contrary grace. 
David's sin was gross, and his repentance remarkable ; he was more tender 
afterwards in point of blood, 2 Samuel xxiii. 16, 17. When he desired water 
out of the well of Bethlehem, and it was brought him by three valiant men 
with the jeopardy of their lives, he would not drink it, because it was the 
blood of the men that ventured their lives to satisfy his curiosity. Peter's 
repentance is eminent, his aifection is hot, for the truth of which he could 
appeal to his Master's omnisciency : John xxi. 17, ' Lord, thou knowest all 
things, thou knowest that I love thee.' His courage is illustrious in assert- 
ing his Master's honour in the face of the greatest dangers, in which exercise 
you find him the foreman of that jury of the twelve apostles before every 
assembly. Acts ii. 3-5, &c. Though Abraham had discovered a distrust of 
God in Pharaoh's and Abimelech's courts, yet his faith afterward, in his 
readiness to sacrifice Isaac, was as glorious as his unbelief had been base, 
which gave him the title of the father of the faithful. Noah, who was 
drunk, and thereby exposed to the derision of his son, could not so well have 
cursed him had he not abhorred the sin as well as the reproach. And Lot, 
whose righteous soul was vexed with the filthiness of others, could not have 
a less vexation at his own when he came to know of it. Those that affirm 
that mortal sins expel grace, yet doubt whether they expel the gifts of the 
Spirit, one end whereof, say they, is to render the soul pliable and flexible to 
the motions of the Spirit. If they do not expel the gifts, I know not why they 
should expel the grace, which is under the manutenancy of the Spirit of God 
in a particular manner.* The spirit lusts against the flesh, as well as the 
flesh against the spirit ; and the lusting of the spirit will prevail as well as 
the lasting of the flesh, and more. Gal. v. 17. All natural things that are 
removed out of their proper place, are restless till they are reduced to their 
right station. A good man is as water, that though it be turned into a mass 
of ice, wholly cold in the ways of God, yet still there is a principle in him 
(as there is in ice) to return to his former form, figure, and activity, upon 
the warm irruptions of the Spirit of God. There is a powerful voice behind 
him that brings him back, when he turns either to the right hand or to the 
left from the ways of God, Isa. xxx. 21. By virtue of this seed within him, 
and the Spirit of God exciting it, that word which comes home to the soul 
after a sin becomes efficaciously melting, and raises up springs of peniten- 
tial motions, which could not arise so suddenly were the spiritual life wholly 
departed ; for a man that hath no habit of grace in him, cannot so suddenly 
concur with God's proposals, and exercise a repentance. In such an one we 
see first a stupefaction of mind and an unaptness to faith ; no motions of a 
true repentance, though some preparation to it. But with a regenerate man 
it is otherwise : David, being admonished by Nathan, was struck to the heart ; 
and Peter, presently upon our Saviour's look, melted into tears. Their grace, 
like tinder, took fire presently upon those small, but powerful, occasions. 
Though it did not act at the time of their sin, yet it had an aptness to act 
upon the removal of the impediments. Though Jonah seems to cast ofi" all 
regard of God and his command, yet upon the first occasion, in the whale's 
belly, he brings forth excellent fruits of faith in a moment, Jonah ii. Grace 
in an instant, upon the first motion of the Spirit, will rise up, and take its 
place from whence it seems to be deposed. As a natural man under some 
* Suarcz. de Gratia, lib. xi. cap. iii. num. x. p. 415. 
VOL. V. E e 



434 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

sting of conscience, and flash of a lightning conviction, may be restrained 
from sin, yet his natural inclination to it remains, though suspended at the 
present, and may be carried the quite contrary way. As the stream of a 
river, by the force of the tide, is carried against its natural current, yet slides 
down its channel with its wonted calmness upon the removal of the force, so 
a good man, under the violence of some lust, hath not his new nature changed, 
though at present it is restrained by an extrinsic force. So that as the one, 
upon the taking off his conviction, returns to his sin, so the other, upon the 
removal of his fetters, returns to his holiness with a greater spirit and delight. 
A wicked man may sometimes do a good action, but he continues not in it ; 
as a planet is sometimes retrograde, but soon returns to its direct course. 
When their conscience pinches them, they awake out of their trance. So a 
good man may sin through infirmity, but he will revoke it by repentance. 
The seed of God remains in him, as the sap in the root of a tree, that recovers 
the leaves the next return of the sun at the spring. He may sink by nature 
and rise again by grace ; but the devil, who sinned at the beginning, fell and 
never rose more. 

Use, of examination. 

If you find yourselves in these cases, in a course of known sin, resolution 
to commit it, were it not for such bars — unwillingness to know God's plea- 
sure and injunction ; despising admonitions and reproofs ; a settled love of 
it ; a full consent of will, without any antecedent, concomitant, or consequent 
dissent ; tumbling in it without rising by repentance ; a circle of sinning 
and repenting without abhorrence of sin — you may conclude yourselves in an 
unregenerate state ; you sin like the devil, who sinned from the beginning. 



A DISCOUESE OF THE PARDON OF SIN. 

is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is 
the man unto whom the Lord imjnites not iniquity. — Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

This psalm, as Grotius thinks, was made to be sung upon the annual day of 
the Jewish expiation, when a general confession of their sins was made. It 
is one of David's penitential psalms, supposed to be composed by him after 
the murder of Uriah, and the pronouncing of his pardon by Nathan, ver. 5, 
and rather a psalm of thanksgiving. It is called Maschil, a psalm of under- 
standing. Maschil is translated eruditio, intellif/entia, and notes some excel- 
lent doctrine in the psalm, not known by the light of nature. Blessed, nL''N, 
blessednesses. Ex omni parte beatus. Three words there are to discover 
the nature of sin, and three words to discover the nature of pardon. 

yji'S, Transgression. Prevarication. Some understand by it sins of omis- 
sion and commission. 

nSDH, Sin. Some understand those inward inclinations, lusts, and motions, 
whereby the soul swerves from the law of God, and which are the immediate 
causes of external sins. 

|iy. Iniquity. Notes original sin, the root of all. Three words that note 
pardon. 

^"lEi'J, Levatiis, forgiven, eased, ^^^3, signifies to take away, to bear, to 
carry away. Two words in Scripture are chiefly used to denote remission, "123, 
to expiate ; ^'^J, to bear or carry away: the one signifies the manner whereby 



Ps. XXXn. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 435 

it is done, viz., atonement; the other the effect of this expiation, carrying 
away : one notes the meritorious cause, the other the consequent. 

MDD, Covered. Alluding to the covering of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. 
Menochius thinks it alludes to the manner of writing among the Hebrews, 
which he thinks to be the same with that of the Romajis ; as writing with a 
pencil upon wax spread upon tables, which when they would blot out, they 
made the wax plain, and drawing it over the wTiting, covered the former 
letters. And so it is equivalent with that expression of ' blotting out sin,' 
as in the other allusion it is with ' casting sin into the depths of the sea.' 

3'^n\ Impute. Not charging upon account. As sin is a defection from 
the law, so it is forgiven; as it is oflEensive to God's holiness, so it is covered; 
as it is a debt involving man in a debt of punishment, so it is not imputed ; 
they all note the certainty, and extent, and perfection of pardon : the three 
words expressing sin here, being the same that are used by God in the 
declaration of his name, Exod. xxxiv. 7. Here are to be considered, 

I. The nature of pardon. 

n. The author of it, God. 

in. The extent of it, transgressic«i, sin, iniquity. 

IV. The manner of it, implied, by faith in Christ. 

The apostle quoting this place, Rom. iv. 7, to prove justification by faith ; 
as sin is not imputed, so something is imputed instead of it. Covering 
implies something wherewith a thing is covered, as well as the act w^hereby 
it is covered. 

V. The effect of it, blessedness. 

I shall not divide them into distinct propositions, but take the words in 
order as they lie. 

I. The nature of pardon. 

1. Consider the words, and what notes they will afford to us. 

(1.) Covering, as it alludes to the manner of writing, and so is the same 
with blotting out : Isa. xliii. 25, ' I, even I, am he that blots out thy trans- 
gression ; ' whereby is implied, that sin is a debt, and pardon is the remit- 
ting of it. It notes, 

[l.j The nullity of the debt. A crossed book wiU not stand good in law, 
because the crossing of the book implies the satisfaction of the debt. A 
debt may be read in our manner of writing in a crossed book, but it cannot 
be pleaded. God may after pardon read our sins in the book of his omni- 
science, but not charge them upon us at the bar of his justice. 

[2.J God's willingness to pardon. Blots, not razeth. He engraves them 
not upon marble, he wi-ites them not with a pen of iron, or point of a diamond ; 
writing upon wax is easily made plain. 

[3. J The extent of it. Blotting serves for a great debt as well as a small ; 
a thousand pound may as well, and as soon, be dashed out by a blot as a 
thousand pence. 

[4.] The quickness of it upon repentance. It takes more time to write 
a debt in a book, than to cross it out ; one blow would obliterate a great 
deal of writing upon wax. Sins that have been contracting many years, 
when God pardons, he blots out in a moment. 

(2.) Covering, as it alludes to the drowning the Egj-ptians, is expressed 
by casting into the depths of the sea : Micah vii. 19, * Thou wilt cast all 
their sins into the depths of the sea.' 

This notes also, 

[1.] God's willingness to pardon. Casts them, not lays them gently aside, 
but flings them away with violence, as things that he cannot endure the 
sight of, and is resolved never to take notice of them more. 



436 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

' [2.] God's reality in pardon. He will cast their sins as far as the arm 
of his omnipotency can reach ; if there be any place further than the depths 
of the sea, thither they shall be thrown out of the sight of his justice. 

[3.] The exttnt. All their sins. The sea covered Egyptian princes as 
well as the people. The mighty lord, as well as the common soldier, sank 
like lead in those mighty waters. 

[4.] The duration of it. The sea vomits up nothing that it takes into its 
lower bowels ; things cast into the depths of the ocean never appear more. 
Rivers may be turned and drained, but who can lave out the ocean ? 

2. Not imputing. Not putting upon account, not charging the debt in 
a legal process. To this is equivalent the expression of not remembering : 
Isa. xliii. 25, ' I will not remember their sins.' An act of oblivion is passed 
.upon sin. This notes, 

(1.) That God will not exact the debt of thee. God doth not absolutely 
forget sin, for what he knows never slips out of his knowledge. So that his 
not remembering is rather an act of his will than a defect in his understand- 
ing. As when an act of oblivion is passed, the fact committed is not physi- 
cally forgotten, but legally, because the fear of punishment is removed. 
God puts them out of the memory of his wrath, though not out of the 
memory of his knowledge. He doth remember them paternally to chastise 
thee for them, though not judicially to condemn thee. 

(2.) Not upbraid thee. Not with a scornful upbraiding mention them to 
cast thee off, but with a merciful renewing the remembrance of them upon 
thy conscience, to excite thy repentance, and keep thee within the due bounds 
of humility and reverence. 

More particularly the nature of pardon may be explained in these proposi- 
tions. We must not think that these expressions, as they denote pardon, 
do intimate in this act the taking away of the being of sin, nature of sin, or 
demerit of sin. 

1. The being and inherency of sin is not taken away. Though sin be 
not imputed to us, yet it is inherent in us. The being remains, though the 
power be dethroned. By pardon God takes away sin, not as it is a pollution 
of the soul, but as it is an inducement to wrath. Though remission and 
sanctification are concomitants, yet they are distinct acts, and wrought in a 
distinct manner. 

2. The nature of sin is not taken away. Justification is a relative change 
of the person, not of the sin ; for though God will not by an act of his jus- 
tice punish the person pardoned, yet by his holiness he cannot but hate the 
sin, because though it be pardoned, it is still contrary to God, and enmity 
against him. It is not a change of the native malice of the sin, but a non- 
imputation of it to the offender. Though the person sinning be free from 
any indictment, yet sin is not freed from its malitia, and opposition to God. 
For though the law doth not condemn a justified person because he is trans- 
lated into another state, yet it condemns the acts of sin, though the guilt of 
those acts doth not redound upon the person, to bring the wrath of God 
upon him. Though David had the sins of murder and adultery pardoned, 
yet this pardon did not make David a righteous person in those acts, for it 
was murder and adultery still, and the change was not in his sin, but in his 
fioul and state. 

S. The demerit of sin is not taken away. As pardon doth not alter sin's 
nature, so neither doth it alter sin's demerit, for to merit damnation belongs 
to the nature of it ; so that we may look upon ourselves as deserving hell, 
though the sin whereby we deserve it be remitted. Pardon frees us from 
actual condemnation, but not, as considered in our own persons, from the 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.j THE PARDON OF SIN. 437 

desert of condemnation. As when a king pardons a thief, he doth not make 
the theft to become formally no theft, or to be meritoriously no capital crime. 
Upon those two grounds of the nature and demerit of sin, a justified person 
is to bewail it, and I question not but the consideration of this doth add to 
th'j triumph and hallelujahs of the glorified souls, whose chief work being 
to praise God for redemption, they cannot but think of the nature and 
demerit of that from which they were redeemed. Rev. v. 13. 

4. The guilt of sin, or obligation to punishment, is taken away by pardon. 
Sin committed doth presently, by virtue of the law transgressed, bind over 
the sinner to death, but pardon makes void this obligation, so that God no 
longer accouuts us persons obnoxious to him. Peccntum remitti non aliud 
est quani non imputari ad pccnam* It is a revoking the sentence of the law 
against the sinner, and God renouncing, upon the account of the satisfaction 
made by Christ to his justice, any right to punish a believer, doth actually 
discharge him, upon his believing, from that sentence of the law under which 
he lay in the state of unbelief; and also as he parts with this right to punish, 
so he confers a right upon a believer humbly to challenge it, upon the account 
of the satisfaction wrought by his surety. God hath not only in his own 
mind and resolution parted with this right of punishing, but also given an 
express declaration of his will : 2 Cor. v. 19, 'God was in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself,' i. e. openly renouncing upon Christ's account the 
right to punish, whence follows the non-imputation of sin, ' not imputing 
their trespasses unto them.' The justice of God will not suffer that that sin 
which is pardoned should be punished, for can that be justice in a prince, to 
pardon a thief, and yet to bring him to the gallows for that fact ? Though 
the malefactor doth justly deserve it, yet after a pardon and the word passed, 
it is not justly inflicted. God indeed doth punish for that sin which is par- 
doned. Though Nathan, by God's commission, had declared David's sin 
pardoned, yet the sword was to stick in the bowels of his family : 2 Sam. xii. 
10, 15, * The sword shall never depart from thy house.' ' The I*jrd hath 
put away thy sin ; thou shalt not die.' But, 

(1.) It is not a punishment in order to satisfaction, because Christ's 
satisfaction had no flaw in it, and stood in need of nothing to eke it out ; but 
it is for the vindication of the honour of God's holiness, that he might not 
be thought an approver of sin ; and this was the reason of David's punish- 
ment in the death of his child by Bathsheba : 2 Sam. xii. 14, * Because by 
this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blas- 
pheme.' 

(2.) It is not so much penal as medicinal. A judge commands a hand to 
be cut ofi', that is for punishment ; a physician and a father order the same, 
but for the patient's cure, and the preservation of the body. And though 
God after pardon acts not towards his people in the nature of a judge, yet 
he never lays aside the authority and affection of a father. We are delivered 
from a judge's wrath, but not from a father's anger. In that remarkable 
dumbness inflicted upon Zacharias for his unbelief, Luke i. 18, 20, there 
was a confirmation of his faith, as well as the chastisement of his incredulity. 
The angel, upon his unbelieving desire of a sign, gives him a testimony of 
the truth of his errand, but such an one that should make him feel in some 
measure the smart of his unbelief. 

(3.) If it be penal, it is not the eternal punishment due to sin. It is but 
temporary, and not embittered by wrath, which is the gall of punishment. 

This taking off the obligation to punishment is the true nature of pardon : 

* Durand. lib. iv. diet. i. q. 7. For sin to be pardoned is nothing else but not to 
be imputed in order to jjunisbment. 



438 chaenock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

which will be evident from 2 Sam. xix. 19, ' Let not my lord impute 
iniquity unto me.' Shimei desires David not to impute iniquity, and not to 
remember it. It was not in David's power absolutely to forget it, and 
Shimei's confessing the fact with those circumstances in ver. 20, was enough 
to recall it to David's memory, if he had forgot it ; but he desires David not 
to bring him to satisfy the penalty of the law for reviling his sovereign. 

II. The author of pardon, God. For pardon is the sovereign prerogative 
of God, whereby he doth acquit a believing sinner from all obligation to satis- 
factory punishment, upon the account of the satisfaction and righteousness 
of Christ apprehended by faith. 

1. It is God's act. Remission is the creditor's, not the debtor's, act; 
though the debtor be obliged in justice to pay the debt, yet there is no obliga- 
tion upon the creditor to demand the debt, because it is at his liberty to 
renounce or maintain his right to it ; and God hath as much power as man 
to relax his right, provided it be with a salvo to his own honour, and the 
holiness of his nature, w^hich he cannot deny for the sinner's safety, as the 
apostle tells us ' God cannot deny himself.' Yet properly, say some, though 
sin be a debt, God is not to be considered in pardon as a creditor, because 
sin is not a pecuniary debt, but a criminal, and so God is to be considered 
as a governor, lawgiver, guardian, and executor of his laws, and so may dis- 
pense with the severities of them. If an inferior person tear an indictment, 
it may be brought again into court, but if the chief magistrate order the 
casting it out, who can plead it ? It is God's act ; and if God justifies, who 
can condemn ? Rom. viii. 33, ' Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God's elect? It is God that justifies, who shall condemn?' That God 
absolves thee that hath power to condemn thee; that God who enacted the 
law whereby thou art sentenced, proclaims the gospel whereby thou art re- 
conciled. It is an offended God who is a forgiving God : that God whose 
name thou hast profaned, whose patience thou hast abused, whose laws thou 
hast violated, whose mercy thou hast shghted, whose justice thou hast dared, 
and whose glory thou hast stained. 

2. It is not only his act, but his prerogative, and he only can do it. God 
is the party wronged. Nemo potest remittere de jure alieno. This preroga- 
tive he glories in as peculiar to himself ; the thoughts of this honour are so 
sweet to him, that he repeats it twice, as a title he will not share with another : 
Isa. xliii. 25, ' I, even I, am he that blots out thy transgressions.' Pardon- 
ing oflfenders is one of a prince's royalties. And this is reckoned among his 
regalia, as a choice flower and jewel in his crown : Exod. xxxiv. 7, ' Forgiving 
iniquity, transgressions, and sins.' A prince punisheth by his ministers, but 
pardons by himself. And, indeed, God is never so glorious as in acts of 
mercy ; justice makes him terrible, but mercy renders him amiable. When 
Moses desired to see God in his royalty, and best perfections, he displays 
himself in his goodness : Exod. xxxiii. 18, ' Shew me thy glory.' Ver. 19, 
' I will make all my goodness pass before thee ; I will be gracious to whom 
I will be gracious.' And though the apostles had a power of remission and 
binding, that was only ministerial and declarative, like that prophetical power 
which Jeremiah had to root up nations and destroy, Jer. i. 10, i. e. to declare 
God's will in such and such judgments, as he should send him to pronounce. 
Men cannot pardon an infinite wrong done to an infinite justice. Forgive- 
ness belongs to God, as, 

(1.) Proprietor. He hath a greater right to us than we have to ourselves. 

(2.) Sovereign. He is Lord over us, as we are his creatures. 

(3.) Governor of us, as we are parts of the world. 

(4.) It is an act of his mercy, not our merit. Though there be a condi- 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 439 

tional connection between pardon, and repentance, and faith, yet there is no 
meritorious connection ariseth from the nature of those graces, but remission 
flows from the gracious indulgence of the promise. 

It is the very tenderness of mercy, the meltings of the inward bowels : 
Luke i. 78, ' To give knowledge of salvation, and remission of their sins, 
through the tender mercies of our God.' cirXay/ja sXsovg, an inexhaustible 
mercy : Ps. Ixxxvi. 5, ' Thou, Lord, art ready to forgive, and art plenteous 
in mercy.' A ' multitude of tender mercies,' Ps. li. 1. What arithmetic 
can count all the bubblings up of mercy in the breast of God, and all the 
glances and all the doles of his pardoning grace towards his creatures ? And 
he keeps this mercy by him, as in a treasury, to this purpose: Exod. xxxiv. 7, 
' Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity,' &c. ; and is still as fall 
as ever, as the sun, which hath influenced so many animals and vegetables, 
and expelled so much darkness and cold, is still as a strong man able to run 
the same race, and perform by its light and heat the same operations. 
When mercy shews itself in state with all its train, it is but to usher in pai- 
doning gi-ace, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7 ; not a letter, not an attribute that makes 
up the composition of that name, but is a friend and votary of mercy. And 
that latter clause a learned man explains of God's clemency ; ' He will bv 
no means clear the guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the fathers,' &c., which 
he renders thus : He will not utterly cut off and destroy ; but, when he 
doth visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, it shall be but to the 
third or fourth generation, not for ever. This name of God is urged by 
Moses : Num. xiv. 17, ' Now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be 
great ; the Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty; visiting the iniquity,' 
&c. ' Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, according to the 
greatness of thy mercy.' Where Moses repeats this clause more particularly 
than he doth the other parts of his name ; which surely he would not have 
done, and pleaded it as a motive to God to pardon Israel, if he had not 
understood it of God's clemency ; for otherwise he had dwelt more upon the 
argument of justice than upon that of mercy, which had not been proper to 
edge his present petition with. Nay, it is such pure mercy, the genuine 
birth of mercy, that it partakes of its very name, as children bear the name 
of their father : Heb. viii. 12, 'I will be merciful to their iniquity,' which in 
the prophet, Jer. xxxi. 34, whence the apostle quotes it, is, ' I will forgive 
their iniquity.' 

That it is so, will appear ; because 

(1.) No attribute could be the first motive of pardon but this. His 
justice would loudly cry for vengeance, and flame out against ungrateful 
sinners. His holiness would make him abhor not only the embraces but 
the very sight of such filthy creatures as we are. His power would attend 
to receive and execute the commands of his justice and holiness, did not 
compassion step in to qualify. 

(2.) Unconstrained mercy. Men pardon many times, because they are 
too weak to punish ; but God wants not power to inflict judgments, neither 
doth man want weakness to sink under it : Pbom. v. 6, ' When we were 
without strength, Christ died for us.' God wanted not sufficient reason to 
justify a severe proceeding, both in the quality of sin, every sin being a con- 
trariety to the law, sovereignty, work, glory, yea, the very being of God. 
Now for God to pardon that which would pull him out of his throne, hath 
blemished the creation, robs him of his honour, must be an act of the richest 
and purest mercy ; and in the quantity, multitudes of sins of this cursed 
quality, as numerous as motes in the sunbeams. It is impossible for the 



440 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

nimblest angel to write down the extravagances of men committed in the 
space of twenty- four hours, if he could know all the operations of their souls 
as well as their outward actions ; all those God doth see, simul et semel, and 
yet is ready to pardon in the midst of numberless provocations. 

(3.) Resolved and designed mercy. It is not through inadvertency and 
insensibleness of the aggravating circumstances of them ; God must needs 
know the nature and circumstances of all those sins he himself laid upon 
Christ ; yea, God hath an actuated knowledge of all when he is about to 
pardon, Isa. xliii. 22. ,2? God reckons up their sins of omissions ; they had 
been weary of him, and had not brought to him their small cattle ; had 
preferred their lambs and kids before his service ; wearied him Avitb their 
iniquities ; endeavoured to tire him out of the government of the world. 
What could one have expected after this black scroll, but fire-balls of wrath ? 
Yet he blots them out, ver. 25, though all those sins were fresh in his 
memory. Nay, the name we have profaned becomes our solicitor : Ezek. 
xxxvi. 22, * For my holy name's sake which you have profaned.' 

(4.) Delightful and pleasant mercy. He delights in pardoning mercy, as a 
father delights in his children. He is therefore called the Father of mercy : 
Micah vii. 18, 'He pardons iniquity, and retains not his anger for ever, 
because he delights in mercy.' Never did we take so much pleasure in 
sinning as God doth in forgiving ; never did any penitent take so much plea- 
sure in receiving, as God doth in giving, a pardon. He so much delights 
in it that he counts it his wealth : riches of grace, riches of mercy, glorious 
riches of mercy. No attribute else is called his riches. He sighs when he 
must draw his sword : Hosea xi. 8, ' How shall I give thee up, Ephraim !' 
but when he blots out iniquity, then it is, ' I, even I, am he that blots out 
your transgressions for my name's sake.' His delight in this is equal to the 
delight he hath in his name. This is pure mercy, to change the tribunal of 
justice into a throne of grace, to bestow pardons where he might inflict pun- 
ishments, and to put on the deportment of a father instead of that of a judge. 

4. The act of his justice. Those attributes which seem contrary are 
joined together to produce forgiveness ; yet God is not to be considered in 
pardon only as judex, but jmternus judex. There is a composition of judge 
and father in this act ; free grace on God's part, but justice upon the account 
of Christ. That God will accept of a satisfaction, is mercy ; that he will not 
forgive without a satisfaction, is justice. Mercy forgives it in us, though 
justice did punish it in Christ. Christ by his death paid the debt, and God, 
by the resurrection of Christ, discharged the debt ; and therefore the justice 
of God is engaged to bestow pardon upon a believer. God set forth Christ 
as ' a propitiation, that he might be just, and therefore a justifier of him that 
believes,' Rom. iii. 26. Either the debt is paid or not ; if not, then Christ's 
death is in vain. If it be, then God's justice is so equitable as not to demand 
a second payment. Therefore another apostle joins faithful and righteous. 
It might have been faithful and merciful, faithful and loving, but faithful and 
righteous, or just, takes in the attribute which is most terrible to man : 
1 John i. 9, ' He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,' dl-Aaiog. Isaiah 
joins both together, * a just God and a Saviour,' Isa. xlv. 21, so that here 
is unspeakable comfort. That which engaged God formerly to punish man, 
engageth him now to pardon a believer ; that which moved him to punish 
Christ, doth excite him to forgive thee. 

5. The act of his power. It is a sign of a noble and generous mind to 
pass over offences and injuries. Sick and indigent persons are the most 
peevish and impatient, and least able to concoct an injury. And when we 
kindle into a flame upon the least sparks of a wrong, the apostle tells us we 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PAEDON OF SIN. 441 

are overcome of evil : Rom. xii. 21, 'Be not overcome of evi!.' We become 
captives to our angry passions. Speedy revenge in us being an act of weak- 
ness, the contrary must be an act of power over ourselves. God's not 
executing the fierceness of his anger, is laid upon his being a God and not 
man : Hosea xi. 9. God's infinite power gives a rise to pardon : Micah vii. 
18, ' Who is a God like to thee, that pardons iniquity ?' Junius and Tre- 
mellius render it, ' Who is a stronrj God ?' and the Hebrew 7^ will bear it. 
' Let the power of my Lord be great,' saith Moses, Num. xiv. 17. The word 
jigdal is written with a great jod, to shew, say the Jews, that it is more than 
an ordinary power to command one's self when injured. Therefore, when 
God proclaims his pardoning name, he ushers it in with names of power : 'The 
Lord, the Lord God,' Exod. xxxiv. 6. It is a greater work to forgive than 
to prevent the commission of sin, as it is a greater work to raise a dead 
man than to cure a sick man : one is a work of art, the other belongs only 
to omnipotency. 

III. The manner of it. How it is carried on. 

1. On God's part by Clirist. 

(1.) By his death. He is the scape-goat upon whom our sins are laid, 
Isa. liii. t). Our sins are made Christ's, and Christ's righteousness is made 
ours. He is said to be ' made sin for us,' and we are said to be ' made the 
righteousness of God in him,' 2 Cor. v. 21 ; a blessed exchange for us. He 
bore that wrath, endured those torments, suffered those strokes of justice 
which were due to us. The pardon of sin doth cost us confessions and tears, 
but it cost Christ blood and unknown pains (as the Greek liturgy. A/" ayi/worwv 
xoVwy, have mercy on us). 

[l.J Laid upon him by God. God appropriates this work to himself: 
Zech. iii. 9, ' I will engrave the engraving thereof,' speaking of the stone, 
which is the same with his servant the branch. As a stone is cut with a 
chisel, which makes deep furrows in it, so did God deal with Christ, and 
that in order to the taking away of sin : * I will remove the iniquity of that 
land in one day,' viz. the day of Christ's suffering. By that oflering of him- 
self, he shall perfectly satisfy me. Therefore it is called 'the will of God,' in 
order to the taking away sin, Heb. x. 9, 10, compared with ver. 11, 12, ' I 
come to do thy will, by which will we are sanctified,' which will was to take 
away sin ; for, ver. 11, that was the end of his sacrifice, the legal sacrifices 
not being able to do it. God did not only consent to it, or give a bare grant, 
but it was a propense and afiectionate motion of his heart : Isa. liii. 10, ' It 
pleased the Lord to bruise him ;' hence did the angels sing at his birth, 
' Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will towards men.' 
The peace he was to procure was the fruit of God's will towards us. 

[2.] Voluntarily undertaken by Christ : Heb. x. 5, 7, ' Lo I come, I 
delight to do thy will, my God.' Willingness in the entrance of the work, 
Willingness to take a body, and wiUingness to lay down that body. He had 
as it were a fever of afi'ection, a combustion in his bowels till it was finished. 
In his greatest agonies he did not repent of his undertaking, or desire to give 
it over. He cried indeed to his Father that this cup might pass from him, 
but he presently submits : If there be no other way to save sinners, I will 
pass on through death and hell to do it. When he was afflicted and oppressed, 
he murmured not at it : Isa. liii. 7, ' He opened not his mouth, he opened 
not his mouth.' It is twice repeated, to shew his willingness. And God was 
highly pleased with him for this very reason, because he did ' pour out his 
soul,' and ' bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the trans- 
gressors ;' all which expressions denote his earnestness and readiness in it. 

(2.) By his resurrection. His death is the payment, his resurrection the 



442 chaenock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

discharge : Rom. iv. 25, ' Who was deUvered for our offences, and rose 
again for our justification.' Not that we are formally justified by the resur- 
rection of Christ, but that thereby God declared that whosoever believes in 
him should be justified upon that believing ; for if Christ had not risen, there 
had been no certainty of the payment of the debt. In his death he pays the 
sum, as he is our surety ; and in his resurrection he hath his quietus est out 
of God's exchequer. God will not have this payment from Christ, which he 
hath acknowledged himself publicly to be satisfied with, and from believers 
too ; for upon his resurrection he sent him to bless men : Acts iii. 26, ' God 
having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you.' How ? ' In turning 
away every one of you from his iniquity,' it being a great encouragement 
to turn men from sin, when God hath thus declared them pardonable by 
the resurrection of his Son. 

2. On our parts by faith. Faith is as necessary in an instrumental way, 
as Christ in a meritorious way : Acts xxvi. 18, ' That they may receive for- 
giveness of sins by faith that is in me.' Christ purchaseth a pardon, but 
faith only puts us in possession of a pardon ; yet it cannot from its own 
worth challenge forgiveness at the hands of God, but upon the account of 
Christ, who hath merited forgiveness. Though the king grants a pardon 
to a condemned malefactor, yet he may be executed unless he pleads it the 
next assizes, though he hath it lying by him ; so unless we sue it out, and 
accept of it by faith, all Christ's purchase will not advantage us. Faith looks 
not barely upon the sufferings of Christ, but upon his end and design in it. 
It looks not upon his passion as a story, but as a testament ; and you seldom 
find the death of Christ mentioned in the New Testament without expressing the 
end of it. This forgiveness by Christ's death as the meritorious cause, shews, 

(1.) God's willingness to pardon. If God did delight in the death of 
Christ, it was not surely simply in his death ; for could a father delight to 
tear out the bowels of his son ? The afl^lictions of his people go to his heart ; 
much more would the sufferings of his darling. God had more delight in 
forgiveness than grief at his Son's sufi'erings ; for he never repented it, though 
our Saviour besought him with tears ; and that God who was never deaf to 
any that called upon him, nor ever will be, would not hear his only Son in 
the request to take the cup from him, or abate anything of the weight of his 
sufferings, because it was necessary for the pardon of sin, necessitate decreti, 
if not natura. God repented of making the world, but never of forgiving 
sin ; so that the pardon of sin is more pleasing to him than the sufi'erings of 
his Son were grievous ; otherwise whatsoever the Father would have done 
by instruments, yet surely he himself would not have been the executioner 
of him. But in this afi'air there were not only instruments, Judas to betray 
him, the Jews to accuse him, the disciples to forsake him, Pilate to condemn 
him, the soldiers to mock and crucify him, and thieves to revile him, but 
God himself: Isa. liii. 10, ' Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath 
put him to grief: thou shalt make his soul an ofi"ering for sin.' His own 
Father that loved him (as Abraham in the type) puts as it were the knife to 
the throat of his only Son, which surely God would not have done had not 
pardon of sin been infinitely pleasing to him. And how great a pleasure 
must that be, that swallowed up all grief at his Son's sufferings ! Yea, he 
seemed to love our salvation more than he loved the life of his Son, since 
the end is always more amiable than the means, and the means only lovely 
as they respect the end. 

(2.) The certainty of forgiveness. God must deny Christ's payment 
before he can deny thy pardon. God will not deny what his Son hath earned 
so dearly, and what he earned was for us and not for himself. Did God 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PAIRDON OP SIN. 443 

pardon many before Christ died, and will he not pardon believing souls since 
Christ died ? Some were certainly saved before the coming of Christ : upon 
what account ? Not for their own righteousness ; that is but a rag, and could 
not merit infinite grace. Not by the law ; that thundered nothing but death, 
and condemned millions, but never breathed a pardon to one person. Or was 
it by their vehement supplications ? Those could not make an infinite right- 
eousness mutable ; justice must be preferred before the cries of malefactors ; 
and if those could have done it, God would not have been at the expense of 
his Son's blood. Therefore, it must be upon this account, Rom. iii. 25, 
' for the remission of sins that are past.' Did God pardon upon trust ? and 
will he not much more upon payment ? Did he forgive when there was only 
a promise of payment, and some thousands of years to run out before it 
was to be made ? and will he not much more forgive, since he hath all the 
debt paid into his hands ? Would God remit sin when Christ had nothing 
under his hand to shew for it ? and now that he hath a public testimony 
and acquittance, will he not much more do it ? Seeing his purging our sins, 
or expiating them by his death, was the ground of his exaltation to the honour 
of sitting at the right hand of God in our natures : Heb. i. 3, ' When he had 
by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on 
high ;' it is a certain evidence of the grant of pardon upon the account of 
this sacrifice to those that seek it in God's methods, since God hath shewn 
himself so pleased with it. For it is clear, that because Christ ' loved 
righteousness and hated iniquity,' i. e. kept up the honour of God's justice 
and holiness by the offering himself to death, that God hath given him a 
portion above all his fellows. 

(8.) The extent of it. Both to original and actual sin : John i. 29, 
' Behold the Lamb of G^d, that takes away the sin of the world ;' sin of the 
world, the sin of human nature, that first sin of Adam. Of this mind is 
Austin, and others, that original sin is not imputed to any to condemnation 
since the death of Christ. But howsoever this be, it is certain it is taken 
away from believers as to its imputation. Christ was ' made sin for us, 
2 Cor. V. 21, to bear all sin. It had been an imperfect payment to have 
paid the interest, and let the principal remain ; or to have paid the principal, 
and let the interest remain. ' There is no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus,' Rom. viii. 1, and therefore no damning matter or guilt left 
in arrear. It had been folly else for the apostle to have published a defying 
challenge to the whole creation to have brought an indictment against a 
justified person (Rom. viii. 83, ' Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God's elect ?'), if the least crime remained unremitted for the justice of 
God, the severity of the law, the acuteness of conscience, or the malice of 
the devil to draw up into a charge. Since the end of his coming was ' to 
destroy the works of the devil,' whereby he had acquired a power over man, 
he leaves not therefore any one sin of a believer unsatisfied for, which may 
continue, and establish the devil's right over him. If the redemption only 
of the Jews, with the exclusion of the Gentiles, in the first compact seemed 
to displease him, to shed his blood for small sins only would have been as 
little to his content. It had been too low a work for so gi-eat a Saviour to 
have undergone those unknown sufferings for debts of a smaller value, and 
to shed that inestimable blood for the payment of farthings, and leave talents 
unsatisfied. Certainly, God sent not his Son, but with an intention his 
blood should be improved to the highest uses for those that perform the 
covenant conditions, and that Father who would have us honour his Son 
as we honour himself, will surely honour his Son's satisfaction in the exten- 
sive effects of it, as he would honour his own mercy, since they are both so 



444 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

Btraitly linked together. And it is as much for the glory of Christ's satis- 
faction, as for the hononr of his Father's mercy, to pass by the greatest 
transgressions. 

(4.) The continuance of it. Thou art pardoned, and yet thou sinnest ; 
but Christ hath paid and never runs more upon the score. Thou art par- 
doned and dost daily forfeit, and needest a daily renewal ; but Christ hath 
purchased, and never sins away his purchase. God exacted a price suitable 
to the debt he foresaw men would owe him, for he knew how much the sum 
would amount unto. When he gave Christ, he intended him for the justi- 
iication of many ofl'ences, Rom. v. 16. ' The free gift is of many offences 
unto justification,' speaking of the gift of God, ver. 15. And therefore since 
God cannot be mistaken in the greatness of the sum, because of his infinite 
knowledge, it had been a greater act of wisdom not to provide any remedy 
al all, than not to do it thoroughly. If the continuance of that imperfect 
remission of Adam and the patriarchs was drawn out for above three thou- 
sand years and more, and the enjoyment of happiness made good to 
them merely upon Christ's undertaking, surely it will be much more upon 
his actual performing, Rom. iii. 25. There was then a 'zd^iaig, now an 
a(psGig ; they had a continuance of freedom from punishment by his mediator- 
ship and sponsion, much more shall believers have a continuance of pardon 
by his actual sacrifice, upon which the validity of all the former mediatory 
acts did depend, since now there is no more remembrance of sin by the con- 
tinuance of legal sacrifices, his being so absolutely complete. Therefore God 
hath erected a standing ofiice of advocacy for Christ, 1 John ii. 1, in heaven, 
for the representing of his wounds and satisfaction, and bespeaking a con- 
tinuance of grace to us. He is said to be ' the Lamb that taketh away the 
sins of the world,' John i. 29 ; not 6 agaj, hath taken, or 6 a^uv, will take, but 
& ai^uv, which notes, actum perpetuiim, the constant efi"ect of his death. And 
since, as I said before, Christ hath an higher portion than others, because he 
loved righteousness, in this portion he hath a joy and gladness ; but his joy 
would certainly be sullied, if pardon should not be continued to those for 
whom he purchased it. 

(5.) The worth of it. That must be of incomparable value that was pur- 
chased at so great a price as the blood of God, Acts xx. 28. (So it is 
called by reason of the union of the divine nature with the human, constitut- 
ing one person.) It is blood, which all the gold and silver, and the stones 
and dust of the earth turned into pearls, could not equal. God understood 
the worth of it, who in justice would require no more of his Son at least 
than the thing was worth, not a drop of blood more than the value of it. 
Neither surely would Christ, who could not be mistaken in the just price, 
have parted with more than was necessary for the purchase of it. It would 
have beggared the whole creation to have paid a price for it. The prayers 
and services of a gi-acious soul, though God delights in them, could not be a 
sufiicient recompence. And the bare mercy of God, without the concurrence 
of his provoked justice, could not grant it, though his bowels naturally are 
troubled at the afiiictions of his creatures. 

IV. Extensiveness, fulness, or perfectness of pardon. 1. In the act; 
forgiving, covering, not imputing. 2. In the object ; iniquities, transgres- 
sions, and sins. 

1. Perfect in respect of state. God retains no hatred against a pardoned 
person. He never imputes sin formally, because he no more remembers it, 
though virtually he may, to aggravate the offence a believer hath fallen into 
after his justification. So Job possessed the sins of his youth. And Christ 
tacitly put Peter in remembrance of his denial of him. The grant is com- 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. J THE PARDON OF SIN. 445 

plete here, though all the fruits of remission are not enjoyed till the day of 
judgment, and therefore in Scripture sin is said then to be forgiven. It is 
a question whether believers' sins will be mentioned at the day of judgment. 
Some think they will, because all men are to give an account. Methinks 
there is some evidence to the contrary. Our Saviour never mentioned tlie 
unworthy carriage of his disciples to him in his sufferings, and after his 
resurrection seems to have removed from him all remembrance of it. It is 
not to be expected, that a loving husband will lay open the faults of his 
tender spouse upon the day of the pubHc solemnisation of the nuptials. But 
if it be otherwise, it is not to upbraid them, but to enhance their admirations 
of his grace. He will discover their graces as well as their sin, and unstop 
the bottles of their tears, as well as open the book of their transgressions. 
Our Saviour, upon Mary's anointing him, applauds her affection, but men- 
tions not her former iniquity. 

It must needs be perfect. 

(1.) All God's actions are suitable to his nature. What God doth, he doth 
as a God. And is he perfect in his other works, and not in his mercy, which 
is the choicest flower in his crown ? God sees blacker circumstances in our 
sins, than an enraged conscience or a malicious devil can represent ; but 
God pardons not according to our apprehensions, which though great in a 
tempestuous conscience, yet are not so high as God's knowledge of it. 

(2.) The cause of pardon is perfect. Both the mercy of God and the 
merits of Christ are immutably perfect. It is for his own glory, his own 
mercies' sake, that he pardons. He will not dim the lustre of his own crown, 
by leaving the effect of his glory imperfect, or satisfying the importunities of 
his mercy by halves. The saints in heaven have not a more perfect right- 
eousness, whereby they continue their standing, than those on earth have ; 
for, though inherent righteousness here is stained, yet imputed, upon which 
pardon is founded, is altogether spotless. A righteousness that, being infinite 
in respect of the person, hath a sufficiency for devils, had it a congruity ; 
but it hath both for us, because manifested in our natures. 

2. In respect of the objects. Sinful nature, sinful habits, sinful dispo- 
sitions, pardoned at once, though never so heinous. 

(1.) For quality. There was no limitation as to the deepness of the 
wounds caused by the fiery serpents in the wilderness ; the precept of look- 
ing upon them, extended to the cure of all, let the sting reach never so deep, 
the wound be never so wide or sharp, and his sight be never so weak, if he 
could but cast his eye on the brazen one. The commission Christ gave to 
his disciples, was to preach the gospel to every creature, Mark xvi. 15, every 
human creature ; the worst as well as the best. Though you meet with 
monstrous sinners in the likeness of beasts, and devils, except none from 
sueing out a pardon in the court of mercy. The almightiness of his mercy 
doth as much transcend our highest iniquities, as it doth our shallowest ap- 
prehensions. Our sins, as well as our substance, are but as the dust of the 
balance, as easily to be blown away by his grace, as the other puffed into 
nothing by his power. No sin is excepted in the gospel, but that against the 
Holy Ghost, because it doth not stand with the honour of God to pardon 
them who wilfully scorn the means, and account the Redeemer no better 
than an impostor. No man can expect, in reason, he should be saved by 
mercy, who, by a wilful malice against the Son of God, tramples upon tbe 
free offers of grace, and provokes mercy itself to put on the deportment of 
justice, and call in revenging wrath to its assistance, for the vindication of 
its despised honour. The infinite grace of God dissolves the greatest mists, 



446, charnoce's- works. [Pfe. XXXII. 1, 2. 

as well as the smallest exhalations, and melts the thick clouds of sin, as well 
as tlie little icicles.. 

(2.) The quantity. Hath Grod ever put a restraint upon his grace and 
promise, that we shall find mercy if we Fin but to snch a number, and no 
more ? It is not agreeable to tho greatness and majesty of God's mercy, to 
remit one part of the debt, and to exact the other. It consists not with the 
motive of pardon, which is his own love, to be both a friend and an enemy 
at the same time, in pardoning some, and charging others ; and thus his 
grace would rather be a mockery and derision of men. Neither doth it con- 
sist with the end of pardon, which is salvation ; for to give an half pardon 
is to give no salvation, since, if the least guilt remains unremitted, it gives 
justice an unanswerable plea against us. What profit would it be to have some 
forgiven, and be damned for the remainder ? Had any one sin for which 
Christ was to have made a compensation remained unsatisfied, the Redeemer 
could not have risen. So if the smallest sin remains unblotted, it will hinder 
our rising from the power of eternal death, and make the pardon of all the 
rest as a nullity in law. But it is the glory of God to pass by all : Prov. 
xix. 31, ' It is his glory to pass over a transgression.' It is the glory of a 
man to pass by an ofience. It is a discovery of an inward principle or pro- 
perty, which is an honour for a man to be known the master of. If it be his 
glory to pass by a single and small injury, then to pass by the more heinous 
and numerous offences, is a more transcendent honour, because it evidenceth 
this property to be in him in a more triumphant strength and power. So 
that it is a clearer evidence of the illustrious vigour of mercy in God, to pass 
by mountains and heaped up transgressions, than to forgive only some few 
iniquities of a lesser guilt : Jer. xxxiii. 8, ' I will cleanse them from all 
their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me ; and I will pardon all 
their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they 
have transgressed against me.' Therefore, when God tells the Jews that he 
would give them a general discharge in the fullest terms imaginable, to re- 
move all jealousy from men, either because of the number, or the aggravations 
of their sins, he knew not how to leave expressing the delight he had in it, 
and the honour which accrued to him by it : ' It shall be to me a name of 
joy, a praise and honour before all the nations of the earth.' He would get 
himself an honourable name by the large riches of his clemency. Mercy is 
as infinite as any other attribute, as infinite as God himself. And as his 
power can create incomprehensible multitudes of worlds, and his justice 
kindle unconceivable hells, so can his mercy remit innumerable sins. 

3. Perfect in respect of dui'ation. Because the handwriting of ordinances 
is taken away: Col. ii. 14, 15, ' Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances 
that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, 
nailing it to his cross ;' which was the ceremonial law, wherein they did, by 
their continual presenting sacrifices, and imposition of hands upon them, sign 
a bill or bond against themselves, whereby a conscience of sin was retained, 
Heb. X. 2, 3, and a remembrance of sin renewed. They could not settle the 
conscience in any firm place, Heb. ix. 9 ; they were compelled to do that 
every day, whereby they did confess that sin did remain, and want an expi- 
ation. Hence is the law called ' a ministration of condemnation,' 2 Cor. 
iii. 9, because it puts them in mind of condemnation, and compelled the 
people to do that which testified that the curse was yet to be abolished by 
virtue of a better sacrifice. This handwriting, which was so contrary to us, 
was taken away, nailed to his cross, torn in pieces, wholly cancelled, no more 
to be put in suit. Whence, in opposition to this continual remembrance of 
sin under the legal administration, we read, under the New Testament, of 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 447 

God's remembering sin no more, Heb. x. 3, 17. Christ hath so compounded 
the business with divine justice, that we have the sins remitted, never return- 
ing upon us, and the renewal also of remissions upon daily sins, if we truly 
repent. For though there be a blacker tincture in sins after conversion, as 
being more deeply stained with ingratitude, yet the covenant of God stands 
firm, and he will not take away his kindness, Isa. liv. 9, 10. And there is 
a greater affection in God to his children than to his enemies ; for these he 
loves before their conversion with a love of benevolence, but those with a love 
of complacency. Will not God be as ready to continue his grace to those 
that are penitent, as to offer it to offending rebels ? Will he refuse it to his 
friends, when he entreats his enemies ? Not that any should think that, be- 
cause of this duration, they have liberty to sin, and, upon some trivial 
repentance, are restored to God's favour. No ; where Christ is made right- 
eousness, he is made sanctification. His spirit and merit go together. A 
new nature, and a new state, are concomitants ; and he that sins upon pre- 
sumption of the grand sacrifice, never had any share in it. 
V. The effect of pardon. That is blessedness. 

1. The greatest evil is taken away, sin, and the dreadful consequents of 
it. Other evils are temporal, but those know no period in a doleful eternity. 
There is more evil in sin, than good in all the creatures. Sin stripped the 
fallen angels of their excellency, and dispossessed them of the seat of 
blessedness. It fights against God, it disparages all his attributes, it de- 
forms and destroys the creature, Rom. vii. 13. Other evils may have some 
mixture of good to make them tolerable, but sin being exceedingly sinful, 
without the mixture of any good, engenders nothing but destruction and end- 
less damnation. Into what miseries, afflictions, sorrows, hath that one sin 
of Adam hurled all his posterity ! what screechings, wounds, pangs, horrors, 
doth it make in troubled consciences ! How did it deface the beauty of the 
Son of God, that created and upheld the world, with sorrow in his agonies, 
and the stroke of death on the cross ! How many thousands, millions of 
poor creatures have been damned for sin, and are never like to cease roaring 
under an inevitable justice ! Ask the damned, and their groans, yelJincs, 
bowlings, will read thee a dreadful lecture of sin's sinfulness, and the punish- 
ment of it. And is it not then an inestimable blessedness to be delivered 
from that which hath wrought such deplorable executions in the world ? 

2. The greatest blessings are conferred. Pardon is God's family-bless- 
ing, and the peculiar mercy of his choicest darlings. He hands out other 
things to wicked men, but he deals out this only to his children. 

(1.) The favour of God. Sin makes thee Satan's drudge, but pardon 
makes thee God's favourite. We may be sick to death, with Lazarus, and 
be God's friends ; sold to slavery, with Joseph, and yet be dear to him ; 
thrown into a lion's den, with Daniel, and be greatly beloved ; poor, with 
Lazarus, who had only dogs for chirurgeons to dress his sores, and yet have a 
title to Abraham's bosom. But we can never be beloved if we ai-e unpar- 
doned ; no share in his friendship, his love, his inheritance, without a par- 
don. All created evils cannot make us loathsome in a justified state, nor all 
created goods make us lovely under guilt. Sin is the only object of God's 
hatred ; while this remains, his holiness cannot but hate us ; when this is 
removed, his righteousness cannot but love us. Remission and favour are 
inseparable, and can never be disjoined. It is by this he makes us as a 
diadem upon his head, a bracelet on his arm ; it is by this he writes us upon 
the palms of his hands, makes us his peculiar treasure, even as the api^le of 
his eye, which nature hath so carefully fenced. 

(2.) Access to God. A prince may discard a favourite for some guilt, and 



448 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

thongh he may restore him to his liberty in the commonwealth, yet he may 
not admit him to the favour of his wonted privacies. But a pardoned man 
hath an access to God, to a standing and perpetually settled grace : Rom. 
V. 1, 2, ' Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access.' Guilt frights us, and 
makes us loathe the very sight of God ; pardon encourageth us to come near 
to him. Guilt respects him as a judge ; pardon, as a friend. Who can 
confidently or hopefully call upon an angry and condemning God ? But 
who cannot but hopefully call upon a forgiving God ? Sin is the partition 
wall between God and us, and pardon is the demolishing of it. Forgiveness 
is never bestowed, but the sceptre is held out to invite us to come into 
God's presence. And what can be more desirable than to have not only 
the favour of, but a free access at any time to, the Lord of heaven and earth, 
and at length an everlasting being with him ? 

(3.) Peace of conscience. There must needs be fair weather when heaven 
smiles upon us. All other things breed disquietness. Sin was a thorn in 
David's crown ; his throne and sceptre were but miserable comforters, while 
his guilt overwhelmed him. The glory of the world is no sovereign plaster 
for a wounded spirit. Other enjoyments may please the sense, but this only 
can gratify the soul. God's thunder made Moses tremble, Heb. xii. 21 ; 
but the probability of a gracious pardon would make a damned soul smile in 
the midst of tormenting flames. How often hath the sense of it raised the 
hearts of martyrs, and made the sufi"erers sing, while the spectators wept ! 
though this, I must confess, is not always an inseparable concomitant. 
There is much difference between a pardon and the comfort of it ; that may 
pass the seal of the king without the knowledge of the malefactor. Pardon, 
indeed, always gives the jus ad rem, a right to peace of conscience, but not 
always jus in re, the possession of it. There may be an actual separation be- 
tween pardon and actual peace, but not between pardon and the ground of peace. 

(4.) It sweetens all mercies. Other mercies are a ring, but pardon is the 
diamond in it. A justified person may say, I have temporal mercies and a 
pardon too ; I live in repute in the world, and God's favour too ; riches in- 
crease, and my peace with God doth not diminish. I have health with a 
pardon, friends with a pardon, as Job, chap. xxix. 3, 6, 7 ; among all other 
blessings this he counts the chiefest, that God's candle shined upon his head. 
A prisoner for some capital crime may have all outward accommodations for 
lodging, diet, attendance, without a real happiness, when he expects to be 
called to his trial before a severe judge, from whom there is no appeal, and 
that will certainly both pass, and cause to be executed, a sentence of death 
upon him. So, though a man wallows in all outward contents, he cannot 
write himself blessed, while the wi-ath of God hangs over his head, and he 
knows not how soon he may be summoned before God's tribunal, and hear 
that terrible voice, ' Go, thou cursed.' What comfort can a man take in 
houses, land, health, when he considers he owes more than all his estate is 
worth ? So, what comfort can a man have in anything in this world, when 
be may hourly expect an arrest from God, and a demand of all his debts, and 
he hath not so much as one farthing of his own, or any interest in a sufii- 
cient surety ? We may have honour and a curse, wealth and a curse, chil- 
dren and a curse, health and long life and a curse, learning and a curse, but 
we can never have pardon and a curse. Our outward things may be gifts, 
but not blessings, without a pardon. 

(5.) It sweetens all afilictions. A frown with a pardon is better than a 
thousand smiles without it. Sin is the sting of crosses, and remission is a 
taking the sting out of them. A sight of heaven will mitigate a cross on 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.j THE PARDON OF SIN. 449 

earth. The stones about Stephen's ears did scarce afflict him, when he saw 
his Saviour open heaven to entertain him. To see death staring us in the 
face, and an angry and offended God above, ready to charge all our guilt, is 
a doleful spectacle. * Look upon my affliction and my pain, and forgive 
aU my sins/ saith the psalmist, Ps. xxv. 18. Sin doth embitter, and 
adds weight to an affliction, but the removal of sin doth both lighten it and 
sweeten it. 

Use 1. An unpardoned man is a miserable man. Such a state lays you 
open to all the miseries on earth, and all the torments in hell. The poorest 
beggar with a pardon is higher than the greatest prince without it. How 
can we enjoy a quiet hour, if our debt be not remitted, since we owe more 
than we are able to pay ? You may die with a forfeited reputation, and yet 
be happy ; but what happiness, if you die with unpardoned guilt ? 

(1.) There must either be pardon or punishment. The law doth oblige 
either to obedience or suffering : the commands of it must be observed, or 
the penalty endured. God will not relax the punishment without a valuable 
consideration. If it be not executed, the creature may accuse God of want 
of wisdom in enacting it, or defect of power in maintaining it. Therefore 
there must be an. exact observance of the law, which no creature after the 
first deviation is able to do ; or an undergoing the penalty of it, which no 
sinner is able to bear. There must therefore be a remission of this punish- 
ment for the good of the creatui'e, and the satisfaction of the law by a surety, 
for the honour of God's justice. If we have not therefore an interest in the 
surety, the purchaser of remission, we must lie under the severity of the law 
in our persons. 

(2.) You can call nothing an act of God's love towards you, while you re- 
main unpardoned. What is there you do enjoy, which may not consist with 
his hatred as well as his love ? Have we knowledge ? So have devils. Have 
we riches ? So had Xabal and Cain. Have we honour ? So had Pharaoh and 
Herod. Have we sermons ? So had Judas, the best that ever were preached. 
Nothing, nothing but a pardon, is properly a blessing. How can that man 
take pleasure in anything he hath, when all the threatenings in the book of 
God are so many arrows directed against him ? 

(3.) All the time thou livest unpardoned, thy debts mount the higher. 
Every new sin is an adding a figure to the former sum, and every figure 
after the three fii-st adds a thousand. Every act of sin adds not only the 
guilt proper to that single act upon it, but draws a new universal guilt 
from all the rest committed before, because the persisting in any one sin 
is a renewed approbation of all the former acts of rebellion committed 
against God. 

(4.) It is that God, who would have pardoned thee if thou wouldst have 
accepted of it, who will condemn if thou dost utterly refuse it. It is that 
God thou hast provoked, offended, and dishonoured. That power which 
would have been manifested in forgiving thee, will be glorified in condemn- 
ing thee. That justice which would have signed thy absolution, if thou 
hadst accepted of its terms, will sign the writ of execution upon thy refusal 
of them. Nay, the mercy that would have saved thee, will have no com- 
passion on thee. The law condemns thee, because thou hast transgressed 
it, and mercy will reject thee, because thou hast despised it. The gospel, 
•wherein pardon was proclaimed, will acquit others, but condemn thee. God 
would be false to his own word, if, after thy slighting so many promises of 
grace and threatenings of wrath, thou shouldst be spared. 

Use 2. Of comfort. 

VOL. V. F f 



450 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

Pardon of sin may make thee hope for all other blessings. Hath God 
clone the hardest, and will he stick at the easiest? Ilath he overthrown 
mountains, and shall molehills stop him ? It is an easier thing to waft thee 
to heaven, than it was at first to remit thy guilt : Rom. v. 10, ' For if when 
we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much 
more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.' To this the death and 
resurrection of the Son of God was necessary, and there was to be composi- 
tion and agreement made between mercy and justice. But since this is com- 
pleted, the Eedeemer saves thee by his life ; since he hath died for thy 
remission, there is no need of hie dying for thy further salvation. Seeing he 
hath made manifestation of his pardoning grace unto thee, he will not cease 
till he hath brought thee into a perfect state. For to what purpose should 
the creditor forgive the smaller part of the debt, and cast the creditor into 
prison for an unpayable sum. 

(1.) If once pardoned, thou wilt be always pardoned. For the first par- 
don Christ paid his blood, for the continuance he doth but plead his blood, 
and we cannot be without a pardon till Christ be without a plea. He merited 
the continuance as well as the first remission. Will our Saviour be more 
backward to intercede for pardon, than he was to bleed and pray for it on 
earth ? Would not our dearest Saviour let sin go unremitted, when he was 
to contest with the Father's wrath ? and will he let it go unpardoned when he 
is only to solicit his Father's mercy ? Thou shalt not want the daily re- 
newals of it, since he has only to present his blood in the most holy place, 
seeing an ignominious and painful death did not scare him from the pur- 
chase of it upon the cross. As God's heart is more ready to give than we 
are to ask forgiveness, so is Christ's heart more ready to plead for the con- 
tinuance of it, than we are daily to beg it ; for he loves his people more 
than they can love him, or love themselves. Our praying is according to 
self-love, but Christ's intercession is according to his own infinite love, with 
a more intense fervency. 

(2.) Thou art above the .reach of all accusations. Shall the law condemn 
thee ? No. Thou art ' not under the law, but under grace.' And if grace 
hath forgiven thee, the law cannot sentence thee. Shall conscience ? No. 
Conscience is but the echo of the law within us : that must speak what God 
speaks. God's Spirit and a believer's spirit are joint witnesses : Rom. 
viii. 16, ' For the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirits that we are the 
children of God.' Conscience is sprinkled by the blood of Christ, which 
quite changeth the tenor of its commission. Will God condemn thee ? No. 
That were to lose the glory of all his pardoning mercy hitherto conferred 
upon thee ; that were to fling away the vast revenue grace hath all this while 
been gathering for him ; yea, it were to denj' his own covenant and promise. 
Shall Christ condemn thee ? No. That were to discard all his offices, to 
undo his death, and belie his merits. Did he sweat and bleed, pray and die 
for thee, and will he now condemn thee ? Hath he been pleading for thee 
in heaven all this time, and will he now at the upshot cast thee off? Shall 
we imagine the severity of a judge more pleasing to him than the charity of 
an advocate, since his primary intention in coming was to save the world, 
not to condemn it ? No. It would not be for his honour to pay the price 
and to lose the purchase. 

(3.) There will be a solemn justification of thee at the last day. Thou art here 
pardoned in law, and then thou shalt be justified by a final sentence ; there 
is a secret grant here, but a public manifestation of it hereatter. Thy pardon 
was passed by the Spirit of God in thy own conscience, it will then be passed 
by the Son of God in thy own hearing. That Saviour that did merit it upon 



Ps. XXXTI. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 451 

his cross, will pronounce it upon his throne. The book shall be laid out of 
sight ; there shall be no more writing in the book of God's omniscience to 
charge thee, or of thy conscience to affright thee. His fatherly anger shall 
for ever cease ; and as all disposition to sin, so all paternal correction for it 
shall be for ever abolished, and forgiveness be fully complete in all the glorious 
effects of it. 

(4.) Faith doth interest us in all this, though it be weak. The grant of a 
pardon doth not depend upon the strength of faith, though the sense of a 
pardon doth. A weak faith, as a palsy person, may not so well read a pardon, 
though it may receive it. As a strong faith gives more glory to God, so it 
receives more comfort from him. Christ made no difference in his prayer, 
John xvii., between the feeblest and stoutest believer. His lambs as well as 
sheep were to be fed by his apostle with gospel comforts ; and even those 
lambs, Isa. xl. 11, he himself carries in his bosom. Strong faith doth not 
entitle us to it because it is strong, or a feeble faith debar us from it because 
it is weak ; but it is for the sake of a mighty Saviour that we are pardoned. 
It is the same Christ that justifies thee as well as Abraham, the father of the 
faithful ; it is the same righteousness whereby thou art justified as well as 
Paul and the most beloved disciple. 

Use 3. Of examination. 

Consider whether your sins are pardoned. Will you examine whether your 
estates are sure, and will you not examine whether your souls are sure ? 

Here I shall, 1, remove false signs whereon men rest, and think themselves 
pardoned. 

(1.) The littleness of sin is no ground of pardon. Oh, some may say, my 
sins are little; some tricks of youth, some petty oaths, or the like. The 
Scripture saith that drunkards, fornicators, extortioners, and covetous, shall 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven ; not great drunkards only, but those 
that are drunk but now and then, as well as those that are drunkards every 
day. 

[1.] Dost thou know the malignity of the least sin ? No sin can be called 
absolutely (though it may comparatively) Httle. Is it a little God who is 
offended by sin ? Is it a little wrath which is poured down on sin ? Is it 
a little Christ that hath died for sin ? Is it a little soul that is destroyed by 
sin ? And is it a little hell that is prepared for sin ? Is not the least sin 
deicidium, as much as in a man lieth, a destroying of God ? Did not Christ 
shed his blood for the least as well as for the greatest ? Is not hell kindled 
by the breath of the Lord for the least as well as the greatest sins ? Is that 
little which is God's burden, Christ's wound, the Spirit's grief, the penitent's 
sorrow, and the devil's hell ? Every drop of poison is poison, every drop of 
hell is hell, every part of sin is sin, and hath the destroying and condemning 
nature of sin. Can angels expiate the least sin, or can a thousand worlds 
be a sufficient recompence for the injury that is done to God by the least 
sin? 

[2.] The less thy sin, the less the excuse for thyself. It is the aggrava- 
tion of their injustice, that they ' sold the righteous for a pair of shoes,' 
Amos ii. 6. Dost thou undervalue God so as to sell a righteous and eternal 
God so cheap, for a little sin ? Is a little sin dearer to thee than the favour 
of the great God ? Is a little sin dearer to thee than an eternal hell is grievous ? 
To endanger thy soul for a trifle, to lose God for a bubble, is a confounding 
aggravation of it ; as it was of Judas his sin, that he would sell his Saviour 
for a little silver, for so small a sum. Sin is not little in respect of the for- 
mality of it, but in respect of the matter, in respect of the temptation ; and 
this littleness is an aaqravation of sin. 



452 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

[3.] Dost thou know'how God hath punished the least sin ? A drop of sin 
may bring a deluge of misery. An atom of sin is strong enough to overturn 
a world. It was but an apple that poisoned Adam and his whole posterity. 
Less sins are punished in hell than are pardoned here. God casts ofi' Saul 
for less sins than he pardoned David for. How many ships have been de- 
stroyed upon small sands as well as great rocks ! 

(2.) Fewness of sins is no argument of pardon. Conceive, if thou canst, 
the amiableness and lustre of the angels, how far beyond the glory of the sun 
it was ; yet one sin divested them of all their glory. It was but one sin 
kindled hell for the fallen angels ; every sin must receive ' a just recompence 
of reward,' Heb. ii. 2. Shall one single sin entitle thee to hell, what will 
miUions of sins then entitle thee to ? One sin is too much against God. 
Had thy iniquities been never so few, Christ must have died to answer the 
pleas of his Father's justice against thee. Every sin is rebellion against 
God as a sovereign, undutifulness to God as a father,* contempt of God 
as a governor, and preferring the devil before God-; the devil that would 
damn thee, before God that made thee and preserves thee ; a preferring the 
devil's temptations before God's promises. 

(3.) The commonness of sin is no argument of pardon. Many angels 
combined in the fu'st conspiracy against God ; but as they were companions 
in sin, so are they companions in torments. The commonness of Sodom's 
sin made the louder cry, and hastened the severer judgment ; not one in- 
habitant escaped, but only righteous Lot and his family. Common sins will 
have common plagues. It doth rather aggravate thy sin than plead for 
pardon, when thou wilt rather follow men's example to oflend God than 
conform to God's law to please him. Sin was common in the old world, for 
' all flesh had corrupted their ways,' Gen. vi. 12 ; and all were swept away 
by the destroying deluge. To walk according to the course of the world, is 
so far from being a foundation of pardon, that it is made a character of a 
child of the devil. To walk according to the course of the world, is to walk 
according to the pattern of the devil, and to be in the number of the children 
of wrath : Eph. ii. 2, ' Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course 
of this world, according to the pi'ince of the power of the air.' 

(4.) Forbearance of punishment is no argument of pardon : Eccles. viii. 11 , 
' Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore 
the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' Forbearance 
is made use of by men, to make them sin more desperately, more headily. 
* Fully set :' all checks silenced and stopped. Forbearance is no acquittance ; 
it argues not God's forgiving the debt ; the debt is due, though it be not pre- 
sently sued for ; and the longer the debt remains unpaid, the greater sum 
will the interest amount to ; because the longer God doth forbear punishment, 
the longer time thou hast for repentance ; the account for that time will run 
high. 

That God doth not punish, is an argument of his patience, not of his 
pardoning mercy. God laughs at sinners ; he sees their day is coming, 
though they may be jocund and confident of a pardon. God's forbearance 
may be justice ; he may be brewing the cup and mixing that which thou art 
to drink. Prisoners may be reprieved one assize, and executed the next ; 
reprieval of execution is no allowance of the crime, or change of the sentence. 

(5.) Prosperity is no sign of pardon. Oh, I am not only borne with, and 
forborne ; but I have a great addition of outward contentments since my sin ! 

That which you make an argument of pardon, may be an argument of con- 
demnation. 

* Surges. 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 453 

Asaph was much troubled at the prosperity of the wicked ; but at last saith, 
' Pride compasseth them as a chain, and violence covers them as a garment,' 
Ps. Isxiii. 6. That kindness which should have made them melt, made them 
presume ; that which should broach thy repentance, inflames thy pride; thy 
goods may increase thy sins. 

(6.) Forgetfulness of thy sin, and commission long ago, is no sign of par 
don; and therefore having no checks for them, is no sign of pardon. God 
doth not forget, though thou dost ; no sin slips from the memory of his know- 
ledge, though now he doth cast many sins away from the memory of his 
justice. In regard of God's eternity, the first sins are accounted as com- 
mitted this moment ; for in that there is no succession of time, and the sins 
thou hast committed twenty years ago, are as fresh as if thou hadst acted 
them all since thy coming into the congregation. Joseph's brethren. Gen. 
xxxvii. 25, laboured to wipe out the thoughts of their late cruelty by their 
eating and drinking, when the cries and tears of their brother were fresh in 
their memory, and might have damped their jollity. His affliction troubled 
them not ; his relation to them, his youth, and their father's love to him, 
could not make them relent. But twenty-two years after, conscience began 
to fly in their faces, when awakened by a powerful affliction. Gen. xlii. 21. 
Is not thy conscience oftentimes a remembrancer to thee of thy old forgotten 
sins, and doth it not turn over the old records thou hadst quite forgot ? 

(7.) Hopes of God's mercy are no grounds of thy being pardoned. God's 
mercy is not barely enough, for then Christ needed not have died for sin ; 
nor Christ's death enough, without the condition of that covenant whereby 
God will make over the interest and merits of his death to thee. God's 
mercy must be considered, hut in God's own way. God is merciful, but his 
mercy must not abolish his truth. Doth not a judge's mercy consist with 
condemning a malefactor ? God hath been merciful to thee, and thou 
wouldst not accept of it ; thou wouldst not hear mercy speak in a day of 
grace, why then should not justice speak in a day of vengeance ? Thou 
wouldst not hear a God of mercy when he cried to thee, how then should 
mercy hear thee when thou comest to beg ? 

2. Some false grounds why those that are pardoned think themselves not 
pardoned. 

(1.) Great afflictions are not signs of an unpardoned state. Moses had 
sinned by unbehef, Aaron by making a golden calf ; God pardoned their sin, 
but took vengeance on their inventions : Ps. xcix. 8, * Thou wast a God that 
forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance.' Nathan, iiu his message 
to David, brings at once both pardon and punishment. The sin is removed, 
but the sword must still stick in the bowels of his family : 2 Sam. xii. 13, 14, 
♦ The Lord hath put away thy sin ; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because 
by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to 
blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.' God may 
afflict temporally, when he resolves not to punish eternally. What ! be- 
cause he will not condemn thee as a judge, will he not chastise thee as a 
father ? We may well bear a scourge in one hand, when we have a pardon 
sealed in the other. God pardons thy sin, but there is need of affliction to 
subdue that stout, stubborn heart of thine. God doth visit with rods when 
he is resolved not utterly to take away his loving-kindness from a people, 
Ps. Ixxxix. 32, 33. 

(2.) Terrors of conscience are no sign of an unpardoned state. We find 
a pardoned David having broken bones and a racked conscience after Nathan 
had pronounced his pardon, when there was no remorse before, Ps. li. He 
had the grant of a pardon, but the comfort of a pardon was wanting. God 



454 charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

may scorch thy soul when he gives a pardon, not that justice is thereby satis- 
fied, but sin more imbittered to thee. By a pardon thou dost relish his 
mercy, and by the torments thou mayest have iu thy soul, thou wilt under- 
stand his justice. He shews thee what he freely gives, but he would have 
thee know what thou hast fully deserved ; he gives thee pardon, but gall 
and wormwood with it, that thou mayest know what the purchase of it did 
cost thy Saviour. The physic which heals, causeth pain. That physic 
which doth not make thee sick, is not like to bring thee health. God par- 
dons thee, that thou mayest be saved ; he terrifies thee withal, that thou 
mayest not be induced by temptations to sin. 

(3.) Sense of sin is no argument of an unpardoned state. A pardon may 
be granted when the poor condemned man expects to be haled out to execu- 
tion. Mary stands weeping behind her Saviour when Christ was declaring 
her pardon to Simon ; that much was forgiven her, and afterwards Christ 
turns to her, and cheers her with the news of it, Luke vii. 44-47. He pro- 
nouhceth her pardon, ver. 48, and the comfort of it : ver. 50, * Thy faith 
hath saved thee ; go in peace.' The heavens may drop, when now and then 
the sun may steal a beam through the clouds. There may be a pardon 
where there are not always the sensible elfects of a pardon. We find, after 
the stilling of a storm, the ragings and rollings of the sea. A penitent's 
wound may ache afresh when a Saviour's blood drops in mercy. 

(4.) The remainders of sin are not a sign of an unpardoned state. Though 
a disease be mastered by physic, there may be some grudgings of it in a 
person. Though sin be pardoned, yet the dregs of sin will be remaining, 
and sometimes stirring. Christ hath enlivened us, not by wholly destroying, 
but pardoning, sin. Pardon takes away the guilt of sin, grace takes away 
the power of sin, but neither pardon nor infusion of grace takes away the 
nature, and all motions of sin ; for in purging out an humour, some dregs 
still remain behind : Col. ii. 13, ' And you hath he quickened together with 
him, having forgiven you all trespasses.' 

3. What are the true signs of a pardoned man ? 

(1.) Sincerity in our walk. A spirit without guile is made the character of 
a pardoned man in the text. There may be failings in the life, yet no guile 
in the heart ; such a man is a pardoned man. A heart that hath no mix- 
tures, no pretences or excuses for sin, no private reserves for God ; a heart 
that, as the needle in a compass, stands right for the interest and glory of 
God, and answers to the profession as an echo to the voice ; a heart that 
would thrust out any sin that harboured there, would not have an atom of 
any filth odious to the eye of God lurk there. Where this sincerity is, a 
willingness and readiness to obey God (which is the condition of the cove- 
nant), the substance of the covenant is kept, though some particular articles 
of it may be broken. Grace, the pardoning grace of God, is with them that 
love Christ in sincerity : Eph. vi. 24, ' Grace be with all them that love 
Christ Jesus in sincerity.' Not a man excluded that is sincere, though he 
hath not so sparkling a flame as another, yet, if he be sincere, the crown of 
pardoning grace, and that of consummating grace, will be set upon his head. 

(2.) Mourning for sin. A tender heart is a sign of a pardoned state, when 
sin discontents thee, because it displeaseth God. What showers of tears did 
Mary Magdalene weep after a pardon ! Love to God, like a gentle fire, sets 
the soul a-melting. Tears tljat come from love are never without pardoning 
mercy. God's bowels do first stir our mournings. It is impossible a gra- 
cious heart can read a pardon with dry eyes ; it is the least it thinks it can 
do, as it were, hke Mary Magdalene, to wash Christ's feet with its tears, 
when it halh been washed itself with Christ's blood. The soul cannot enough 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PARDON OF SIN. 455 

hate that which God hath been merciful in the pardon of.^ Forgiveness is 
like the warmth of the spring ; it draws out the sap of the tree, the tears of 
the soul, which else would scarcely stir. If God hath given thee repentance, 
it is sure enough that he hath given thee a pardon ; for if he did not mean 
to give thee that, he would never have given thee the other. 

(3.) Fearfulness of sin. Whosoever knows the bitterness of sin, and the 
benefit of a pardon, can never confidently rush into it. A pardoned man 
will never go about to forfeit that which he hath newly received. Forgive- 
ness from God doth produce fear in the creature : Ps. cxxx. 4, ' But there 
is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.' It is a sign we have 
repented and got pardon, if we find, after that exercise of repentance and 
prayer, our hatred of sin increaseth, especially of that sin we were guilty 
of before. 

(4.) Sanctification. God never pardons but he subdues sin : Micah vii. 
19, 'He will subdue our iniquity, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the 
depths of the sea.' Both are put together. In the Lord's prayer, desires 
to be rid of all evil, and not to be led into any temptation, follow immediately 
upon the desire of pardon. A justified person and a sanctified nature are 
inseparable : Ptom. viii. 1, ' There is no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ ;' there is pardon, but how shall I know that I am pardoned ? If 
you • walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' We never sincerely de- 
sire pardon, but we desire purging ; and God never gives the one, but he 
bestows the other. If thou hast an interest in a pardoning Christ, thou wilt 
have the effects of a sanctifying Spirit. Where God's grace forgives all sin, 
he will give us grace to forsake all sin. It is his covenant to turn away un- 
godliness, when he takes away the punishment of sin : Rom. xi. 26, 27, 
' The Deliverer shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.' The applications 
of God's grace to us are attended with the infusions of God's grace into us. 
When he puts his law into the heart, he remembers sin no more, Jer. xxxi, 
33, 34. 

(5.) Forgiving others. In the Lord's prayer we pray, ' Forgive us our 
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' Our Saviour com- 
ments upon this petition, to shew that pardon cannot be without this 
condition in Mat. xviii., from ver. 23 to the 35th. Christ makes it at least 
a causa sine qua non of pardon : Luke xi. 4, ' And forgive us our sins, for 
we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.' 

(6.) Affectionate love to God and Christ. When we desire to glorify him 
by his grace, as well as be glorified by it. It is the injury done to God by 
our sins which doth most affect that heart upon which the Spirit of God is 
poured : Zech. xii. 10, ' They shall mourn over him, or be in bitterness for 
him.' The soul is more concerned for Christ than for itself. When there 
is too much of self in our desires for it, God delays the manifestation of it 
to the heart, that we may come up to purer strains. Christ certainly shed 
his blood for their remission, who are willing to shed theirs for his glory. 
Else Christ, whose glory it is to outstrip the hottest affection of his creature, 
would be behind-hand with him in love. That soul that would spend its 
all upon Christ, he will not suffer to stand long sobbing before him, Luke 
vii. 47- 

Une 4. Of exhortation. 

(1.) To those who are careless of it. Oh, by all means seek it ! Will 
it at last comfort thee to think of thy mirth and pleasures, how honourable, 
how rich, or how well stored with friends thou hast been ? What should 
take up thy heart, busy thy thoughts, or employ thy endeavours, but this 
that concerns thy eternal Blate ? Wilt thou sin away the time of God's 



456 'charnock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1, 2. 

patience, ard thine oavd happiness ? Is it not a time which God hath 
allotted thee to get a pardon in ? What would Cain, Judas, Pilate, Herod, 
jind all the black regiment, give for the very hopes of it ? Oh prize that here 
which thou wilt hereafter esteem infinitely valuable, and call thyself fool 
and madman a thousand times, for neglecting the opportunity of getting ! 
The anger of a king is as the roaring of a lion ; what then are the frowns of 
an infinite just God ? Why is thy strength and affection spent about other 
things ? Would a forlorn malefactor leading to execution listen cheerfully 
to anything but the news of his prince's clemency ? Seek it, 

[1.] Earnestly. Pardon is an inestimable blessing, and must not be 
sought with faint and tired affections. 

[2. J Presently. Is it not full time seriously to set about it ? Thou hast 
lost too many days already, and wilt thou be so senseless as to let another 
slip ? How knowest thou but if thou dost refuse it this day, thou mayest 
be uncapable of it to-morrow ? There is but a step, a few minutes, between 
thee and death, and delays in great emergencies are dangerous. 

[3. J Universally. Content not yourselves with seeking a pardon for 
grisly, staring sins, which fright the conscience with every look, but seek 
the pardon of your inward secret spiritual sins ; while you beg most for the 
pardon of those, sanctifying gi-ace will come in as well as justifying ; the 
more you pray against the guilt of them, the more you will hate the filth of 
them." 

(2.) To those that seek a pardon, and yet are in doubt of it. Secure sin- 
ners, that understand not the evil of sin, think it is an easy thing, and that 
forgiveness will be granted of course. But those that groan under the bur- 
den of their iniquity, imagine it more difficult than indeed it is. Presump- 
tion wrongs God in his justice, and every degree of despair or doubting, in 
his mercy. 

[1.] God is wiUing to pardon. Ephraim doth but desire that God would 
turn him, and God presently cries out, ' Is Ephraim my dear son ? Is he a 
pleasant child ?' Jer. xxxi. 18, 20. ' I have surely heard Ephraim bemoan- 
ing himself thus.' A penitent Ephraim is instantly a pleasant child. Eph- 
raim strikes upon his thigh with confession, and God speaks to his heart with 
affection, God doth, as it were, take the words out of Ephraim's mouth, as 
though he watched for the first look of Ephraim towards him, or the first 
breath of a supplication. God is more willing to pardon sin than we are to 
sin ; because we sin with reluctancy, natural conscience checking us, but 
God hath no check when he goes to pardon. He ' waits to be gracious,' Isa. 
XXX. 18, ' therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you : 
and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you.' He 
hath waited all the time of your sinning, to have an opportunity to shew 
grace to you ; and now you give it him by repenting, mil he lose the fruit 
of his waiting ? It is the end of Christ's exaltation, whether it be meant of 
his being lifted up on the cross, or his exaltation in heaven ; it is true of both, 
that his end is to have mercy upon you. 

[2.] God will pardon the greatest sins. His infinite compassion cannot 
exhaust itself by a frequent remission. Mercy holds proportion to justice ; 
as his justice punisheth little sins as well as great, so doth mercy pass by 
great sins as well as little. Your highest sins are the sins of men, but the 
mercy offered is the mercy of a God. 

The debt you owe is a vast debt, but Christ's satisfaction is of a greater 
value ; and a king's revenue may well pay a beggar's debts, though she 
owe many thousands the first day of marriage. Multiplied sins upon re- 
pentance shall meet with multiplied pardons : Isa. Iv. 7, ril^D"? n21\ ' abund- 



Ps. XXXII. 1, 2.] THE PAKDON OF SIN. 457 

antly pardon.' We cannot vie our sins with God's mercy. The grace of 
Grod, and the righteousness of Christ, which are necessaiT- for the remission 
of one sin, are infinite, and no more is requisite for the pardon of the greatest, 
yea, of the sins of the whole world, if they were upon thy single score. The 
grace conferred upon Paul was more than would suit his necessity : 1 Tim. 
i. 14, vmci'r/.io'yaas, superabound ; ' and the grace of our Lord was exceeding 
abundant,' enough to have pardoned a whole world as well as Paul ; like the 
sun, that emits as much heat in his beams upon one puddle, as is enough not 
only to exhale the moisture of that, but of a hundred more. Suppose thou 
art the greatest sinner that ever was yet extant in the world, do not think 
that God, who hath snatched so many firebrands of hell out of the devil's 
hands, will neglect such an opportunity to make his grace illustrious upon 
thy humble soul. If God hath given thee repentance, it is a certain evidence 
he will follow it with a pardon, though thy sins be of a deeper scarlet than 
ever yet was seen upon the earth ; for if he did not mean to bestow 
this, he would never have bestowed upon thee the necessary condition of it. 
Is there not a sinner can equal thee ? Then surely God is wiser than to 
lose the highest opportunity he yet bad to evidence his superlative grace. 
And therefore, 

[1.] Continue thy humiliations. There must be a conformity between 
Christ and thee. He was humbled when he purchased remission, and you 
must be humbled when you receive it. God will not part with that very 
cheap, that cost his Son so dear : though thou art not at the expense of the 
blood of thy soul, thou must be at the expense of the blood of thy sins. 
When a man comes to be deeply afiected with his sin, then God sends a 
message of peace : Isa. vi. 6, 1, ' Then flew one of the seraphims, and laid 
a live coal upon his mouth, and said. Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy 
sin purged.' When, ver. 5, he had cried out, ' Woe is me, for I am 
undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.' The way to have a debt for- 
given is to acknowledge it : Ps. xxxii. 5, ' I said, I will confess my trans- 
gressions unto the Lord : and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.' God 
stood as ready to forgive David's unrighteousness, as he was ready to con- 
fess it. Mercy will not save a man without making him sensible of, and 
humbled for, his iniquity. Put thy business, therefore, into Christ's hands, 
and submit to what terms he will impose upon thee. 

[2. J In thy suppHcations plead his glory. You find this the constant ar- 
gument the people of God in the Scripture use for the prevailing with God 
for forgiveness. That argument is most comfortably pleaded, which God 
loves most, and whereunto he orders all his actions. No stronger motive 
can be used to him to grant it, than that whereby he excites himself to be- 
stow it. When thou beggest other things, thou mayest dishonour God ; 
but God cannot be a loser of his glory in granting this. Lord, if thou tum- 
est me into hell, where is the glory of thy mercy upon thy creature ? Nay, 
where is the glory of thy justice, my eternal torments not being able to com- 
pensate the injury done to thee by sin, so much as the suff"ering of thy only 
Son, whose death I desire to share in, and whose terms I am willing to sub- 
mit to ? 

3. Exhortation to those that are pardoned. 

1. Admire this grace of God. To pardon one sin is a greater thing than 
to create a world ; to pardon one sin is greater than to damn a world. God 
can create a world without the death of a creature ; he can damn a world 
without the death of a creator ; but in pardoning there must be the death of 
the creator, the Son of God. 

2. Serve God much. Is the guilt of sin, the cord that bound thee, taken 



4"* 8 ciiaknock's works. [Ps. XXXII. 1,2. 

off ? It is fit that when thou art so unfettered, thou shouldst run the ways of 
God's commandments. A sense of pardon of sin makes the soul willing and 
ready to run upon God's errands, and to obey his commandments : Isa. vi. 
8, ' I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send ? Then said 
I, Here am I.' Then when he had received assurance that his iniquity was 
taken away, ver. 7, God's pardon set thee upon a new stock, and therefore 
he expects thou shouldst be full of new clusters. 

3. Be more fearful of sin. Dispute with thyself. Hath God pardoned the 
guilt of sin that it shall not damn me, and shall I wallow in the mire of sin to 
pollute myself? Oh, thy sins after pardon have a blacker circumstance 
than the sins of devils, or the sins of wicked men, for theirs are not against 
pardoning mercy, not against special love. Oh, thaw thy heart every morning 
with a meditation on pardon, and sin will not so easily freeze it in the day- 
time. When thou art tempted to sin, consider what thoughts thou hadst 
when thou wert sueing for pardon, how earnest thou wert for it, what promises 
and vows thou didst make, and consider the love God shewed thee in par- 
doning. Do not blur thy pardon, so easily wound thy conscience, or weaken 
thy faith. 

4. Be content with what God gives thee. If he gives thee heaven, will 
he deny thee earth ? He that bestows upon thee the pardon of sin, would 
surely pour into thy bosom the gold of both the Indies, were it necessary 
for thee. But thou hast got a greater happiness; for it is not said. Blessed 
is he that wallows in wealth, honour, and a confluence of worldly prosperity, 
but, ' Blessed is he whose sin is forgiven, and whose iniquity is covered.' 



MAN'S ENMITY TO GOD. 



[Thus far is a reprint of the entire contents of the two folio volumes commonly 
known as ' Charnock's Works,' including the appendix contained in some copies, but 
not in all. The two sermons that follow were published in 1699, and were reprinted 
at Leeds in a small 8vo volume in 1817. From that they are now reprinted. It will 
be remembered that Mr Veel, the author of the following advertisement, was one of 
the editors of the ' Works.' — Ed.] 



AN ADVEETISEMENT TO THE EEADEE. 



Good Reader, — Upon the publication of the second volume of Mr 
.Charnock's works, it was much lamented by those that knew him, and had 
a just value for him, that some sermons he was known to have preached 
(and which were as worthy of the public view as the rest, and no less useful 
to the grand design of man's salvation) could not be found among his papers ; 
especially three sermons, which many heard him preach on three several 
Lord's days, upon 1 Tim. xi. 15, ' Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners.' But now, beyond expectation, instead of them, the good pro- 
vidence of God hath brought to light the two following treatises, by the 
unwearied diligence of Mr Ashton, one of the laborious transcribers of the 
first volume of this author's works, and who, to give him his due, hath raked 
them out of the ashes, and rescued them from that oblivion to which they 
seemed condemned, having with great pains and patience transcribed, as well 
as with great judgment joined together, the several materials he found 
belonging respectively to each subject, in the many loose papers of Mr 
Charnock he had by him. The papers I have seen, and, with Mr Ashton's 
help, have (so far as was needful) compared the transcription with them. ^ 
One of these treatises contains the continuation of the author's meditations 
on 1 Tim. i. 15. And herein he handles a second doctrine, grounded on the 
last clause of the verse. The text was fruitful, and bore twins, whereof the 
younger only survives ; the other, I fear, is dead without recovery. 

But I verily persuade myself that many an honest soul will have occasion 
to bless the Lord for the birth, shall I say ? or the resurrection of this still- 
born offspring of so worthy a father, being thereby stirred up not only to 
admire that rich grace of God which so eminently appears in many times 
calling the chiefest of sinners, but encouraged in the faith of it, and sup- 
ported under the burden of the greatest guilt which we find so often oppress- 
ing, terrifying, and even sinking, awakened sinners into despair, when they 
look upon their sins as not only above the sins of others, but even above the 



4G0 TO THE READER. 

mercy of God itself, and therefore unpardonable. If secure sinners shall 
dare to abuse tlie great truths here declared and set forth, to the strengthen- 
ing their hands in their evil works, and emboldening themselves to a life of 
sin because God's grace abounds, at their peril be it, and let them answer 
for it. But in the mean time, it is pity that such rich and precious cordials 
should be withheld from those that need them, lest others to whom they do 
not belong should presumptuously catch at them, and undo themselves by 
misapplying them. And who knows not that what is a cordial to some may 
prove poison to others ? 

As for the other discourse, Of Man's Enmity against God, we cannot find 
when or where it was preached. I have been credibly informed, that the 
author had a design (had it pleased God to have prolonged his days) to have 
preached largely about original sin, and then it is not unlikely that he might 
intend this present treatise as one branch of it. And in it, if the reader can 
but dispense with one degree less of that accuracy and neatness of style which 
usually appears in his other writings, he will find as excellent matter, and 
great things, as in most of them, and indeed the true spirit of the author. 
He had made great use of the hammer in beating out the truth, but wanted 
time to apply the file for the more thorough smoothing and polishing of his 
work, which truly wants nothing but the finishing- stroke. The thread of 
this discourse is as finely spun as any, though the piece be not altogether so 
glossy ; but whatever is wanting in ornament, is abundantly made up in use- 
fulness. And if one of these treatises may be a glass in which humbled 
sinners may see the beauty and glory of sovereign grace, the other too may 
be a glass in which the best of saints may see the face of their own souls, 
and a lively representation of that inherent wickedness which all that dili- 
gently observe and know their own hearts cannot but acknowledge to be 
natural to them, as having been bom with them into the world. I cannot 
but say that this discourse is an excellent portraiture of the old man ; a 
graphical description of the devil's image impressed upon and deforming the 
most beautiful part of this lower creation. It shews how much man is 
debased and degraded by sin, and become a slave to his lusts, who was 
made at first to be the lord of his fellow-creatures ; and so how rueful a 
legacy our first father has left us, and to what misery he hath entailed us, 
by communicating so cursed a nature to us. That the blessing of God may 
be upon these labours of his (long since) deceased but faithful servant, and 
that they may, by the power of his grace, be made efiectual for obtaining 
the ends designed by the author, is the desire and prayer of him who is, 
good reader, 

Thy soul's well-wisher, and servant for Jesus' sake, 

Edw. Veel. 
September 20. 1699. 



MAN'S ENMITY TO GOD. 



Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law 
of God, neither indeed can be. — Rom. VIII. 7. 



PART I. 

A state of nature a state of enmity against God. 

In the fourth verse the apostle renews the description of those persons to 
whom he had proclaimed a jubilee in the first verse : ' There is now no con- 
demnation,' &c. Sanctified persons only have an interest in Christ, and 
those that have an interest in Christ are not subject to a sentence of death. 
They are described from their course and conversation : they ' walk not after 
the flesh,' not after the dictates, wills, desires, importunities of the flesh, but 
according to the motions, dictates, direction of the Holy Ghost in the gospel. 
The note by which we may know whether we walk after the Spirit is laid 
down : ' They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but 
they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit,' ver. 5. ^^oi^nv 
signifies, 

1. Affectum, aff'ection, Rom. xii. 16. To duro ^ooiouvrsc. 

2. Sensum, sense or relish. The understanding is the palate of the soul, 
the taster to the will ; it considers what things be good, and under that notion 
offers them to the will. Spiritual things are as dry chips to a carnal heart, 
even as carnal things are contemptible to a spiritual mind. 

3. Cogitationem , thought. So for the most part it is taken, and notes the 
TO r,yiiJ.ovr/Jjv, and is meant of the higher acts of the soul. 

Frequent thoughts discover rooted affections. Operations of the mind are 
the indexes, Kg/rj^g/a, of a regenerate or unregenerate estate. If about carnal 
Lthingsj, they evidence the bent of the heart to be turned that way, and that 
worldly objects are dearest to them. If about spiritual, they manifest spiritual 
objects to be the most grateful to the soul. Carnal thoughts are signs of a 
languishing and feeble frame, but spiritual discover a well-tempered and 
complexioned soul. 

As this is laid down by the apostle, it hath, as some pictures, a double 
aspect. It is a character and a duty. For the apostle enforces it by the 
consideration of the danger of the one, and the happiness of the other : ' To 



462 chaenock's works. [Rom. YIII. 7. 

be carnally minded is death ; to be spiritually minded is life and peace,' 
ver. 6. 

Death and life. 

1. Effective, by way of efficiency. As they deaden and enliven the soul. 
Carnal principles are spiritual diseases. Spiritual thoughts are healing 
restoratives. 

2. Consecutive, by way of consequence. Revenge and justice attends the 
one, as grace and mercy accompanies the other. 

The proof of this is, ver. 7, it is death, because it is enmity to, and aver- 
sion from God, who is the fountain of life. It is the description of a natural 
estate, and what relation a man considered in his corrupt nature bears to 
God. 

(S?^civri[ia. The most refined and elevated thoughts, which have no other 
groundwork than nature. The highest flights of an unregenerate soul by the 
wings of the greatest reason. The wisdom and virtues of the heathen were 
enmity, therefore translated by some, sapientia carnis, the wisdom of the 
flesh. 

T^S saoKhg. Unregenerate man. Flesh is usually taken in scripture for 
the unregenerate part of the soul. ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh,' 
John iii. 6. E;^^f«. Not enemy, but enmity. 

1. Not anger. That is not so bad. It may arise from some distaste; 
every disgust does not destroy friendship. 2. Not aversion. That may be 
quickly removed. But, 3. Enmity. How directly opposite is man to God ! 
God is said to be love, and man enmity, both in the abstract. Like that in 
Ezek. xliv. 6, 'Thou shalt say to the rebellion,' Tl^^, rebellion instead of 
rebellious. Enmity in nature ; the nature of God, and that of a corrupt man 
can never be reconciled. 

In the first verse, observe, 1. A proposition. 'The carnal mind,' &c. 
2. The proof. 1. Proposition. 1. The state, enmity. 2. The object of 
this enmity, Goc?. 3. The subject or seat of it, rmncL 4. The qualification, 
carnal. 2. The proof, * It is not subject,' &c. ; wherein observe, 1. Wilful- 
ness. ' It is not subject.' The holiness of the law, like the light of the 
sun, dazzles its eyes, that he cannot endure it. If we be not God's sub- 
jects, we must be his enemies, for he that is not with Christ is against him. 
2. Weakness. 'Neither indeed can be.' It cannot, quia non vult, because 
it will not, saith Haymo. It is an enemy to it, and therefore will not be 
subject to its determinations. 

1. It cannot be perfectly subject. I may be subject to the material part, 
and outward bark, not to the spiritual and true intendment of the law. 2. It 
cannot qua talis, as such. Sin cannot be reconciled to God, neither can a 
sinner as a sinner. It must be some superior power that must conquer an 
enemy that hath possession of a strong fort. 

Doct. I. A state of nature is a state of enmity against God. II. Man is 
naturally an enemy to the sovereignty and dominion of God. Not subject 
to the law of God. By law, I mean not here the moral law only, but the 
whole will and rule of God, which is chiefly discovered in his law. 

For the first doctrine, a state of nature is a state of enmity against God. 
1. For the expHcation. 2. The confirmation. 3. The application. 

T. The expUcation ; and, 1. What is meant by a natural man, or state of 
nature ? 

(1.) By a state of nature is not meant the human nature, or man as a 
creature consisting of body and soul ; then Jesus Christ, who truly and really 
assumed the human nature, was an enemy to God as well as we. There- 
fore some that understand those scriptures which speak of the flesh hinder- 



Rom. YIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 463 

ing us, of the natural or fleshly body, are much mistaken ; for if the flesh as 
created, and not as corrupted, did impose a necessity upon us of sinning, it 
would necessarily follow, that God did first place in us a natural enmity, and 
so is the author of all our sin. And also that Chi-ist could not be free from 
this black character, if it be owned (as it must be), that he had a nature of 
the same kind and mould as ours are. 

God did not in creation implant in us a principle of contrariety to him ; 
neither could a God of infinite goodness dash any such blot upon man's 
nature, for he framed him in an exact harmony to his own will, and printed 
him a fair copy, without any errata, according to his own image, which is 
nothing but holiness and love. But our defection from God puts us into 
this state, which is maintained by our inherent and tumultuous lusts. In 
our creation there was an union to God ; in our corruption a separation from 
him, whence ariseth an opposition to him, so that it is not created, but cor- 
rupted nature, which is here meant. 

(2.) Every profane man is a natural man, and consequently an enemy. 
Wicked works are demonstrative, demonstratively denials of God. *In 
works they deny him,' Titus i. 16. ' Sensual,' and * having not the Spirit,' 
are put together, Jude 19. That man that is actuated by sensuality, is not 
acted by the holy, but by the diabolical spirit. Luxurious persons, that 
make their belly their God, are termed ' enemies to the cross of Christ,' 
Phil. iii. 18. And if enemies to the cross of Christ, then enemies to God, 
who was engaged in the greatest design that ever was upon the stage of 
heaven and earth, at the time of Christ's being upon the cross. And if 
enemies to the cross of Christ, then enemies to all those attributes of wis- 
dom, power, holiness, truth, justice, mercy, which God glorified in the death 
of Christ, and in the most illustrious manner, 

(3.) Every unrenewed man, though never so richly endowed with morals, 
is a natural man. What is called (p^ovri/xct, fia^xog in the text, is called, 
1 Cor. ii. 14, -^l/u^iKOi avd^wrrog, one that hath nothing excellent but a rational 
soul. As -^-jy^r/Jji is opposed to TViviJ^ariKog, it is a soul jointured in the 
richest dowry of nature. And as opposed to Gaoxinhg, a fleshly man, it 
notes a freedom from gross pollutions and defilements without. A ■^/uyjaog 
avd^MToc, is one led by the rational dictates of his mind, and sao-/.ix.og Is a 
man led by his sensitive aSections. Though the one be better than the 
other, and more agreeable to the order of nature, yet both being corrupted 
and defiled, are contrary to God. 

Sappose a man with the highest endowments of reason, wisdom, under- 
standing, learning, as wise as Solomon, and suppose him as rich in morals 
as in intellectuals ; yet if he be not ' renewed in the spirit of his mind,' 
Rom. xii. 2, /. e. the more spiritual and rational part of his soul, though 
there be never so fair a frontispiece, colour, and pretences of friendship, yet 
such a man is an enemy ; because by all that strength of nature he cannot 
have a knowledge of spiritual things, or a faith in God ; and without a know- 
ledge of him, he cannot be subject to him ; and without faith it is impossi- 
ble to do any thing to please him. 

The most civilised heathens, who disdained those ugly and carnal sins of 
drunkenness, lust, &c., yet were possessed by the more spiritual legions of 
pride and vain glory, &c. Though you have not outwardly the impurity of 
the flesh, yet you may flow with a greater impurity of the spirit. External 
acts of pollution are more abhorred by reason, because they are more brutish, 
they degrade the nature of a man, and disgrace his person. But in heart- 
sins, though there be not so much of discredit, there is more of enmity. 

2. What^kind of enmity this is. (1.) I understand it of nature, not of 



464 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

actions only. Every action of a natural man is an enemy's action, but not 
an action of enmity. A toad doth not envenom every spire of grass it crawls 
upon, nor poison every thing it toucheth, but its nature is poisonous. Cer- 
tainly every man's nature is worse than his actions : as waters are purest at 
the fountain, and poison most pernicious in the mass, so is enmity in the 
heart. And as waters relish of the mineral vein they run through, so the 
actions of a wicked man are tinctured with the enmity they spring from, 
but the mass and strength of this is lodged in his nature. There is in all 
our natures such a diabolical contrariety to God, that if God should leave a 
man to the current of his own heart, it would overflow in all kind of wicked- 
ness : for the best mere nature has fundameutally and radically as much of 
this enmity, as the worst ; for the disposition is the same, though the effects 
may be restrained in some men more than in others. No man is any more 
born with a love to God, than he is with the knowledge of the highest 
sciences. There is indeed an active power to the attainment of those by the 
assistance of a good education ; but man hath only a passive power to the 
other, as being a subject passively capable of the grace of God. The in- 
herency of this enmity in our nature the psalmist expresses, when he tells 
us, ' The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as 
ever they be born,' Ps. Iviii. 3, 4. They go sinfully, before they go naturally. 
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent, which you know is radically the 
same in all of the same species. 

(2.) It is a state of enmity. Godly men may do an enemy's action, but 
they are not in a state of enmity. They may be cheated into sin, but they 
do not dwell in it ; they may fall into it as a man into a ditch, but they lie 
not in it. There may be some jarrings between God and a regenerate man ; 
God may be displeased with him, and he disgusted with God, and jealous of 
him, as in the case of Jonah, a type of Christ, but there is not a stated war. 
But a natural man is in a state of universal contrariety. 

[1.] All times, it is rooted in the nature of a man. It is called a * root 
of bitterness,' planted in a man's disposition : therefore bitterness is a 
quality essential to it, and inseparable from it : for while it remains a root, 
it will remain bitter. 

You can never suppose a thing to exist, and be without its nature, and 
the modes and qualities due to such a being ; or a man to live, and be with- 
out a soul. So you cannot suppose a corrupted creature to be one moment 
of time without this enmity, no more than a serpent can be imagined to 
retain its nature without the venom inherent in it, though there is not at all 
times the discovery of it. 

[2. J In every sinful act. Though the interest of particular sins may be 
contrary to one another, yet they all conspire in a joint league against God. 
Scelera dissident* Sins are in conflict with one another ; covetousness and 
prodigality, covetousness and intemperance, cannot agree, but they are all in 
an amicable combination against the interest of God. In betraying Christ, 
Judas was acted by covetousness, the high priest by envy, Pilate by popu- 
larity, but all shook hands together in the murdering of Christ. f And those 
various iniquities were blended together, to make up one lump of enmity. 
Though in every sin there is not an express hatred of God, yet there is 
odium Dei imrti<;ipative, some participation of hatred of him. As all virtuous 
actions partake of the nature of love to the chiefest good, our beloved object; 
so all vicious actions, which are at a distance from the chief end, are mar- 
shalled by, and tinctured with, that inward enmity which lurks in the soul. 

[3.] Objectively universal, against all the attributes of God. For sin 
* Seneca. t Jenkiu, Jude, part ii. p. 522. 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 465 

being an opposition to the law of God, is consequently a contrariety to his 
will, and his understanding, and therefore to all those attributes which flow 
from his will, as goodness, righteousness, truth ; and his understanding, as 
wisdom, knowledge. Though every law proceeds from the will of the law- 
giver, and doth formally consist in acta voluntatis, yet it presupposes actum 
intellectus, i. e. though it consists in the will of the lawgiver, yet it presup- 
poses the wisdom of the lawgiver to be the fountain. As the understanding 
of God precedes the act of his will, so every sin being against the will of 
God, is also against the infinite reason and wisdom of God, which is the 
foundation of all his laws. 

(3.) This enmity against God is habitually seated in the mind. Corrup- 
tion extends its empire as large as regeneration ; but this is seated in the 
mind, and the most spiritual part of it ; * renewed in the spirit of your mind,' 
Rom. xii. 2 ; it does not content itself with the outworks of the affections, 
but triumphs in the chiefest forts of the soul, and there displays its banners. 
The great contest between God and the devil is in the understanding and 
will. The standards are first erected there. As in conversion, the mind is 
first enlightened by God, and the will first inclined; so in seduction, they are 
first possessed by Satan. 

Hence a natural man is described to be one that fulfils ' the desires of the 
mind,' as well as ' of the flesh,' Eph. ii. 3. In this part, wherein God 
placed the most splendid part of his image, does Satan diffuse his poison ; 
and wisdom, the chiefest flower in the rational part of man, is infected with 
this plague, for that is devilish too, James iii. 15. The mind thus infected, 
is like those eminent persons that spread the contagion of their vices to all 
their attendants. If it be thus iii the noblest and governing part of the 
soul, it must be so also in the other faculties, which are directed by it, and 
observe the dictates of it. The other faculties, like common soldiers in a 
war, fight for the prey and booty ;* but the mind, the sovereign, being filled 
with principles of a more direct contrariety to God, fights for the superiority, 
and orders all the motions of the lower rout. 

But more particularly, there is odium aversionis, as opposed to desire. 
Thus man hates God, because he turns from him. Man naturally gives his 
vote for God's absence, and is so far from loving the practice, that his 
stomach abhors the knowledge of God's ways ; that say uaito God, ' Depart 
from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways,' Job xxi. 14. That 
' say unto God.' No creature durst be so bold to say it to God's face ; but 
it is the language of our natures, though not of our tongues. We desire not 
the knowledge of thy ways. The laws and ways of God, which he commands 
us to walk in, are too holy, righteous, and spiritual for our corrupted nature. 

By sin we stand indebted to God, and therefore have an aversion from 
him ; as debtors hate the sight of their creditors, and are loath to meet them. 
Adam fled from God when he had run upon God's score : sin is a disease, 
and so contrary to that physic which would abate the violence of the humour. 
God's presence and purity is too dazzling a sight for sinful men ; and there- 
fore they cannot look upon God, hut are like sore eyes that are distempered 
with the sun. 

Again, there is odium prosecutionis, which implies a detestation opposite 
to love and affection. And so there is not only an aversion from God, but 
an opposition to him. Both those parts of hatred are described : ' And you 
that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your minds by wicked works,' 
Col. i. 21. 

Here is alienation, which is aversion ; and enmity, which is opposition ; 
* Gumal's Christian Armour, something changed. 

VOL. V. G g 



466 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

and both seated in the mind : though some expound alienation according 
to outward, enmity according to inward, estate. But the apostle declares 
hatred to be complete in those two, alienation and enmity, which is both 
'in mind and works ; mind as the seat, works as the issues of it. Enemies 
in disposition and action, principle and execution. 

This odium persecntio7iis is, 1, natural, which we call antipathy. And 
there are steps of this among many creatures : many men have an abhorrency 
to some kinds of meats, and can never endure the taste, nor the sight ; and 
if unawares they eat any of that disagreeing sort, it breeds a distemper in the 
body. Some men have had an antipathy at the sight of some creatures, as 
Germanicus, according to Plutarch's relation, could not endure the crowing 
of a cock ; another the smell or touch of a rose. Antipathies have been ob- 
served between some creatures after they are dead. The entrails of a lamb and 
wolf upon the same instrument can never be tuned ; the blood of dragons 
and eagles can never mix together ; some plants will not grow by one another. 
There is not such a hatred absolutely between God and man, though there be 
between God and sin ; because there may be a reconciliation between God and 
a sinner, but not between God and sin ; for antipathies are irreconcileable. 

The enmity between God and a sinner is not foimded in nature, but cor- 
rupt nature ; and this nature may be removed by satisfaction and regenera- 
tion. A fundamental reconciliation was the great intendment of God in the 
death of Christ ; for he was in him as in his ambassador, reconciling the world 
unto himself; and an actual reconciliation is made between God and a par- 
ticular soul at the first instant of faith ; though this reconcihation be made 
between God and man, yet not between God and the corrupt nature of man ; 
for it would be against G-od's nature to be reconciled to that, though he be 
his creature ; because since his nature is infinitely good, he cannot but love 
goodness, as it is a resemblance of himself, and consequently cannot but 
abhor unrighteousness, as being most distant from the nature ; and therefore 
never will express any dearness or intimacy to man's corrupted nature, but to 
man justified and regenerate. 

But the enmity which is between God and sin is founded in the nature 
of God, and the nature of sin. Sin being the summum ivahtm, the greatest 
evil, is naturally most opposite to God, who is the summum honum, the 
greatest good. So that God can never be reconciled to sin, or sin to God ; 
for on the one side God must part with his holiness, or sin with its malice 
and impurity, and so God cease to be God, or sin cease to be sin. 

As God is unchangeably good both in nature and decree, so sin is un- 
changeably evil. As God can never cease to be good, so sin can never 
cease to be sin ; because the natural imprinted law of God can never cease 
to be his law, because it is grounded upon eternal principles of righteousness. 
God's nature is against sin ; for if his hating sin were a mere voluntary act, 
he might then either love it or detest it, which he pleased. But is God un- 
righteous, to love unrighteousness ? No, it is a voluntary, natural* act. 

The hatred sin hath to God hath no mixture of love ; the hatred a man 
has to God may have some mixture of a natural love, because of the kind- 
ness he knows he receives from God. 

2. Acquired hatred, which is grounded upon diversity of interests. Various 
interests must have contrary means for the attainment of their ends. The 
interest of a sinner as such, qua talis, consists in gratifying the importunities 
of his lusts, in finding out occasions of pleasures ; and the interest of God 
lies in vindicating the righteousness of his commands, and maintaining the 
truth of his threatenings. 

* Qu. ' not a merely voluntary, but a natural '?— Ed. 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 467 

This is either, 1, direct. When a man burns with a desire of revenge 
against another for some real or supposed affront, endeavouring to do him 
all the ill offices in his power. This none but the despairing and malicious 
devils are guilty of, who know themselves to be under an inevitable sentence. 
In this, some place the sin against the Holy Ghost, and make it to be a 
direct and malicious hatred of God. But that will be a question, whether 
a creature, in a possibility and probability of salvation, and presuming upon 
mercy, can maliciously take up arms against God as God ; for, as I believe, 
there is no settled opinionative atheism in the world, nor a man ever in any 
age that did deliberately think there was no God; so I believe there is no 
settled malice against God. 

But there may be a malicious contempt of Christ, such as Julian's was, 
who in scorn termed him the Galilean : ' They have hated me and my Father 
also,' John xv. 24 ; me directly, my Father intei*pretatively or virtually, 
through many sins ; as when he saith, ' Those that have seen me, have seen 
my Father also,' John xiv. 9 ; me plainly, evidently, in my person and 
works ; my Father virtually, as I am his extraordinary ambassador in the 
world to represent him, and because they have seen the power of my Father 
acting in and by me in the miracles I have w'rought ; so that they hated the 
Father as they had seen him, i. e. not directly, but in his agent, our Saviour. 
Their hatred of God was as their sight of God had been. 

2. ImpUcite et interpretative. Idem relle et nolle est proprium amicorum. 
Lovers are said to have but one soul, and therefore but one will. Men love 
not the things that God loves, and therefore may be said to hate him. A 
man may be said to hate God, as men are said to wrong their own souls, 
and love death, and despise their own souls : ' He that sins against me, 
wrongs his own soul : all they that hate me, love death,' Prov. viii. 36 ; * He 
that refuseth instruction, despiseth his own soul,' Prov. xv. 32. Consecutive, 
as they do those things that will be an injury unto, and bring death upon, 
them ; as a thief may be said in this sense to hate his own life, because he 
doth those things which will be the occasion and meritorious cause of his 
destruction. 

For no man formally loves death, as death, or despises his own soul, but 
in doing those things, the effects whereof are such as a man may be said to 
contemn himself; so men, acting those things which jostle with God's law, 
and stand diametrically opposite to his will, are said to hate God. In this 
respect sin is called a contempt of God, not formal and express, but implicit 
and interpretative, because by sin the law of God is contemned, and conse- 
quently the authority, will, and wisdom of the lawgiver : *■ They that despise 
me shall be lightly esteemed,' 1 Sam. ii. 30. 

The nature of hatred being thus explained, let us see what kind of enmity 
against God this is. First, negatively. We hate not God as God. It is 
not the primary intention of a creature to set itself against the nature of God ; 
and indeed it is impossible, because God, absolutely considered, hath all the 
attractives of love, since the noblest perfections of the creatures are in a more 
excellent manner united in him as the original. As a man cannot will sin as 
sin, because it is purely evil, and therefore cannot be the object of the desire, 
since his will is carried out to things under the notion of good, so we cannot 
bate God as God, because of the amiableness of his nature ; and what we 
conceive good cannot be the object of contempt. No man can hate truth as 
truth, or good as good, because the one is the proper object of his under- 
standing, the other of his will, though he may hate them both under an 
apprehension that they are evil and inconvenient to him. 

God in himself, as he is known by an open vision, cannot be a motive to 



468 charnock's works. [Rom. "VIII. 7. 

enmity;* no, not to the devils themselves ; but as they apprehend his nature 
destructive of their well-being. 

We never yet met with any so monstrously base as to hate a creature as 
a creature, or man as man ; not a toad or a serpent as a creature, but as it 
is venomous. And though Timon was surnamed fLK^avd^u'^oc, because pos- 
sessed with a melancholy kind of hatred, yet he professed he hated bad men 
because of their vices, and g<X)d men, because they did not concur with him 
in so intense and exact a hatred of the -enormities of the world. And as it 
is impossible that we should hate a creature under the notion of a creature, 
because there is nothing in the simple notion of a creature contrary to us, 
but in regard of some appropriated nature of this or that creature of a different 
or contrary stamp to our own, so neither can we hate God as God, because 
in the general and abstracted notion of God there is nothing contrary to man, 
no, nor to corrupted man, but he is an infinite mirror of goodness and 
ravishing loveliness. 

Again, we hate not God as creator and preserver. Hatred always supposes 
Rome injury, either real or imaginary, or a,t least the fear of some ; and our 
hatred doth evaporate when we find him to be good whom we hated under a 
conceit of being bad, or when our supposed injuries are recompensed by 
comforting benefiis. What servant can disdain his master for feeding him ? 
or what child hate his father for begetting and maintaining him ? This is 
contrary to the common sparks of ingenuity which are in the natures of men, 
and against their natural interest. Reason will acquaint men with a first 
cause, and that their' beings are produced and preserved by a power superior 
to their own. Who pan loathe this infinite Sun for the constant refreshment 
they receive by his beams and influences, any more than a man can hate the 
created sun for the kindly warmth darted upon him ? In this respect natural 
men, from a common ingenuity, have some starts of love to God, though 
this is not a love of a right impression, because it respects not the -excellency 
of God's nature, but the agreeableness of his benefits to us, and so is rather 
a self-love, as terminated principally in our own welfare, sustained and 
increased by the influence of his providence. Sometimes this love to God, 
which a wicked man thinks himself endued with, is rather an enmity, -when 
he loves God with an only respect to his own corrupt ends ; as when he pro- 
fesses an afiection to God for his preservation, that he may the longer con- 
tinue in the society of his darling lusts ; or when he loves God for the wealth 
he gives him, because he hath thereby the more materials for his luxury and 
voluptuousness. This is such an affection to God which may be termed an 
enmity, since it is subordinate to the love of liis brutish lusts. It is a love 
of him for those mercies which he turns into fuel to support his natural 
contrariety against <xod. 

Secondly, positively. 

1. We hate God as a sovereign. Man cannot endure a supeiior ; be would 
be uncontrollable. 'Pharaoh's principle, that would acknowledge none above 
him, but proclaimed war against heaven, this dwells naturally in every one : 
* Our lips are our own, who is Lord over us ?' Ps. xii. 4 ; ' Who is the Lord, 
that I should obey his voice to let Israel go ? I know not the Lord, neither 
will I let Israel go,' Exod. v. 2. How contemptibly doth he speak of God, 
which is the dialect of every man's heart ! Who is the Lord, that I should 
obey his voice, and let my dearest carnal pleasures go ? I know not the 
Lord, neither will I let them depart from me. A desire of being like to God, 
or equal to him in wisdom, was the first sin of man after the creation, as 
to be equal to God in authority and power was the first sin of devils, a 

* Non potest esse motivum voluntatis ad odium. — Banet inTl da. q. 34. art. 2. 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 469 

renouncing of God's dominion. God, by a positive law, enjoined man not 
to eat of the forbidden fruit, a thing in itself indifferent, but commanded for 
the trial af his obedience, to see whether he would own a subjection to God's 
absolute will, and abstain from things desirable in themselves, because of the 
mere pleasure of the Creator. But by his transgression he disov/ned God's 
right of commanding, and his own duty of obeying. 

The devil knows by his own temper what bait man was most like to catch 
at, since the noblest creature among the animals aims most at superiority and 
victory. Nebuchadnezzar, who was for this aspiring humour to be accounted 
and worshipped as a sovereign god, was as deservedly as disgracefully turned 
a-grazing among the beasts ; and the great charge at the last day against the 
sons of men will be, that they would not have God, or Christ of his appoint- 
ment, to reign over them. 

We hate God as a lawr/iver, as he is peccati prohibitor, Luke xix. 27. It 
is impossible that man. should do otherwise, as considered in the nature 
wherein he stands, because it is as natural to us to abhor those things which 
are unsuitable and troublesome, as to please ourselves in things agreeable to 
our minds and humours. But since man is so deeply in love with sin, ac- 
counting it the most estimable good, he cannot but hate the law which 
checks it, both the external precept and the counterpart of it in his own 
conscience, because the strictness of the commands molest and shackle him 
in his agreeable course, and the severity of its threatenings stare him in the 
face with curses ; as the sea foams most, and casts up most mire, when the 
impetuousuess of it is restrained by some rock, or bounded by the shore. 

It is not the law that provokes u^ to sin directly, but accidentally, because 
of our corruption, contrary to the image of God's purity in the precept ; for 
we look upon God as cruel, and injurious to our liberty and well-being, and 
commanding those things which in our apprehensions do thwart and con- 
tradict our pleasures. This conceit was the hammer whereby the hellish 
Jael struck the nail into our first parents;, which hath conveyed death and 
damnation, together with the same imagination, to all their posterity : ' God 
doth know, that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened ; and 
you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,' Gen. iii. 5. Alas ! poor soul ; 
God knows what he did when he forbade you that fruit ; he was jealous you 
should be too happy, and it was a cruelty in him to deprive you of a food 
so pleasant and delicious ! It was for this end the law wa^ given with thun- 
derings and lightnings from mount Sinai, to enforce an awe upon men, God 
well knowing how apt we are to break the hedges, and fly from restraints. 

The sum is, man would be as a Iamb in a large place,, like a heifer sliding 
from the yoke, Eos. iv. 16, Mai. i. 13. He snuffs at the command of his 
Lord, and would be subject to no law but his own, and be guided by no will 
but that of the flesh. Have you not many times wished that there were no 
law, or that it were not so strict as to check your darling lusts ? What is 
this, but an enmity to the authority of that law you account so burdensome ? 

2. We hate God as a judge ; as autor legis and idlor lerfis ; as peccati pro- 
hihitor and piencr, executor. Fear is often the cause of hatred.* All men 
have a fear of God, not of offending him, but of being punished by him. 
Corruption kindles this enmity, but fear, like a bellows, inflames it. When 
men know they deserve punishment, they must needs fear, and consequently 
disaffect both the author and the inflicter of it. Guilt makes malefactors 
tremble at the report of a judge's coming. All the perfections of God, 
though never so amiable, cannot produce any true spiritual love in a natural 
man, though he be never so specious in the eye of the world, or good-natured 
* 'Ouhili ya.^ <poP,urai (fsKu.—Arist. Rhetor, lib. ii. cap. iv. 



470 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

to his fellow-creatures, while he lies under the apprehensions of wrath, and 
is in his own sense concluded under an eternal doom. If you should tell a 
prisoner that his judge is a brave, comely, genteel man, of excellent accom- 
plishments and unspotted innocency, would this commend the person of the 
judge to the prisoner ? No ; because he considers him not in his intellec- 
tual or moral endowments, but in his political function, as a judge that will 
try, and condemn, and take away his life. 

This hatred of God is stronger or weaker, according as the fear is, and 
therefore in hell it is in its meridian and maturity, and most proper to the 
damned spirits ; but not so evident in this world, unless a man be brought 
into such a despairing condition as Spira was, who professed he hated God 
upon this account ; because the acts of God as a judge are remote, and evils 
at a distance do not so much aflfect us, because we flatter ourselves with 
hopes of escape. It is the certainty and approach of judgment that inspires 
fear. Evils hurt us not by a single apprehension of their nature ; for the 
contemplation may be delightful, as a picture of a storm at sea or a battle 
on land ; but they ati'ect us as they have relation to us ; that which was the 
devil's language to Christ, ' What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son 
of God ? art thou come to torment us before the time ?' Mat. viii. 29. This 
is the dialect of our hearts : ' Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge 
of thy ways,' Job xxi. 14, of holiness, nor thy ways of justice. 

Well, then, did none of you ever rage against God under his afflicting 
hand? Were you never like -wild beasts, ready to tear in pieces those 
that would take and tame you ? Did you never wish that God were so 
careless, as to enact no law to hurt you ; and so unrighteous, as to have 
no justice to punish you ? Did you never wish him stripped of his pre- 
ceptive will and his revenging arm ? Have you not wished sometimes that 
the law might be as dead a letter in respect of curses as it is in respect of 
conveying strength for the performance of it? that it might be a silent law, 
like Eli to his sons, never to correct you ? 

3. When this fear rises high, or men are under a sense of punishment, 
they hate the very being of God. This rises so high, that it aims at the 
very essence of God, as in Spira's case, who wished that he could destroy 
him. Since all men are actuated by a principle of self-preservation, and 
that this principle is universally natural and predominant, it will move them 
to take away the life of any person, rather than lose their own life by them. 
When men look upon God as a judge and punisher of their crimes, if they 
could by any means, yea, by the undeifying of God himself, rescue them- 
selves from those fears, there is self-love enough, and enmity enough against 
God in them, to quicken them to it. There is no doubt but the damned, if 
they could, would pull God out of his throne, to have ease from those 
dreadful torments they undergo. And whatsoever fearful apprehensions we 
have of God in this world, are but the lower degrees of that hatred which 
the damned have in the highest. 

But that I may not send you so far as hell for a proof, I will assert that 
the wishing, nay, the endeavouring the destruction of God, is fundamentally 
and seminally in every one of our natures. I will appeal to yourselves. 
Did none of you ever please yourselves sometimes in the thoughts how 
happy you should be, how free in your lustful pleasures, if there were no 
God ? Have you not one time or other wished there were no law given 
above to restrain you, no conscience within to check you, no judge hereafter 
to sentence you ? And can God be hated worse than when the destruction 
of his inseparable perfections, his holiness, righteousness, are thought so 
desirable ? It is a wishing the destruction of his being. Hatred is de? 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 471 

fined by one to be appetitus amovendi rem aliquem.* As love is a desire of 
union, hatred must be a desire of separation. And Aristotle tells us that 
hatred is an affection of a higher strain than anger, because it desires the ri> 
fiTi Bivxi, the very not being, of the hated object. 

As the hatred of sin aims at the destruction of sin, and men's hatred 
of saints would cause their expulsion out of the world, so the hatred of God 
is a desire to despoil him of his being ; and their not doing it is not for 
want of an innate disposition, but for want of strength ; for men hate God 
more than the best saint doth sin. All hatred includes a vu'tual murder : 
' Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer,' John iii. 15. If he who hates 
his brother is, in the court of exact judgment, a murderer of his brother, he 
that hates God is a murderer of God. The more self-love we have, the mora 
we shall hate that which we judge destructive to us ; because the more we 
wish well to ourselves, the more we wish ill to that which we imagine con 
trary to our well-being. And since we hate those acts of Grod which flow 
from the righteousness of his nature, we consequently rise up to a hatred 
of God's being; because he could not be God unless he loved righteous- 
ness, and hated iniquity ; and he could not testify his love to the one, or 
his loathing to the other, but in encouraging goodness, and witnessing his 
anger against iniquity. 

Man would have God at the greatest distance from him, and there is no 
greater distance from being than not being. Job. xsi. 14, ' who say unto 
God, Depart from us,' and Ps. xiv. 1, ' The fool hath said in his heart. No 
God,' as it is in the Hebrew, I wish there were no God ; and this is founded 
upon sin, for the reason rendered is, that ' they are corrupt, and have done 
abominable works.' Hence is sin by some called deicidium, a slaughtering 
of God, because every sin, being enmity to God, doth virtually include in its 
nature the destruction of God ; and since every man naturally is a child of 
the devil, and is acted by the diabolical spirit, ' the spirit that now works in 
the children of disobedience,' Eph. ii. 2, he must necessarily have that 
nature which his father hath, and the infusion of all that venom which the 
spirit that acts him is possessed with, though the full discovery of it may be 
restrained by various circumstances. And this assertion seems to be inti- 
mated in the death of Christ, for when we see for the satisfaction of the dis- 
honour done to God, Christ must die for sin, it intimates that if it were 
possible God should die by sin. If sin can be expiated by no less than the 
blood of God, it seems to imply that in its own nature it aims at no less 
than the life of God, because all God's punishments are founded in lege 
talionis, and are highly equitable. 

For confirmation that a state of nature is a state of enmity. The very 
design of Christ's coming into the world being an errand of peace, and the 
management of this design, both when he was conversant in the world and 
since his ascension, being to reconcile God and man, to promote by his 
Spirit an acceptance of this reconciliation, plainly discovers the state man 
was in, wherein man injured God and was punished by him, for what need 
of piecing up a friendship if there had not been an antecedent enmity ? 

There was a moral enmity against God on our parts, which must needs 
draw a legal enmity on God's part against us ; but the apostle in Rom. 
V. 10 declares it, ' If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God.' K 
when we were enemies, ur, all, of us ; not the best saint on earth, nor the 
most illustrious glorified saint in heaven, but had once this black character 
of being God's enemy ; not a son of Adam but inherited this abominable 
character, and had this hostile disposition boiling up against God. Every 
* Scaliger Exercit. 316, s. i. 



472 charnock's woeks. [Rom. VIII. 7i 

man naturally is like the lake of Sodom, that no holy motion can flutter 
over it, but falls down dead, being choked by those steams which ex- 
hale from the corruption of the heart. ' Haters of God,' Rom. i. 30, 
GscgruyiTg. "S-rw/iu signifies to hate a thing as hell ; it is derived from 
2tu^, one of the poetical rivers of hell, and signifies a more intense and 
rooted hatred than the expression of the LXX, Ps. cxxxix. 21, (/.isovvrsg 
"^iov. The most desperate enemy God hath now in hell of mankind had not 
a blacker soul at his nativit}'^ than every one of us had at ours, Tit. i. 16. 
The apostle tells us of some that denied God though they professed they knew 
him. They knew him notionally and denied him practically, yea, every 
attribute of his and his very being. Denied God ! There are the charac- 
ters of a Deity engraven upon every man by nature, so deeply in men's con- 
sciences that it is impossible for all the malice of the devil to raze it out. 
But if we make a judgment of men's hearts by the counterpart of them in 
their lives, and consider men's practices, which are the best indexes of their 
principles, we shall quickly find by tracing the streams how corrupt the 
fountain is. 

This enmity is against the sovereignty of God. Men will not have God 
reign over them ; they will not have God for their governor nor his law 
for their rule. Our created arms cannot reach heaven to pull God from 
his throne, but there is a radical disposition in man to do it, had he ability 
equivalent to his corruption ; for what is the great quarrel between God 
and man but this, whose will and whose authority shall stand ? While 
we exclude him from being the Lord of our hearts, we would exclude him 
from being the Lord of the world, for that unjust principle which doth 
deprive him of the heart would deprive him also of the other, to which 
God hath no greater right nor no juster title than he hath to our heart, 
over which we will not let him reign. 

Sin is therefore called rebellion, which is a denial of subjection to him 
as our Lord ; it is an act of disloyalty, a breach of allegiance. As the 
Jews say of every judgment that is upon them, that there is some of the 
dust of the golden calf, i. e. something of the punishment of their first 
idolatry, so we may say that in every sin there is a taint of that first 
prodigious ambition of our first parents, which cost them and their pos- 
terity so dear, viz. that we would be as gods, we would be God's equals, 
if not superiors. 



PART IL 
Enmity against God as a Sovereign. 

The enmity against the sovereignty of God is in three things : 1. In 
the breach of God's laws ; 2. In setting up other sovereigns ; 3. In 
usurping God's prerogative. 

First, In the breach of God's laws. That servant that doth not perform 
his master's command doth virtually deny his authority. K obedience be a 
sign of love, disobedience is an argument of hatred. ' If you love me, keep 
my commandments,' John xiv. 15. If obedience to God ennobles us with 
the glorious title of God's friend, John xv. 14, disobedience to God must 
needs expose us to the unworthy character of his enemies. And indeed the 
breach of God's laws is not only a discarding his sovereignty, but a casting 
dirt upon his other attributes; for if his ' command be holy, just, and good,' 



Rom. VIII. 7.j man's enmity to god. 473 

if it be the image of God's holiness, the transcript of his righteousness, and 
the efflux of his goodness, then in the breach of it all those attributes are 
despised. The law is then slighted as it is a medal of God's holiness, as it 
is equitable in itself, and as it is in its goodness designed for our conveni- 
enc}' and advantage ; therefore by the breach of one point of the law we con- 
tract virtually the guilt of the contempt of the whole statute-book of God, 
' Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is 
guilty of all,' James ii. 10, 11, because the will and authority of the law- 
giver, which gives the sanction to it, is opposed, also because that the autho- 
rity of the lawgiver, which is not prevalent with us to restrain us from the 
breach of one point, would be of as little force with us to restrain us from 
the breach of all the rest when occasion is offered, because also the breach 
of any one law declares a want of that love which is the sum and spirit of 
the whole law. 

This enmity to God's law will appear in these ten things. 
1. Unwillingness to know the law of God, inquire into it, or think of it. 
Men affect an ignorance of God's command ; they are loath to inform them- 
selves ; they hate the light, which would both discover their spots and direct 
their course. 

Hence those expressions, ' Refusing to hearken, and stopping the ears 
that we should not hear,' Zech. vii. 11 ; ' None understands ; there is none 
that seeks after God,' Rom. iii. 10, Unwillingness to seek the knowledge of 
him ; yea, though it be the most advantageous and refreshing to their soul, 
' yet they would not hear,' Isa. xxviii, 12. When God presses in upon them 
by inward motions, or outward declarations of his will, they secretly desire 
God not to trouble them with his laws, though their hearts bear witness to 
the righteousness of them ; ' which say to the prophets. Prophesy not unto 
us right things : cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us,' Isa. 
XXX. 10, 11, Let not the Holy One of Israel trouble us with any of his laws, 
but leave us to our sinful labour. Herein God placed their rebelhon : ' Re- 
bellious children, that will not hear the law of the Lord,' ver, 9, They 
would have smooth things prophesied to them ; they would partake of his 
mercy, but would not imitate his holiness. 

And when any motion oi' ihe Spirit thrusts itself in to enlighten them, 
they * exalt themselves against the knowledge of God,' 2 Cor, x, 5, and resist 
the Holy Ghost ; keep their hearts barred, that he may not have admittance. 
The word avT/Tr/VT-srs, Acts vii, 51, is emphatical, to fall against, as a stone 
or any other ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way. They 
would dash in pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for 
their instruction ; yes, and the Spirit too which makes it ; and that not in a 
fit of passion, but from an habitual enmity always. Whereas a faithful sub- 
ject or servant, who loves his prince or master, would fain know what his 
will is, and what laws are ordered, that he may observe them. But when 
men have a superficial knowledge of God's laws by education, or attendance 
upon a godly and able ministry, yet they are loath to retain it, negligent in 
improving it ; they easily let it slip from them ; their minds have not delight 
to employ themselves in meditating of it, or to know the spirit of it, which 
the psalmist fixes as the character of a godly man, Ps. i. 2. 

Men are more generally fond of the knowledge of anything than of God's 
will. Do not the most of men that are intent upon knowledge spend more 
time, and engage more serious and affectionate thoughts, in the study of some 
science or trade than in the knowledge of God's will ? With what readiness 
and dexterity will a man discourse about philosophy, mathematics, history, 
&c, ; but any discourse of God begun in company strikes them dead ; he is 



474 charnock's works, [Rom. VIII. 7. 

quite at a loss in the knowledge of him and his will, which was the great end 
of his coming into the world, and the great concern of his soul. 

But if a man doth desire to know the law of God, it is many times more 
out of a curiosity and natural itch to know, than any design to come under 
the power of it ; therefore, many men that can dispute for the principles of 
religion are ashamed of the practice, and ashamed to discourse much of the 
practical part of it, which is a contradictory thing ; for can the profession be 
honourable if the practice be vile ? If the principles be true and good, and 
worthy to be known, why are they not practised ? If the practice be dis- 
graceful, why are the principles which lead to such practices professed and 
studied ? Whence can this affected ignorance of God's laws, this careless 
inquiry into his will, arise, but from an enmity against it, for fear they should 
be disturbed by it in the pursuit of their carnal pleasures ? Therefore they 
account the word of the Lord a reproach to them and their ways, and a 
trouble to have their consciences set on work by the law that galls them, 
Jer. vi. 10. 

2. Unwillingness to be determined by any law of God. When men cannot 
escape the convincing knowledge of the law, but it breaks in upon them as 
the morning light, they set up their carnal resolutions against it. ' As for 
the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not 
hearken unto thee,' Jer. xHv. 16 ; and harden their hearts with ' a stoutness' 
against God, Mai. iii. 13; 'Refuse to walk in his law,' Ps. Ixxviii. 10. 
Though it be a ' strength to them,' yet they will not, Isa. xxx. 15 ; they 
would rather guide themselves to destruction than be under God's conduct 
to happiness ; they would rather be their own rulers than God's subjects. 
Men naturally affect an unbounded liberty, would not have the bridle of a 
command to check them, or be hedged in by any law ; they think it too 
slavish a thing to be guided by the will of another ; they are well compared 
to the wild ass, that loves to snuff up the wind at her pleasure in the wilder- 
ness ; they will take their own course, rather than come under the guidance 
of God, Jer. ii. 24. Since the law checks the inward operations of the soul, 
and would keep them from inward as well as outward compliances with sin, 
they therefore account it a heavy yoke to be so strictly regulated as not to 
have their secret retirements, and dalhances with sin in their thoughts. 

* Let not God speak to us,' say the Jews, Exod. xx. 19, 20, ' lest we die.' 
One would think it was the terror of the thunder-claps wherewith the law 
was proclaimed that made them so unwilling to hear God speak to them. 
But the apostle tells us it was the hatred of the law itself : ' For they could 
not endure that which was commanded,' Heb. xii. 20 ; which particle, for, 
shews it to be a reason why they desired the word should not be spoken to 
them any more. They had a natural unwillingness to be guided by any 
statute of God's enacting. Had they been only afraid of those terrible light- 
nings, without any aversion to God himself, methinks they should not so 
suddenly after have preferred a golden calf, the similitude of the Egyptian 
idol, and put the name of God upon it, and ascribed to it their deliverance 
from Egypt, which had been wrought, not by a senseless calf, but an 
almighty and outstretched arm. Therefore, in the charge God brought 
against them, ' Because, even because they despised my judgments, and 
because their soul abhorred my statutes,' Lev. xxvi. 43, he accuseth them 
not only of despising his judgments, but of a rooted abhorrency of them even 
in their souls. There is not a law but the heart of man naturally hath a 
secret and rooted detestation of. 

Hence man is said to make void the law of God, Ps. cxix. 126. They 
have ' made void thy law.' To make it of no obligation to them, as if it 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 475 

were an almanac out of date ; which Christ calls a ' making the law of none 
effect,' Mat, xv. 6, rrz-usuaan ; you have unlorded the law, put it out of com- 
mission, thrown off all the power and dominion of it, which law God values 
more than he doth the whole world, nay, the least tittle of it is so dear to 
him, that it shall stand when heaven and earth shall fall. And to vindicate 
the honour of it, he would have his Son to die for a satisfaction for the breach 
of it. So that if a man could destroy the whole world, it were not so bad as 
Bin, which is an unlording that which is an act of God's royalty, a copy of 
his holiness, whereas the making the world was but an act of his wisdom and 
executive power ; nay, God would not be so angry at it, because his power 
is by that contemned, but in this, his holiness, which is an attribute he doth 
particularly delight in. 

8. The violence man offers to those laws, which God doth most strictly en- 
join, and which he doth most delight in the performance of. If a man be will- 
ing to be determined by some law of God, it is not because it is his law, but 
because it doth not run counter to some beloved lust of his. But when God 
enjoins any thing which is against the beloved interest of the flesh, he flies 
out in rage against God, and the interest of his corrupt affection excites him 
to a loathing of that which is truly good. The strictness of the law, which 
natural men account their band and shackle, is the ground of their quarrel 
with God, the reason of their rage, and their counsel against God and his 
Christ : ' Let us break their bands, and cast away their cords from us,' Ps. 
ii. 3. All this was, ver. I, 2, for the strictness of his law, which Grotius 
understands of the law of Moses, and all the rites of it, but meant certainly 
of the evangelical law of Christ, the psalm being a prophecy of him. 

If a man be willing to comply with any law of God, it is as it prohibits 
some outward carnal sins ; but the more spiritual the law, the more averse 
the heart. The more spiritual the law is, the more doth indwelling sin 
exercise its power, and endeavour to increase our slavery : ' The law is 
spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin,' Rom. vii. 14. The apostle there 
intimates that our carnality, our slavery to sin, the enmity of our hearts to 
God, is best discerned by comparing man with the spirituality of the law. 
The Jews were much for sacrifices, and very diligent in them, which were 
but the skirts of the law, and which God did not principally require at their 
hands ; but for holiness, mercy, piety, and other duties most valued by God, 
they were mere strangers unto them. Men will grant God the lip and the 
ear, but deny him that which he most calls for, viz. the heart. The more 
earnestly conscience doth at any time urge the law, the more furiously will 
the flesh act against it. But ' sin taking occasion by the commandment, 
wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,' Rom. vii. 8. Like as the 
boisterous waves, which roar most at that bank or rock which forbids their 
progress ; or like wind, which pent within the narrow compass of the earth, 
grows more violent. 

Had not God commanded some things so strictly, they had not been broken 
80 frequently. God's righteous laws, which are intended to check our cor- 
ruptions, are occasions to enrage them, as the vapour in a cloud ends in a 
tearing clap of thunder when it meets with opposition. We shall find our 
hearts most averse from the observation of those laws which are eternal and 
essentia] to righteousness, which God could not but command, as he is a 
righteous governor ; in the observance of which we come nearest to him, and 
express his image more illustriously. As those laws for an inward and 
spiritual worship of God, the loving God with all our heart and soul, God 
cannot, in regiird of his holiness and righteousness, command the contrary 
to this. These our hearts most swell at, those oui' corruptions most oppose; 



476 chaknock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

•whereas those laws that ai*e only morally positive, or those that are only 
positive, and have no intrinsic righteousness in them, but depend purely 
upon the will of the lawgiver, and may be changed at pleasure (which the 
other that have an intrinsic righteousness cannot), such as the ceremonial 
part of worship, and the ceremonial law among the Jews ; these we can 
comply better with, than with those laws which have an essential righteous- 
ness in them, and express more in them the righteousness of God's nature. 

4. Man hates his own conscience, when it puts him in mind of the law of 
Grod. Man cannot naturally endure a quick and lively practical thoaght of 
God and his law, and is an enemy to his own conscience, for putting him in 
mind of God. This is evidenced by our stifling of conscience, when it doth 
dictate any practical conclusions from the law, and would stamp suitable 
impressions upon the soul. As it is an evidence of an enmity in one man 
against another, when he cannot bear his compan}', nor endure to hear him 
speak, so it is an evidence of an enmity to God when a man cannot endure 
to listen to that which is in himself, and more intimate with him than any 
friend he hath, for the wholesome and necessary advice it gives him as God's 
viceroy in him. Which is not an enmity to conscience itself, or to its act of 
self- reflection, but to the matter of it as it is God's vicegerent and repre- 
sentative, and bears the marks of his authority in it, and presseth the holy 
law of God upon the mind and heart. 

Because in other cases this self- reflecting act of conscience is welcome, and 
is cherished, where it doth not act in a way of sovereignty derived from God, 
but suitable to natural afiections. As suppose a man hath in a passion 
struck his child that caused some great mischief to him, his conscience 
reflecting upon him afterwards will be welcome, and shall work some tender- 
ness in him, which it shall not do in the more spiritual concerns of God, but 
shall rather be loathed by him as a busy-body. And by such frequent oppo- 
sitions of conscience, this enmity does so far prevail, that the sovereignty of 
conscience seems to be quite cashiered, insomuch that it ceaseth with any 
eflicacy to spur on the soul to good, or withdraw it from evil ; and being 
overpowered by sinful habits, its commands grow weak, and it sits labouring 
like a magistrate that cannot stem the tide of ill manners in a commonwealth ; 
it enjoins as if it had no mind to be observed. It is upon this account that 
men oftentimes cannot endure to hear any gracious discourses of God, because 
they excite unwelcome reflections in their own consciences, which, instead of 
reforming them, do more distemper them, as the sweetest perfumes affect a 
weak head with aches. 

Now, since men hate their own consciences for putting them in mind of 
God's laws, it is clear that they hate God himself, because conscience is 
God's officer in them ; since they would destroy the memorials and prints of 
God in the conscience, since they would destroy God's commissioner for doing 
his work, they would destroy God himself. The apostle therefore calls dis- 
obedience to the light of nature a contention: ' To them that are contentious, 
and obey not the truth,' Rom. ii. 8, 1^ i^i6ticx,c, that act out of contention ; 
it must be a contention against conscience, the light of nature, and conse- 
quently against God, for the apostle in that chapter speaks of disobedience 
to the light of nature ; they obey not the truth, out of contention against it, 
and against God, who has pubUshed that truth, and had imprinted it on 
their souls as a guide to them ; for God hath put into man a conscience as 
his deputy, to have a command over him, and to keep up his prerogative as 
a lawgiver in him. 

And as the disowning the principles of the Christian doctrine after a taste 
and profession is a crucifying of Christ, — 'Seeing they crucify to themselves 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 477 

the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame,' Heb. vi. 6, — and a 
real acting that in spirit upon his doctrine, which the Jews did upon his 
body, it being an accounting him an impostor, and disowning all the excel- 
lency of his person and offices, and an implicit assertion that there is nothing 
in him worthy their desire, and this crucifying, iaurolc (it may be in them- 
selves as well as to themselves), in themselves the common works of Christ 
upon them was in effect the killing of his person ; so by the rule of propor- 
tion, every sin against conscience and blotting out common principles, is 
not only a contention against God, but an interpretative destroying of him 
and putting God to shame, who is the engraver of those principles and that 
law of nature in man. 

5. Man sets up another law in him in opposition to the law of God. A 
sinner looks upon God as too severe a taskmaster, and his laws as too hard 
a yoke, as though God were cruel and injurious to the liberty of his crea- 
ture, and envied man of well-being and a due pleasure. * God knows that 
in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened,' Gen. iii. 5. It was 
the old charge the devil brought against God to Eve, and the same impres- 
sions he makes still upon the minds of those children of disobedience in 
whom he works, and fills them with unjust reflections upon God. Man hav- 
ing this conceit wrought in him will be a law to himself, and will frame a 
rule subservient to his own ends: 'But I see another law in my members, 
warring against the law of my mind,' Rom. vii. 23, which is called the law 
of sin, and is set up in a warlike and authoritative opposition against the 
law of God in the mind, vhfiov uvnar^arsuofisvov. This law of sin is nothing 
else but the setting up our own corrupt appetite and will against God. As 
corrupt reason is opposed to gospel, so corrupt will is opposed to law. 

Sin having set up this law, makes it the measure and rule of righteous- 
ness, and measures also the righteousness of God's law by this law of its 
own framing, nay, measures the holiness and righteousness of God him- 
self by it. This is horrible, to make God's law no holier than our own, 
and to square God's hoHness and righteousness according to our concep- 
tions, as if God's holiness were to be tried by our measures and judged 
by our corruption. ' Thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thy- 
self,' Ps. 1. 21. This men do when they plead for sins as little, as venial, 
as that which is below God to take notice of; because they themselves 
think it so, therefore God must think it so too. Man, with a giant-like 
pride, would climb into the throne of the Almighty, and establish a contra- 
diction to the will of God by making his own will, and not God's, the 
square and rule of his actions. This principle commenced and took date 
in paradise, when Adam would not depend upon the will of God revealed 
to him, but upon himself and his own will, and thereby makes himself as 
God. 

This is the hereditary disease of all his posterity, to affect an indepen- 
dency, and leave God's directions, to be his own guide. And this is the 
great controversy that has been ever since between God and man, whether 
he or they shall be God, whether his reason or truths, or their reason, his 
will or theirs, be of most force, just as the dispute was between Pharaoh and 
God who should be God, whether the great Jehovah or a petty king of 
Egypt. And what saith the psalmist ? They say of their tongues, ' Our 
tongues are our own,' who shall control us ? But more truly the language 
of men's hearts, Our wills are our own, who shall check us ? This is the 
thing God condemns in the Jews : ' A rebellious people, that walk after 
their own thoughts,' Isa. Ixv. 2. They would set up their own thoughts 
above his precepts, as though their vain imaginations were a more just and 



478 charnock's woees. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

holy rule fhan the infinite perfect will of God : 'We -will walk after our own 
devices,' Jer. xviii. 12. We will be a law to ourselves ; let God take his 
way and we will take ours. 

It is not perhaps so heinous an idolatry to set up a graven image, a sense- 
less and a sinless stock or stone, as for a man to set up his own sinful cor- 
rupt affections, and devote himself to a compliance with them in opposition 
to the righteous will of God. 

6. In being at greater pains and charge to break God's law than is neces- 
sary to keep it. How will men rack their heads to study mischief, wear out 
their time and strength in contrivances to satisfy some base lust, which 
leaves behind it no other recompense but a momentary pleasure, attended at 
length with inconceivable horror, and cast off that yoke which is easy and 
that burden which is light, in the keeping whereof there is gi'eat reward : 
' Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ? Will the Lord be pleased with 
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my 
first-born for my transgression ? the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
soul ?' Micah vi. 7, 8. They in the prophet would be at the expense of one 
thousand of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, offer violence to the 
principles of nature, give the first-born of their bodies for the sin of their 
souls rather than to ' do justice, love mercy, or walk humbly with God;' 
things more easy in the practice than the offerings they wished for. 

Thus men would rather be sin's drudges than God's freemen, and neglect 
that service wherein is . pei'fect freedom for that wherein there is intolerable 
slavery ; they will make a combustion in their consciences, violate the reason 
of their minds, impair the health of their bodies in contradicting the laws of 
God, and prefer a sensual satisfaction with toil here and eternal ruin here- 
after, before the honour of God, the dignity of their nature, or happiness, or 
peace and health, which might be preserved with a cheaper expense than 
they are at to destroy them. 

7. In doing that which is just and righteous upon any other consideration 
rather than of obedience to God's will, when men will indent with God, and 
obey him so far as may comport with their own ends. Unless God will de- 
grade himself to submit to the conditions of their interest, they will pay him 
no duty of obedience nor render him a grain of service. What is hypocrisy, 
a sin so odious to God, but performing duties materially good upon any other 
consideration rather than that of God's sovereignty ? 

(1.) Out of respect to some human consideration. When men will prac- 
tise some points of religion, and walk in the track of some laws of God, not 
out of conscience to the command, but the agreeableness of it to their honour, 
constitution, or nature, out of the sway of a natural generosity, the dic- 
tate of carnal reason, the bias of secular interest, not from an holy affection 
to God, an ingenuous sense of his authority, or voluntary submission to his 
will, as when a man will avoid intoxication, not because God forbids it, but 
because it is attended with bodily indispositions, or when a man will give 
alms, not with respect to God's injunction, but to his own natural compas- 
sion, or to shew his generosity. This is obedience to his own preservation, 
the interest of moral virtue, not to God. 

Though it may look like virtue, yet when it is done from custom and 
example, without a due regard to our sovereign, we may in the doing it be 
rather accounted apes than Christians, or indeed men. This seems to be 
obedience in the act, but disobedience in the motive, for it is not a respect to 
God, but to ourselves ; at the best it is but the performance of the material 
part without the spiritual manner, which is most regarded by God. Besides, 
if we observe any law upon the account of its suitableness to our natural 



Rom. VIII. 7.j man's enmity to god. 479 

sentiments or carnal designs, we shall as readily disobey when it crosses 
the purposes of our minds or desires of the flesh, for our obedience will 
be changeable according to the mutations we find in our own humours. 
How can that be entitled an affection to God which is as mutable as the 
interest of an inconstant mind ? 

' And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father 
blessed him : and Esau said in his heart. The days of mourning for my 
father are at hand ; then will I slay my brother Jacob,' Gen, xxvii. 41. So 
many children that expect at the death of their parents great inheritances, 
may be very observant of them, not because they respect God's commands 
in it, but because they would not frustrate their hopes by any disobligement. 
Esau had no regard of God in decreeing his brother's death, though he was 
awed by the reverence of his father from a speedy execution. He considered, 
perhaps, hov/ justly he might lie under the imputation of hastening Isaac's 
death, by depriving him of a beloved son. But had the old man's head 
been laid, neither the contrary command of God, nor the nearness of a fra- 
ternal relation, could have dissuaded him from the act, any more than they 
did from the resolution. 

Whence it is that many men abstain from gross sin only out of love to 
their reputation ; they act that wickedness privately, which, if seen or taken 
notice of by others, would overspread their faces with blushing and confusion. 
He may have his mind in a brothel-house, notwithstanding God's prohibi- 
tion, but restrain his body for fear of disgrace. He may commit murder in 
his heart, when the fear of punishment shall tie up his hands. Has not, 
then, our outward credit more power over us than God ? And do we not 
sooner observe the opinion of the world, which frights us, than the authority 
of God, which commands us ? Is it not a monstrous thing to be swayed by 
everything but the right motive ? to let everything be a chain to bind us to 
the doing good, or eschewing evil, rather than God's law in his word, or the 
natural law of reason implanted in us ? or to be moved rather by the examples 
of men that are just, or the customs of the places where we live, than to act 
in conformity to the righteous nature of God ? How great an evidence is 
this of our enmity to God, or at least a great want of affection ! 

(2.) Out of affection to some base lust, some cursed end. The pharisees 
were devout in long prayers, not that God might be honoured, but them- 
selves esteemed by men. Ambition may be the spring and soul of men's 
devotions. Jehu was ordered to cut off the house of Ahab ; the service 
which he undertook was in itself acceptable, but corrupt nature acted that 
which holiness and righteousness commanded. God appointed it to magnify 
his justice, and Jehu acted it to satisfy his revenge or ambition : he did it 
to fulfil the will of his lust, not the will of his true Lord. Jehu applauds it 
as zeal, and God abhors it as murder, Hosea i. 4. We may shew our hatred 
to God, and provoke him, in doing the thing which he particularly enjoins 
us. This is a compliance with the design of some carnal lust, more than 
with the authority of the Lawgiver. It is a service not to God for his own 
sake, but to ourselves for our sin's sake. It is rather a casting down the 
will of God from commanding, to set our own in its place. Nothin" more 
positively commanded, both in nature's law and the gospel, than to pray and 
worship God, Men may observe some laws, to have the better convenience 
to break others. The pharisees were great observers of this ; they prayed, 
and, to outward appearance, devoutly, with a zeal (if zeal may be measured 
by length), but to what end ? Not that God might be honoured, but them- 
selves esteemed ; nay, more cursed, to * devour widows' houses,' that men 
might be induced, by that appearance of devotion, to make them executors 



480 charnock's works. [Rom. YIII. 7. 

of their wills, and guardians of their children ; feoffees in trust for their 
widows, and so they might get a good share for themselves. 

(3.) Out of a slavish fear. In the doing anything out of this principle, 
men are rather enemies than friends. ' There is no fear in love, but perfect 
love casteth out fear,' 1 John iv. 18, ' because fear hath torment.' If fear 
be inconsistent with love, it must be the property of hatred. If perfect love 
doth cast out fear, then perfect fear doth cast out love, and nourish enmity. 
If fear be a torment, the effects of it cannot be a pleasure ; and the duties 
flowing from it have a spice of that hatred which is an inseparable companion 
of that passion, and ai-e done rather to appease their fears than to pleasure 
their Creator. Just as Pharaoh parted with the Israelites, so do some men 
with some sins, not out of love to G-od's law, but for fear of a further wrath, 
or because of the smart of present judgments. Well then, how can we dis- 
charge ourselves from this accusation of enmity to G-od, when we will be 
excited to a performance of good, and abstinence from evil, by anything of 
a less authority, as the presence of a child, the sentiments of the world, the 
preservation of our own reputation, and the fear of punishment ? So that 
actions materially honest in men, may be rather a fruit of passion than rea- 
son ; and that which we call our obedience, a product of the bestial part in 
us, rather than that of the man. 

8. In being more observant of the laws of men than of the law of God. 
The fear of man is a more powerful curb to retain men in their duty, than 
the fear of God ; for men are restrained from breaking human laws for fear 
of the present penalties annexed to them, but they encourage themselves in 
the breach of divine by God's forbearance, whereby they attribute a greater 
right of dominion to a man than they will acknowledge to be in God. They 
' willingly walk after the commandment of man,' though in case of idolatry ; 
but like snails creep after the commandment of God, if they move at all. So 
they made the king glad with their lies, they cheered his heart with their 
ready obedience to his command for idolatry, against the counsel of God and 
warnings of the prophets. And they, contrary to the speech of Christ, fear 
him that can kill the body more than that God who can destroy both body 
and soul ; and are scared more by the frowns of men than the power of God. 
It is natural in all ages. It was Jerome's complaint, Tlment leges humanas, 
at non divinas ; quasi majora sint imperatorum scuta quam Christi, leges time- 
mus, evangdia contemnimusJ'- 

Without question man is obliged to obey his Creator without consulting 
whether his commands are agreeable to the institutions of men. For if we 
obey him because men's laws enjoin the same, we obey not God, but man ; 
human laws being the chief motive of our obedience. This is to vilify God's 
sovereignty, and lay it under the hatches of men's authority, since we thus 
Blight the "duty which in point of right he may demand of us, and pay with 
ungrateful returns so liberal a benefactor ; for men, whose laws we principally 
regard, were never the principal author of our being ; and the instrumental 
preservation we have by them, is not without the providential influence of 
that Lord whose authority we subject to theirs. Why should we readily 
submit to human laws, and stagger at divine ? Why should we depose 
God from his right of governing the world, and value men's laws above our 
Maker's ? Why should we make God's authority of a less concern to us 
than that of a justice of peace or a petty constable ; as though they were 
God's superiors, and obedience more rightfully due to them than to him ? 
What a contempt of God is this ; it is to tell God, I will break the Sabbath, 

* Hierom. vol. i. epist ii. p. 11, b. 



Rom. VIIL 7.] man's enmity to god. 481 

swear, revile, revel, were it not for the curb of national laws, for all thy pre- 
cepts to the contrary. 

9. In man's unwillingness to have God's laws observed by any. Man would 
not have God have a loyal subject in the world. What is the reason else of 
the persecution of those who would be the strictest observers of God's injunc- 
tions, as if they were the most execrable persons under the cope of heaven ? 
What is the reason the seed of the serpent hates the seed of the woman 
with as much vehemency as the holy angels do the most prodigious villains ? 
It is ordinary for profane men to look upon such as would walk before God 
unto all well-pleasing as strange and abominable monsters : ' Wherein they 
think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speak- 
ing evil of you,' 1 Peter iv. 4. 'Speaking evil of you;' /SXatrp-zj^aoCvrsc, 
railing, libelling the whole profession ; loading them with many opprobrious 
epithets, because they will not be as diffusive in sensuality as themselves ; 
because they ran not, J/g adMnag amyjjaiv ; thus censuring those acts of theirs, 
which were pleasing to God, at the bar of profaneness. 

It is not for any wrong done to them that they thus hate them, but because 
they will not injure God and transgress his laws so much as themselves do. 
How clear a discovery is this of men's natural unwillingness to suffer God to 
have the least grain of obedience in the world, when they are angry that any 
bear a veneration to his laws, and that others will not run into the same 
career, and be in arms against God as well as they ! Hence it is that the 
holiest persons have been most persecuted : amongst the Jews, Isaiah sawed 
to death, Jeremiah stoned, Zacharias killed at the altar, Elias put to flight ; 
among the Christians, all the apostles but John put to death. The holiest 
men have been the greatest sufferers ; among the heathen, Socrates con- 
demned to poison. And the reason is, because they have more honourable 
thoughts of God, and would maintain the interest of God in the world. 

10. In the pleasure we take to see his laws broken by others. Sin is the 
greatest evil that can happen to God ; and there is nothing man doth more 
caress and gratify himself in than to see a creature bemired with it. And 
indeed sin is the very essence of most of the mirth in the world. Job so well 
knew it, that he rose every morning to make an atonement for his sons, who 
he knew could not be without many erratas in their jollities. This indict- 
ment the apostle brings among the rest against the Gentiles : ' Not only do 
the same, but have pleasure in them that do them,' Rom. i. 32. Do not 
men often make that the object of their laughter, which is the object of God's 
infinite hatred? Ai-e not other men's sins the subject of our sport and 
mirth, which should be the subject of our pity and sorrow ; pity to the sinner, 
and sorrow for the sin ? What is this but an evidence of a rooted hatred of 
God in our nature, when we please ourselves with any dishonour done to 
him by others ? For it is put among the noble attributes of love, 1 Cor. 
xiii. 6, that it ' rejoiceth not in iniquity,' neither its own iniquity nor other 
men's. To rejoice in it, then, must be an accursed quality belonging to 
hatred ; yet how many are there in the world that cannot see others dis- 
honour God without some sort of satisfaction ! They are displeased with his 
glory, and pleased with his dishonour. 

Secondly, We are enemies to God's sovereignty, in setting up other 
sovereigns in the stead of God. If we did dethrone God to set up an angel, 
or some virtuous man, it would be a lighter affront ; but to place the basest 
and filthiest thing in his throne is intolerable. What we love better than 
God, what we sacrifice all our industry to, what we set our hearts most upon, 
what we grieve most for when we miss of our end, we prefer before God. 

VOL. V. H h 



482 chaknock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

1. Idols. Though so palpable idolatry be not committed by us, yet it was 
natural to mankind, since we know all nations were overrun with it, Joshua 
xxiv. 2 ; since the father of the faithful was an idolater before he was a 
believer, and his posterity, the Jews, who had heard God himself speak to 
them from mount Sinai, were no sooner departed from the foot of the moun- 
tain but they adored a golden calf in his stead, and this sin did run in the 
blood of all their posterity ; since we find God charging them with it through 
the whole Old Testament, and it was not rooted out till the seventy years' 
captivity in Babylon. And that the naturalness of it to mankind may further 
appear, consider what incentives against it the Jews had. They had the 
greatest appearances of God, particular marks of his favour, his judgments 
and statutes, which the psalmist, Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20, sets an emphasis upon, 
that he had not dealt so with every nation, no, not with any nation. They 
had the visible signs of his presence, the pillar of fire by night, the cloud by 
day ; they were more particularly under his indulgent care ; he had altered 
the course of nature, and wrought miracles for their deliverance, rained 
manna from heaven to spread their table, carried them in his bosom ; yet 
those wretches were throwing down God to make room for their golden calf. 
This idolatry is as absolute a degrading and vilifying of God as hell itself 
could invent ; it is a real calling him by the names of all those loathsome, 
senseless creatures so odious as images of him. As if God were no better than 
a stone, a piece of carved brass or wood, of no greater excellency than an image 
or puppet. This is a denying of God. Job speaketh, that he had not kissed 
his hand, or made obeisance to idols; for then, saith he, 'I should have 
denied the God that is above,' Job xxxi. 28. It is called a loathing God, 
who is the husband of Christians ; a loathing of all his authority over them, 
Ezek. xvi. 45. The giving adoration to an image which belongs to God, is 
a making it equal to him, if not above him ; for by such a veneration they 
evidence that God is no better in their apprehension than the stock they 
worship. The heathen world is at this day drenched in this kind of idolatry, 
and most part of the Christian world are subject to the remains of this pagan 
sin ; as the papists, who adore for their Saviour a little wafer, which perhaps 
the mice have bitten, and flies have cast their excrements upon. 

2. We are enemies to God's sovereignty in setting up self. Man imagined 
at first that, by eating the forbidden fruit, he should have a knowledge of 
good and evil as to be independent upon God, and founded upon himself and 
his own will. This self in us is properly the old Adam, the true offspring 
of the first corrupted man. This is the greatest antichrist, the great anti- 
god in us, which sits in the heart, the temple of God, and would be adored 
as God ; would be the chiefest, as the highest end. This is the great usurper 
in the world, for it invades the right of God ; it is the most direct compliance 
and likeness to the devil, whose actions centre wholly in malicious self-will. 
In this respect, I suppose, the devil is called * the god of this world,' because 
be acts so as if the world should only serve his ends. 

Self is the centre of many men's religious actions, while God seems to be 
the object. Self is the end : ' Did you fast unto me ?' Zech. vii. 5. This, 
being the motive of hypocrisy, makes it more idolatry, and so more odious 
to God. Other sins subject only the creature to self; but this subjects the 
soul, and even God himself, to corrupt self. Self-love leads the van : * Men 
shall be lovers of their own selves,' 2 Tim. iii. 2. To that black catalogue 
he seems to speak of that black regiment which march behind it, and is 
concluded with a ' form of godliness, and denying the power of it ; ' and a 
denying the power of godliness is a denying the sovereignty of God. The 
righteousness a man would establish in opposition to God is called a man's 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 483 

own, a righteousness of his own framing, that hath its rise only from him- 
self: Rom. X. 3, ' Going about to establish their own righteousness.' 

Sin and self are all one ; what is called a living in sin in one place, Rom. 
vi. 2, is a livinrf to self in another : ' That they which live, should not live 
to themselves,' 2 Cor. v. 15. What a man serves, and directs all his pro- 
jects, and the whole labour of his life to, that is his god and lord ; and that 
is self. All inferior things act for some superior as their immediate end ; 
this order hath nature constituted ; the lesser animals are designed for the 
greater ; the irrational for man, and man for something higher and nobler 
than himself; for all beings naturally should, in their several stations, tend 
to the service of the first being. Now to make ourselves the end, and all 
other things to act for ourselves, is to make ourselves the supreme being, 
to deny any superior as the centre to which our actions should be directed, 
and usurp God's place, who alone being the Supreme Being, can be his own 
end ; for if there were anything higher and better than God, his own purity 
and goodness would cause him to act for that as more noble and worthy. 

I appeal to you, whether you have not sometimes secret wishes that you 
were in the place of God ? for where there is a slavish fear of him, there 
must needs be such wishes, according to the degrees of fear ; and so you 
have wished God undeified, that you might be advanced to the godhead. 

This some think to be the sin of the devils, affecting an independency 
on God by a proud reflection upon their own created excellency, and at least 
a delightful wish, if not an endeavour, to make themselves the ultimate end 
of all their actions. 

3. We are enemies to God's sovereignty in setting up the world. When 
we place this in our heart, God's proper seat and chair, we deprive God of 
his propriety, and do him the greatest wrong, in giving the possession of his 
right to another. The apostle gives covetousness no better title than that 
of idolatry, Col. iii. 5 ; and the psalmist puts the atheist's cap upon the 
oppressor's head : ' Who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not 
upon the Lord,' Ps. xiv. 4. What we make the chief object of our desires, 
is to us in the place of God. The poor Indians made a very natural and 
rational consequence, that gold was the Spaniards' god, because they hunted 
so greedily after it. This is an intolerable dethroning of God, to make that 
which is God's footstool to climb up into his throne ; to bow down to an 
atom, a little dust and mud of the world, a drop out of the ocean ; to set 
that in thy heart which God hath made even below thyself, and put under 
thy feet ; and to make that which thou tramplest upon to tread down the 
right God hath to thy heart. Alas ! who serves God with that care and with 
that spirit that he serves the world with ? 

4. We are enemies to God's sovereignty in setting up sensual pleasures. 
Love is a commanding afiection, and gives the object a power over us ; 
what we chiefly love we readily obey. Now men are said to be pXyiBovoi 
ttaX^.d!/ ri (piXoOioi, 2 Tim. iii. 4 ; a glutton's belly is said to be his god, be- 
cause his projects and affections are devoted to the satisfaction of that, and 
he lays in not for the service of God, but a magazine for lust. If you pre- 
ferred some honourable thing which might perfect your natures, as learning, 
wisdom, moral virtues, though this were an indignity to be censured by the 
Judge of all the world, yet it would be more tolerable ; but to consecrate 
your heart and time to a sordid voluptuousness, and feed it with the cream 
of your strength, this is an inexcusable contempt, to pay a quick and lively 
service to an eff'eminate delight, which is only due to the supreme Lord. 

Does not that man dethrone God, and hate him, that will -be under the 
command of a swinish pleasure, and make that the supreme end of his life 



484 chaenock's works. [Rom. YIII. 7. 

and actions, rather than to be under the righteous government of God ? 
The greatest excellency in the world is infinitely below our Creator, how 
much more must a bestial delight be below him, which is so exceedingly dis- 
graceful to, and below the nature of man ! If we should love all the crea- 
tures in heaven and earth above God, it were more excusable than to degrade 
him in our affections beneath a brutish pleasure. Why doth any man court 
an ignoble sensuality, with the displeasure of God, hell, and damnation at 
the end of it, if he did not value it above God, as well as above his own 
soul ? The more sordid anything is that we set up in the place of God, the 
greater is the despite done to him, Ezek. viii. 5. When the prophet saw 
the image of jealousy at the gate, God tells him there were greater abomina- 
tions than that, which are described, ver. 10, ' Creeping things, and abominable 
beasts,' viz. the Egyptian idols. The viler the thing is w^hich possesses our 
heart, the greater slight is put upon God, and the greater the abomination. 

5. We are enemies to God's sovereignty in setting up Satan. Every 
sin is an election of the devil to be our lord. If sin had a voice, it would 
give its suffi'age for such a lord as would favour its interest. As the Spirit 
dwells in a godly man to guide him, so doth the devil in a natural man, to 
direct him to evil, Eph. ii. 2, 3, so that every sin is an effect of the devil's 
government ; therefore sins are called his lusts, which natural men (who, 
being the devil's children, are under his paternal government) fulfil and do 
with a resolute obedience: ' His lusts you will do,' John viii. 44. If we 
divide sins into spiritual and carnal, which division comprehends all sin, we 
shall find that in both ; we own the devil's authority either in obeying his 
commands, or in conforming to his example. Some are said to be his lusts 
subjective, as he commits them ; others dispositive, as he directs them. In 
spiritual he is an actor, in carnal a tempter. In carnal, men obey his com- 
mands ; in spiritual, they model themselves according to his pattern ; in 
the one they are his servants, to do his work, in the other his children, to 
partake of his nature. In the one we acknowledge him as our master, in 
the other we own him as our copy. In both we derogate from God's sove- 
reignty over us, whom we are bound to imitate, as well as to obey. Every 
sin, in its own nature, is a communion or society with Belial, a fighting for 
the devil against God ; it is the end of the act, though it be not the intention 
of the agent. Every sin is the devil's work, and therefore the choice of it 
is a preferring his service before God's. The sin of Saul, though in a small 
matter, and not in any natural, but positive command, is equalled to the sin 
of witchcraft, which, you know, is a covenanting with the devil to yield obe- 
dience to him, 1 Sam. xv. 23. 

What a monstrous baseness is this, to advance an impure spirit in the 
place of infinite purity ; to embrace the great ringleader of rebellion above the 
contriver of our reconciliation, the only enemy God hath in the world, who 
drew all the rest into the faction against him, before him who is ready to 
pardon us upon our revolt from his adversary. To affect that destroyer 
above our preserver and benefactor ; to esteem him as the exactest pattern 
and the greatest lord, as though he had created us, provided for us, and in 
mercy watched over us all our days. What a prodigious enmity is this, to 
offend God, to pleasure the devil, and injure our Creator, to gratify our adver- 
sary ! Have we nothing to prefer before him but the deadhest enemy that 
both God and our souls have in the world ? Must we side with our tor- 
mentor against our preserver ? Shall he which will fire us for ever be valued 
above him who would wipe all tears from our eyes ? Oh let us blush, if any 
spark of ingenuity be left ; and let our hatred of God change its object, and 
boil up against ourselves for our abominable ingratitude. 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 485 

3, In usurping God's prerogative, and exacting those observances which 
belong to God. We destroy his sovereignty in deifying and rewarding men 
for things done in opposition to the law of God, in putting glorious titles 
upon the vilest acts, naming ambition generosity, murder valour, &c, 
(1.) In challenging titles and acts of worship due only to God. What act 
of worship is there due to God, but man hath one time or other challenged 
it as pertaining to him ? Darius for thirty days must have all petitions put 
up to him, as though he could supply the wants of all creatures, Dan. vi. 
7-9. Alexander would be worshipped as God ; after him Antiochus, whom 
God calls a vile person. The pope makes [up the number in the pre- 
face the canonists put to his decrees : Edlctum domini deique nostri. In 
men's equalling themselves to God. The first man would know as God. 
Babel builders would dwell as God. Rabbins tell us, that Eve was told by 
the devil, that if she ate the forbidden fruit, she should make a world as 
God. The pope would sit in the temple of God, and pardon sins as God ; 
exalts himself above all that is called God, shewing himself that he is God. 

(2.) Usurping God's prerogative, in lording over the consciences and rea- 
sons of others. Whence else springs the restless desire in some men, to 
model all consciences according to their own wills, which belongs to a greater 
power than man is capable of? Ferdinand's speech was eminent, who when 
by the persuasion of others, with much reluctancy on his part he had passed 
an edict against the protestants, &c., said, ' I expected such a thing, when I 
would take upon me the prerogative of God to be Lord over men's con- 
sciences.' We usurp God's prerogative, when we are angry that others are 
not of our'minds and judgments ; when they will not be blind servants to our 
opinion, in endeavouring to have our own fancies, yea, and passions, though 
never so boisterous and ridiculous, to be a measure to others. When we 
are pertinacious in any doubtful opinion, and assume to ourselves infalli- 
bility of judgment, as if our sentiments were as firm as divine decrees, what 
is this but an exalting ourselves above all that is called God, to erect an 
unlimited power over other men's reasons and judgments, as though it were 
as infallible as God, and all others differing from us under blindness and 
error ? 

(3.) Usurping Grod's prerogative, in prescribing rules of worship, which 
ought only to be appointed by God. In putting out, or leaving in, what 
they think fit to be the rule of worship ; in prescribing by human laws, what 
they judge good and right in divine. All the reason under heaven could not 
have informed us what God was in himself, or what worship he expected of 
us, without supernatural revelation : therefore, when God hath fixed it, for 
men to be making alterations in it, and additions to it, is an intolerable 
invading of his right, at least it is an equalling our own fallible inventions 
with his infalhble oracles, imperiously to obtrude upon people human inven- 
tions with as much authority as if they had been signed and sealed in heaven, 
and were unquestionably warranted by God himself. The prescribing the 
manner of worship, is a part of God's sovereignty ; therefore in the two last 
chapters of Exodus, where the erecting of the tabernacle is described, those 
words, ' As the Lord commanded,' are seventeen times inserted. And to 
prescribe any thing which God hath not commanded (though he hath not 
forbidden it) is such an invasion of his prerogative, that he hath punished it 
by a remarkable judgment. Lev. x. 1. When Nadab and Abihu took 
strange fire, i. e. other fire than what was upon the altar, wherewith to kindle 
their incense, though God had given no command to the contrary, yet because 
he had not commanded the oflering with strange fire, he cut them ofi" by a 
terrible judgment. 



486 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

And it is to be observed, that none are more irreconcileable enemies to the 
true power and spirit of godliness, than the usurpers of this prerogative of 
God, the Lord in just judgment leaving them to the dotages of their own 
minds, and the enmity of their hearts against him, being successors of the 
Pharisees in their judicial blindness, as well as their usurpations of God's 
authority. 

4. In subjecting the truths of God to the trial of reason, or trying God's 
oracles at the tribunal of our shallow reason. It is a part of ^God's sove- 
reignly to be the interpreter, as well as maker of his own laws, as it is a 
right inherent in the legislative power among men. So that it is an invasion 
of his right to fasten a sense upon his declared will, which doth not naturally 
flow from the words : for to put any interpretation according to our pleasure 
upon divine as well as human laws, contrary to the true intent, is a virtual 
usurpation of this power ; because if laws may be interpreted according to 
our humours, the power of the law would be more in the interpreter than 
in the legislator. And it is the worse when men try the word not by their 
reasons, but by their fancies and humours, and put allegories, the brats of 
crazy or humorous fancy, as the genuine meaning of the word of God. 

5. In judging future events, as if we had been of God's privy council 
when he first undertook any great action in the world. 

6. In censuring others' state. It is an intruding into God's judicial 
authority. * Who hath made me a judge ?' was Christ's plea, Luke xii. 14. 
Who art thou that judgest another's state, as though thou wert Lord of the 
heart of thy brother, and God had given over his jurisdiction over the heart 
to thee ; as though he were -to stand or fall to thy censure ? 



PAET IIL 

Enmity against the Attributes of God in general. 

II. Enmity to the holiness of God. 

This hating his holiness is a virtual depriving him of his being ; for if he 
did not infinitely hate evil, he would not be infinitely good, and consequently 
would not be God. God can never endure sin, no, not to look upon it ; and 
to cherish that which is so contrary to his purity, is a denial of his holiness. 
' Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, thou canst not look on iniquity,' 
Hab. i. 13. 

First, In sinning under a pretence of religion. Many resolve upon some 
ways of wickedness, and then rake the Scripture to find out at least excuses 
and evasions for it, if not a justification for their crimes. This was the 
devil's method to Christ, to bring Scripture for self-murder. Saul resolves 
not to obey God, but would preserve the spoils of the Amalekites, and then 
thinks to qualify all with ofiering a few sacrifices ; as though God's hohness 
would not hate sin, that had a religious pretext. Many that have wrung 
estates from the tears of widows and heart-blood of orphans, think to wipe 
off all their oppression by some charitable legacies at their death. It is 
abominable to make charity, the transcript of God's goodness, a covert for 
sin ; andrehgion, which is to bring us near to God, to patronise our tyranny ; 
when men will speak wickedly and talk deceitfully for God, Job. xiii. 7, i. e. 
will sin for God's glory, and make the honour of his service a stalking-horse 
to the aflront of his holiness. 

2. In charging sin upon God. Every man naturally is willing to find he 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 487 

inducement to sin in another rather than in himself. This is an act of 
hatred, to bespot the reputation of others, by imputing our crimes to them, 
and accusing them as the authors or occasions of our transgressions. It is 
an act of fear, which is the companion of hatred. If men can make God a 
sinner against his own law, they blemish his holiness, they think they are 
secure from the punishment they did dread ; for we fear not man, who is 
faulty as well as ourselves.* When men have done all that they.can to blot out 
a sense of a Deity, and see they cannot do it, they will raze out the reverence 
of it ; and if we find a way to lay our sins at God's door when he chargeth 
them upon us, we think then to escape the rigour of his justice, and that he 
cannot be unrighteous to punish us for those crimes which he is guilty of as 
well as ourselves. But it is a foolish consideration ; for if we can fancy an 
unholy God, we have no reason to think him a righteous Grod. That you 
may see that this very thing which looks so horrible runs in our blood, take 
notice of the two first discourses Grod had with man after his fall, and they 
will both discover this. 

When God examines Adam about his transgression, he excuses himself by 
laying it upon God : ' The woman whom thou gavest me to be with me, she 
gave me of the tree, and I did eat,' Gen. iii. 12. Hadst thou not given me 
the woman, I had not been tempted ; and had I not been tempted, I had not 
sinned ; and this sin was committed presently after the woman was given 
me, as if thou hadst given me this woman to be my immediate tempter, and 
infused such a love in my heart to her, that it could not resist her allure- 
ments ; for he seems by the speech to intimate that God gave him a woman 
on purpose to draw him into sin. The next is Cain. Some think Cain here 
lays the fault upon God : ' Am I my brother's keeper ?' Gen. iv. 9, as if he 
should have said. Art not thou the keeper and governor of the world ? why 
didst not thou hinder me from kiUing my brother ? David, a holy man, 
follows him in those steps, and charges a sin of his own contrivance upon 
the providence of God. When the news of Uriah's death was brought, he 
wipes his mouth, and saith, * The sword devours one as well as another.' 
He fastens that solely on divine providence, which was his own wicked 
contrivance, 2 Sam. xi. 25. 

3. In hating the image of God's holiness in others. The more holy any man 
is, and the more active in ihe severest duties cf religion, the more is he the 
object of the scoffs of others ; and not only barked at by tippUng drunkards 
on the ale-bench, but by formal and grave judges on the seat of justice. 
David, though a king, whose example might have been powerful to have 
brought them to an outward pretended love to holiness, was spoke against 
by them that sat in the gate, and was the song of the drunkards, and that 
when he wept, and chastised his soul with fasting, Ps. Ixix. 10-12. 

Hence nothing is so burdensome as the presence of a sober, religious 
person, because of that image of God's holiness shining in him, which strikes 
so full upon his soul, and sets his heart on work in checking and gripping 
reflections. Now, holiness being the glory of God, the peculiar title of the 
Deity, and from him derived upon the soul, he that mocks this in a person, 
derides G od himself. He that hates the picture of a prince, hates the prince 
also, and much more were he in his power. He that hates the stream, hates 
the fountain ; he that hates the beams, hates the sun. The holiness of a 
creature is but a beam from that infinite sun, a stream from that eternal 
fountain. If a mixed and imperfect holiness be more the subject of thy 
scoffs than a great deal of sin, surely thou wouldst more roundly scoff at 
God himself, should he appear in the unblemished and unspotted holiness of 
* Manton on James, p. 92. 



488 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

his nature, which infinitely shines in him, for thy hatred would be greater, 
because thy contrariety is so much more against the perfection of holiness 
than where it is with a mixture. Where there is a hatred of the purity and per- 
fection of any creature, there is a greater reflection upon God, who is the 
author of that pui-ity. 

4. In having debasing notions of the holy nature of Grod. We invert the 
creation contrary to God's order in it. God made man according to his 
own image, and we make God according to ours. We fashion God like our- 
selves, and fasten our own humours upon him, as the Lacedaemonians were 
wont to dress their gods after the fashion of their cities, Ps. 1. 21. Though 
men are enemies to the holy majesty of God, yet they can please themselves 
well enough with him as represented by that idea their corrupt minds have 
framed of him. We cannot comprehend God ; if we could, we should be 
infinite, not finite ; and because we cannot comprehend him, we set up in 
our fancies strange images of him, and so ungod God in our heart and 
afiections. 

(1.) This is an higher affront to God than we imagine. Vulgi opiniones 
diis apiilicare j)rof anion est. — Epicurus. De Deo male sentire quam deum esse 
negare j^ejus diico. It is worse to degrade the nature of God in our conceits, 
and to make him a vicious God, than if in our thoughts we did quite discard 
any such being ; for it is not so gi'oss a crime to deny his being, as to fancj' 
him otherwise than he is. Such imaginations strip him of his perfections, 
and reduce him to a mere vanity. Plutarch saith, he should account himself 
less wronged by that man that should deny there ever was such a man as 
Plutarch, than that they should aflirm there was such a man indeed, but he 
was a choleric clown, a decrepid fellow, a debauched man, and an ignorant 
fool. This was the general censure of the heathen, that superstition was far 
worse than atheism, by how much the less evil it was to have no opinion 
of God, than such as is vile, wicked, derogatoiy to the pure and holy nature 
of the divine majesty. 

(2.) Carnal imaginations of God, as well as coi^ioreal images, are idolatry. 
It is a question which idolatry is the greatest, to worship an image of wood 
or stone, or to entertain monstrous imaginations of God. It provokes a man 
when we liken him to some inferior creature, and call him a dog or toad. 
It is not such an affront to a man to call him a creature of such a low rank 
and classis, as to square and model the perfections of the great God according 
to our limited capacities. We do worse than the heathen (of whom the 
apostle proclaimed) did in their images : they hkened the glory of God to 
such creatures as were of the lowest form in the creation ; we liken God not 
to corruptible man, but to corrupt man ; and worse yet, to the very corruptions 
of men, and worship a God dressed up according to our own foolish fancies : 
' And changed the glory of the incon-uptible God into an image made like to 
corruptible man, and to birds, and foui'-footed beasts, and creeping things,' 
Rom. i. 23. If all those several conceptions and ideas men have of God 
were uncased and discovered, what a monstrous thing would God appear to 
be, according to the modes the imaginative faculty frames them in ! 

6. In our unworthy and perfunctory addresses to God. When men come 
into the presence of God with lusts reeking in their hearts, and leap from 
sin to duty. God is so holy, that were our services the most refined, as 
pure as those of the angels, yet we could not serve him suitably to his holy 
nature, Joshua xxiv. 19 ; therefore we deny this hohness when we come be- 
fore him without due preparation, as if God did not deserve the purest 
thoughts in our applications to him ; or as if a blemished and polluted sacrifice 
were suitable enough to his nature. When we excite not those elevated 



Rom. YIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 489 

frames of spirit, which are due to his greatness and fulness, and think to 
put him off with cheap and spotted services, we sUght the holy majesty of 
God, and are guilty of a higher presumption than is fitting for us in our ac- 
cess to an earthly prince. 

We worship him not according to the excellent holiness of his nature, 
when we have foolish imaginations creep upon us in the very act of duty, 
which makes our services erroneous and misguided. When we bring our 
worldly, carnal, debauched thoughts into his presence, worse than the dogs 
or slaves we would blush to be attended by in our visits of a great man ; 
when our hearts are turned from God in any duty ; while we are speaking 
with our Creator, to be in our hearts conversing with our sordid sensualities ; 
it is as if we should be raking in a dunghill when we are talking with a king. 
We do here but defame his holiness, while we pretend to honour it ; and pro- 
fane his name, while we are praying ' Hallowed be thy name.' It would 
argue more modesty, though less sincerity, to say to our lusts, as Abraham 
to his servant, ' Tarry here till I go to sacrifice.' 

6. In defacing the image of God in our own souls. God, in the first 
draught of man, conformed him to his own image ; because we find that in 
regeneration this image is rewewed : ' The new man, which after God, xara 
&10V, is created in righteousness and true holiness,' Eph. iv. 24. He did 
not take angels for his pattern in his first polishing the soul, but himself. 
In defacing this image, therefore, we cast dirt upon the holiness of God, 
which was his pattern in the framing of us ; and rather choose to be con- 
formed to Satan, who is God's great enemy, and to have God's image 
wiped out of us, and the devil's pictured in us. Therefore natural men, 
that are guilty of gross sins, are called devils, John vi. 70. It is spoken of 
Judas ; Christ gave it to Peter too. Mat. xvi. 23. And if he gave this title 
to one of the worst of men, and one of the best of men, it will be no wrong to 
give it to all men. Men wallow in sin, which is directly contrary to that 
illustrious image which God did imprint upon them ; and perform those 
actions which are odious to God and his righteousness, and suitable to their 
corruption. Men glory in that which is their shame ; and account that their 
ornament which is the greatest blot upon their nature, which if it were upon 
God would make him cease to be God. 

III. Enmity to the wisdom of God, Presumptuous sins are called a re- 
proach of God : ' The soul that doth aught presumptuously, the same 
reproaches the Lord,' Num. xv. 30. All reproaches are either for natural, 
moral, or intellectual defects ; all reproaches of God must be either for 
wickedness or weakness : if for wickedness, his holiness is denied ; if for 
weakness, his wisdom is blemished. 

1. In slighting the laws of God. Since God hath no defect in his under- 
standing, his will must be the best and wisest, and therefore his laws highly 
rational, as being the orders of the wisest agent. As God's understanding 
apprehends all things in their true reason, so his will enjoins nothing but 
what is highly good, and makes for the happiness of his creature ; the true 
means of whose happiness he understands better than men or angels can do. 
All laws, though they are enforced by sovereignty, yet they are, or ought to 
be, in the composing of them, founded upon reason, are indeed applications 
of the law of nature upon this or that particular emergency. The laws of 
God, then, who is summa ratio, are purely founded upon the truest reason, 
though every one of them may not be so clear to us ; therefore they that 
make alteration in his precepts, either dogmatically or practically, control 
his wisdom, and charge him with folly. When men will observe one part of 
his law, and not another, pick and choose whore they please, hence it is that 



490 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

sinners are called fools in Scripture. It is certainly inexcusable folly, to 
contradict undeniable and infallible wisdom. If infinite prudence hath framed 
the law, why is not every part of it observed ? If it were not made with the 
best wisdom, why is anything of it observed ? 

He that receives the promises of God, and the testimony of Christ, ' sets 
to his seal that God is true,' John iii. 33. It must thence undeniably follow, 
that he that refuseth obedience to his law, sets to his seal that God is fooHsh. 
Men live as though the commands of Grod were made in sport, not by 
counsel. If God took counsel in the making man, there is as much need of 
counsel in the right ordering him. 

If the defacing his image by any sin is a defaming his wisdom in the 
creation, the breaking his law is a disgracing his wisdom in the administra- 
tion. Were they not rational, God would not enjoin them ; and if they are 
rational, we are enemies to infinite wisdom by not complying with them. 

2. In defacing the wise workmanship of God. Every sin is a defacing 
our own souls, w^hich, as they are the prime creatures in the sensible world, 
had greater characters of God's wisdom in the fabric of them. But this 
image of God is ruined and broken by sin. Though the spoiling of it be a 
Bcorn of his holiness, it is also an aflront to his wisdom ; because though his 
power was the cause of the production of so fair a being, yet his wisdom was 
the guide of his power, as well as his holiness the exemplar whereby he 
-wrought it. If a man had a curious clock or watch, which had cost him 
many years' pain, and the strength of his skill to frame ; for a man, after he 
had seen and considered it, to cut, slash, and break all, would argue a con- 
tempt of the workman's skill. God hath shewn infinite art in the creation 
of man, but sin unbeautifies man, and bereaves him of his excellency. 

3. Censuring his ways. What is our impatience at any passages of his 
providence, but a censuring his dealing with us as unjust or unwise ; as if 
we would presume to instruct him better in the management of human 
affairs ? It is to take upon us to be God's judges, to cite him to our tribunal 
to give an account of his ministration of things. It is a reviling him because 
he doth manage things according to his own will, and not according to ours. 
It is a striving with God, and a summoning him to the bar of our reason : 
' Woe to him that strives with his Maker ! Shall the clay say to him that 
fashioned it. What makest thou ?' Isa. xlv. 9. To quarrel with him, and 
examine him about his works, why he made them thus, and not thus ; it is 
a reproaching of God, a contending with him, to instruct him : ' Shall he 
that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him ? he that reproves God, let 
him answer it,' Job xl. 2. A reproof argues a superiority in authority, 
knowledge, or goodness. It is a playing Absalom's game : Oh that I were 
king in Israel, I would do this and that man justice ; so that it is a virtual 
wishing. Oh that I were king of the world, the governor of all creatures, 
things should be disposed more wisely, and more justly. 

4. Prescribing rules and methods to God. We presume to be God's 
tutors, and would sway him according to the dictates of our wisdom ; when 
we would have a mercy in this method which God designs to convey through 
another channel ; when we would have him take his measures from our 
humours ; this was the ground of Jonah's argument with God, ' It displeased 
Jonah exceedingly; and he was very angry,' Jonah iv. 1. When we make 
vows to flatter God into a compliance with our design ; when we pray impe- 
riously for anything without a due submission to God's will ; as if we were 
his counsellors, and he were bound to follow our humours. Thus would the 
most glorious of virgins and mothers prescribe to Christ a rule for his mira- 
culous action, Luke ii. 48. His mother said to him, ' Son, why hast thou 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 491 

thus dealt with us ?' John ii. 3, 4. So the Jews who nailed him to the 
cross, ofiered to believe on him, if he would submit to their terms, and gra- 
tify their curiosity in descending from the cross they had fixed him to. Are 
not most men Jews in this, to prescribe terms to God, upon the grant 
whereof he shall have our service of believing in him ; as if a child should 
appoint rules for his father, or an insane patient to his physician ; would it 
not be an injury to their prudence and skill ? This presumptuous humour 
is a hellish offence. Abraham asserts the way of God's appointment by 
Moses and the prophets, to be the best way for bringing men to repentance 
and salvation ; but the rich man prefers his own judgnaent, and would have 
him send one from the dead to preach to them. Abraham saith unto him, 
' They have Moses and the prophets ;' and he said, ' Nay, father Abraham,' 
Luke xvi. 27-30. We deal often thus with God, as though we were his 
counsellors, not his subjects. 

IV. Enmity to the sufficiency of God. The preferring any sin before God 
is a denial of the fulness and content to be had in the enjoyment of God ; as 
though God were inferior to a base lust, and that a vile pleasure had a bet- 
ter relish than the communication of God to the soul. For when God de- 
scribes what pleasure and peace there is in his ways, what fulness of joy in 
his presence, what is the refusal of it but equivalent to this language of the 
sinner : Xo, I believe no such thing ; there is more happiness to be had in 
sin than in God ? And so he values a vapour, an empty bubble, more than 
infinite fulness. The greater is the scorn of God's sufficiency, by how much 
the more ignoble, brutish, and contemptible the pleasure is we prefer before 
him- 

1. In secret thoughts of meriting by any religious act. As though God 
could be indebted to us, and obliged by us. As though our devotions could 
bring a blessedness to God more than he essentially hath ; when indeed 
' our goodness extends not to him,' Ps. xvi. 2. Our services of God are 
rather services to ourselves, and bring a happiness to us, not to God. This 
secret opinion of merit (though disputed against the papists, yet) is natural 
to man ; and this secret self-pleasing, when we have performed any duty, 
and upon that account expect some fair compensation from God, as having 
been profitable to him. God intimates this : * The wild beasts of the field 
are mine ; if I were hungry I would not tell thee ; for the world is mine, and 
the fulness thereof,' Ps. 1. 11, 12. He implies, that they wronged his infi- 
nite fulness, by thinking that he stood in need of their sacrifices and ser- 
vices, and that he was beholden to them for their adoration of him. All 
merit implies a moral or natm-al insufficiency in the person of whom we merit, 
and our doing something for him, which he could not, or at least so well do 
for himself. It is implied in our murmuring at God's dealing with us in a 
course of cross providences, wherein men think they have deserved better at 
the hands of God by their service, than to be so cast aside and degraded by 
him. In our prosperity we are apt to have secret thoughts that our enjoy- 
ments were the debts God owed os, rather than gifts freely bestowed upon 
us. Hence it is that men are more unwilling to part with their righteous- 
ness than with their sins, and are apt to challenge salvation as a due, rather 
than beg it as an act of grace. 

2. Trying all ways of helping ourselves, before we come to God. Having 
hopes to find that in creatures, which is only to be found in an all-sufficient 
God. When we rather seek an alms from the world than God, as though 
there were some hidden excellency in the world, which overtopped the excel- 
lency of God. When we would rather drink of cisterns than of the foun- 
tain ; as though the waters in the cistern were fresher and sweeter than 



492 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

those in the spring. Hence it is that upon any emergency we set our own 
reason on work, before we crave the assistance of God's power ; and scarce 
seek him till we have modelled the whole contrivance in our own brains, and 
resolved upon the methods of performance ; as though there were not a ful- 
ness of reason in God to guide us in our resolves, as well as power to breathe 
success upon them, ' after vows to make inquiry,' Prov. xx. 25, after resolu- 
tions to beg direction in our business. Sometimes men seek out unlawful 
ways for theii- delivery, as though there were more sufficiency of help in sin 
than in God. Did we believe and love the sufficiency of God, that is able 
to supply our wants, we should not upon every strait be^turned from him, 
and beg help at the door of creatures. 

3. In our apostasies from God. When, after fair pretences and devout 
applications, we grow cold, and thrust him from us, it implies, that God 
hath not that fulness in him which we expected. Backsliding testifies that 
there is not that sweetness and satisfactoriness in God which we expected, 
upon our first approach to him. All apostasy is a denial of God ; for it de- 
nies him either to be a fountain of all good, or else that he is not true to big 
promises, but deceives us in our just expectations of good from him. It 
either speaks him evil or deceitful ; it is a greater affront to deny him, after 
an experience of his sweetness and assistance, than to deny him before any 
dealing with him, or trial of him. Now, though all apostasy begins in a 
neglect, yet it quickly ripens into a hatred. 

4. In joining something with God to make up our happiness. Though 
men are willing to have the enjoyment of God, yet they are not content with 
him alone, but would have something else to eke him out ; as though God, 
who accounts the enjoyment of himself the greatest blessedness, had not also 
in himself a sufficient blessedness for his creatures, without the additions of 
anything else. The young man in the Gospel went away sorrowful, because 
he could not enjoy God and the world both together. Mat. xix. 21, 22. If 
we would light up candles in a clear day, when the sun shines in its full 
brightness, what do we imply but that the sun has not light enough in itself 
to make it day ? And when we labour for other things with as much strength 
and eagerness as we labour for the enjoyment of God, what is it but to deny 
that there is enough in him without the concurrence of some other good ? 

V. Against the omniscience of God. Men hate God's omniscience, and 
could willingly have him stripped of this eminency. For men naturally love 
not those that dive into their purposes and canvass their thoughts ; so nei- 
ther can men love this attribute of God, whereby he enters into the secret 
closets of their hearts, and takes an exact measure of every wicked and subtle 
contrivance. The first speech that Adam spake in paradise after his fall, 
infringed God's omniscience, ' I heard thy voice in the garden, and I hid my- 
self,' Gen, iii. 10 ; as if the trees could shelter him from that eye that 
saw the minutest part of the whole earth. The next speech recoi'ded of the 
second man, Cain, is to the same purpose ; when God put the question to 
him, ' Where is thy brother ?' ' I know not,' Gen. iv. 9 ; thinking thereby 
to delude God's omnisciency. He that practically denies God's omnisciency, 
denies his Godhead : for a man may as well deny that there is a sun, 
as deny that it shines, and disperseth its light and influence into every 
corner.* 

This appears, 

1. When we commit sin upon the ground of secresy. If all hearts, surely 
then all places, are open to God's eye ; no private bench for a dmnkard, or 
secret stew for an adulterer, but is obvious to him. Common modesty before 
* See more of this in the Discourse of God's Omnipresence. 



Rom. VIII, 7.] man's enmity to god, 493 

man is not practised before God ; men are ashamed to have their actions seen by 
man's eye, but not by God's. Maxima dehetur pneris reverent ia, filthy actions 
cannot endure the presence of a child's eye, much less of man's. Shall the 
presence of a child have more power over us than the presence of God, and 
men's observing more than God's censuring eye ? Is not this a denial of him, 
when the eye of God is of less force to restrain thee than the eye of man, as if 
men only could see, and God were blind ? All the sin thou committest before 
the eye of the holiest man in the world, cannot make him hate thee so much 
as God hates thee ; because his holiness is infinitely short of God's holiness, 
and consequently his hatred is infinitely short of God's. 

It is an aggi-avation of a man's sin to be committed in the presence of God, 
Gen. X. 9, 'a mighty hunter before the Lord.' As it was of Haman's offence, 
when he lay upon Esther's bed, that he would force the queen ' before the 
king's face.' It seems to be David's conceit in his sin, that God would not 
see him ; both by Nathan's charge. Wherefore hast thou despised the com- 
mandment of the Lord, ' to do evil in his sight ? ' 2 Sam, ii. 19 ; and by his 
own confession, ' This evil have I done in thy sight,' Ps. li. 4. Every peni- 
tent takes notice of the wrong he doth to God's all-seeing eye. It is a hiwh 
provocation for a servant to do ill when his master's eye is upon him, or a 
thief to cut a purse before the judge's face. God observes all wickedness ; 
wickedness under lock and key. If he registers all thy members in his book, 
he will also register the sins of those members ; what use thou puttest them 
to, whether to his service or the devil's drudgery ; whether thy eye rove about 
in wanton glances, or thy tongue be let loose in profane laoguage, or thy ear 
open to ungodly discourse, or thy feet more swift to carry thee to an alehouse 
than a sermon. 

It was once a check a young man gave to a harlot, who had enticed him, 
and carried him from one room to another for secresy, Oh, saith he, can none 
see us here ? can we be hid from God's eye ? Yet sinners in their practice 
make their boast as they in express words : ' Thick clouds are a coverincr to 
him, that he sees not; and he walks in the circuit of heaven,' Job xxii. 14. 
As though God's eye could not pierce the thick clouds ; as though his cares 
were confined only to celestial things, and earth were too low an orb for his 
eyes to roll about. If we think a word in the presence of a grave religious 
man may disgrace us, we are troubled in our minds ; but we regard not an 
injury done to God. We are more cast down if a foolish action of ours 
comes to the knowledge of men than to the knowledge of God, 

2. When men give liberty to inward sins. God often sets forth himself 
by that expression, that he * trieth the heart, and searcheth the reins,' The 
heart hath many valves and ventricles, but God searches all the valves, which 
cannot be espied and discerned but by a curious eye, God sees all the con- 
trivances of it. The reins are partly hid, most inward, sun-ounded with fat. 
The most inward thoughts cannot be hid from God's piercing eye ; for all is 
open before him, hke dissected sacrifices when the bowels are ripped up, and 
all the inwards discovered. God is more within the soul of a creature than 
any one hidden thought can be, and knows it before the heart that mints it 
has a full discovery of it. What do the actings of sin in our fancies import, 
but as though God's eye could not pierce into the remoteness and darkness 
of our minds ? 

Manasseh is blamed for setting up strange altars in the house of God ; 
much more may we for setting up strange imaginations in the heart, which 
should belong to God, This is to deny God's judicial prerogative ; this is 
the attribute which speaks him fit to be a judge, and yet men can possess 
their hearts with this, that he is defective in this attribute, and so make him 



494 cuarnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

incapable of judging the world. H3'pocrisy is a plain denial of his omni- 
sciency. When men have a religious lip, and a black soul ; an outside swept 
and garnished, and a legion of devils garrisoned within, this derogates from 
God, as though his eye were as easily deceived as men's, and outward appear- 
ance limited God's observation. Are we not more slight in the performance 
of private devotions before God, than we are in our attendances in public in 
the sight of men. 

3. When men give way to diversions in a duty, it is a denial of God's 
omniscience. Love is the cause of fixedness. The angels have a pure affec- 
tion to God, and therefore they have an uninterrupted attention in his 
presence. If thou thinkest God does not mind thee, why dost thou pray at 
all ? If thou thinkest he does mind thee, why dost thou not pray more 
fervently, fixedly, and hear more attentively ? This attention consists in 
the frame of the soul ; for bodily exercise is required for our sakes, not for 
God's. Gesture and speech are to quicken our afiections. Christ has given 
us a short pattern of prayer, and can our hearts be steady upon God in the 
repetition of it? Duties are visits we pay to God ; would it not be an afii-ont 
if, when we were to visit a prince, we should send a noisome rotten carcase 
in our stead ? Do we not deal so with God, when we come without our 
heart, as though God were ignorant, and could be put off with anything, the 
worst in our flocks, as well as the best. 

It wrongs the majesty of God's presence, that when he speaks to us, we 
will not give him so much respect as to regard him ; and when we speak to 
him, we do not regard ourselves. What a vain thing is it to be speaking to 
a scullion, when the king is in presence ? Every careless diversion to a vain 
object, is a denial of God's presence in the place. It is a wrong to God's 
excellency, that when we come to God for what we count sweet and desir- 
able, we presently turn our backs, as though our addresses were an act of 
imprudence and folly ; as much as to say, There is no sweetness in him, no 
beauty that we should desire him. 

VI. Enmity to the mercy of God. God is not vn-onged more in any attri- 
bute by devils and men, than in his mercy. Man would deprive God of the 
honour of his own mercy, of the objects of mercy, when God's mercy to 
others comes in competition with his self-love and credit. Jonah's pride 
would null the goodness of God. With what an unreasonable passion doth 
he fly in the face of God for reprieving the humbled Ninevites ! He would 
rather have had his own credit preserved in the destruction of them accordingto 
bis prediction, than God's tenderness magnified in their preservation. Some 
fancy a God made up altogether of mercy, a childish mercy ; as if his mercy 
had nothing else to do but to wrong all his other perfections, to make him 
belie his truth, extinguish his justice, discard his wisdom, and enslave his 
power. 

This appears, (1.) In the severe and jealous thoughts men have of God. 
Men are apt to charge God with tyranny, whereby they strip him of the 
riches of his glorious mercy. The devil's design at first was to belie God to 
man, that he might have hard and contracted thoughts of God, to think him 
strait-handed towards his creature. Therefore he is called * a liar from the 
beginning,' in urging man to misbelieve his Creator to be an unjust, hard, 
and cruel master, and that envied him comforts necessary for him, which 
frightful thoughts of the Deity have haunted man ever since. If man in 
creation was so ready to entertain jealousies of God, man in corruption, with 
the load of guilt upon him, is much more prone. 

The heathens (by the devil's instigation), as the Indians, have their notions 
that mercy flows not naturally from God, but must be wrested by a multitude 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 495 

of services, that he will do nothing without the bribe of a sacrifice, which 
they offer, lest he should hurt them. As if God only created men to make 
sport with their misery ; as if God had no other design in the creation, than 
to load his creatures with chains, and govern that world by tyranny which he 
made by an efflux of powerful goodness. The worship of many men is 
founded upon this conceit, whereby they are frighted into some actions of 
adoration, not sweetly drawn. This representation of God doth debase the 
soul, and fills it with that tyrannical passion of fear which is always accom- 
panied with hatred ; for we hate what we fear. Thus the devil accuses God 
to troubled consciences, persuading them that he has no mercy for them, 
that so he may drive them to despair. This he attained in Cain, who cries 
in despair, ' My punishment is greater than I can bear,' i. e. my sin is 
greater than can be pardoned. Gen. iv. 13. 

When any soul is like to be snatched out of Satan's hands, he makes it 
interpret those acts wherein God means favour, to be acts of enmity. So 
that the main work God has to do after conviction, is to persuade the soul 
to have good thoughts of him. Hence arises that unwillingness in the soul 
to come to God, How can we approach to him of whom we have such nar- 
row thoughts, and judge of according to our own revengeful humours ? How 
can we do otherwise but hate him, when we represent him as one easily 
angry, hardly appeased, of a cruel nature ; a Minos, a Rhadamanthus, or 
Phalaris, rather than an infinite mirror of sweetness and love. If we do not 
think him so, why do we stand off from him ? Hence arises our wrong con- 
structions of providence, and sinister interpretations of God's acts, when we 
attribute to God such ends as have no other foundation but our own foolish 
fancy. Thus Manoah interprets the angel's coming, which was an act of 
God's kindness to him, to be an ill-meant providence, Judges xiii. 22. Now, 
as it is the quality of love to think no evil, so it is the property of hatred to 
think all evil. And as when a man hates sin, he cannot endure any varnish 
of an excuse to be put upon it, and cannot speak or think too bad of it ; so 
when a man hates God, he cannot endure to have a good gloss put upon his 
actions. 

(2.) Slighting his mercy, and robbing him of the end of it. The vnUal 
breaking of a prince's laws, upon the observance whereof great rewards are 
promised, is not only a despising his sovereignty, but a slighting his good- 
ness, in the rewards proffered to the observers. Rebels that stand it out 
against proclamations of pardon do what in them lies to deprive the prince 
of any objects to shew his clemency on. So obstinate sinners against mercy 
would, as far as they are able, deprive God of any subject to magnify his 
mercy on, especially when they do not only stand it out against so gracious 
profiers of God, but draw in others to take up arms against him ; every sin 
in this respect is a stealing the glory of this attribute from God, in denying 
him that tribute of obedience which is due to him for it. Often this enmity 
rises higher ; and whereas men should fear him, because he is ready to for- 
give, Ps. cxxx. 4, they rather slight him, and presume to sin because he hath 
mercy to pardon ; and so make that which should cherish their obedience 
to be a spur to their rebellion, and encourage their future off'ences by that 
goodness which should excite a fear and holy awe of him in their souls. 
Because God is gracious, men will be more vicious ; hence they are said to 
' despise his goodness,' Rom. ii. 4. And that patience which should teach 
them repentance inflames their hatred, and in this humour they turn grace 
itself into wantonness, Eccles. viii. 11. 

VII. Enmity to the justice of God. When men wish there were no God, 
they wish this at least, that God were unclothed of those perfections which 



496 charnock's woeks. [Rom. YIII. 7. 

are averse and dreadful to their guilty consciences ; scarce a man but hath 
flattering fancies that God is not so terrible as he is represented. 

This appears, (1.) In not fearing it, but running under the lash of it. 
Sin is an act of rebellion, and rebels fear not the justice, or else hope to 
overcome the power of their superior. Would not men be afraid to spit in 
the face of heaven, did they really believe there was a Grod who was just and 
righteous, and would not let any sin go unpunished ? The prophet speaks 
of some that had wearied God with their sins, and made him serve with their 
iniquities, Isa. xliii. 24, as if God were bound to endure their evil carriage 
against him with patience, and never to unsheathe the sword of his justice. 
How often are men upon this account said to have a rocky heart, and iron 
sinews, that will neither be broken nor bent ! Are not the Belshazzars of 
the world merry, though the handwriting be upon the wall against them. 
Thus men ' commit sin with greediness, and are past feeling,' Eph. iv. 19, 
daring the justice of God, and without any sense of revenge due to sin, and 
say. To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. Nay, I dare 
aver, that if a man who had been scorched in hell should again enjoy his 
wonted pleasures, and have all the while a fresh remembrance of his late 
torments, were not his will changed by a powerful grace, he would stand it 
out as stiffly against God as ever, notwithstanding those terrible marks of 
wrath, and be without a holy fear of that justice which he had felt. 

(2.) Sinning under the strokes of justice. Men will not turn to God that 
smites them, though they have hypocritical bowlings upon their beds under 
God's stroke, Hosea vii. 18, 14, and Isa. ix. 13. They will roar under the 
stroke, but not submit to the striker. It is the witch of Endor, or the god 
of Ekron, shall have their addresses, and not the God of heaven. 

(3.) In hoping easily to evade it. There are sometimes secret thoughts 
that a man is able to maintain himself against all the force God can use, 
which the apostle implies, ' Are we stronger than he ?' 1 Cor. x. 22. Do 
we think to try it out at arms-length with God ? Sin implies a mastering 
God's all-powerful justice. Sometimes men will argue for impiety from their 
present impunity ; and because he keeps silence, think that he will not 
publish a condemning sentence, Ps, 1. 21 ; and because God forbears, think 
that he has forgotten to punish: ' God hath forgotten,' Ps. x. 11. Some- 
times we fancy God Hke to ourselves, mutable with every wind, as soon 
appeased as angry ; either unable to resist the force of our prayers, or easily 
enticed by our good words and praises of him, as though he were to be flat- 
tered out" of his just anger, his holy and righteous nature : * They flattered 
him with their mouth,' Ps. Ixxviii. 86. As if he needed our trifles, and 
rattles, as children do, to appease them ; or might be wrought upon as the 
poor Indians, to give the gold of heaven for a few beads. 

They fancy him a god of wax, whom they can bend at their pleasure; 
either so weak that he cannot, or of so soft a disposition that he will not, be 
revenged of sin, and that a few sighs will blow away a storm of wrath. 
Hence men invent ways of pleasing God after they have ofiended him, and 
think to expiate the sin of their soul by the off'ering their substance, or pre- 
senting some melancholy devotions, or inflicting some self-chastisements. 
As if God were to be bribed by the blood of a lamb, or goat, or by some 
superstitious and formal services, to change his provoked justice into an easy 
clemency. 

VIII. Enmity to the truth of God. Most men live upon trust for their 
knowledge, and know far more by the relation, and upon the credit of others, 
than upon certain demonstrations, as that there are such places as China, 
Peru, and Mexico. And why are men so backward in beheving God speaking 



KoM. "VIII. 7.J man's enmity to god. 497 

in his word ? It is clear hereby that men have not so great enmity against 
one another as they have against G-od. 

This appears (1.) in not believing his threatenings. Men believe not either 
the matter or sudden execution of them. Our faith is more operative upon 
reports from men than revelations from God. Men will believe stories of 
danger, so as to avoid the places wherein they be liable to it ; yet though 
God tells them what the issue of sin will be, how certainly it will destroy 
them, they will walk on in their own way. Men look upon hell as a painted 
fire, upon the threatenings as scarecrows without a sting, and are not so 
much affected with them as at the reading of a tragedy. Would men be so 
stupid as not to stir out of the fire, if they did really believe God were true ? 
They are apt to fear others that threaten inferior punishments, and not to 
fear God, who threatens everlasting woe, but think to find mercy in the way 
of sin, though God assures them to the contrary. How soon did the 
IsraeUtes lose the sense of the thunder, which terrified them when the law 
was given ! Like those sponges that thunder will pass through, such are 
secure persons, through whom the thunder of God's threatenings will pass 
without doing any hurt. A contrite heart trembles at the word, Isa. Ixvi. 2, 
because he acknowledges it to be true, whereas a proud heart is Uke an 
unmoved rock, that is not daunted at God's threatenings, as imagining them 
to be false. If a man at first believes them, yet if God delays the execution 
of them, he thinks they were in jest with him, and takes delays for denials : 
* My master delays his coming,' Luke xii. 45. This temper is called a belying 
of God: ' It is not he, this evil shall not come upon us,' Jer. v. 12. (2.) 
His promises. Man is more prone to believe God's promises than threaten- 
ings, because men are naturally credulous of that which makes for their 
interest ; therefore God made the Jews to say Amen to the curses, Deut. xxvii. 
26. Not to the blessings, Deut. xxviii, because tliey were ready to shght 
thi-eatenings, and snatch at promises. But yet even his words of grace are 
not credited by men ; hence it is that they are not allured by his gracious 
proffers, which would work upon men if they really believed that God intended 
as he spake. All the unbelief in the world gives God the lie, the greatest 
indignity among the sons of men : ' He that believes not God, hath made 
him a liar,' 1 John v. 10. We beheve the promises of a man that is a lie, 
as the psalmist speaks, and has deceived us, and rely upon a vain creature 
that fails, rather than upon the true and living God ; like the foolish 
Indians, part with the gold of God's promises for glass and ribbons, brittle 
and gaudy things. Present things do more affect us than future. It was the 
present world Demas loved more than a future crown, 2 Tim. iv. 10. 
Sensible trifles are esteemed more valuable than invisible and external excel- 
lency. Men look upon heaven as a poet's elysium, a dream and fancy, and 
the promise of Christ's coming to be the greatest falsehood : * WTiere is the 
promise of his coming ? 2 Peter iii. 4. It is an undervaluing God's veracity 
to be led by sense, a brutish principle, rather than by God, who is truth 
itself. Our following the dictates of natural reason against revelation is not 
so derogatory as the making sense our guide. 

IX. Enmity to his providence. By denying his truth, we deny his provi- 
dence ; for as the crediting the truth of one another keeps up commerce in 
the world, so the veracity of God on his part, and the sincerity of man, keep 
up an intercourse between God and the ^world. Some have thought God 
a sleepy God, as though he never cared how the world moved, so he 
might rest, Zeph. i. 12. Some thought it below God's majesty to mind 
sublunary things, as though it were more unworthy for God to govern them 
than it was to create them. This appears, 

VOL. V. I i 



498 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

1. In ascribing his works to second causes. When we look upon second 
causes as the authors of benefits we enjoy, and attribute to them what is due 
to God, and ascribe them to bhnd chance, or the dexterity of our own wit, 
and thither return our thank-offerings : ' They sacrifice unto their net, and 
burn incense to their drag,' Hab. i. 16, Deifying the creature, the instru- 
ment, without any or a formal regard to the chief actor. In chastisements 
we look not upon sin as the meritorious, or God as the efficient cause. Thus 
Balaam spurred on his ass, and never considered the angel that stood in the 
way. Many regard instruments, and never consider God, who does all the 
evil in the city, and thus rob God both of the honour of his mercies, and the 
obedience required both by him and his chastisements. 

2. In the offence we take, and the resistance we make, to his providences, 
if they cross our will. Sometimes men will charge the providence of God 
in times of afiiiction, that he is unjust towards them, and inflicts punishments 
when they deserve rewards ; therefore the Spirit of God gives it as com- 
mendation of Job, that 'in all this,' i. e. in those many afilictions, he did 
* not charge God foolishly,' Job i. 22, a praise scarce to be given to any man 
in the world. We are apt to murmur, as if God were bound to take care of 
us, and act all for our good, and neglect the whole world besides, or as 
though it were fitter for him to govern according to our foolish wills than 
his own wise and righteous will. Sometimes men will oppose the designs of 
his providence. The Gadarenes are so startled at the loss of their swine, that 
with a joint consent they desire Christ to depart from their coasts, having 
no mind to entertain his person or his doctrine, when they should rather 
have been moved by his miraculous power and his preaching to have inquired 
into the gospel which he preached. When the carnal interests of men's 
grandeur are struck at, they will quarrel at the powerful ways of God. Acts 
V. 16, 17, the high priests and Sadducees were filled with indignation at 
the apostles' miracles, which had reason enough to convince them had they 
not had too much malice to withstand them. Instead of submitting to the 
rod, we rage against God when he is correcting us, and, like chaff, fly in the 
face of him that fans us ; not like children submitting to a father, but, like 
rebels, denying his superiority over us. 

3. In our misinterpretations of providence. Shimei misinterpreted the 
providence of God when David fled from Jerusalem upon his son Absalom's 
rebellion. Oh, saith he, now God will revenge the house of Saul, 2 Sam. 
xvi. 7, 8. We will put interpretations upon God's acts according to our 
fancies, humours, and wishes ; therefore the Spirit of God takes particular 
notice that Shimei was of the house of Saul, and therefore according to his 
own humour accounted this a punishment for his outing the house of Saul 
from the government. This is a high usurpation of God's prerogative, who 
is the best interpreter of his own acts as well as his laws. 

X. Enmity to his content and pleasure. 

1. In his nature. Such an enmity there is in sin, that it strives to make 
a confusion in God himself, a war in his very nature ; for sin put God 
to his infinite wisdom to satisfy all the perfections of his nature. If he 
spared the sinner, how could he be just ? If he destroyed him, how could 
he be merciful ? What wit of men or angels could contrive a way to compose 
those attributes, and make truth and righteousness, mercy and justice, to 
kiss each other, and still those jars which sin endeavoured to make between 
them ? If justice should have its full due, what would become of the 
creature ? If mercy should only act its part, what would become of the 
righteousness of God's nature ? If the creature should be damned by the 
severity of justice, mercy might sit weeping for want of objects, unless new 



Rom. VIII. 7. J man's enmity to god. 499 

ones were created. If mercy should have its contentment in the impunity 
of the sinner, righteousness and truth might bewail the want of a due satis- 
faction. The heart of mercy would be broken if sin were punished, and the 
cry of justice would be perpetual unless the sinner fell under his own 
demerits. That surely is the greatest enemy, that endeavours to set division 
in a man's own family and nature. 

2. In his works. Men endeavour to disappoint God of his glory, the 
end of his creation, and the most valuable jewel he reserves for his own use, 
and will not impart to another. God created all things for himself; and 
man, by tui-ning them to another use, evidences that he would not let God 
have the pleasure of his own works, or the rent due to him for them. Sin 
made him repent that ever he put his hand to the framing that world, which, 
after the creation, he had pronounced good. Gen. vi. 6, 7, and made God be 
grieved with his own creatures, which with so much wisdom he made, and 
so much delight acquiesced in. God requires no more of man for all his 
benefits than a service ; and they deny him this, and endeavour to make him 
weary of his life, as if we studied how we could most vex and disquiet him : 
thou hast ' fretted me in all those things,' Ezek. xvi. 43. 

God created the world to have a service from his rational creatures ; and 
yet their services naturally, as well as their sins, are a trouble to him, and 
tire him, and is ready to shake the world in pieces : ' Your appointed feasts 
my soul hateth : I am weary to bear them ; they are a trouble to me,' Isa. 
i. 14. So that he can have no ease but in the acts of vengeance : ' Ah, I 
will ease me of my adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies,' ver. 24. 
God created the world, not for any need he had of it, but to communicate his 
own goodness, and made man as a choice vessel to receive it ; but man 
shrinks his soul, that goodness cannot enter upon him, and so endeavours to 
frustrate God of this end. Can there be a greater contempt than to deny 
God the satisfaction of his own works ? 

Now, to sum up all that has been said, suppose, if it were possible, that 
there were another God to judge, or an indifferent person to judge between 
God and men of this world, and had a copy of all the laws and promises, 
records of all God's dealings, would he not judge by the practices of men that 
God was some cruel Pharaoh, that, notwithstanding all his fair words and 
promises, minded nothing but the destruction of his creature, and that man 
had some high provocations from God to act so against the laws of goodness 
and proposals of eminent rewards ; that God had no excellency to make him 
desirable, but that he were the most despicable, contemptible, unworthy being 
in the whole world ? All the actions and practices of men testify thus much, 
that he is a weak, impure, cniel, false, empty, shallow, inconsiderable being, 
and one that hath no authority over him ; a pattern not fit to be imitated ; 
one that hath been injurious to him, &c. An indifferent person, that had no 
knowledge of God, viewing his laws, would have a high opinion of him ; but 
again considering the practices of his creatures, he could not but think that 
some great provocation was offered by God to men ; that he was full of dis- 
simulation. He could not otherwise think that there should be so general a 
defection from him. But to declare this enmity further, it will be evident, 
by considering what enmity there is against all that comes from him, both 
the truths he reveals, and the duties he enjoins. 



500 charnock's works. [Eom. VIII. 7. 

PART IV. 

Enmity against the Truth, dr. 

I. First, The carnal mind is enmity against God in his truth. Hating in- 
etruction is a part of atheism : ' Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest 
my words behind thee,' Ps. 1. 17. God complains, in Hos. viii. 12, that the 
most excellent things were accounted as a strange thing. God had given 
them the great things of his law, and they esteemed them not. 

1. In men's unwillingness to believe any divine truth, or to meditate upon 
it. Men shun the thoughts of what they do not love. If we will not let 
truth in, which is a message from heaven, it is a sign we care not for the 
person from whom it comes. 

It is hard to believe moral or divine truths ; because they are against the 
interests of our lusts, and would eject those principles which have got so 
firm footing in our minds and affections, and would bring them into such a 
reformed course, which our minds, biassed by such principles, do exceed- 
ingly hate ; whereas natural or mathematical verities are readily credited and 
kindly entertained, because they thwart not our principles, as the others do. 
The more divine and spiritual the object is, the more unwilling we are to 
close with it ; and by how much the nearer any notion of truth is to God, 
and the more clearly representing him, the more averse are we from it. And 
if men uve enemies to that truth which doth most clearly discover God and 
his mind, and cannot endure the thoughts of it, much less can they endure 
the thoughts of God himself. They are loath to entertain anything that may 
disquiet them. Christ describes this humour as it was in Noah's time, and 
as it will be towards the end of the world, Mat. xxiv. 38, 39. They were 
eating and drinking as though the world were their own, and loath to think 
of a deluge ; and at the latter end men will as hardly believe a burning as 
they did then the drowning of the world. The pharisees derided the soundest 
doctrine. They derided him, suhsannarunt ; l^i/xv/trri^it^ov, they treated him 
with every mark of the lowest contempt when he declaimed against their 
covetousness. 

If the word lays hold upon a man, he endeavours to shake it off as a 
man would a seijeant who comes to arrest him. Men ' like not to retain 
God in their knowledge,' Rom. i. 28. If any truth presses in upon them, 
they turn it away, as men do importunate beggars : We have nothing for you ; 
do not trouble us ; we have no alms to bestow upon you. And the reason 
is, because men having abortivated and deadened all those relics and natural 
infusions of God in their soul, any lively truth and apprehension of him 
proves most unsavoury. As wine and strong waters which have lost their 
natural spirit become most ungrateful and unpleasant to the stomach, so 
those innate impressions of God which are so refreshing to a good man, they 
do what they can to shake off or taint them by mingling with them their own 
corrupt notions ; and when they cannot, they are filled with an irreligious 
rancour against God. Men keep the truths that rise up in themselves for 
conviction and instruction in unrighteousness, and quench the motions of 
the blessed Spirit, killing them in the womb. Have not men often had secret 
wishes that the Scripture had never mentioned some truths, or that they 
were blotted out of the Bible ; because they face their consciences, damp 
their pleasures, and cool their boiling lusts, which else they would with 
eagerness and delight pursue ? 

When men cannot shake off a truth, but it sticks fasts in them, yet 



EoM. YIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 501 

they have no pleai3ure in the consideration of it, which would be if there 
were a love to God ; for men love to read over the letters which are sent by 
them to whom they have an affection, and stick them up, or peruse them 
afterwards at their leisure. As it was an unclean beast that did not chew 
the cud under the law, so it is a corrupt heart that doth not chew truth by 
meditation. Hence a natural man is said not to know the things of God ; 
for while he is inclined to a sensual life, he can have no delight in spiritual 
things, for sensuality hinders the operations of his soul about the choicest 
objects. Natural men may indeed meditate on a truth, but they do not de- 
light in it ; or if they do, it is only as it is knowledge ; for we delight in no- 
thing that we desire but upon the same account that we desire it. Now 
natural men desire to know God and some truths, not out of a sense of his 
excellency, but from a natural thirst after knowledge, so that they rejoice in 
the act, not in the object, not to quicken their affections, as idle boys strike 
fire, not to kindle anything, but please themselves with the sparks ; whereas 
a gracious soul accounts not only his meditation, or the operation of his soul 
about a thing to be sweet, but he hath a spiritual joy in the object of that 
meditation. Many have the knowledge of God who have no delight in it ; 
as owls and bats have eyes to perceive the light, but, by reason of the weak- 
ness of their sight, have no delight in it to look cheerfully upon it, so neither 
can a man, by his natural or acquired knowledge, delight in God, or love to 
look upon him, because of his corruption. 

2. In theii- opposition to it. (1.) This opposition is external. Ife the first 
dawning of the gospel, what opposition did the apostles meet with ! What 
persecutions were raised against them ! How did the carnal world, like 
dogs, bark at the shining of the moon ! It is as natural for men to persecute 
the truth, which is against the grain, as it is for them to breathe. When 
Socrates, upon natural principles, did confute the heathen idolatry, and 
asserted the unity of God, the whole cry of Athens, a learned university, is 
against him ; and because he opposed the public received religion, he milSt 
die : Acts xiii. 45, contradicting and blaspheming are put together ; disputes 
against the word many times end in blasphemies. 

(2.) Their opposition is internal. God's truths cast against a hard heart are 
like balls thrown against a stone wall, which rebound the further from it ; 
such a resistance there is in man, to beat back all the tenders of grace. 
Where the grace of God comes in any power, it accidentally stirs up sin in 
the heart ; as when the sun shines upon a noisome dunghill, it becomes 
more noisome ; not that the sun communicates any filthiness or pollution to 
the dunghill, but by accident in warming it, it makes the stench break forth. 
Sin, as a garrison in a city, is up in arms upon any alarm from its adversary. 
A word of God against the great Diana of a man's lust sets the whole soul 
in an uproar ; sin follows the steps of its father the devil, and endeavours to 
bruise the heel of tnith, which would break the head of lust. Men hate the 
truths of God when they begin to search and tent their beloved corruptions ; 
so Ahab, 1 Kings xxii. 8, 'I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good con- 
cerning me, but evil;' John iii. 19, 20, ' lest their deeds should be reproved;' 
as apes are reported to break the glass, because they would not see their 
own deformity. The light of speculation may be pleasant, but the light of 
conviction is grievous ; the light strikes too strongly upon their sore eyes, 
and makes them smart. 

3. If men do entertain truth, it is not for truth's sake, but for some other 
by-end. Truth is scarcely received as truth ; there is more of hypocrisy 
than sincerity in the pale of the church ; the dowry makes it more desirable 
than the beauty. Judas follows Christ for the bag. Sometimes men enter- 



502 charnock's woeks. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

tain truth to satisfy their own passions, rather than upon God's account. 
The religion of many is not the judgment of the man, but the passion of the 
brute. Many rather entertain the doctrine for the person's sake, than the 
person for the doctrine, and believe anything that comes from a man they 
esteem and affect, as if his lips were as canonical as Scripture. You received 
it ' not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God,' 1 Thes. ii. 
13 ; so that many times the very same truth delivered by another is disre- 
garded, which, when coming from the fancy and mouth of their own idol, is 
cried up for an oracle, whenas, alas ! it was the truth of God in the ass's as 
well as in the angel's mouth. And thus they have the word of God ' with 
respect of persons,' and receive it not for the sake of the fountain, but of 
the channel ; and though they entertain the truth of God materially, yet 
not formally as his truth : ' Have not the faith of Christ with respect of per- 
sons,' James ii. 1. 

4. If men do entertain truth, it is with unsettled affections, and much 
mixture. If men let in some good notions of Grod, they let in also much of 
corruption and error, like sponges that can suck up the foulest water as well 
as the sweetest wine ; they have the unclean beasts enter into the ark of 
their souls as well as the clean. There is a great levity in the heart of man. 
The Jews cry Hosanna to Christ one day, and crucify him the next. They 
have their heart open one day for truth, and the next turn it out of doors. 
Those truths which are easy to be understood are hard to be impressed ; our 
affections will as soon lose them as our understandings embrace them. Some 
were willing to rejoice in John's light, which gave a lustre to their minds, 
not in his heat, which would have given warmth to their affections ; for Joha 
was a burning and a shining hght, and they would rejoice in his light, but 
not in his heat, and in that too but for a season. We begin in the Spirit, 
and end in the flesh. We go from God with affections, and quickly grow 
cold again. Our hearts are like lute strings, changed with every change of 
weather, with every temptation, and scarce one motion of God in a thousand 
can prevail upon us. 

5. In a carnal improvement of truth. Some endeavour to make truth 
subservient to lust, and, like spiders, draw cursed poison out of the sweetest 
flowers ; as when men hear of God's willingness to pardon and receive re- 
penting sinners, they will argue from hence for deferring their repentance 
till they come to die ; so, Ps. xciv. 7, God's patience is made a topic whence 
to argue against his providence. Wicked men father their sins upon God's 
word. A har will find his refuge in the rewards God gave the midwives that 
lied to Pharaoh, for the preservation of the Israelites' children, and Eahab's 
lie for preserving the spies. Though God rewarded their fidelity, yet we 
read not that he approved their sin. Some will venture into all kind of 
wicked company, from Christ's example, who conversed with sinners, when 
Christ companied with sinners as a physician with diseased persons, to cure 
them, not to approve them ; but these with persons not to communicate 
holiness to them, but receive infection from them. Thus, like the devil, we 
have Scripture at our fingers' ends to plead for our lusts. As the sea turns 
fresh water into salt, so a carnal heart turns divine things to carnal ends. 
As man subjects the precepts of God to a carnal interest, so they subject 
the truths of God to carnal fancies ; make a humorous and crazy fancy the 
interpreter of divine oracles, and not the Spirit speaking in the word ; this 
is to rifle truth of its true mind and intent, as it is more to rob a man of his 
reason, the essential constitutive part of man, than of his estate. 

II. Secondly, Enmity against the duties God doth enjoin, as well as against 
the truths he doth reveal. We are not willing to come to God in duty; 



Rom. YIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 503 

which strangeness took date from the beginning of our nature. We were 
' estranged from the womb,' Ps. Iviii. 3. I shall instance in prayer, which is 
one of the gi-eatest duties, and is an immediate speaking to God. And in 
that duty wherein there is the greatest intimacy with God, there is the great- 
est aversion, and consequently an enmity against God. 

1. Unwillingness to it. Men cannot endure to give God a visit ; if they 
do, it is with such a dulness of spirit, as if they wished themselves out of 
his company ; which testifies that men care not for any correspondence or 
friendship between God and their souls. Man having an enmity to true 
holiness, hath from thence an enmity to prayer, because holiness must at 
least be pretended in prayer, because in that duty there is a real speaking to 
God, and a communion with him, unto which holiness is required. Now, as 
wicked men hate the truth of holiness, because it is unsuitable to them, so 
they are not friends to the pretence of it in that duty, because thy must for 
some space be diverted from the thoughts of their beloved lusts. I appeal 
to you, whether you are not more unwilling to practise prayer in your closets 
than to join with others, as if it were a going to the rack, and rather your 
penance than privilege. If men do come to God, it is a constrained act, to 
satisfy conscience ; and such are rather servile than son-like perfoi-mances, 
and spring from bondage more than affection. If conscience, hke a task- 
master, did not lash them to duty, they would never perform it. If we do 
come willingly, it is for our own ends, to have some deliverance from some 
troubles : ' In trouble have they visited thee ; they poured out a prayer when 
thy chastening was upon them,' Isa. xxvi. 16. In trouble they will visit 
God ; in prosperity be shall scarce hear of them. In affliction he finds them 
kneeling, and in prosperity he finds them kicking. They can pour out a 
prayer in distress, and scarce drop a prayer when they are delivered. This 
unwillingness to address God, what slight and low thoughts doth it imply ! 
It is a wrong to his providence, as though we stood not in need of bis assist- 
ance, but that we can do all our business ourselves. 

It is a wrong to his excellency, as though there were no amiableness in 
him to make his company desirable. This enmity is the greater, by how 
much God's condescension is the greater to admit us to his presence. It was 
a part of the devils' hatred ; they were loath to have Christ present with 
them : ' What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God ?' Mat. 
viii. 29. Men excuse their neglect of private prayer by their want of oppor- 
tunity ; but, indeed, they want hearts. We no sooner step up to heaven 
with a whole ejaculation, than step over the threshold about our business. 
We naturally desire acquaintance with the greatest persons that may advance 
our interest ; but we are ready to bury our interest, rather than be acquainted 
with God. 

2. Slightness in the duty. We are loath to come into God's presence, 
and when we are come, we are loath to keep with him. When men do not 
their duty heartily, as to the Lord, they look not upon him as their master, 
whose work they ought to do, and whose honour they ought to aim at. 

(1.) In respect of time. Our dullest and deadest time we think fittest 
for God ; when sleep is ready to close our eyes, we think it a fit time to 
open our hearts. How few morning sacrifices hath God from men ? They 
leap out of their beds to their pleasures or worldly employments, without 
asking counsel at God's mouth. As men reserve the dregs of their life, 
their old age, to offer up their souls to God ; so they reserve the dregs of 
the day, their sleepy times, for the offering their service to God. 

(2.) In respect of frame. We think any frame will serve God's turn ; 
which certainly speaks our enmity, and slight thoughts we have of him. 



504 chaknock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

Man naturally perfonns duty with an unholy heart, whereby it becomes an 
abomination to God, Prov. xxviii. 9. He that turns away his ear from 
hearing the law, even ' his prayer shall be an abomination.' God calls for 
our best sacrifices, and we give him the worst, such which he hates : I hate, 
I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies,' 
Amos V. 21. They were duties which God commanded, but he hated them 
for their evil frames, or coiTupt ends. God requires works of grace, and we 
present him not with so much as the work of nature, but the work of cor- 
ruption. There is not that natural vigour which we have in worldly busi- 
ness : you may often observe a hveliness in man as to that ; but change the 
scene into a motion towards God, and how suddenly does \h\8 vigour shrink, 
and their hearts become sluggish, and freeze with coldness. 

Many times we pray as coldly as if we were loath that God should hear 
us, and take away that lust which conscience forces us to pray against. 
How flitting are we in divine meditations, how sleepy in spiritual exercises ! 
This proceeds from the aversion of the soul, and its estrangedness from God. 
But in other exercises we are active. The soul doth not awaken itself, and 
stir up those animal spirits in religious duties, which it will in bodily recrea- 
tions and sports; whereby it is evident we prefer the latter before any 
service to God. Since there is a fulness of animal spirits in us, why might 
they not be excited in holy^duties, as well as in coi-poreal operations, but that 
there is a reluctancy in the soul to exercise its supremacy over them in this 
case ? 

3. Weariness in it. We are not weary with that dulness, but in the duty 
itself; our deadness shews a disaffection, our weariness shews a greater ; we 
are loath that God should have so much as a day's service from us, or any- 
thing that looks like a service. How tired are we in the performance of 
spiritual duties, when in the vain triflings of time we have a perpetual 
motion ! How will many force themselves to dance and revel a whole night, 
w-hen their hearts will flag and jade at the first entrance into a religious ser- 
\'ice. Some in the prophet wished the Sabbath over : Mai. i. 13, ' Ye said 
also. Behold what a weariness it is.' Attendance on him is a weariness ; 
God had but a poor polluted service from them, and they were weary of 
that little they gave him, they grudged him that. This unwieldiness in duty 
is a sign we receive little satisfaction in God's company, and that there is a 
great unsuitableness between him and us. When our joy begins when the 
duty ends, it evidences that there was no affectionate motion to God, but a tired 
and yawning service. Unwilling servants stay not long at their master's work, 
neither are cheerful in it. If we did love God, it would be with us as with 
the needle towards the loadstone, there would be a speedy motion, and a 
fixed union. Saints in heaven, whose affections and judgments are perfect, 
behold the face of God five or six thousand years together without weari- 
ness ; but we naturally are neither willing to come, nor come to stay in his 
presence. 

Objection. Natural men had best not pray, or meditate at all, if even their 
prayers are acts of enmity. 

Amiver. Their prayers are not acts of enmity, though the natural enmity 
be discovered in them. In the mal-perfbrmance of the duty there is a denial 
of his holiness, but in the total omission there is a denial of his sovereignty, ' 
who commands it as a natural duty ; or his providence, who orders human 
affairs ; of his holiness too, and righteousness in his law which enjoins it. 

4. Neglect of expecting answers. Men naturally care not for having the 
spiritual mercy they pray for of course from God, though they are desirous 
of any temporal ; for the latter they will endeavour, but leave the other 



Rom. Yin. 7.] man's enmity to god. 505 

wholly upon God's hands, as if they were careless whether they had them or 
no. They care not whether their letters come to God's hands or no, and 
therefore care not much for any returns from him ; whereas if we have anj 
love to a person we send to, or value of a thing we send for, we should ex- 
pect an answer every post. The creature in its natural instinct goes beyond 
such persons, for there is an drroKa^adoxia, ' For the earnest expectation of 
the creature waits for the manifestation,' &c., Rom. viii. 19. Every crea- 
ture is in a more waiting posture than a natural man. It is a sign we do 
not own God for our master, or ourselves for his servants, if we do not wait 
upon him till he shew mercy to us : ' As the eyes of servants look unto the 
hands of their master, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until he 
have mercy upon us,' Ps. cxxiii. 2. It implies that we think God will not 
hear or cannot hear, or that we have no need of him, and can do well enough 
without him, or that prayer is no effectual means to procure blessings. If 
so, why dost thou pray at all ? If it be otherwise, why dost thou not wait 
for an answer ? So that there is a disaffection in man to the duty itself, and 
to God the object of it, or to the subject of it, the thing prayed for; whereas 
those that love G-od, and love the spiritual mercy they pray for, watch there- 
unto with thanksgiving : ' Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with 
thanksgiving,' Col. iv. 2. They watch for occasion of praise. As we are to 
be in a praying posture to desire a blessing, so in a waiting posture to meet 
with it. But a natural man doth not love to be beholden to God if he can 
help it, and if he doth praise God after any common mercy received, it may 
proceed from a natural ingenuity or present sense of the mercy itself, not 
from any affection to the donor; but as for any spiritual mercy, as the 
stirrings of his affections by any truth, he is so far from praising God for 
them that he is troubled at them, and quickly quenches them. 

5. Desertion of the duty. If God does not answer us, naturally we cast 
off the duty, and say with those in Job, ' What is the Almighty, that we 
should serve him ? and what profit should we have, if we pray to him ?' 
chap. xxi. 15. They pray not out of conscience of the command, but merely 
for the profit; and if God makes them wait for it, they will not wait his 
leisure, but solicit him no longer. There are two things expressed, that God 
was not worthy of their service, and that the serving of him would not bring 
them in a good revenue, or an advantage of that kind they expected. It is 
interest draws men to prayer, and when that is not advanced they will beg 
no more ; like some beggars, if you give them not presently upon their ask- 
ing, from blessing they turn to cursing, so do men secretly do that which 
Job's wife advised him to do upon his affliction : ' Dost thou still retain thy 
integrity ? Curse God and die,' chap, ii, 9. What a stir, and puUing, and 
waiting, and caring is here ! Cast off all service, be at daggers- drawing 
with God ! So ' it is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have 
kept his ordinances, or that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of 
hosts ?' Mai. iii. 14. If they have not the benefits they beg, they think God 
unrighteous, and does them wrong to withhold from them the favours they 
imagine they have deserved, and if they have not that recompence when they 
would, they leave off the serving God any more as a vain and unprofitable 
thing ; whereas love moves upon a sense of duty, a natural man that hath an 
aversion, moves upon a sense of interest. Love is encouraged by answer, 
but is not dissolved by silence ; but a natural man would have God at his 
beck, and steers his course in duty by the outward profit, not by the inward 
pleasure. 

This enmity might further be evidenced by. 

First, Our enmity against Christ. Many that are his own receive him 



506 chaenock's works. [Rom, VIII. 7. 

not, John i. 11 ; his own by privileges, to whom he gave ordinances and 
spiritual meat from his table ; his own by profession, who profess they have 
made a covenant with him, and yet underhand keep up their ancient agree- 
ment with hell. Professions of Christ are no demonstrations of love to him. 
We may commend another for his parts and perfections, and yet have a 
secret grudge against him. All the pretended love unrenewed men have to 
Christ has no better gi-ound than the Turk's love to Mahomet, for it has no 
higher spring than education ; and had their lot been to be born among them, 
they would have loved Mahomet with as warm a devotion as now they pre- 
tend to love Christ, for they love him not formally, but they love that which 
they were brought up in the profession of, let it be what it will. This 
enmity against Christ reflects upon God himself. Christ tells us often he 
was sent by God : an affront to an ambassador is an injury to the majesty 
he represents. Despising the embassy of an angel is an act of enmity against 
God, much more the despising the embassy of his own Son. 

This is evident in the practices of men. It is hard to convince men of 
the necessity of Christ. You see what little fruit Christ himself had by all 
his preaching among the Jews. When men are convinced, they endeavour 
to stifle those convictions. We are as untamed and unruly heifers, that will 
not endure the yoke ; they will break those cords as if they were the most 
formidable evils, and shake them off from them as if they were vipers 
upon their hands. When men cannot stifle their convictions, yet they are 
loath to come to Christ. ' You will not come to me,' John v. 40. They 
would bring something of their own to him, for they grudge him the glory of 
being an entire Saviour ; or if they do come to Christ, it is for ease, not for 
holiness, for when their troubles are ceased they return to their vomit. If 
men do come, it is a restrained act ; men are therefore said to be drawn, 
and it is the mighty power of God to bring them. Did not God overpower 
the hearts of his people, but leave them to themselves, they would still stand 
it out in rebellion against God. 

Secondly, Enmity to the saints. When the devil found God above his 
reach, he set himself against the creatures that were designed more pecu- 
liarly for his service. Just after we read of enmity to God in Adam, we read 
of enmity to the godly in Cain. The Italians, when they say un Christiano, 
commonly mean a blockhead ; and our common speech, a silly Abraham, 
imports no better : it will be so to the world's end. ' Despisers of those 
that are good ' are ranked with those that are enemies to God, 2 Tim. iii. 3. 
It arises from a hatred of holiness itself, and it is enmity to God ; for he 
that would not suffer him to have a holy servant would not suffer him to 
have a holy throne, a holy sceptre, a holy crown, a holy kingdom. If men 
hate the children of light, they do by consequence hate the Father of lights. 
Mr Cotton was convinced of his enmity against God by his enmity to the 
servants of God. 

There are several causes of this enmity : 

1. Dissimilitude between God and a natural man. As likeness in nature 
and inclinations is a cause of love, so dissimilitude and unsuitableness is a 
cause of hatred. Distance of manners breeds alienation of affection. This 
dissimilitude depends also upon the opposition between the law and the 
nature of a sinner; ' The law is spiritual, but I am carnal,' Rom. vii. 14. 
Hence proceeds all that acting against it ; for the apostle says, ' I consent to 
thelaw that it is good,' ver. 15, 16, but my flesh, which hath a repugnancy 
to it, will not comply with it : the spiritual law and the carnal heart do 
quarrel with one another. 

DissimiHtude between God and a natural man is the greatest in respect of 



Rom. VIII. 7.] jian's enmity to god. 507 

nature. God is infinitely holy, man corrupt and filthy. Darkness and 
light, heaven and hell, are directly contrary, so is Christ and Belial. Let 
engagements be what they will, so long as men are of different spirits they 
cannot agree. As in regenerate men this dissimilitude works an abhorrency 
of themselves, as in Job, so in natural men it engenders a disaffection to 
God. 

This dissimilitude is greatest in respect of ends. There are in God and 
men different ends. Man's end is to please himself and satisfy the desires 
of the flesh ; G-od's end is to vindicate his law, and shew himself the righteous 
governor of the world, which cannot be attained without a contrariety to the 
corrupt end of man. The remedy then will be to get a renewed nature, the 
image of God new-formed in the soul. 

2. Guilt. Men fly from God out of shame ; they consider the debts they 
owe God are great, and naturally debtors fly from their creditors for fear 
they should exact or demand anything of them, Adam's guilt was rather 
attended with a flight from him than with an approach to him. Those 
Israelites that desired God no more to speak to them but by Moses were 
afraid of his presence too when his face shone with an heavenly splendour. 
Terror is essential to guilt, and hatred to a perpetual teiTor. Their guilt 
made them fly from that Moses, whom they knew to be their friend, when 
God had set a signal mark upon him. When men cannot discharge their 
judgments of the behef of a strict account, and dreadful hell, and perpetual 
immortality, their hearts are pierced with their sins like so many darts. As 
they have a thousand sins, so they have a thousand stings all pointed with 
God's wrath, and returned back with their own hatred, though it is but the 
just fruit of their own doings. The frequency of iniquity contracts the more 
implacable contrariety to God, and makes them as incapable of any union to 
God as of repose in themselves. The remedy then is to labour for justifica- 
tion by the blood of Christ, which is only able to remove that guilt which 
engenders our hatred. 

3, God's crossing the desires and interests of the flesh. Natural qualities 
increase with the resistance of their contraries, so doth sin. The duties 
God doth principally love do most of all cross our con-uptions, and those 
are the duties we hate most. Sodomites shew most disaffection to Lot when 
he opposeth them in the prosecution of their lusts with the angels : ' We 
will deal worse with thee than with them,' Gen. xix. 9. Had God (as well 
as Micaiah to Ahab) spoke good to natural men in their own esteem, and 
held them up in their lust, his truth would not be so much imprisoned in 
unrighteousness, but be highly adored with men's choicest affections ; but 
his commanding things according to his own holy nature brings into act that 
habitual hatred which was before in the heart. All hatred arises from an 
opinion of destructiveness in the object hated. Why do we loathe a thing 
but because we imagine it inconsistent with oui* happiness and wishes? And 
a sinner being possessed that his darling sin is inconsistent with the holiness 
of God's law, hates God for being of a nature so contrary to that which he 
loves. The disappointment our corrupt principles find by any tru^h of God 
exasperates the heart. The Jews expecting an earthly grandeur by the 
Messiah, and that they should be made lords paramount of the world, was 
the cause that they were the more desperate enemies to Christ, when they 
found his design to be short of their expectations, and that his humility fa- 
voured not their pride, and his meekness was not like to raise him from the 
footstool of the Roman empire to the throne of the world. 

The remedy then is, to have a high esteem of the holiness and wisdom of 
the law of God, and the advantages he aims at for our good in the enjoining 



508 chabnock's wokks. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

of it ; to account it better than thousands of gold and silver ; to look upon 
his commands as not grievous, 1 John v. 3. 

4. Love of sin. The greater the love of sin, the more must be our hatred 
of God ; because the more we love that which hath an essential enmity 
against God, the more we signify that it is our chief good and happiness, 
and consequently we must hate that which is most contrary to it, and would 
hinder our enjoymentof it ; and therefore our hatred of God's holiness grows 
up equally with our fondness of sin. When by frequent acts the habitual 
nature is strengthened, all the power of doing contrary is swallowed up in 
that habit. Hence it is said, ' the carnal mind is enmity to God,' i. e. the 
sensual mind, when sensuality hath got the mastery of the mind, and planted 
sensual habits, there is enmity to God ; and it cannot be subject to the law 
of God, because that habit wholly acts the mind. Men's reasons side with 
the precepts of God, and conclude them to be the way to felicity ; but the 
law of the mind is too weak for the powerful and pleasing charms of the 
flesh, whereby they are drawn into an imaginary paradise, but a I'eal cap- 
tivity. The hating all the dictates of God our Saviour is put upon this 
score. Light must be odious when darkness is lovely ; God must needs be 
hated when his enemy is most caressed. As the love of God in the godly 
is the cause that they hate sin, so the love of sin in the wicked is the cause 
that they hate God. Every sin being an aversion from God in its own 
nature, and a conversion to the creature, according to the multiplying the 
acts of sin, this aversion from God, and conversion to the creature, must 
needs be increased ; and by how much the more love we have to the 
creature, so much the more love is taken from God. The remedy then is, 
to endeavour for as great a hatred of sin as thou hast of God ; to look upon 
sin as the greatest evil in itself, the greatest disadvantage to thy happiness. 

5. Injury we do to God. It is proper to men odisse qiios Iceserint ; whereas 
the person injured might rather hate, yet the person injuring hath often the 
greatest disaffection. Joseph's mistress first wronged him, and then hated 
him. Saul first injured David, and then persecuted him ; as if David had 
been the malefactor, and Saul the innocent. Italians have a proverb to this 
purpose, Chi/a injuria ne pardonna mai. The reason is, because they think 
the injured person must needs hate him ; and love is not an affection due to 
an enemy. We have also suspicious thoughts of the person we have pro- 
voked to be our enemy. We wrong God, and then we hate him ; measuring 
his -affections by human passions ; and thinking, that because we have 
wronged him, he must needs lay aside all the goodness and patience of his 
own nature, and watch the first opportunity of revenge. Every sin and act 
of it being enmity to God, the more the habit of any sin is increased, by 
frequent acts, the more also is the habitual enmity in the heart increased ; 
for as every sin has an immediate tendency to the supply of some lust, so it 
ha3 a remote and principal tendency to the increase of that enmity. Cain 
first affronts God in his omniscience and providence, and then departs from 
his presence ; turns his back upon him, and becomes the head of the profane 
part of the world ; ' The presence of the Lord,' Gen. iv. 16, i. e. from all 
the ordinance of God, and communion with him in worship. The remedy 
then is, to endeavour a conformity to God's holy will ; to think with thyself 
every morning. What shall I do this day to please God ? what duty does he 
require of me ? The more thou dost obey his will, the more thou wilt love 
his holiness. 

6. Slavish fear of God. Men are apt to fear a just recompence for an 
injury done to another, that he will do him one ill turn for another ; and 
fear is the mother of hatred. God being man's superior, and wronged by 



EoM. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 509 

him, there follows necessarily a slavish fear of him and his power ; and such 
a fear makes wrathful and embittered thoughts of God, while he considers 
God armed with an unconquerable and irresistible power to punish him. It 
is as natural for a man to hate that which he conceives to be against him, 
as for any animal to hate that whose acts it fears do tend to a dissolution of 
its being. The devils tremble, James ii. 19, f^isGoxjoi ; they have a great 
horror, and their enmity is as great as their fear ; nay, heightened by their 
fear, because they have no hopes of pardon, they do their utmost to oppose 
God and have companions in misery ; it is impossible a man should love 
God while he is apprehended as an irreconcileable adversary. The stronger 
the impressions of fear, the quicker the inclinations to hatred. But when 
the evil feared begins to strike, it makes the hatred shoot out in volleys of 
curses and blasphemies, which is evident in the damned. God considered 
as a Judge, is the object not of comforting, but terrifying faith ; no man can 
naturally love that judge who he thinks will condemn him. A fear of God 
as an inexorable judge, that we have highly wronged, will nourish an enmity 
against him. 

Then, be much in communion with God ; strangeness is the mother of 
fear ; we dread men sometimes, because we know not their disposition. 
The beasts themselves delight in the company of man, when, being familiar- 
ised to him, they fancy his disposition, and taste his kindness to them, 
which, when they were unacquainted with, they would fly from his presence 
with the greatest speed. Study the reconciling love of God in the gospel ; 
consider much the loveliness and amiableness of his nature, his ardent desire 
thou wouldest be his friend more than his enemy. A cause of our hating 
God is our ignorance of him ; for if we did but know how good he is, how 
merciful to man, and to us, if we would but leave our sin, we could not 
possibly hate him. 

7. Pride. Self-denial is absolutely against the pride of reason, and this 
is the first lesson God teaches us. It is the first letter in the alphabet of 
the gospel of peace, and therefore we are against him. Men lift up the pride 
of reason against the truth of God, and the pride of heart against the will 
of God. Hence it appears that self is the great incendiary of the soul 
against God. The enmity of Tyre against God is charged upon this foot of 
account : * Thy heart is lifted up in the midst of the sea ; thou hast set thy 
heart as the heart of God,' Ezek. xxviii. 2. She would rather have her wis- 
dom admired by God, than God's wisdom admired by her. The sharpest 
enmities in the world are founded upon this vice. This makes the gi-eatest 
combustions in commonwealths. Men fear to be overtopped by one another. 
All other vices desii-e companions. A drunkard loves his good-fellows ; he 
cares not to drink alone. An unclean person must have his mate. Swearers 
hate those that come not up to their own pitch ; but a proud man would 
have none keep an equal pace with him ; he cannot endure a companion, but 
would have all others under his feet. Pride is naturally against God, and 
therefore sin is often called a lifting up of the heart against God, a hardening 
the heart against him. Then endeavour after humility. Study the humility 
of God, who is more humble to us than we can be to him. Reflect more 
upon thy vileness than thy worth. 

8. Love of the world. The greater dearness of sensual pleasures, the 
further our divorce from God. The love of the world is inconsistent with 
the love of God : ' If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 
in him,' 1 John ii. 15. It puts us under an impossibility, while that love 
remains, to entertain the Spirit of truth : ' The Spirit of truth, whom the 
world cannot receive,' John xiv. 17 ; ' Whosoever will be a fiiend of the . 



510 '' chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

world, is an enemy to God. The friendship of the world is enmity with 
God ;' ' Ye adulterers, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity 
with God ?' James iv. 4 ; know you not it is an unquestionable truth, your 
own consciences cannot be strangers to it. Indulgence to carnal interests 
and pleasures mounts up to a fierceness against Grod : ' Jeshurun waxed fat, 
and kicked,' Dent, xxxii. 15. The wisdom of the flesh is first earthly, then 
sensual, then devilish ; when once the mind is possessed by an earthly and 
sensual temper, it will not be long before it grows up to devilishness, and 
you know that can be no friend of God. What begins in earthliness, earthly 
principles and ends, and proceeds on to sensuality, will end in devilishness, 
both principle and practice. Whosoever loves his own pleasure and volup- 
tuousness, must needs hate whatsoever is contrary to it, and would destroy 
it ; this is the great root of anger, revenge in man, and our contempt of 
God. 

The remedy then is, to look upon the world with scorn, to think the soul 
above it, and that the contentments and pleasures of the world are fitter 
for beasts, and at best but accommodations for thee as a traveller, not a fit 
pillow to repose thy soul on. Despise the world, and the devil hath scarce 
any bait and argument left to move thee to an estrangedness from and an 
enmity against God. 

Now if all the saints that ever were should meet together in a synod, to 
consult of the truth of this proposition, that the heart of man is enmity 
against God, they would all bear witness to it nemine contradicente ; and he 
that denies it, I may confidently afiirm, did never seriously read the Scrip- 
ture, or cast one practical glance upon his own heart. 



PART V. 
The Subject improved. 

I. The information to be derived from the subject. 

1. How desperate is the atheism in every man's heart by nature ! What 
a mass of villany is in the heart of man ! What ! to make God no God .' 
set up our wills against the will of God ! When we say an enemy to God, 
we must conceive all that may denominate a man base and abominable. 
What more can be added, than to say, such a man is an enemy to love itself ? 
Sin and God are at direct odds. To harbour a traitor in a house after pro- 
clamation, is a capital crime, and comes under the charge of high treason. 
What then is the harbouring of sin against God, but involving thyself in the 
same rebellion which every sin includes in its own nature ? This enmity to 
God has this aggravation in it, that it cannot upon any account whatsoever 
be just. 

God himself cannot command a creature not to love him ; before he can 
command this, he must change his nature, cashier his loveliness, cease to be 
the chief good. God cannot command any thing unjust ; but this is intrin- 
secally unjust, eternally unjust, not to love that which is infinitely amiable. 
It had been unjust to command an act of the highest disingenuity and ingra- 
titude, to hate the author of our mercies. It had been against the original 
nature of a rational creature, to be an enemy to that which is its chiefest 
good. Our loving God doth not arise merely from the command of God 
enjoining it, but from the nature of God, and the creature's relation to him. 
None but will confess, that had God never commanded us to love him, it 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god, 511 

had been highly abominable for a creature to hate his Maker and Benefactor : 
therefore in the moral law or decalogue, the love of God is not explicitly 
commanded, but supposed as a fundamental and indispensable principle ; 
from whence all other commands are necessary consequences : so that this 
enmity against God is not only against his command, but against his very 
nature, and against the fundamental and indispensable principle of all G-od's 
commands, and all the duties which as rational creatures we owe to God. 

The desperateness of this natural enmity will appear, (1.) In that it is as 
bad, and in some respects worse, than atheism. We complain much, and 
not without cause, of the growing atheism of the times ; but we shall find as 
bad and worse than we complain of in our own nature, and the practices of 
men. Mirandula says, a speculative atheist is the most prodigious monster 
in the world, but a practical. An atheist that denies the being of God, does 
not so much afiront him, as a natural man that owns his being, but walks as 
if there were no God ; as if he were not a just and righteous God ; as if 
he made use of his sovereign power to make laws for the prejudice of his 
creature. 

The atheist barely denies God's being, the other mocks him. ' They have 
turned to me the back, and not the face,' Jer. xxxii. 33. This puts a slight 
upon him, turning the back upon him, which is an act of disdain, as if God 
were the most contemptible being in the world. Thou that turnest thy face 
to thy dog, thy beast, the devil, usest God with more contempt than thou 
dost thy dog, thy swine, thy ox, thy ass, yea, the devil himself. The atheist 
that denies God's being, and yet walks according to moral principles, is like 
the son in the Gospel, that told his father he would not go, and yet did ; 
which Christ commends above the other, which acknowledged his father's 
authority to command him, and pretended a readiness to obey, but answered 
not his acknowledgments by the performance of his duty. A profane man, 
or a hypocrite, is more an atheist than one that professeth himself so, inas- 
much as actions, and a continual succession and circle of them, makes a 
greater discovery of the principles of the heart, than the motions of the 
tongue. Would not that man who, in his belief of a Deity, doth things 
which fall under the censure of God's justice, and contrary to his law, and 
odious among men, though not punishable by man, do things far worse, did 
not the fear of laws, the anger of his prince, the pain and disgrace of punish- 
ment, restrain him ? Surely he would : for that principle which carries him 
against his reason and professed religion in his practices against God, would 
hurry him further, were there not some powerful limits set to him by human 
laws. Now what does this evince, but that he honours man more than God, 
fears man more than God, obeys man more than God, owns the power of 
man more than the power of God, which he pretends to acknowledge and 
beUeve ? 

The atheist denies God's being,''the other his authority. And in denying 
his authority, virtually denies his being : for it is a contradiction to be God, 
and not to be sovereign. Does not man imply, by the breaking God's laws, 
that he would not have God act as a sovereign ; that he would have him but 
a careless God, an unholy and unrighteous God in giving him the reins, and 
not prohibiting by holy laws any wickedness his heart is inclined unto ? 
What then would become of God's being ? His deity cannot outlive the 
life of his authority and righteousness. If he ceased to be a righteous law- 
giver, and a holy maintainor of his laws, he would cease to be a God. So 
that every breach of the law is a virtual deposing him from his supreme 
government, and consequently a virtual deposing him from his deity. 

(2.) This enmity is of the same nature with the devil's enmity. It is not 



512 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

indeed in the present state, wherein man is, so intense, because his is direct, 
man's impUcit. But yet, [1.] Natural men have a diabolical nature. There 
are but two seeds, the seed of the woman, and that of the serpent ; two 
natures, the divine and diabolical. Satan is the father of wicked men, and 
fathers derive their nature to their children. He is not their father by crea- 
tion, nor by generation, but by a diifusion of his principles into them. ' You 
are of your father the devil,' John viii. 44. Grod made man in creation 
according to his own image ; and the devil quickly by corruption brings him 
into his likeness. In Scripture is not meant by the devil only a particular 
person, but a nature : so Christ intimates in his rebuke to Peter, ' G-et thee 
behind me, Satan,' Mat. xvi. 23. 

Peter, an eminent apostle, who had a little before made an illustrious 
profession of Christ being the Son of Grod, vers. 16, 17, is now called devil ; 
not because he was really the person of the devil, but the devil's nature did 
then exert itself in him ; for that advice proceeded not from a divine, but 
diabolical disposition ; for it made directly for the serving the devil's king- 
dom, which was only to be overthrown by the death of Christ. Hell itself 
could not produce a more devilish result of its deepest counsels, than the 
advice which Peter now gave, which would highly have promoted the interest 
of hell. And do but observe the reason why Christ calls him Satan : ' Thou 
savourest not the things which be of God,' &c., ver. 23. The things of God, 
and the things of man, and savouring the things of God, and the things of 
man, are set in opposition ; and a man that savours not the things of God, 
but the things of man, such a man and Satan are all one and the same in 
the account of Christ. So by Christ sometimes is not meant a particular 
person, but a nature : ' Christ in you the hope of glory,' Col. i. 27. What 
in one place is called the divine nature, is by Paul called Christ ; not the 
person of Christ, but the nature of Christ ; i. e. that spiritual principle of 
grace, or new nature, which is an earnest of your future inheritance, and so 
a ground of hope. A natural man is wholly carnal, Rom. vii. 18. There 
is no good thing dwells in him, no good principle ; it may lodge a while ; 
but it hath no settled abode ; and what is not good, is of the devil. As God 
is the author of all good, so is the devil of all moral evil. So that a natural 
man is wholly diabolical. 

[2.] Every natural man is a friend to the devil. There are but two sove- 
reigns in the world, one rightful, and the other usurping. If we are enemies 
to the right sovereign, we must be friends to the usurper ; if enemies to 
God, friends to the devil. He ' works in the children of disobedience,' Eph. 
ii. 2, 3, not by force, but by consent : for he works in them according to the 
desires of the flesh, which the apostle implies, ' fulfilling the desires of the 
flesh,' ver. 3. If the love of the world be enmity to God, ' the friendship 
of the world is enmity with God,' James iv. 4 ; then enmity to God must 
needs be a love of the devil ; enmity to God implying a friendship with 
every thing that hath the same disposition against him. The love of the 
world, i.e. of the sin and unrighteousness of the world, necessarily includes 
virtually love of the god of the world, which is the devil's title, 2 Cor. iv. 4. 
And so a man adores Satan as a god, in loving that world the devil is the 
god of, that wickedness the devil is the head of, above God. Rebellion 
against God is called ' a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,' 
Isa. xxviii. 18 (not with the punishments, but principles of hell) ; and being 
a friend of the devil, he must needs be a friend to the grand design of the 
devil, Isa. xiv. 12-14, and ver. 4, was spoke to the king of Babylon. The 
knot of friendship in the world is some particular man's design, which both 
friends agree in, and drive on. Now his design seems to be affecting the 



Ptoii. YIII. 7.J man's enmity to god. 513 

throne and authority of God ; for God threatening the king of Babylon, and 
in him, as the type, the great antichrist, compares him to Lucifer, who was 
not content with his station as a subject, but would mount into the chair of 
the supreme power. 

[3.] Thy enmity against God is in some respect as much, in regard of the 
actual eflects of it, as the devil's is, though not in regard of disposition. We 
declare our enmity as far as we can : we cannot pull God out of heaven ; we 
cannot nail Christ to the cross again, and pierce his heart ; we cannot rail 
at him to his face as the Jews did ; but the despising his laws, disowning 
his power granted by heaven over us, is the only thing we can do against 
him ; and this we do as much as we can, as much as the gripes of conscience 
and our interest in the world will give us leave. We virtually deprive him 
of that which was the reward of his sufferings, viz., his power ; of the de- 
sign of his sufferings, viz., the propagation of his evangelical law in our 
heart. And he that would destroy the dearest things God and Christ have 
left in the world, and that which he gave the greatest charge for the preser- 
vation of, would act all the villanies against the person of Christ, as well as 
against what he had in the world, and against the essence of God, were it in 
his power ; thou dost as much in this, as the devil can do. The being of 
God and the person of Christ are above his reach as well as ours. All that 
he can do is to trample upon his laws, and list others in rebellion against 
God, and in this thou dost comply with him. He can do no more, and thou 
dost as much. 

[4.] It is a worse enmity than is in hell-. This enmity is more disingenuous 
than that in hell. Our hatred of God is worse than that of the damned ; 
they despairingly hate him under the inevitable and unavoidable strokes of 
justice ; thou hatest him while thou art hedged in with the expressions of 
his goodness. They hate him under vials of wrath, and we under showers 
of mercy ; they in terror of damnation, and we under the sense of kindness. 
They hate him because he inflicts what is hurtful, and we because he com- 
mands what is profitable and holy. Our hatred of God is worse than the 
devils' hatred of him. W^e hate God, who contrived our redemption, and 
sent his Son to accomplish it ; the devils had not those obligations laid 
upon them. Christ came not for them, nor shed his blood for their recovery. 
They hate their Creator, but we our Creator and Redeemer too. The devils 
hate him that came to torment them and destroy their works ; we hate him 
that came to bless us, and save our souls. 

2. Information. God is the greatest evil in the account of every natural 
man. If there be in us a greater enmity to God and his law than to any- 
thing else, it implies that we think him the greatest evil, and the worst of 
beings. Evil, and not good, is the object of hatred. As love is the propen- 
sion of the mind to something as good, so hatred is an alienation of the mind 
from something as evil, either really or supposedly.* We cannot possibly 
hate good as good, as we cannot possibly love evil as evil. Now, nothing 
but sin is absolutely evil, and therefore nothing but sin should be the abso- 
lute object of our hatred. But seeing that love, which should be set upon 
God, is set upon sin, and that hatred, which should have only sin for its 
object, pitches upon God as its object, it is hence clear that we account sin 
the highest good, and God the greatest evil. 

Though a man doth not hate God as God, yet, there being more of his 
hatred spent against God than against anything else, it is most certain that 

* Plutarch's Morals, pp. 53G, 537. 
VOL. V. K k 



514 chaenock's -wokks. [Kom. VIII. 7. 

God is virtually accounted by us the most detestable being. Do we offend 
any so much as we do God ? Do we love the prosecution of anything which 
is distasteful to man, as we do that which is an abomination to God ? Is 
there anything in the world we do more rejoice in than that whereby God is 
prejudiced ? Is there anything we do love and pursue with greater violence 
than that which is hateful and injurious to him ? Are we so absolutely con- 
trary to any man, any creature, in our natural inclinations, dispositions, 
affections, and desires, as unto God ? Is it not clearly manifest by our in- 
ward and outward carriage, that we imply that God is the greatest evil, and 
we rank him who is unchangeably good in the place of sin, which is un- 
changeably bad ? As love is carried out in desire for the object beloved, so 
hatred is a flight from it. As love is accompanied with joy at the presence 
of a beloved object, so is hatred attended with a detestation. Are we not 
naturally more desirous of opportunities of sin, than opportunities of service 
to our Maker? Are we ever so cheerful in the presence of God, and com- 
munion with him in religious services, as in our sports, recreations, and sin- 
ful practices ? What, then, has most of our love ; what do we account our 
supreme happiness, and om- worst misery ? 

3. Information. It justifies God in his acts of punitive justice. (1.) In 
his severest judgments in the world. Who can blame God for his severities 
against those that hate him, especially after riches of forbearance ? Con- 
sider man as his desperate enemy, and you may more admire his clemency 
than accuse his justice. You may wonder that he does not destroy the 
whole stock of mankind, as well as send some few drops and hailstones of 
judgment upon the world. We may rather stand amazed at his patience, 
that he suffers such creatures to live, than murmur at his judgments, for not 
a day but we commit many acts which manifest this hatred. For as all 
actions truly good partake of the nature of love to the chiefest good, so all 
unworthy actions, which are at a distance from God, the chief end, are mar- 
shalled by, and tinctured with, that enmity which lurks in the soul. It is 
equal God should be a judge to condemn, where he is rejected as a sovereign 
to rule. 

(2.) It justifies God in his judgments upon infants. Indeed, we call in- 
fants innocent, and we are startled at the pain and sufferings of babes ; but 
this doctrine is a sufficient curb to any accusations of God in such proceed- 
ings. Do we not kill vipers and noxious creatures in the nest ? Infants are 
endued with an inimical and hostile nature against God, though they exert 
it not by reason of the weakness of their organs. If death reigned over 
them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, Rom. 
V. 14, enmity surely reigned over them. The frost which, by congealing a 
viper, suspends its motion, does not expel its natural venom (which it hath 
in as great a quantity as the liveliest), though at present it binds up the 
activity of it, which will shew itself when outward impediments are removed 
by heat. Neither does the inability of infants exercising this enmity, dis- 
charge their nature from an inconceivable mass of it ; nay, you may perceive 
some starts of it even in them. Did you never see envy, passion, sensuality 
in an infant ? We may more wonder that God does not dash them in pieces 
at their first appearance in the world, as we do young wolves and ravenous 
creatures, than that he should use his right over them for their original pra- 
vity, and take them out of the world. 

(3.) It justifies the eternity of punishment. Who can charge God with 
injustice, for punishing eternally a creature who doth eternally hate him, to 
keep that person in being to his everlasting damage, that does wish, and, if 
it were in his power, would accompHsh, the destruction of God himseK ? 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god, 515 

Can any pnnishmeat be too hard, any duration of it too long, for him that 
is an enemy to the best of beings ; to one infinitely good, and therefore dis- 
ingenuous ; to one infinitely powerful, and therefore intolerably foolish ? 

4. Information. What an admirable prospect may we take here of God's 
patience ! With what astonishment may we review all the former, as well 
as the present, age of God's forbearance towards men ! that he should pre- 
serve such a crew of disingenuous monsters as we all naturally are ; ' or 
despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering ?' 
Rom. ii. 4. Had he not had riches of goodness, forbearance, and long- 
suffering, and infinite riches too, the enmity of man against him had ex- 
hausted all before this time ; and, being the riches of goodness, as well as 
longsuffering, it makes our enmity appear the blacker. A grain of goodness 
is no fit object for hatred, much less riches of it. How many millions of 
such haters of him breathe every day in his air, are maintained by his 
bounty, have their tables spread, and their cups filled to the brim, and that 
in the maddest of their reiterated belchings out of this enmity against him, 
under sufficient provocations to the highest indignation ! 

5. Information. Hence we see the root of all sin in the world. What 
is the reason men row against the stream of their own consciences ? What 
is the reason men of sublimated reason, and clear natural wisdom, are volun- 
tary slaves to their own lusts, which they serve with as delightful, as dis- 
graceful, a drudgery against the light of their own minds ? It is from this 
contrariety to God, seated in their very nature ; they could never else so 
earnestly, so cheerfully, do the devil's work before God's ; they could never 
else be deaf to the loud voice of God, and have their ears open to the least 
whisper of Satan. Whence proceeds our stupidity, the folly of our thoughts, 
the levity of our minds, the deadness of our affections, the sleepiness of our 
souls, our inexcusable carelessness in holy duties, more than anything of a 
temporal concern, but from this aversion from God I It is this enmity dulls 
our heart in any service. Though conscience which is in us, to keep up the 
interest of God's law, spurs us on to duty, yet sin that is within us, that 
keeps up the quarrel against heaven, hinders us from it, or diverts us in it. 

6. Information. Hence follows the necessity of regeneration. This 
division between God and his creature will not admit of any union without 
a change of nature. The carnal mind, as such, can never be reconciled to 
God before this be wrought. The old frame must be demolished, and a new 
one reared, for a change of state cannot be without a change of nature. It 
is impossible that this nature, so corrupt and contrary, can ever be recon- 
ciled to the pure and holy nature of God ; what communion hath light with 
darkness ? AVe must be God's friends before we can be sin's enemies ; the 
root of bitterness must be taken away, habitual corruption removed, the 
heart will never else stand right as a compass towards heaven. Who can 
ever fight against his nature ? No man will ever resist the devil without a 
change ; we cannot, without the rooting out this enmity, make a profitable 
approach to God. What expectation canst thou have of a good look from 
him, when thou comest to him with all thy natural hatred of him ? How 
canst thou dare to come to him, who knows every circumstance of thy enmity 
better than thou dost thy name, and is so well acquainted with thy heart ? 
What hopes can you have of any answer from him ? If we bring our wicked- 
nesses with us to Gilgal, the place of worship, even there in the solemnest 
duties will God hate us : ' All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I 
hated them,' Ilosea ix. 15. If the mind be filled with hostile principles 
against the purity of God's commands, it must be inexperienced and inactive 
to every work : * To every good work reprobate,' Titus L 16. If the head 



516 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

be sick, needs must the heart be faint. If the counselling faculty be false, 
cursed must be all its advice. 

7. Information. That is not grace which does not alter nature. Morality 
therefore is not grace, because it doth not change nature ; if it did, many of 
the heathens were as near to G-od as the best of Christians ; whatsoever may 
be done by the strength of nature cannot alter it, for no nature can change 
itself. Poison may be great within the skin, like to a vijDer's, be we never 
so speckled with a reformation. Freedom from gross sins argues not a 
friendship to God. None were so great enemies to Christ as the pharisees, 
to whom Christ gives no better a title than that of the devil's children, and 
charges them with the hatred both of himself and his Father, John xv. 24. 
The enmity may be the greater under a zealous and devout morality. The 
poor publicans crowded in to Christ, while the self-righteous Jews derided 
him, and rejected the counsel of God, and put the word of God from them. 
Luke vii. 30, Acts xiii. 46, It is a foolish thing for men to boast of their 
own heart, or outward conformity ; thou canst not tell how soon that heart 
thou boastest of may boil out its enmity. The plant which is pleasant to 
the eye may be poison to the stomach. Boast not, therefore, of thy glossy 
morality, thy chequered skin, so long as there is a venom in thy nature. 
Whatsoever excellencies a natural man has are all tainted with this poison ; 
his wisdom, learning, moral virtue, are rather aggravations than excuses. 

8. Information. Hence follows the necessity of applying to Chi-ist. Ag 
there is a necessity of a change of nature in us, because our enmity to God 
is a moral enmity, so there is a necessity of a compensation and satisfaction 
to God for the preservation of God's honour, because it is an unjust enmity, 
not rising from any injury that ever God did to us ; and because his enmity 
to us, provoked by our disaffection to him, is a legal enmity, his law violated 
must be satisfied. Our enmity is unjust, and therefore must be parted with ; 
God's enmity against us is just, and therefore must be removed by a satis- 
faction. And since we are unable to give God a compensation for our 
wrongs, we must have recourse by faith to that blood which hath given him 
a complete satisfaction. It is Christ only that satisfies God for us, by the 
shedding of his blood, and removes our enmity by the operation of his Spirit. 

9. Information. See hence the reason of the difiiculty of conversion, and 
the little success the gospel hath. All the words in the world will not change 
nature ; men strive against the Spirit, and will not come under the power of 
it if they might have their own will. Can you by exhortations ever reconcile 
a wolf and a lamb ? Can you by rational arguments new mould the nature 
of a fierce lion, or by moral discourses stop the tide of the sea ? Though 
man be a rational creature, yet corrupt habits in him answer to mere nature 
in them, and sway and tide us as much against God. Grave discourses can 
never set a man straight that is born crooked. It is no easy thing for the 
heax-t of man, possessed so long by this cursed principle, to surrender itself 
upon God's summons ; men are not so easily reconciled when the hatred 
bath been hereditary in the family ; this has been of as long a standing, 
within a few hours, as Adam himself. To turn to God in ways of righteous- 
ness, is contrary to the stream of corrupt natm-e, and therefore it must be 
overpowered by a flood of almighty grace, as the stream of the river is by the 
tide of the sea. 

10. Information. If there be such an enmity against the sovereignty of 
God in the heart of man, this shews us the excellency of obedience. It is the 
endeavour of the creature, as much as in him lies, to exalt God, to keep him 
upon his throne, to preserve the sceptre in his hand, and the crown upon his 
head. As faith is a setting a seal to the truth of God, so is obedience a 



Rom. VIII. 7.] man's enmity to god. 517 

setting a seal to the doncinion of God, and subscribing to the righteousness 
thereof. It is called a confirmation of God's law, an affection to the honour 
of it : ' Cursed be he that confirms not all the words of this law, to do them,' 
Deut. xxvii. 26. It is an establishing it as a standing infallible rule, and 
consequently an establishing the lawgiver, and an applause to the righteous- 
ness of his government. God being the highest perfection, and infinitely 
good, therefore whatsoever rule he gives the creature must be good and 
amiable, or else it cannot proceed from God. A base and vile thing can 
never proceed from that which is only excellent. An unreasonable thing 
can never proceed from that which is altogether reason and regular ; therefore 
the obedience to God's law is an acknowledging the excellent goodness, love, 
wisdom, righteousness of the lawgiver, and a bearing witness to it in the face 
of the world. 

II. Use is for examination. Examine yourselves by those demonstrations 
laid down in the first part, whether this enmity be prevalent in you or no. 
1. Have you yet a stoutness of heart against hearing the law of God, which 
crosses the desires of the flesh ? 2, Are you unwilling to be determined by 
divine injunctions ? 3. Doth your heart swell most against those laws which 
are most spiritual, and which God doth most strictly urge ? 4. Do you fall 
out, and quarrel with your own consciences, when they press upon yon any 
command of God ? 5. Do you countenance that law in your members, that 
law of sin, in opposition to the law of your mind? 6. Are you willing to 
be at more pains and expense to violate God's law, than to obsei've it and 
preserve the honour of it ? 7. Do you perform things materially righteous 
because of the agreeableness of them to your humour and constitution, out 
of respect to your reputation, or, which is worse, out of an affection to some 
base lust and carnal end, or out of a slavish fear of God ? 8. Are the laws 
of men more valued and feared by you than the laws of God ? Do you more 
readily obey them ? 9. Are you desirous and diligent in the drawing men 
from compliance with God's laws, to be your companions in any sin you are 
addicted unto ? 10. Do you take pleasure in the affronts men offer to God, 
and make them the matter of your sport and jollity ? So much as you find, 
of this temper in any of your souls, so much of enmity there is. 

III. Use is for exhortation. 1. To sinners. Lay down thy arms against 
God. How can you hear these things without saying, Lord, deliver me from 
this nature ? Oh, what, should I be an enemy to so good a God ? Did God 
put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and 
shall I put enmity between God and my soul, and a love between my heart 
and the serpent ? Shall I change this promise of God, and make my dearest 
affections embrace the serpent's seed, and refuse God himself? Lay down 
thy cudgels, strip thyself, yield thyself to him upon his own terms. How 
canst thou sit down at rest in hating God, and being hated by him ? While 
thou art in thy natural condition, thou canst not be a friend to God ; for 
'they that are in the flesh cannot please him,' Rom. viii. 8. 'How can 
two walk together, unless they be agreed ? ' We must change our enmity 
into friendship if ever we would be happy. We must accept of his terms, 
to be at peace with him, or feel the bitter fruits of his powerful justice. We 
may pronounce in the presence of God, that if we henceforward endeavour 
not to get out of a natural state, it is a resolute maintaining the war against 
heaven. 

Lament this enmity, and be humbled for it. If there be a common in- 
genuity, it will make thee tremble to think of thy hatred of mercy itself. 
Every sin is a branch of this enmity, and doth contribute to the increase of 
it ; as acts strengthen habits, and as every part of the sea, according to its 



618 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

quantity and strength, contributes to the roaring and violent eruptions of it. 
We have robbed God, for as much obedience as we have given to the flesh 
we have taken from God ; therefore rise as high as the fountain in your 
humihations, and he low, not for a particular sin only, but for that enmity 
in thy nature which is the root of all the sins thou ever didst act. The evil 
in our actions is transient, but there is a perfect and overflowing fulness of 
evil in thy nature to animate a thousand acts of the same kind ; as the habit 
of love to God resident in thy soul can command and spirit a thousand acts 
with its own nature. 

2. Use of exhortation. To regenerate persons, such as by the powerful 
working of the grace of God, and the overruling hand of the Spirit, have 
been brought out of this state of enmity. Besides those things which you 
may gather from the former informations as to grow up in all parts of the 
new creature, to further and advance that regenerate work in your soul, to 
make frequent applications of the blood of Christ, and to have your heart 
lifted up in the ways of God, and obedience to him, thereby to bear witness 
to Christ, the righteousness of God in his administrations in the world. Let . 
me advise to these things. 

1. Possess your hearts with great admirations of the grace of God towards 
you, in wounding this enmity in your hearts and changing your state. The 
apostle winds up our admirations of the love of Christ upon this peg : ' When 
we were en'emies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son ; much 
more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life,' Rom. v. 10. Our sal- 
vation from sin by regeneration is the fruit of his resurrection and Hfe, as our 
salvation from the guilt of sin by satisfaction was the fruit of his death ; and 
not only so, saith he, but ' we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
by whom we now receive the atonement,' ver. 11. This reconciUation of us 
being the fruit of the first promise of breaking the serpent's head. Gen. iii. 15, 
i. e. the projects and designs of the devil, to set God and man at eternal vari- 
ance, makes it the more admirable ; that as soon as man had, immediately 
after his creation, and being made lord of the rest of the sublunary creatures, 
cast oS his Lord and Creator, that just at that time, under the present sense 
of that unworthy slight, he should be laying about for the good of fallen man, 
and make a promise for the dissolving this enmity, and change this resistance 
of God into a more righteous one, viz. a variance with, and an eternal enmity 
against, the serpent. 

And hath not this been the ease of some of our souls, that God hath 
grappled with us, and changed the current of our wills, even at the very time 
of the spitting out our venomous disaff'ection against him ? It was Paul's 
case ; and the case of many, I am sure, since that time. If such a circum- 
stance as this did attend thy first conversion, it should, methinks, enlarge thy 
notes, and wind up thy astonishment to a higher pitch. But howsoever it 
be, change your complaints into praises for your deliverance, though it be as 
yet imperfect. A lively and warm sense of it would quicken thy obedience, 
and spirit thee more in the ways of God than all thy complaints can do. It 
is to the grace of God that we owe the decays of it ; it is a particular assist- 
ing grace that keeps it down, and binds it up at any time. If we are some- 
times without considerable disturbances by it, it is not for want of the will of 
the flesh, nor for want of strength enough in the flesh, even in the best of 
men ; but it is staked down, and stopped by the powerful operation of the 
Spirit, and the working of irresistible grace. To this purpose often reflect 
upon your former state ; it will set a gloss upon the grace of God. The more 
disingenuous our enmity was, the more illustrious will it make the love of 
God to appear in our eye. 



Rom. VIII. 7,] man's enmity to god. 519 

2. Endeavour to hate sin as much as thou hast hated God. What reason 
have we to bewail ourselves ! None of us have ever yet hated sin so much 
as naturally we have hated G-od. Turn this affection now as much upon 
thy great enemy as thou hast done upon thy best friend. The deeper gashes 
thou hast given to God, Christ, and his glory, the wider wounds, the harder 
blows, the sharper stabs give to thy sin ; have as great an animosity against 
it as you have had stoutness of heart against God. Come not under 
the power of any one ; lift up thy hand most against spiritual sins ; shew no 
obedience to the law of sin in thy members. 

3. Inflame thy love to God by all tbe considerations thou canst possibly 
muster up. Outdo thy former disaffection by a greater ardency of love. 
Sincerely aim at his glory. Eye his command only in everything thou 
dost. Delight to please him above thyself. Endeavour by all means to 
draw others to think well of him and be at peace with him. Take plea- 
sure in the conversion of others to him. Rejoice at any glory he gains in 
the world. The unjust enmity he receives from others should procure a 
greater respect from us to God. Oh that we could make up by an in- 
tenseness of love the injury he receives by the enmity of others, and balance 
their hatred by an increase of our affection ! Oh that we could delight our- 
selves in him as much as we have been displeased with him, that he might 
be as dear to us as he is odious to devils, and that the devils themselves, 
in the degrees of their detestation of God, might not outstrip us in the 
degrees of our affection to him. 

4. Bewail this enmity. Ai'e the best of us perfect ? Are we stripped of 
all relics of it ? Has any man on earth put oft' the dregs of the flesh, and 
commenced an angel in purity '? Have we got the start of all the saints of 
old, and expelled it wholly out of us ? Have we outstripped the great apostle, 
who complained of sins dwelling in his flesh ? Is there no more need of 
groans to be delivered from this body of death ? Ah, what reHcs are there ! 
Doth not the best man find it a laborious undertaking to engage against 
the remainders of nature in him, and to manage a constant and open hos- 
tility against the force of the sensual appetite, and the spiritual wickedness 
in the high places of his soul, though much wounded by the grace of God ? 
It is this gasping body of death in a regenerate man that gives life to 
those swarms of imperfections in his religious duties. It is this that crip- 
ples our obedience, that shackles our feet, when they should run the ways 
of God's commandments. It is this drags away our heart after unworthy 
objects in the midst of those services wherein we attempt the nearest 
approaches to God. It is upon the score of this lurking principle in us 
that we may charge all the foils we suffer in our strongest wrestling for 
heaven. 

And is not this cause enough to bewail it ? One great mgredient in any 
day's repentance is an acknowledgment of the due demerit of sin, and the 
righteousness of God in his threatenings and punishment, and tbis must be 
the ground of the abhorrency our souls have to his statutes, ' They shall accept 
of the punishment of their iniquity,' Lev. xxvi. 43, i. e. they shall repent of 
it, and acknowledge my righteousness in it, ' because, even because ;' and ver. 
40, they were to confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, i. e. 
the iniquity derived from their fathers, for their actual sins are expressed by 
' the trespass they trespassed against God.' Arc there not daily starts of 
this nature in us ? Do we not need a daily pardon for it ? And is it for 
God's honour to pardon us without an humble acknowledgment ? It is the 
greatest part of our enmity that we are not more affected with it. Our 
breaking God's commands is not so much as the inherent contempt of God 



520 chaenock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

in us ; a man may receive injuries from another, and lightly pass them over, 
when he knows the person hath no disaffection to him. 

It was not so much the act of adultery and murder that Nathan, by God's 
commission, charges so home upon David, as his despising God's commands 
and despising God himself: ' Wherefore hast thou despised the command of 
the Lord ?' 2 Sam. xii. 9 ; and ver. 10, 'Thou hast despised me.' And it is 
not so much our actual breaches as our natural and indwelling contempt of 
God, that is most chargeable upon us in our approaches to him and exercises 
of our repentance before him. If a likeness to Adam's sin be made a ground 
of the aggravation of actual sin, — ' But they Hke men have transgressed,' Hos. 
vi. 7, implying that to be the greatest, — then the corruption of nature we 
derived from him by the means of that sin must be the highest and most 
lamented. 

5. Watch against the daily exertings and exercises of this enmity. When 
we would be serious in the concerns of God and our own souls, do we not 
feel some inward assaults against our own resolutions, and some secret ad- 
versary within striving against our most spiritual reflection ? and is there no 
need of a watch ? Alas ! this being a constant adversary, requires our con- 
stant care ; it being a secret and inward adversary, requires our utmost dili- 
gence and prudence. Who is there of us who serves God with that care, 
and obeys him with that reverence, as he doth his worldly superior ? Do 
we not sometimes hate instruction when it goes against the grain, and cast 
the words of God behind our backs, and thus kick against the Lawgiver ? 
Do we not many times prefer the flesh before him ? (I know in the bent of 
the heart a godly man doth not, but in some particular acts he may and 
doth.) Are not our understandings more frequently awakened to anything 
than that which God doth command ? Are not our desires too vehement for 
those things which have no commerce with the law and mind of God ? Have 
we no doubts of his faithfulness, no murmuring against his sovereign disposal 
of things, no risings of heart against his law, against his providences, no self- 
confidence, envy, ambition, revenge? All these are but the branches of this 
bitter root. And is not our exactest care and constant watchfulness requisite 
against the workings of this natural cursed disposition ? Sure it is, and sure 
it must be. 

IV. Motives. These exhortations. 

1. Consider the disingenuity of this enmity. There is no necessity thou 
shouldest be his enemy : it will not be honourable to thee to stand out. 
Peter denied Christ when his own life was in danger, and thou hatest God, 
who would put the life of thy soul out of danger. It is against all the obli- 
gations of nature and grace to be an enemy to him to whom thou owest thy 
being, thy preservation from hell, and recovery from misery, but for thy own 
fault. Do we not voluntarily subject ourselves to men whom we esteem 
good, though the loveliness of their persons and the goodness of their nature 
be infinitely short of God, and are as much below him in alluring qualities 
as they are in greatness and majesty? What benefits can men bestow upon 
their servants like those God doth recompense his sincere adorers with ? 
Men may love their friends more than they can help them, but the loving- 
kindness of God is attended with a power as infinite as itself. 

(1.) God hath been good to us. He is love, and we are out of love with 
love itself, 1 John iv. 8. Is he not our Father ? why should we not honour 
him ? Is he not our master ? why should we not obey him ? Is he not our 
benefactor ? why should we not affect him ? Whence have we our mercies, 
but from his hand ? Who besides him maintains our breath this moment ? 
Would he call for our spirits this instant, they must depart from us to attend 



Rom. VIII, 7.j man's enmity to god. 521 

his commancl. What, shall his benefits be made weapons of unrighteous- 
ness, and the devil's arms against him ? Christ died for us while we were ene- 
mies, and shall we stand out as enemies still ? It will be the least thou 
canst do to love him at the very time he shews mercy to thee, and that is 
every minute. There is not a moment wherein thou canst with any inge- 
nuity be an enemy to him, because there is not a moment wherein he is not 
thy guardian, wherein thou dost not taste of his bounty. God hath let thee 
have thy swing all this time ; thou hast had thy rendezvous at thy pleasure, 
and he never laid wait for thee but in kindness. He might have dwelt with 
us, as we do with venomous creatures, and destroyed such a generation of 
vipers, and crushed the cockatrice in the egg. What a disgraceful thing is 
it to put otf the nature of men for that of devils, to hate God under mercy, 
as much as the devils do under wrathful anger ! Is not God our greatest 
benefactor, and shall he have nothing but disdains from us for all his bene- 
fits ? The psalmist cries out, ' What shall I render to the Lord for all his 
benefits towards me ?' But it is the language of our heart, AVhat ill turns 
shall we render to God for all his mercies unto us ? It is his mercy we are 
not consumed, and shall we spend this mercy upon our lusts ? He was com- 
passionate in sparing us, and shall we be ungrateful in hating him ? It is 
the highest disingenuity. 

(2.) God hath been importunate in entreaties of us. God offers not only 
truce, but a peace, and hath been most active in urging a reconciUation. 
Can he manifest his willingness in clearer methods, than that of sending his 
Son to reconcile the world to himself? Can he evidence more sincerity 
than by his repeated and reiterated pressing of our souls to the acceptance 
of him ? God knocks at our hearts, and we are deaf to him ; he thunders 
in our ears, and we regard him not ; he waits upon us for our acceptance of 
his love, and we grow more mad against him ; he beseecheth us, and we 
ungratefully and proudly reject him ; he opens his bosom, and we turn our 
backs ; he ofters us his pearls, and we tread them under our feet ; he would 
clothe us with pure linen, but we would still wear our foul rags ; he would 
give us angels' bread, and we feed on husks with swine. The wisdom of God 
shines upon us, and we account it foolishness. The infinite kindness of God 
courts us, and we refuse it, as if it were the greatest cruelty. Christ calls 
and begs, and we will not hear him either commanding or entreating. To 
love God is our privilege, and though it be our indispensable duty, yet it had 
been a presumption in us to aspire so high as to think the casting our earthly 
affections upon so transcendent an object should be so dear to him, had he 
not authorised it by his command, and encouraged it by his acceptance. But 
it is strange that God should court us by such varieties of kindness to that, 
wherein not his happiness but our affection does consist; and much stranger, 
that such pieces of earth and clay should turn their backs upon so adorable 
an object, and be enemies to him, who displays himself in so many allure- 
ments to their souls, and fix their hatred upon that tender God who sues for 
their affections. 

Consider that God is our superior. An inferior should seek to a superior, 
not a superior to one below him. There is an equality between man and 
man, but an infinite inequality between God and us. God is also the pany 
wronged, and yet offers a parley. And consider further, that when he could 
as well damn us as court us, he wants not power to rid his hands of us, but 
he would rather shew his almightiness in the triumph of his mercy, than 
the trophies of his justice ; he would rather be a refreshing light than a con- 
suming fire. 

2. This enmity to God is the greatest folly and madness. The Scripture 



522 charnock's works. [Rom. VIII. 7. 

tells us, that sin is folly and madness ; and certainly had man a clear pros- 
pect of this truth, which in his first apostasy he fell from, so that he could 
examine all his speculations, desires, motions, and actions by that rule, they 
would appear to him to be acts of a crazy and frantic mind. Therefore, 
when upon our return to God we have but a glimpse of this truth, how much 
ashamed is man of the deformity of his actions from that rule ; as a myn 
that has been mad is of those pranks he played in his frenzy, after he is 
brought to his right wits. Hence repentance, which is always accompanied 
with a shame, is called jubirdvoia, a return to our right M'its. 

1. This enmity to Grod is in itself irrational ; because (1.) God is the most 
lovely object. He hath in his own nature, as well as in his operations, the 
highest right to our love ; for the more of entity and being anything hath, 
the more of perfection, and the more lovely it is in itself, the more to be be- 
loved by us. Now God hath the most of being, because other beings were 
eminently contained in his immense essence, and produced by his infinite 
power, and were the manifestations of himself, and lines drawn from him, 
and by him ; and therefore he is the most amiable object, because the crea- 
ture has nothing lovely but only what it hath from God, which is more emi- 
nently treasured up in him, and may in him be seen and enjoyed with a 
greater advantage. The creatures are but pictures, and can no more repre- 
sent to the full the true amiableness of God, than a few colours, though 
never so well suited together, can the moral or intellectual loveliness of the 
soul of man. As God had all the ideas of his creatures in his mind, so he 
had the virtues of them in his essence. Therefore to love any creature 
above God, and so to hate him, is the highest piece of unreasonableness. 

(2.) God is the chiefest good, and the fountain of all goodness. It is 
unreasonable to look upon that which comes from the fountain of goodness, 
to be destructive to our true pleasure ; yet men have such hard thoughts of 
religion and divine commands, as if they were designed for their utter ruin, 
when they are the eflluxes of infinite goodness. All hatred doth arise from 
an apprehension of the inconsistency of the thing we hate, with something 
we esteem a part of our happiness ; and sinners being possessed with the 
thoughts of the justice and holiness of God, as inconsistent with their darling 
sin, hate him for being of a nature so contrary to that which they love ; 
whereas none of God's perfections are repugnant to our being or well-being 
in themselves ; for would we have a God unjust, what comfort could we 
then take in him ? We hate him for being against that which is most against 
us. "We hate him for hating of that which would destroy our souls, and em- 
bitter our beings to us to all eternity ; we hate him for hating that which, 
if it were possible, would disquiet his felicity, and destroy his being. What 
an unreasonable thing is it to quarrel with that law of God, which obhgeth 
you to nothing but what conduceth to the benefit of your souls, and the 
order of the world ! What doth it bound and restrain you from, but 
that which would bring destruction upon you ? Is it not a greater advan- 
tage to be carried fettered to heaven, than to run at liberty to hell ? Who 
but a madman would prefer the devil's before God's yoke, and be the captive 
of a hellish tyrant, rather than the subject of a gracious sovereign ? What 
an unreasonable thing is it to love any sin, a privation better than the best 
of beings ? Can we expect to get as much advantage from him by being 
his enemies, as by being his friends, since he is of so merciful a dispo- 
sition ? 

(3.) God cannot possibly do us wrong. All right hatred is from a real 
wrong, sense of wrong, or fear of wrong. Either of those is an unjust im- 
putation upon God, who cannot possibly do wrong to his creatures, because 



Rom. Yin. 7.] man's enmity to god. 523 

he cannot be unrigliteous : * Is God unrighteous who takes vengeance '? ' 
Rom. iii. 5. Mj^ ymiro. For Grod is so far from being injurious in the 
least to us, that he doth cast about, and contrive our happiness in his laws 
more than we can ourselves, or are willing he should do for us. Men cannot, 
if they consult but the sparks of reason, but confess the reasonableness of 
God's commands, and be satisfied in the righteousness of the duties enjoined, 
and the profitableness of the counsels set out in the gospel, and must needs 
look upon the felicity promised to be excellent and desirable ; and therefore 
cannot, upon any reasonable account, charge God with doing them any 
wrong. Or let me argue thus : either God hath wronged us or not. If not, 
it is unreasonable to disafi'ect him ; if he hath, why should we hate him, 
seeing if God could do any injustice, he would not have the being of a God ? 
For if it were possible, as soon as ever he should cease to be just and 
righteous, he would cease to be God, and destroy his own nature ; for as 
every man, in doing an unjust act, is less than a man, and loses the end of 
his own reason, so God, by doing any injustice, would be less than a God. 
Nay, our hating him as a judge is highly irrational, because of his equity 
and righteousness in all his proceedings, and because it is our own act in 
forcing him to that by our evil practices, which he is not willing to do, but 
according to his own righteous nature, and for the vindication of his holiness 
in his law, cannot but do upon our final impenitency, and persisting in our 
transgi'essions. 

(4.) God cannot be hurt by us. It is a folly among men to shew their 
enmity where they cannot hui-t. What an unreasonable boldness is it for a 
man to think he can grapple with omnipotence, and enter the lists with the 
fountain of all strength and power ! What is thy enmity, but a small 
wriggling against God ! What disadvantage can accrue to him by thy op- 
posing him ! Just as much as the moon receives by the dog's barking at it, 
which neither stands still, nor alters its course, nor is frighted at the noise. 
Foolish man, that will not discover an enmity against a superior, but rakes 
it up in the ashes, and muzzles his anger till he be able to bite, and yet pro- 
claims a war openly against heaven, as if he were too strong for God, and 
God too weak for him ! As the light of God's face is too dazzling to be 
seen, so the arm of his power is too mighty to be oppressed by us. His 
almightiness is above the reach of our potsherd strength, as his infiniteness 
is above the capacity of our purblind understandings. His happiness is too 
firm to be disturbed by us, as well as his essence too glorious to be compre- 
hended. What force canst thou have to resist the presence of him before 
whom the rocks melt, and the heavens at length will be shrivelled up as 
parchment by the last fire ? 

(5.) But though thou canst not hurt God, yet thou dost mightily wrong 
thyself. Senseless sinner ! God is out of thy gunshot ; thy arrows are too 
short for that mark, but his are long enough for thee ; thy shot will fall 
before it reach him, but his arrows will both reach thy heart and stick in it. 
Hatred in the world is attended sometimes with outward advantage ; but 
what gain canst thou expect by this enmity ? What refreshment is there by 
thy endeavouring to dry up the fountain ? What good by labouring to destroy 
the original of goodness itself? What harm is it to the sun to shoot up 
arrows against it ? Do they pierce its light, or shatter any of the sparks of 
it ? No, but they fall down upon the archer's head. The opposition of a 
wicked man against God is much like a man's running his head against a 
rock to be revenged on it for splitting his ship, whereby he bruiseth not the 
rock, but dashes out his own brains, and pays his life for a price of his folly. 
Poor man is like a potsherd, that justles with a rock, and bursts itself; and 



524 charnock's works. ' [Rom. YIII. 7. 

s not this the highest piece of madness ? ' Woe unto him that strives with 
his Maker ! Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth,' Isa. 
xlv. 9. Dost thou fight against the Rock of Ages ? It will rather bluqt thy 
weapon than be hurt by thy arm ; it will make thy sword fly back in pieces 
upon thy own face. Eveiy wicked man is a greater enemy to himself than 
the devil is, and wrongs himself more than the devil can do ; because he 
nourishes that sin in him which wars against his soul. 

3. Consider the misery of such a state. Thou wilt be miserable with a 
witness : ' If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema,' 
1 Cor. xvi. 22. Let all the curses in heaven and earth light upon him ; 
let the mercy, wisdom, power, strength of God appear against him ; let him 
not have an advocate to make any plea for him. Angels, men, devils will 
all appear against such a person. 

(1.) Thou canst not possibly escape vengeance. The Sodomites, whose 
sins had so long dared God's justice, might have better escaped than thou 
canst ; but, alas ! what force hath a puppy or worm in a lion's paw ! Thou 
art no more in his hand than a fly between a giant's fingers. Go, fooHsh, 
self- deluding creature, recollect thyself. Can such a bubble, dust, chaif, 
stubble, worse than nothing and vanity, wrestle with God ? Ah, poor worm, 
wilt thou set thyself in a strutting array against omnipotency, far less in 
God's hands than a chicken new stripped of its shell in the talons of an eagle ? 
Jacob, a holy man, wrestled with him upon a holy account, and broke his 
thigh. Take heed in thy wrestling with him upon a sinful account thou dost 
not break thy neck. If he be thy friend, none can hurt thee ; but if thy 
enemy, none can relieve thee. 

He is the best friend when men will love him, but as terrible an enemy as 
consuming fire when men will hate him. Thou must be subject to him 
whether thou wilt or no ; there is no remedy. If submission to his mercy be 
not free, subjection to his justice must be forced. We must be under his 
power whether we will or no ; we cannot wrest ourselves out of the compass 
of his arm. If we go down to hell, he is there ; if we dive to the bottom of 
the deep, thence his hand will fetch us out. We always have been, are still, 
and for ever must be, within the reach of his almighty power. Whither wilt 
thon go ? Is there any garrison to defend thee, any sanctuary to secure 
thee, any champion to stand for thee? If all the angels ; in heaven and 
devils in hell should rouse up themselves to be thy protectors, thou wouldest 
be just as happy as if thou hadst the shelter of the dust of the balance, or a 
drop of a bucket. Can we blind his eye that he should not see, or deafen 
his ear that he should not hear, or bind his arm that he should not strike ? 
Can we remove his jealousy by increasing it ? Can we mitigate everlasting 
burnings by adding oil to them ? Can our sins stand out against his judg- 
ments, or our persons successfully combat with his wrath ? Before any of 
those can be done, the Creator must descend into our impotency. What man 
will confess he is able to do any of those ? And yet he will walk in a path 
of enmity. Wrath will come, though it be slow in coming. It is slow, but 
sure ; the longer it is preparing, the bitterer it will be in enduring. Let all 
devils and sinners in the world join together, how soon is God able to over- 
throw them, and turn their Babel-fort to their own confusion, and bury them 
in the ruins of their own works ! ' Though hand join in hand, the wicked 
shall not go unpunished,' Prov. xi. 21. How would he fling them all into 
hell, as one of us can a bag of dust or sand into the sea ! 

(2.) Thou dost even force God to destroy thee for his own content, and as 
it were provoke him to damn thee for his own ease ; if thou wilt not lay 
down thy arms, thou dost wrest wrath out of his hands : ' Have quieted my 



Rom. VIIL 7.j sian's enmity to god. 525 

spirit,' Zech. vi. 8. He speaks of the angels which he had sent out against 
Babylon, those black horses which noted death and destruction ; and those 
angels doing their work and duty, are said by himself to quiet his Spirit ; 
so that God can have no rest in his own Spirit but by thy submission or 
destruction. And the longer thou dost stand out, the more thou dost pro- 
voke God to take some course for the easing of himself; for punishment in 
another place, he calls his ease : ' I will ease me of my adversaries ' Isa. 
1. 24; and the latter words explain it, ' I will avenge me of my enemies.' 
Is not the honour of God concerned in his laws ? And would he not make 
himself ridiculous to the sons of men, if he did not severely punish their 
violations of them ? 

(3.) God cannot save thee without disturbing the happiness of those that 
love him, and are loved by him. Thou wilt but make a disturbance in 
heaven by thy contraiy disposition, and hinder that exact harmony ; thy 
jarring principles could;never agree with that comfort ;-' thy enmity and' divi- 
sion with that union ; the repose of the saints would be disquieted, and their 
pleasure cooled : for if they cared not for thy company in the world, when 
they had many relics of enmity in themselves, and an imperfect holiness, 
they can less endure it in heaven, where their holiness is fully ripe, and their 
hatred against impiety perfectly strong ; and God will not bring thee thither 
with that cursed nature thou hast, to damp their joy, and spoil the order of 
heaven. A state of wrath must necessarily succeed a state of enmity : for 
heaven can never be a place suitable to you ; it will be as little agreeable to 
you, as your being there will be to God. 

(4.) Thou hast the beginnings of hell in thee already. Enmity is a hellish 
disposition. As the perfection of love in heaven is a part of heaven's happi- 
ness, so the perfection of enmity in hell is a part of the damned's misery. 
The sight of God in heaven inflames love in saints, so the absence of God 
from hell enrageth enmity in the devils and damned spirits. 

(5.) All thy enmity will certainly be charged upon thee one day. There 
is a time when all thy acts of enmity shall be set in order before thee : ' I will 
set them in order before thee,' Ps. 1. 21. This is to be understood more 
militari, when sin shall be set in rank and file, in bloody array against thy 
soul ; or more forensi, when they shall be set in order as so many indict- 
ments for thy rebellion and treason. What sadness will seize upon thee at 
the last, when God shall fix upon thee out of the crowd, and point at thee : 
' But those my enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, 
bring hither, and slay them before me,' Luke xix, 27. How solemnly will 
he execute every enemy at the last ! They shall be brought out shackled 
one by one, and Christ will sit and behold it, Lo, here is one of my ene- 
mies, I have found him out for all his fair hopes of escape. When men and 
angels shall say, ' Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength ;' this 
is the man that set up other gods in his heart ; that was such a fool as to 
think his pleasures, riches, strength, honour, to be his god. Ah, fool with 
a witness, to think that a god could be of thy own making ! 

* Qu ' concert ' ?— Ed. 



THE CHIEF SINNERS OBJECTS OF THE 
CHOICEST MERCY. 



This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
into the world to save sinners ; of whom 1 am chief. — 1 Tim. I. 15. 



PAET I. 

The chief of sinners saved. 

I. Obs. The salvation of sinners was the main design of Christ's coming into 
the world. II. God often makes the chiefest sinners objects of his choicest 
mercy. 

For the last, that God doth so, observe, 

1. Grod hath formerly made invitations to such. See what a black gene- 
ration they were, Isa. i. by the scroll of their sins. They were rebels, and 
rebels against him that had nursed them : ' I have nourished and brought up 
children, and they have rebelled against me,' ver. 2. And in this respect 
worse than the beasts they were masters of ; the stupid ox and the dull ass 
outstripped them in ingenuity : ' The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 
master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider,' 
ver. 3. He calls upon heaven and earth to judge between them, ver. 2. He 
appeals to men and angels as a jury to give their verdict, whether these 
people had not been the most disingenuous and ungrateful people in the 
world. Or if by heavens and earth he meant magistrates and people, as in 
the prophetic style they are usually taken, God then appeals to themselves 
to let their own natural consciences, and the common ingenuity their sins 
had left them, to judge between them. He comes to charge them ' laden with 
iniquity,' ver. 4. They had such great weights lying upon them that they 
were not able to stir, or laden with it, as some crabtree is of sour fruit. They 
had sprouted from a wicked stock ; they had corrupted one another by their 
society and example, as rotten apples putrefy the sound ones that lie near 
them. 

They had been incorrigible under judgments. God had used the rod again 
and again ; but being there was no reformation, he was even weary of whip- 
ping them any longer : ' Why should ye be stricken any more ? ye will 



1 Tim. I. 15.1 chief sinners objects of choicest meecy. 527 

revolt more and more,' ver. 5. They were also so universally infected that 
there was no sound part about them, but running sores all over ; both head 
and heart were affected ; corrupt notions in the one, and corrupt affections 
in the other. Or if you take it prophetically, head signifies the chief magis- 
trate ; heart, the judges ; feet, the common people. The fire which had burnt 
their cities had not consumed their lusts, and dried up their sins : * Your 
countiy is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire, your land strangers 
devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers,' 
ver. 7. And had it not been for a small remnant, they had been as bad as 
Sodom and Gomorrah, ver. 9. Their services were polluted, vain, and an 
abomination to him, ver. 13 ; a trouble to him, his soul hated them, he was 
tired with them, ver. 14, for they came with their bloody murderous hands 
into God's presence. 

Yet though he justly charged them with those horrid crimes, he gives them 
assurance of entertainment if they would return to him : ' Come now and 
let us reason together,' ver. 18. He would condescend to debate the case 
with them, when one would have thought he should have said, I'll have 
nothing to do with such a crew as they. God loves to discourse with men 
about this argument of pardon, and he loves that men should hear him speak 
concerning it. He would dispute them out of their sins into good and right 
apprehensions of his mercy ; so ' Turn ye unto him from whom the children 
of Israel have deeply revolted,' Isa. xxxi. 6. Revolted! there is their sin ; 
deeply, there is the aggravation of it ; and being also children of Israel, a 
people of much mercy and miracles, there is another aggravation ; yet turn 
unto him agamst whom you have thus sinned. The great objection of a 
penitent is, I have sinned, and I know not whether God will receive me. 
Consider, God knows thy sin better than thou dost, yet he kindly calls to 
thee, and promiseth thee as good a reception as if thou hadst never sinned. 
So ' They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and 
become another man's, shall he return unto her again ? Shall not that land 
be greatly polluted ? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet 
return again to me, saith the Lord,' Jer. iii. 1. Though thou hast been a 
common adulteress, and made all comers every idle welcome, and been in 
league with many sins, yet upon thy return I will own thee ; and these are 
God's warrants for encouragement. 

2. God hath given examples of it in Scripture. Adam, the ringleader of 
all rebellions of mankind in the world, had the promise of the seed of the 
woman to break the serpent's head made to him, and in the genealogy of 
Christ is called the son of God, Luke iii. 38, not only in respect of creation, 
for so the devil is the son of God, but in a nearer relation. Yet all that 
deluge of wickedness which has overflowed the world since the fall, sprang 
out of his loins ; nay, Abraham, the father of the faithful, was probably an 
idolater in Ur of the Chaldees, and a worshipper of the sun and fire, as his 
fathers were, Josh. xxiv. 2, yet God makes a particular covenant with this 
man, presents him with a richer act of grace than any in the world besides 
him had, even that the Messiah, the gi-eat Redeemer of the world, should 
come from his seed. This man is set up as the pattern of faith to others, 
and his bosom seems to be a great receptacle of saints in glory, Luke xvi. 
22, 23. Israel's sins were as a thick cloud, yet this powerful sun did melt 
them : ' I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud 
thy sins,' Isa. xHv. 22. A sullen gloomy morning often ends in a well-com- 
plexioned noon. Manasseh is an eminent example of this doctrine. His 
story, 2 Chron. xxxiii., represents him as a black devil, if all the aggravations 
of his sins be considered. 



528 CHARNOCKS WORKS. [1 TiM. I, 15. 

(1.) It was against knowledge. He liad a pious education under a reli- 
gious father. An education usually leaves some tinctures and impressions 
of religion. No doubt but the instructions his father Hezekiah had taught 
him, and the exemplary holiness he had seen in him, were sometimes 
awakened in his memory, and recoiled upon his conscience. 

(2.) His place and station ; a king. Sins of kings are like their robes, more 
scarlet and crimson than the sins of a peasant. Their example usually 
infects their subjects. As they are not without their attendance in their 
progresses and recreations, so neither in their vices and virtues. 

(3.) Restoration of idolatry. Had he found the worship of the host of 
heaven derived to him by succession from his father, and the idols set up to 
his hand, the continuance of them had less of sin, because more of temptation ; 
but he built again those high places and altars to idols, after they had been 
broken down, ver. 3, and dashed in pieces that reformation his father had 
completed. 

(4.) Affronting God to his very face. He sets up his idols, as it were, to 
nose God, and built altars in the house of the Lord, and in the two courts 
of his temple, whereof God had said he would have his name there for ever, 
ver. 4, 5, 7. He brought in all the stars of heaven to be sharers in that 
worship which was only due to the God of heaven. What ! could he find 
no other place for his idols but in the very temple of God ? Must God be 
cast out of his house to make room for Baal ? 

(5.) Murder. Perhaps of his children, which he caused to pass through 
the fire as an offering to his idol, ver. 6 ; it may be it was only for purifica- 
tion. But he had the guilt of much innocent blood upon him, the streams 
whereof ran down in every part of the city : • Moreover, Manasseh shed in- 
nocent blood very much, till he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to 
the other,' 2 Kings xxi. 16. 

(6.) Covenant with the devil. He used enchantments and witchcraft, 
and dealt with a familiar spirit, ver. 6, yea, he had acquaintance with more 
devils than one, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards, in the plural 
number. 

(7.) His other men's sins. He did not only lead the people by his ex- 
ample, but compelled them by his commands : * So Manasseh made Judah 
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen 
God had rooted out,' 2 Chron. xxxiii. 9, to make room for them. Hereby he 
contracted the guilt of the whole nation upon himself. 

(8.) Obstinacy against admonitions : * God spake to him and his people, 
but they would not hearken, or alter their course,' 2 Kings xxi. 10. 

(9.) Continuance in it. He ascended the throne young, at twelve years 
old, ver. 1. It is uncertain how long he continued in this sin. Torniellus 
thinks fifteen years ; Bellarmine, twenty-seven ; Kimchi, fifty years, reckon- 
ing but five years of his life after his restoration. What a world of sin, and 
aggravations of it, were there in this man ! and yet God was entreated, 
ver. 19. 

3. The stock whereof Christ came, seems to intimate this : God might 
have kept the stock whence Christ descended according to the flesh, pure 
and free from being tainted with any notorious crimes ; but we find sins of 
a crimson dye even among them. There are no women reckoned up in 
Christ's genealogy, but such as in Scripture are noted for looseness. Mat. i. 
3. Tamar, who played the harlot with Judah her father-in-law. Gen. xxviii. ; 
Rahab, ver. 5, the harlot of Jericho ; Ruth, ver. 5, a Gentile and a Moab- 
itess, the root of whose generation was Lot's son, by incest with his own 
daughter ; Bathsheba, ver. 6, David's adulteress. He chose these repenting 



1 Tim. I. 15,] chief sinnees objects of choicest mercy. 529 

sinners, out of whose loins Christ was to come, that the greatest sinners 
might not be afraid to come to him. 

Was David, whose son our Saviour is called, much better ? It is true, he 
was a man after God's own heart, but yet very notorious for that act of mur- 
der and adultery, and with more aggravating circumstances than usually 
are met with in acts of the like nature, 2 Sam. xi. Uriah was a godly man, 
and had a sense of the condition of the church and nation whereof he was a 
member, ver. 11 ; and such a man's bed David is not only content to defile, 
but he pollutes his soul with drunkenness, ver. 13 ; lays snares for his life, 
not in a manly, but sly and treacherous manner ; for while he doth caress 
him, and shew him a fair countenance in his palace, he draws up secret in- 
structions to Joab so to order the business, that Uriah might be thrust into 
his grave, and makes him the post to carry the commission for his own 
death, ver. 15, 16. After all this, he hath no remorse when he hears of 
the loss of so godly and valiant a man, but wipes his mouth, and sweeps all 
the dirt to the door of providence, ver. 25. Now, Christ's stock being thus 
tainted, was, methinks, an evidence that penitents, though before of the 
greatest pollutions, might be welcome to him. And that as he picked 
out such out of whose loins to proceed, so he would pick out such also 
in whose hearts to reside. 

4. It was Christ's employment in the world to court and gain such kind 
of creatures. The first thing he did, while in the manger, was to snatch 
some of the devil's prophets out of his service, and take them into his own, 
Mat. ii. 1, some of the Magi, who were astrologers and idolaters. When he 
fled from Herod's cruelty, he chose Egypt, the most idolatrous country in 
the world, for his sanctuary ; a place where the people worshipped oxen, 
crocodiles, cats, garlic, putida numina, all kind of rifif-rafi", to shew that he 
often comes to sojourn in the blackest souls. The first people he took care 
to preach to, were the seamen, who usually are the rudest and most de- 
bauched sort of men, as gaining the vices, as well as the commodities of 
those nations they traffic with, Mai. iv. 13. The inhabitants of those sea- 
coasts are said to sit in darkness, ver. 16 ; in darkness both of sin and 
ignorance, just as the Egyptians were not able to stir in that thick dark- 
ness which was sent as a plague upon them. And the country, by reason 
of the vices of the inhabitants, is called the region and shadow of death — a 
title properly belonging to hell itself. To call sinners to repentance, was 
the errand of his coming. And he usually delighted to choose such that 
had not the least pretence to merit, Mark ii. 17 : Matthew, a publican ; 
Zaccheus, an extortioner, store of that generation of men and harlots, and 
very little company besides. 

He chose his attendants out of the devil's rabble ; and he was more Jesus, 
a Saviour, among this sort of trash, than among all other sorts of people, 
for all his design was to get clients out of hell itself. What was that woman 
that he must needs go out of his way to convert ? A harlot, John iv. 1 8, an 
idolater ; for the Samaritans had a mixed worship, a linsey-woolsey religion, 
and, upon that account, were hateful to the Jews. She continued in her 
adultery at the very time Christ spake to her, yet he makes her a monument 
of his grace ; and not only so, but the first preacher of the gospel to her 
neighbours : ' Is not this the Christ ?' ver. 29 ; and an instrument to con- 
duct them to him, ' Come, see a man which told me all things,' &c. Was 
any more defiled than Mary Magdalene ? Seven devils would make her 
sooty to purpose, and so many did Christ cast out of her. ' Now, when 
Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary 

VOL. V. L 1 



530 charnock's WORKS. [1 Tim, I. 15. 

Magdalene,' Mark xvi. 9, out of whom he cast seven devils. This lustful 
devil he turns into a weeping saint. 

What was that Canaanitish woman who had so powerful a faith infused ? 
One sprung of a cursed stock, hateful to God, rooted out of the pleasant 
land, a dog, not a child ; she comes a dog, but returns a child. Christ made 
this crab in a wilderness to bring forth fruit, even the best that heaven could 
afford, viz., the fruit of faith ; and larger and better bunches of it than at 
that time sprouted out of any branches of the Jewish vine, so well planted, 
and so often watered by Christ himself. When he comes to act his last 
part in the world, he saves a thief, who was got to hell-gates, ready to be 
pushed in by the devil. Do you find examples among the pharisees ? No ; 
dunghill sinners take heaven by violence, while the proud pharisees lose it 
by their own righteousness. Scribes and doctors continue devils in the 
chair, while harlots commence saints from the stews, and the thief proceeds 
a convert on the cross. 

Since there was but one that in his own person he converted after he went 
to heaven, what was he ? One that had ' breathed out slaughters and threat- 
enings against the church,' Acts ix. 1. To do so was as common with him, 
and natural to him, as to suck in air, and breathe it out again. This man, 
galloping to hell as fast as his mad rage and passion could carry him, he 
stops in his career, ordains a preacher of a persecutor ; gives him as large 
a commission as he had given any of his favourites, for he makes him the 
chiefest apostle of the Gentiles. What bogs and miry places did Christ 
drain, and make fruitful gardens ! what barren and thorny wildernesses did 
he change into pleasant paradises ! He made subjects of vengeance objects 
of mercy ; he told the woman of Samaria, who lived in fornication, that he 
was the Messiah ; ' The woman saith to him, I know that Messiah cometh, 
which is called Christ : Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he,' 
John iv. 25, which he never discovered to the self-righteous pharisees, nor 
indeed in so many words to his disciples, till Peter's confession of him. 

5. The commission Christ gave to his apostles was to this purpose. He 
bids them proclaim the promise free to all ; ' Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature,' Mark xvi. 15. All the world; every 
creature. He put no difference between men in this respect, though you 
meet with them in the likeness of beasts and devils, never so wicked, never 
so abominable. As long as they are creatures, reach out the cup of salva- 
tion to them, if they will drink ; open the treasures of grace to them, if they 
will receive them; indent with them for nothing but faith for justification, 
and profession of it for their salvation. 

This commission is set out by the parable of a king commanding his 
servants to fetch the maimed, halt, and blind, with their wounds, sores, and 
infirmities about them : Luke xiv. 21, 23, ' Bring in hither the poor, and 
the maimed, and the halt, and the bhnd.' Yea, and go out into the high- 
ways and hedges, and those loathsome persons, those dregs of mankind, 
which you shall find swarming with vermin, and cleaning themselves under 
every hedge, bring them in.| If they pretend their rags and nastiness, as un- 
suitable to my rank and quality, compel them, force them against their own 
natural inclinations and doubts, that my house may be filled. God will have 
heaven filled with such, when self-righteous persons refuse him. When you 
come to heaven, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you will find 
some, and a great many, that were once as filthy morally, as these hedge- 
birds were naturally, who had once as many lusts creeping about them as 
there were frogs in Egypt. Such a compulsion as this spoken of there was 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 531 

in the primitive times by the power of the Spirit of grace.* Two stage- 
players, that in their acting scoffed at the Christian religion, were converted, 
and proved martyrs ; one under Diocletian, the other under Julian. 

6. The practice of the Spirit after Christ's ascension to lay hold of such 
persons. 

(1.) Some out of the worst families in the world ; one out of Herod's : Acts 
xiii. 1, ' Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets 
and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius 
of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, 
and Saul.' Either Herod Antipas, who derided Christ before Pilate, or 
Herod Agrippa, who put James to death. Which of these Herods it was, it 
was not likely that in such a family he should suck in any principles advan- 
tageous to the Christian religion ; for, being brought up with him, he was 
either his playfellow when young, or his confidant when grown up ; yet out 
of the family of this wicked prince he calls out one, to make not only an 
object of his mercy, but an instrument of it to others, contrary to the force 
of education, which usually roots bad principles deep in the heart. It is 
likely to this intent the Holy Ghost takes particular notice of the place of 
Manaen's education, when the families where the rest named with him were 
bred up are not mentioned. Some rude and rough stones were taken out 
of Nero's palace, some that were servants to the most abominable tyrant, 
and the greatest monster of mankind ; one that set Rome on fire, and played 
on his harp while the flames were crackling about the city ; ripped up his 
mother's belly, to see the place where he lay. Would any of the civiller 
sort of mankind be attendants upon such a devil ? Yet some of this monster's 
servants became saints: Philip, iv. 22, 'All the saints salute you, chiefly they 
that are of Caesar's household.' To hear of saints in Nero's family is as 
great a prodigy as to hear of saints in hell. God before had promised his 
grace to Egypt, the most idolatrous country ; there God would have an altar 
erected : ' In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the lan- 
guage of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts ; in that day shall there 
be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,' Isa. xix. 18-20. 
And indeed the gospel was famous in Egypt, both at the Christian school at 
Alexandria, and for many famous lights. 

(2.) Some of the worst vices. The Ephesians were as bad as any, such 
that Paul calls darkness itself; ' For ye were sometimes darkness,' Eph. v. 
8. There was not only an eclipse, or a dark mask upon them, but they 
were changed into the very nature of night. Great idolaters. The temple 
of Diana, adored and resorted to by all Asia, and the whole world, was in 
that city : Acts xix. 27, ' That .the temple of the great goddess Diana should 
be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and 
the world worshippeth.' And they cry up this statue they pretended fell 
down from Jupiter above Christ, who was preached by Paul. They were 
given to magic and other diabolical arts ;t yet many of these were weaned 
from their idol and their magic, and of darkness were made light in the 
Lord ; which is more than if you saw a black piece of pitch changed into a 
clear piece of crystal, or a stone ascend into the nature of a glittering star. 

Take a view of another corporation, at Corinth, of as filthy persons as ever 
you heard of, ' such were some of you,' 1 Cor. vi. 11. After he had drawn 
out a catalogue of their sins against the light of nature, and made the enu- 
meration 80 perfect, that very little can be added, he adds, ' such were some 
of you.' Not all, but some. ' But you are washed,' &c. Not roiovroi, such 
sinners ; but Taura, such sins. Persons not only committing some few acts 
* Grot, in Luke xiv. 23. f Plin. lib. v. cap. xxxvi. 



532 chaenock's woeks. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

of them, but so habituated in them, that they seemed metamorphosed into 
the very nature of these sins themselves, so that they were become the very 
dirt, mud, and rubbish of hell. Yet you see devils he really turned into 
angels of light. Well, then, how many flinty rocks has God dissolved into 
a stream of tears ! How many hard hearts has he made to bleed and melt ! 
That which is now pure gold has been earthy and polluted. 

I shall only add this to the whole. Great sins are made preparations 
by God to some men's conversion ; not in their own nature (that is impos- 
sible), but by the wise disposal of God, which Mr Burges illustrates thus: as 
a child whose coat is but a Httle dirty has it not presently washed ; but 
when he comes to fall over head and ears in the mire, it is taken off, and 
washed immediately. The child might have gone many a day with a little 
dirt, had not such an accident happened. Peter might have had his proud 
and vainglorious humour still, had he not fallen so foully in the denial of 
his Master ; but when he fell into the jakes and puddle, it promotes his con- 
version ; for so Christ calls it : ' And when thou art converted, strengthen 
thy brethren,' Luke xxii. 32 ; it was conversion in a new edition ; and you 
do not find him in the same boasting vanity again. 

David's falling into the sin of murder and adultery, is the occasion of the 
ransacking his soul, which you find him not so hot about another time. He 
digs all about to the very root : ' Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in 
sin did my mother conceive me,' Ps. li. 5. This sin had stirred and raked 
up all the mud in his heart, and made him see himself an abominable crea- 
ture ; therefore he desires God to hide his face from his sins, ver, . 9. He 
was so loathsome, he would not have any one look upon him (fling all this 
mud out of my soul) ; and prays more earnestly for a new heart and a right 
spirit. So when a wicked man falls into some grievous sin, which his con- 
science frowns upon him and lashes him for, he looks out for a shelter, which 
in all his peaceable wickedness he never did. 

II. Why God chooses the greatest sinners, and lets his elect run on so far 
in sin before he turns them. 

1. There is a passive disposition in the greatest sinners, more than in moral 
or superstitious men, to see their need ; because they have not any self- 
righteousness to boast of. Man's blameless outward carriage, and freedom 
from the common sins of the times and places wherein they live, many times 
proves a snare of death to them, and makes them more cold and faint towards 
Christ ; because they possess themselves with imaginations, that Christ can- 
not but look upon them, though they never so much as set their faces toward 
him. And because they are not drenched in such villanies as others are, 
their consciences sit quiet under this moral carriage, and gall them not by 
any self-reflections ; therefore when the threatenings of the law are denounced 
against such and such sin«, these men wipe their mouths, being untainted 
from those sins that are thus cursed, and vainly glory in their gay and gaudy 
plumes, and bless God, with thepharisee, that they are not sinners of such a 
scarlet dye, and that they do such and such duties ; and so go on without 
seeing a necessity of th« new birth ; and by this means the strength of sin 
is more compacted and condensed in them. 

Superstitious and formal men are hardly reduced to their right wits, partly 
because of a defect in the reason from whence those extravagances arise, and 
partly because those false habits and spirit of error possessing their faculties, 
they are incapable of more generous impressions. Besides, they are more 
tenacious of the opinions they have sucked in, which have got the empire 
and command over their souls ; such misguided zeal fortifies men against 
proposals of grace, and fastens them in a more obstinate inflexibleness to any 



1 Tim, I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 533 

converting motions. This self-righteous temper is Uke an external heat got 
into the body, which produceth an hectic fever, and is not easily perceived 
till it be incurable ; and naturally it is a harder matter to part with self- 
righteousness than to part with gross sins, for that is more deeply rooted upon 
the stock of self-love, a principle which departs not from us without our very 
nature ; it hath more arguments to plead for it, it hath a natural conscience, 
a patron of it ; whereas a great sinner stands speechless at reproofs, and a 
faithful monitor ha^ a good second and correspondent of natural conscience 
within a man's own breast. It was not the gross sins of the Jews against 
the light of nature, so much as the establishing the idol of their own right- 
eousness, that was the block to hinder them from submitting to the right- 
eousness of God, Kom. x. 8. 

Christ 'came to his own, and his own received him not,' John i. 11. 
Those that seem to have his peculiar stamp and mark upon them, that had 
their heads in heaven by some kind of resemblance to God in moral right- 
eousness, being undefiled with the common pollutions of the world, these 
received him not, when pubHcans and harlots got the start of them, and ran 
before them, to catch hold of the tenders of grace : ' Publicans and harlots 
go into the kingdom of heaven before you,' Mat. xxi. 31. Just as travellers 
that have loitered away their time in an alehouse, being sensible how the dark- 
ness of the night creeps upon them, spur on, and outstrip those that were 
many miles on their way, and get to their stage before them ; so these pub- 
licans and harlots, which were at a great distance from heaven, arrived there 
before those who, like the young man, were not far off from it. 

Great sinners are most easily convinced of the notorious wickedness of 
their lives ; and reflecting upon themselves because of their horrid crimes 
against the light of nature, are more inclinable to endeavour an escape from 
the devil's slavery, and are frighted and shaken by their consciences into 
a compliance with the doctrine of redemption ; whereas those that do by 
nature the things contained in the law, are so much a law to themselves, 
that it is difficult to persuade them of the necessity of conforming to another 
law, and to part with this self-law in matter of justification. As metals of 
the noblest substance are hardest to be polished, so men of the most gene- 
rous, natural, and moral endowments are with more difficulty argued into a 
state of Christianity than those of more drossy conversations. Cassianus 
speaks very peremptorily in this case : Frequenter vidimus defrigidis et car- 
nalibus ad spiritualem venisse fervorem ; de lepidis et animalibus nunquam. 

2. To shew the insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, that 
men may not fall down and idolise their own wit and power. A change from 
acts of sin to moral duties may be done by a natural strength and the pre- 
valency of natural conscience ; for the very same motives which led to sin, 
as education, interest, profit, may, upon a change of circumstances, guide 
men to an outward morality ; but a change to the contrary grace is super- 
natural. 

Two things are certain in nature : (1.) Natural inclinations never change, 
but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron while 
that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor 
the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature ; water can- 
not but moisten, fire cannot but bum ; so likewise the corrupt nature of man, 
being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never 
sufi"er him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being 
more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over 
him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents ; and being 
stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man's own power, 



534 chaknock's woeks. [1 Tim. I, 15. 

or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary 
channel. 

(2.) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the 
world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature hath 
placed it in. A spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up 
to heaven ; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with 
reason, nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, 
nor thistles produce figs, because such fruits are above*the nature of those 
plants ; so neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit 
above it. Effectus non excedit virtutem sucb causes, grace is more excellent 
than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ's conclu- 
sion, * How can you, being evil, speak good things ?' Mat. xii. 33, 34. Not 
so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. 
They can no more change their natures than a viper can cashier his poison. 
Now, though this I have said he true, yet there is nothing man does more 
affect in the world than a self-sufficiency and an independency upon any 
other power but his own. This temper is as much riveted in his nature as 
any other false principle whatsoever ; for man does derive it from his first 
parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature. For it was the first 
thing discovered in man at his fall : he would be as God, independent upon 
him. Now God, to cross this principle, suffers his elect, like Lazarus, to 
lie in the grave till they stink, that there may be no excuse to ascribe their 
resurrection to their own power. If a putrefied rotten carcase should be 
brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that 
active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman 
themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world that we are unable to do 
anything of ourselves at first towards our recovery without a superior prin- 
ciple. The evidence of which will appear if we consider, 

1. Man's subjection under sin. He is ' sold under sin,' Rom. vii. 14, 
and brought into captivity to ' the law of sin,' ver. 23; law of sin, that sin 
seems to have a legal authority over him ; and man is not only a slave to 
one sin, but divers : Titus i. 3, ' serving divers lusts.' Now, when a man is 
sold under the power of a thousand lusts, every one of which hath an abso- 
lute tyranny over him, and rules him as a sovereign by a law ; when a man 
is thus bound by a thousand laws, a thousand cords and fetters, and carried 
whither his lords please, against the dictates of his own conscience, and force 
of natural light ; can any man imagine that his own power can rescue him 
from the strength of these masters that claim such a right to him, and keep 
such a force upon him, and have so often baffled his own strength, when he 
offered to turn head against them ? 

2. Man's affection to them. He doth not only serve them, but he serves 
them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure, Titus iii. 3. They 
were all pleasures as well as lusts, friends as well as lords. Will any man 
leave his voluptuousness, and such sins that please and flatter his flesh ? 
"Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves 
with affection ? having as much deHght in being bound a slave to these lusts 
as the devil hath in binding him. Therefore, when you see a man cast away 
his pleasures, deprive himself of those contentments to which his soul was 
once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for 
the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty muddy 
clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel ; no plain piece of tim- 
ber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one ; nor a man that 
is born blind give himself eyes. 

God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 535 

give Isaac, wbile Sarah's womb, in a natural probability, might have borne 
him ; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural 
strength of conception, then God gives him, that it might appear that he was 
not a child of nature, but a child of promise. I have been the larger on these 
two heads (which I design rather as things premised, than reasons) because 
these two principles of commoa honesty and self-sulficiency are the great im- 
pediments to conversion, and natural to most men. 



PAKT II. 

God's regard for his own glory. 

1. The glory of his patience. We wonder, when we see a notorious sin- 
ner, how God can let his thunders still lie by him, and his sword rust in his 
sheath. And, indeed, when such are converted, they wonder themselves that 
God did not draw his sword out, and pierce their bowels, or shoot one of his 
arrows into their hearts all this while. But God, by such a forbearance, 
shews himself to be God indeed, and something in this act infinitely above 
such a weak creature as man is : ' I will not execute the fierceness of mine 
anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim ; for I am God, and not man,' 
Hosea xi. 9. When God had reckoned up their sins before, and they might have 
expected the sentence after the reading the charge, God tells them, he would 
not destroy them, he would not execute them, because he was God. If he 
were not a God, he could not keep himself from pouring out a just vengeance 
upon them. If a man did inherit all the meekness of all the angels and all 
the men that ever were in the world, he could not be able to bear with patience 
the extravagances and injuries done in the world the space of one day ; for 
none but a God, i. e. one infinitely longsufi'ering, can bear with them. 

Not a sin passed in the world before the coming of Christ in the flesh, but 
was a commendatory letter of God's forbearance, ' To declare his righteous- 
ness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God,' 
Rom. iii. 25. And not a sin passed before the coming of Christ into the 
soul, but gives the same testimony, and bears the same record. And the 
greater number of sins, and great sins are passed, the more trophies there are 
erected to God's longsuffering ; the reason why the grace of the gospel 
appeared so late in the world, was to testify God's patience. Our apostle 
takes notice of this long-suffering towards himself in bearing with such a per- 
secutor ; ' Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus 
Christ might shew forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should 
hereafter believe on him,' 1 Tim. i. 16. This was Christ's end in letting 
him run so far, that he might shew forth not a few mites, grains, or 
ounces of patience, but all longsuffering, longsuffering without measure, or 
weight, by wholesale ; and this as a pattern to all ages of the world ; b'^orb- 
iruotv, for a type : a type is but a shadow in respect of the substance. To 
shew, that all the ages of the world should not waste that patience, whereof 
he had then manifested but a pattern. A pattern, we know, is less than the 
whole piece of cloth from whence it is cut ; and as an essay is but a short 
taste of a man's skill, and doth not discover all his art, as the first miracle 
Christ wrought, of turning water into wine, as a sample of what power he 
had, was less than those miracles which succeeded; and the first miracle 
God wrought in Egypt, in turning Aaron's rod into a serpent, was but a 
sample of his power which would produce greater wonders ; so this patience 



536 charnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

to Paul was but a little essay of his meekness, a little patience cut off from 
the whole piece, which should always be dealing out to some sinners or 
other, and would never be cut wholly out till the world had left being. This 
sample or pattern was but of the extent of a few years ; for Paul was but young, 
the Scripture terms him a young man, Acts vii. 58, about thirty-six years of 
age,* yet he calls it all longsuffering. Ah, Paul ! some since have expe- 
rienced more of this patience ; in some it has reached not only to thirty, but 
forty, fifty, or sixty years. 

2. Grace. It is partly for the admiration of this grace that God intends 
the day of judgment. It is a strange place: * When he shall come to be 
glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day,' 
2 Thes. i. 10. What, has not Christ glory enough in heaven with his 
Father ? Will he come on purpose to seek glory from such worthless crea- 
tures as his saints are ? What is that which glorifies Christ in them ? It is 
the gracious work he has wrought in them. For the word is, s^ho^ae&n^ai sv 
ayioig, to be inglorified in his saints, i. e. by something within them ; for 
which they glorify Christ active and objective. As the creatures glorify the 
wisdom and power of God, by affording matter to men to do so, so does the 
work of God in saints afford matter of praise to angels, and admiration to 
devils. The apostle useth two words : cilorified, that is, the work of angels 
and saints, who shall sing out his praises for it, as a prince, after a great 
conquest, receives the congratulations of all his nobility; admired, that 
the very devil and damned shall do ; for, though their malice and condition 
will not suffer them to praise him, yet his inexpressible love in making such 
black insides so beautiful, shall astonish them. 

In this sense those things under the earth shall bow down to that name of 
Jesus, a Saviour ; a name which God gave him at first : ' Wherefore God 
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every 
name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,' Philip, ii. 9, 1 
And upon his exaltation did confirm, Heb. v. 9, when he was made perfect, 
i. e. exalted, he became the author of eternal salvation, and had the power of 
saving, as well as the name conferred upon him. They shall confess that he 
is Lord, Philip, ii. 11, *'. e. that he acted like a Lord, when he prevailed 
over all the opposition which those great sinners made against him. The 
whole trial of the saints, and the sentence of their blessedness, shall be 
finished before that of the damned. Mat. xxv, 35, 44. That the whole scene 
of his love, and the wonders of the work of faith being laid open, might strike 
them with a vast amazement. And that this is the design of Christ, to be 
thus glorified in his grace and power, appears by the apostle's prayer, ver. 
11, 12, that the Thessalonians might be in the number of those Christ should 
be thus glorified in. Therefore he prays, that God would ' fulfil all the good 
pleasure of his goodness,' i. e. that grace he so pleased and delighted to ma- 
nifest, and carry on the work of faith with power ; ' that the name of Christ 
might be glorified in them,' as well as in the rest of his saints. Ordinary 
conversion is an act of grace ; Barnabas so interprets it. Acts xi. 21, 23, 
when a great number believed ; what abundance of grace then is expended in 
converting a company of extraordinary sinners \ 

It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence, Prov. xix. 11, i. e. it is a 
manifestation of a property which is an honour to him to be known to have. 
If it be thus an honour to pass by an offence simply, then the greater the 
offence is, and the more the offences are which he passeth by, the greater 
must the glory needs be, because it is a manifestation of such a quality in 
greater strength and vigour. So it must argue a more exceeding grace in 
* Sanctius in locum. 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinneks objects of choicest mercy. 537 

God to remit many and great sins in man, than to forgive only some few and 
lesser offences. 

(1.) Fulness of his grace. He shews hereby that there is more grace in 
him than there can be sin in us or the whole world. He lets some sinners 
run mightily upon his score, to manifest that though they are beggared, yet 
his grace is not ; that though they have spent all their stock upon their 
swinish lusts, yet they have not drained his treasures ; no more than the 
sun is emptied of its strength by exhaling the ill vapours of so many dung- 
hills. This was his design in giving the moral law, Jinis opens ; that is, the 
event of the law was to increase the sin; hut Ji7iis operantis, was thereby to 
glorify his grace ; ' Moreover, the law entered, that the oifence might abound; 
but where sin abounded, gi-ace did much more abound,' Rom. v. 20. When 
the law of nature was out of print, and so blurred that it could scarce be 
read, God brings the moral law (the counterpart of the law of nature) in a 
new edition into the world ; and thereby sin hath new aggravations, as being 
rebellion against a clearer light, a swelling and breaking over this mighty 
bank of the law laid in its way. But this was serviceable to the fulness of 
his gi'ace, which had more abundant matter hereby to work upon, and a 
larger field to sow its inexhaustible seed in, {/cTs^jTrsff/cffsuiysv, it did super- 
abound. That grace should rise in its tide higher than sin, and bear it 
down before it, just as the rolling tide of the sea riseth higher than the 
streams of the river, and beats them back with all their mud and filth. It 
was mercy in God to create us ; it is abundant mercy to make any new crea- 
tures, after they had forfeited their happiness, 1 Pet. i. 3, which, according 
to his abundant mercy, xara rh <rroXv, according to his much mercy. But it 
was vm^-zXiovdt^ouffa ya-ii'ii overflowing, exceeding abundant, more than full 
grace, to make such deformed creatures new creatures, ver. 14 of this 
chapter. 

(2.) Freeness of grace. None can entertain an imagination that Christ 
should be a debtor to sin, unless in vengeance, much less a debtor to the 
worst of sinners. But if Christ should only take persons of moral and natural 
excellencies, men might suspect that Christ were some way or other engaged 
to them, and that the gift of salvation were limited to the endowments of 
nature, and the good exercise and use of a man's own will. But when he 
puts no difference between persons of the least and those of the greatest 
demerit, but affecting the foulest monsters of sin, as well as the fairest of 
nature's children, he builds triumphal arches to his grace upon this rubbish, 
and makes men and angels admiringly gaze upon these infinitely free com- 
passions, when he takes souls full of disease and misery into his arms. For 
it is manifest hereby that the God and Lord of nature is no more bound to 
his servant (as touching the gift of salvation), when she carries it the most 
smoothly with him, than when she rebels against him with the highest hand ; 
and that Christ is at perfect liberty from any conditions but that of his 
own, viz. faith ; and that he can and will embrace the dirt and mud, as 
well as the beauty and varnish of nature, if they believe with the like pre- 
cious faith. 

Therefore it is frequently God's method in Scripture, just before the offer 
of pardon, to sum up the sinner's debts, with their aggravations ; to con- 
vince them of their insolvency to satisfy so large a score, and also to manifest 
the freeness and vastness of his grace : ' But thou hast not called upon me, 
Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, Israel ; thou hast not brought 
me the small cattle of thy burnt-offering, &c., but thou hast made me to 
serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied mo with thine iniquities,' Isa. xliii. 
22-24. When he had told them how dirtily they had dealt with him, and 



638 chabnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

would have made him a very slave to their corrupt humours ; at the conclu- 
sion, when the3% nor no creature else, but would have expected fire-balls of 
wrath to be flung in their faces ; and that God should have dipped his pen 
in gall, and have writ their mittimus to hell, he dips it in honey, and crosses 
the debt ; * I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine 
own sake, and will not remember thy sins,' ver, 25. Could there be any- 
thing of merit here, when the criminal, instead of favour, could expect no- 
thing but severity, there being nothing but demerit in him ? 

It is so free, that the mercy we abuse, the name we have profaned, the 
name of which we have deserved wrath, opens its mouth with pleas for us ; 
* But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned 
among the heathen whither they went,' Ezek. xxxvi. 21. Not for their sakes. 
It should be wholly free ; for he repeats their profaning of his name four 
times. This name he would sanctify, i. e. glorify. How ? In cleansing 
them from their filthiness, ver. 25. His name, while it pleads for them, 
mentions their demerits, that grace might appear to be grace indeed, and 
triumph in its ovyfn freeness. Our sins against him cannot deserve more than 
our suflferings for him, and even they are not worthy of the glory which shall 
be revealed, Kom. viii. 18. 

(3.) Extent of his grace. The mercy of God is called his riches, and ex- 
ceeding riches of grace. Now as there is no end of his holiness, which is 
his honour, neither any limits set to his power, so there is no end of his 
grace, which is his wealth ; no end of his mines ; therefore the foulest and 
greatest sinners are the fittest for Christ to manifest the abundant riches of 
his graces upon ; for it must needs argue a more vast estate to remit great 
debts, and many thousands of talents, than to forgive some fewer shillings 
or pence, than to pardon some smaller sins in men of a more unstained con- 
versation. If it were not for turning and pardoning mountainous sinners, 
we should not know so much of God's estate ; we should not know how rich 
he were, or what he were worth. He pardons iniquities for his name's sake ; 
and who can spell all the letters of his name, and turn over all the leaves 
in the book of mercy ? Who shall say to his grace, as he does to the sea. 
Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further ? 

As the heavens are of a vast extension, which, like a great circle, encom- 
pass the earth, which lies in the middle like a little atom, in comparison of 
that vast body of air and ether, so are our sins to the extent of God's 
mercy ; ' For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways 
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,' Isa. Iv. 9. 
Men's sins are innumerable, yet they are but ciphers to the vast sums of 
grace which are every day expended ; because they are finite, but mercy is 
infinite ; so that all sins in the world put together cannot be of so large an 
extent as mercy ; because being every one of them finite, if all laid together, 
cannot amount to infinite. 

The gospel is entitled ' good-will to men ;' to all sorts of men, with ini- 
quities, transgressions, and sins of all sorts and sizes. God hath stores of 
mercy lying by him. His exchequer is never empty ; * Keeps mercy for 
thousands,' Exod. xxxiv. 7, in a readiness to deal it upon thousand millions 
of sins as well as millions of persons. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
that were before, have not wasted it ; and if God were to proclaim his name 
again, it is the same still, for his name as well as his essence is unchange- 
able. His grace is no more tied to one sin than it is to one person ; he has 
mercy on whom he will, and his grace can pardon what sins he will ; there- 
fore he tells them, Isa. Iv. 7, that he would multiply pardons. He will 
have mercy to suit every sin of thine, and a salve for every sore. Though 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest jjercy. 539 

thy sin has its heights and depths, yet he will heap mercy upon mercy, till 
he makes it to overtop thy sin. He -will be as good at his merciful arith- 
metic as thou hast been at thy sinful, if thou dost sincerely repent and re- 
form. Though thou multiply thy sins by thousands, where repentance goes 
before, remission of sin follows without limitation. When Christ gives the 
one, he is sure to second it with the other. Though aggravating circum- 
stances be never so many, yet he will multiply his mercies as fast as thou 
canst the sins thou hast committed. 

He h^th a cleansing virtue and a pardoning grace for all iniquities and 
transgressions ; ' And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby 
they have sinned against me : and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby 
they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me,' Jer. 
xxxiii. 8. It is three times repeated, to shew that his mercy should be as 
large as their sin, though there was not a more sinful nation upon the earth 
than they were. His justifying and sanctifying grace should have as vast an 
extension, for he would both pardon and cleanse them. Why ? Ver. 9, 
that it might be a name of joy and praise, and an honour to him before all 
the nations of the earth. 

It is so great, that self-righteous persons murmur at it, that such swines 
should be preferred before them ; as the eldest son was arigry that his father 
should lavish out his kindness upon the prodigal more than upon himself, 
Luke XV. 28. 

(4.) Compassion of his grace. The formal nature of mercy is tenderness, 
and the natural effect of it is relief. The more miserable the object, the 
more compassionate human mercy is, and the more forward to assist. Now 
that mercy which in man is a quality, in God is a nature. How would the 
infinite tenderness of his nature be discovered, if there were no objects to 
draw it forth ? It would not be known to be mercy, unless it were shed 
abroad ; nor to be tender mercy, unless it relieved great and oppressing 
miseries ; for mercy is a quality in man that cannot keep at home, and be 
stowed under a lock and key in a man's own breast ; much less in God, in 
whom it is a nature. Now the greater the disease, the greater is that com- 
passion discovered to be wherewith God is so fully stored. 

As his end in letting the devil pour out so many afflictions upon Job 
was to shew his pity and tender mercy in reheving him ; ' You have heard 
of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord 
is very pitiful, and of tender mercy, James' v. 11 ; so, in permitting the devil 
to draw his elect to so many sins, it is the same end he drives at. And he 
is more pitiful to help men under sin than under affliction, because the guilt 
of one sin is a greater misery than the burden of a thousand crosses. If 
forgiveness be a part of tenderness in man, it is also so in God, who is set, 
Eph. iv. 32, as a pattern of the compassion we are to shew to others ; ' And 
be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as 
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.' The lower a man is brought, the 
more tender is that mercy that relieves him : ' Let thy tender mercies speedily 
prevent us ; for we are brought very low,' Ps. Ixxix, 8. To visit them that 
sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to pardon their sins, is called 
mercy, with this epithet of tender; ' Through the tender mercy of our God, 
whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us,' Luke i. 77-79. And 
so it is indeed when he visits the most forlorn sinners. 

(5.) Sincerity and pleasure of his grace. Ordinary pardon proceeds from 
his dehght in mercy ; ' Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth ini- 
quity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He 
retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy,' Micah vii. 



540 charnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

18. Therefore the more of his grace he lays out upon any one, the more 
excess of delight he hath in it, because it is a larger effect of that grace. 
If he were not sincere in it, he would never mention men's sins, which 
would scare them from him rather than allure them to him. If he were 
not sincere, he would never change the heart of an enemy, and shew kind- 
ness to him in the very act of enmity ; for the first act of grace upon us 
is quite against our wills. And man is so far from being active in it, 
that he is contrary to it. hi primo actionis, it is thus with a man, though 
not in primo actu; for in the first act of conversion man is wilHng, though 
not in the first moment of that act. But for God to bestow his grace 
upon us against our wills, and when he can expect no suitable recom- 
pence from us, evidences the purity of his affection ; that when he en- 
dured so many contradictions of sinners against himself day by day, yet 
he is resolved to have them, and does seize upon them, though they struggle 
and fly in his face, and provoke him to fling them off. 

It is so much his delight, that it is called by the very name of his glory : 
' The glory of the Lord shall follow thee,' Isa. Iviii. 8 ; i.e. the mercy of the 
Lord shall follow them at the very heels. And when they call, it should 
answer them ; and when they cry, he would, like a watchful guardian ser- 
vant, cry out. Here I am. So that he never lets a great sinner, when changed 
into a penitent, wait long for mercy, though he sometimes lets them wait long 
for a sense of it. This mercy is never so delightful to him as when it is most 
glorious, and it is most glorious when it takes hold of the worst sinners. 
For such black spots which mercy wears upon its face, makes it appear more 
beautiful. 

Christ does not care for staying where he has not opportunities to do great 
cures, suitable to the vastness of his power, Mark vi. 5. When he was in 
his own country, he could do no great work there, but only laid his hands 
upon a few sick people. He had not a suitable employment for that glorious 
power of working miracles. So when men come to Christ with lighter guilt, 
he has but an under opportunity given him, and with a kind of disadvantage, 
to manifest the greatness of his charity. Though he has so much grace and 
mercy, yet he cannot shew more than the nature and exigence of the oppor- 
tunity will bear ; and so his pleasure doth not swell so high as otherwise it 
would do, for little sins, and few sins, are not so fit an object for a grace that 
would ride in triumph. Free grace is God's darling, which he loves to ad- 
vance ; and it is never more advanced, than when it beautifies the most mis- 
shapen souls. 

3. Power. The Scripture makes conversion a most wonderful work, and 
resembles it to creation, and the resurection of Christ from the dead, &c. 

(1.) Creation. Conversion, simply considered, is concluded by divines to 
be a greater work than creation ; for God puts forth more power morally in 
conversion than he did physically in creation. The world was created by a 
word ; but many words, and many acts, concur to conversion. The heavens 
are called the works of God's fingers, Ps. viii. 3 ; but the gospel, in the effects 
of it, is called the arm of the Lord, Isa. liii. 1. Men put not their arm to 
a thing but when the work requires more strength than the fingers possess. 
It is ' the power of God to salvation ;' and the faith it works is begun and 
fulfilled with power, 2 Thes. i. 11. God created the world of nothing; 
nothing could not objectively contribute to his design, as matter does to a 
workman's intent ; yet neither doth it oppose him, because it is nothing. 
As soon as God spake the word, this nothing brings forth sun, moon, stars, 
earth, trees, flowers, all the garnish of nature out of its barren womb. But 
sin is actively disobedient, disputes his commands, slights his power, fortifies 



Tim. I. 15.] chief sinneks objects of choicest mercy. 541 

itself against his entrance upon the heart, gives not up an inch of ground 
without a contest. There is not only a passive indisposition, but an active 
opposition. His creating power drew the world out of nothing, but his con- 
verting power frames the new creature out of something worse than nothing. 

Naturally there is nothing but darkness and confusion in the soul. We 
have not the least spark of divine light, no more than the chaos had, when 
God, who commanded light to shine out of that darkness, 2 Cor. iv. 6, shined 
in our hearts. To bring a principle of light into the heart, and to set it up in 
spite of all the opposition that the devil and a man's own corruption makes, 
is greater than creation. As the power of the sun is more seen in scattering 
the thickest mists that triumph over the earth, and mask the face of the 
heavens, than in melting the small clouds compacted of a few vapours, so it 
must needs a;rgue a greater strength to root out those great sins that were 
twisted and inlaid with our very nature, and become as dear to us as our 
right eye and right hand, than a few sins that have taken no deep root. 
Every man naturally is possessed with a hatred of God, and doth oppose 
everything which would restore God to his right ; and being, since the fall, 
filled with a desire of independency, which is daily strengthened with new 
recruits, and loath to surrender himself to the power and direction of another, 
it is a more difficult thing to tame this unruly disposition in man's heart, I 
say more difficult, than to annihilate him, and new create him again ; as it 
is more easy oftentimes for an artificer to make a new piece of work, than to 
repair and patch up an old one that is out of frame. 

(2.) Resurrection. Conversion simply is so called : ' Quickened us when 
we were dead,' Eph. ii. 5. And the power that efiects it is the same power 
that raised Christ from the dead ; which was a mighty power, that could 
remove the stone from the grave, when Christ lay with all the sins of the 
world upon him, Eph. i. 19, 20 ; so the greater the stone is upon them, the 
gi'eater is God's power to remove it. For if it be the power of God simply 
to regenerate nature, and put a new law into the heart, and to qualify the 
will with a new bias to comply with this law, and to make them that could 
not endure any thoughts of grace not to endure any thoughts of sin, it is 
a greater power sure to raise a man from that death wherein he has lain thirty 
or forty years rotten and putrefied in the grave ; for if conversion in its own 
nature be creation and resurrection, this must needs be creation and resur- 
rection with an emphasis. 

The more malignant any distemper is, and the more fixed in the vital parts, 
and complicated with other diseases, the greater is the power in curing it ; 
for a disease is more easily checked at the fiirst invasion, than when it has 
infected the whole mass of blood, and become chronical ; so it is more to pull 
up a sin, or many sins, that have spread their roots deep, and stood against 
the shock of many blustering winds of threatenings, than that which is but a 
twig, and newly planted. 

(3.) Traction or drawing. Drawing implies a strength. If conversion be a 
traction, then more strength is required to draw one that is bound to a post 
by great cables, than one that is only tied by a few pack-threads ; one that 
has millions of weights upon him, than one that hath but a few pounds. 

(4.) It is the only miracle Christ hath left standing in the world, and declares 
him more to be Christ than anything. When John sent to know what he 
was, Luke vii. 20, he returns no other account but a list of his miracles ; and 
that which brings up the rear as the greatest is, the poor iuayyeXr/^ovrai, are 
evangelised. It is not to be taken actively, of the preaching of the gospel ; 
but passively, they were wrought upon by the gospel, and became an evan- 
gelised people, transformed into the mould of it ; for else it would bear no 



542 charnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

analogy to the other miracles. The deaf heard, and the dead were raised ; 
they had not only exhortations to hear, but the effects were wrought upon 
them. So these words import not only the preaching of the gospel to them, 
but the powerful operation of the gospel in them. It is not so great a work 
to raise many thousands killed in a battle, as to evangelise one dead soul. 
It is a miracle of power to transform a ravenous wolf into a gentle lamb, a 
furious lion into a meek dove, a nasty sink into a clear fountain, a stinking 
weed into a fragrant rose, a toad or viper into a man endued with rational 
faculties and moral endowments ; and so to transform a filthy swine into a 
king and priest unto God. In conquests of this nature does divine power 
appear glorious. It is some strength to polish a rough stone taken out of 
the quarry, and hew it into the statue of a great prince ; but more to make this 
statue a living man. Worse stones than these doth God make children, not 
only to Abraham, but to himself, even the Gentiles, who were accounted 
stones* by the Jews ; and are called stones in Scripture for the worshipping 
idols. 

What power must that be which can stop the tide of the sea, and make it 
suddenly recoil back ! What vast power must that be that can change a 
black cloud into a glorious sun ? This and more doth God do in conversion. 
He doth not only take smooth pieces of the softest matter, but the ruggedest 
timber full of knots, to plane and shew both his strength and art upon. 

4. Wisdom. The work of grace being a new creation, is not only an act 
of God's power, but of his wisdom, as the natural creation was. As he did 
in contriving the platform of grace, and bringing Christ upon the stage, so 
also in particular distributions of it, he acts according to counsel, and that 
infinite too, even the counsel of his own will, Eph. i. 11. The apostle 
having discoursed before, ver. 9, of God's making known the mystery of his 
will in and through Christ, and, ver. 11, of the dispensation of this grace, in 
bestowing an inheritance, ' being predestinated according to the purpose of 
him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will,' he doth 
not say God predestinated us according to the counsel of his own will, but 
refers "it to all he had said before, viz., of his making known the mystery of 
Christ, and their obtaining an inheritance. And ver. 8, speaking before of 
the pardon of sin in the blood of Christ, according to the riches of God's 
grace, wherein, saith he, ' he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom.' As 
there was abundance of grace set apart to be dealt out, so there was abun- 
dance of wisdom, even all God's wisdom, employed in the distribution of it. 
The restoring of God's image requires at least as much wisdom as the first 
creating of it. And the application of redemption, and bestowing of pardon- 
ing and converting grace, is as much an act of God's prudence as the con- 
trivance of it was of his counsel. 

Grace, or a gracious man in respect of his grace, is called God's work- 
manship, Eph. ii. 10, co/jj/xa, not e^yov ; work of his art as well as strength, 
and operation of his mind as well as his hand ; his poe^n, not barely a work 
of omnipotency, but an intellectual spark. A new creature is a curious piece 
of divine art, fashioned by God's wisdom to set forth the praise of the 
framer, as a poem is, by a man"s reason and fancy, to publish the wit and 
parts of the composer. It is a great skill of an artificer, with a mixture of a 
few sands and ashes, by his breath to blow up such a clear and diaphanous 
body as glass, and frame several vessels of it for several uses. It is not 
barely his breath that does it, for other men have breath as well as he ; but 
it is breath managed by art. And is it not a marvellous skill in God to 
make a miry soul so pure and chrystalline on a sudden, to endue an irra- 
* Grot. Mat. iii. 9. 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinnees objects of choicest mercy. 543 

tional creature with a divine nature, and by a powerful word to frame so 
beautiful a model as a new creature is ! 

The more intricate and knotty any business is, the more eminent is a 
man's ability in efi'ecting it. The more desperate the wound is, the more 
honourable is the chirurgeon's ability in the cure. Christ's healing a soul 
that is come to the last gasp, and given over by all for lost, shews more of 
art than setting right an ordinary sinner. Our apostle takes notice of the 
wisdom of God in his own conversion here ; for when he relates the history 
of it, he breaks out into an Hallelujah, and sends up a volley of praises to 
God for the grace he hath obtained. And in that doxology he puts an em- 
phasis on the wisdom of God : ' Now unto the King eternal, immortal, 
invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever,' ver. 17. 
Only wise God ; only, which he does not add to any other attribute he there 
gives him. 

This wisdom appears, (1.) In the subjects he chooseth. We will go no 
further than the example in our text. Our apostle seems to be a man full of 
heat and zeal. And the church had already felt the smart of his activity, 
insomuch that they were afraid to come at him after his change, or to admit 
him into their company, imagining that his fury was not changed, but dis- 
guised, and he of an open persecutor turned trepanner. Acts ix. 26. None 
can express better what a lion he was than he doth himself : ' Many of the 
saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief 
priests ; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. 
And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blas- 
pheme ; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even 
unto strange cities,' Acts xxvi. 10, 11. He seems also to have been a man 
of high and ambitious spirit. This persecuting probably was acted so 
vigorously by him to ingratiate himself with the chief priests, and as a means 
to step into preferment, for which he was endued with parts and learning, 
and would not want zeal and industry to attain it. He seems to be of a 
proud spirit, by the temptation which he had : ' Lest I should be exalted 
above measure,' 2 Cor. xii. 7. He speaks it twice in that verse, intimating that 
his natural disposition led him to be lifted up with any excellency he had ; 
and usually God doth direct his battery to beat down that which is the sin 
of our constitution. 

He was a man of a very honest mind, and was forward in following every 
point his conscience directed him to ; for what he did against Christ, he did 
according to the dictates of his conscience, as then informed : ' I verily 
thought with myself,' Acts xxvi. 9, i. e. in my conscience, ' that I ought,' 
not that I might, but that it was his duty. His error commanded with the 
same power that truth does where it reigns. Now it discovers the wisdom 
of God to lay hold of this man thus tempered, who had honesty to obey the 
dictates of a rightly-informed conscience, as well as those of an erroneous 
one ; zeal to execute them, and height of spirit to preserve his activity from 
being blunted by any opposition, and parts and prudence for the management 
of all these. I say, to turn these affections and excellencies to run in a 
heavenly channel, and to guide this natural passion and heat for the service 
and advancement of that interest which before he endeavoured to destroy, 
and for the propagation of that gospel which before he persecuted, is an eflfect 
of a wonderful wisdom ; as it is a rider's skill to order the mettle of a head- 
strong horse for his own use to carry him on his journey. 

(2.) This wisdom appears in the time. As man's wisdom consists as well 
in timing his actions as contriving the models of them, so doth God's. He 
lays hold of the fittest opportunities to bring his wonderful providences upon 



544 charnock's works. [1 Tim, I. 15. 

the stage. He hath his set time to deliver his church from her enemies, Ps. 
cii. 13 ; and he hath his set time also to deliver every particular soul, that 
he intends to make a member of his church from the devil. He waits the 
fittest season to manifest his grace : ' Therefore will the Lord wait, that he 
may be gracious unto you,' Isa. xxx. 18. Why ? ' For the Lord is a God 
of judgment,' i. e. a God of wisdom ; therefore will time things to the best 
advantage, both of his glory and the sinner's good. His timing of his grace 
was excellent in the conversion of Paul. 

[1.] In respect of himself. There could not be a fitter time to glorify his 
grace than when Paul was almost got to the length of his chain ; almost to 
the sin against the Holy Ghost. For if he had had but a little more hght, 
and done that out of malice which he did out of ignorance, he had been lost 
for ever. He obtained mercy. Why ? Because he did it ignorantly, ver. 13. 
As I said before, he followed the dictates of his conscience ; for if he had 
had knowledge suitable to his fury, it had been the unpardonable sin. Christ 
suff'ered him to run to the brink of hell before he laid hold upon him. 

[2.] In respect of others. He is converted at such a time when he went 
as full of madness as a toad of poison, to spit it out against the poor Christians 
at Damascus, armed with all the power and credential letters the high priest 
could give him, who without question promised himself much from his 
industry ; and when he was almost at his journey's end, ready to execute his 
commission, ' And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus,' Acts ix. 3, 
about half a mile from the city, as Gulielmus Tyrius thinks,* at this very 
time Christ grapples with him, and overcomes all his mad principles, secures 
Paul from hell, and his disciples from their fears of him. Behold the nature 
of this lion changed, just as he was going to fasten upon his prey. Christ 
might have converted Paul sooner, either when Paul had heard of some of 
his miracles, for perhaps Paul was resident at Jerusalem at the time of 
Christ's preaching in Judea, for he was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet 
of Gamaliel, Acts xxii. 3, who was one of the council. Acts v. 24. He might 
have converted him when he heard Stephen make that elegant and convincing 
oration in his own defence, Acts vii. ; or when he saw Stephen's constancy, 
patience, and charity in his suffering, which might somewhat have startled a 
moral man as Paul was, and made him look about him. 

But Christ omits the doing of it at all these opportunities, and suffers him 
to kick against the pricks of miracles, admonitions, and arguments of Stephen 
and others, yet hath his eye upon him all along in a special manner. Acts 
vii. 58. He is there named when none else are : ' And the witnesses laid 
their clothes at a young man's feet, named Saul.' And ' Saul was consenting 
to his death,' Acts viii. 1. Was there none else that had a hand in it ? The 
Spirit of God takes special notice of Saul here. He runs in God's mind, 
yet God would not stop his fury : ' As for Saul, he made havoc of the 
church,' Acts viii. 3. Did nobody else shew as much zeal and cruelty as 
Saul ? Sure he must have some instrument with him. Yet we hear none 
named but Saul : and * Saul yet breathing,' &c., Acts ix. 1 ; yet, as much as 
to say, he shall not do so long. I shall have a fit time to meet with him 
presently. 

And was it not a fit time, when the devil hoped to rout the Christians by 
him, when the high priests assured themselves success from this man's pas- 
sionate zeal, when the church travailed with throws of fear of him ? But 
Christ sent the devil sneaking away for the loss of such an active instrument, 
frustrates all the expectations of the high priests, and calms all the stormy 
fears of his disciples ; for Christ sets him first a preaching at Damascus in 
* TuuD. in loc. 



1 Tim. I. 15. J chief sinnees objects of choicest meecy. 545 

the very synagogues which were to assist him in his cruel design : ' And 
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God, 
and increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at 
Damascus, proving that this is very Christ,' Acts ix. 20-22. 

Did not Christ shew himself to he a God of judgment here ? He sat 
watching in heaven for this season to turn' Paul with the greatest advantage. 
His wisdom answers many ends at once, and killed so many birds with one 
stone. He struck dead at one blow Paul's sin, his people's fears, the high 
priests' expectations, and the devil's hopes. He triumphs over his enemies, 
secures his friends, saves Paul's soul, and promotes his interest by him ; 
he disappoints the devil of his expectations, and hell of her longing. 

(3.) This wisdom appears to keep up the credit of Christ's death. The 
great excellence of Christ's sacrifice, wherein it transcends the sacrifices under 
the law, is because it perfectly makes an atonement for all sins ; it first satis- 
fies God, and then calms the conscience, which they could not do, Heb. x. 
1, 2, for there was a conscience of sin after their sacrifices. The tenor of 
the covenant of grace which God makes with his people, is upon the account 
of this sacrifice, ' This is the covenant I will make with them. And their 
sins and iniquities will I remember no more,' Heb. x. 16, 17. * Now, where 
remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin,' ver. 18. This cove- 
nant extends not only to little sins, for there is no limitation ; great sins are 
included ; therefore Christ satisfied for great sins, or else, if ever they be 
pardoned, there must be another sacrifice, either of himself or some other, 
which the apostle, upon the account of this covenant, asserts there need not 
be, because this sacrifice was complete, otherwise there would be a remem- 
brance of sin ; as the covenant implied the completeness of Christ's satisfac- 
tion, so the continual fulfilling or application of the tenor of the covenant 
impUes the perpetual favour and force of this sacrifice. 

And, indeed, when God delivered him up, he intended it for the greatest 
sins : ' He was delivered for our offences,' Rom. iv. 25, 'Tta^azTc^iJ.ara, which 
signifies not stumbling, but falling. Not a light, but a great transgression. 
Now, if Christ's death be not satisfactory for great debts, Christ must be too 
weak to perform what God intended by him, and so infinite wisdom was 
frustrate of its intention, which cannot, nor ought not, to be imagined. Now, 
therefore, God takes the greatest sinners, to shew, 

[1 .] First, the value of this sacrifice. If God should only entertain men of 
a lighter guilt, Christ's death would be suspected to be too low a ransom for 
monstrous enormities ; and that his treasure was sufficient for the satisfac- 
tion of smaller debts, but a penury of merit to discharge talents ; which had 
not been a design suitable to the grandeur of Christ, or the infiniteness of 
that mercy God proclaims in his word. But now the conversion of giant- 
like sinners does credit to the atonement which Christ made, and is a great 
renewed approbation of the infinite value of it, and its equivalency to God's 
demands ; for it bears some analogy to the resurrection of Christ, which was 
God's general acquittance to Christ, to evidence the sufficiency of his pay- 
ment. And the justification of every sinner is a branch of that acquittance 
given to Christ at his resurrection ; ' Raised again for our justification,' 
Rom. iv. 25 ; and a particular acquittance to Christ for that particular soul 
he had the charge of from his Father. 

All that power that works in the first creation of grace, or the progress of 
regeneration, bears some proportion to the acquitting and approving power 
manifested in Christ's resurrection : ' And what is the exceeding greatness 
of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty 

VOL. V. Mm 



546 chaknock's works. [1 Tim, I. 15. 

power, which lie wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,' 
Eph. i, 19, 20. In ver. 17, 18, the apostle prays for the carrying on the 
work of grace and regeneration begun in them, that they might more clearly 
understand that power which wrought in Christ, viz., that approving power 
of what Christ has done, which he exerts daily in conversion, and in the 
effects of it. For by raising any soul from a death in sin, God doth evi- 
dence the particular value of Christ's blood for that soul, as he did, in raising 
Christ, evidence the general fulness of that satisfaction. And this he will 
do even to the end of the world ; ' raised us up together with Christ ;' 
' kindness through Christ Jesus,' Eph. ii. 6, 7. AH his grace in all ages, 
even to the end of the world, shall run through this channel, to put credit 
and honour upon Christ. Now the greater the sin is that is pardoned, 
and the greater the sinner is that is converted, the more it shews the 
sufficiency of the price Christ paid. 

[2.] The virtue of this sacrifice. He is a ' priest for ever,' Heb. vii. 17 ; 
and therefore the virtue as well as the value of his sacrifice remains for ever : 
he hath * obtained an eternal redemption,' Heb. ix. 12, i. e. a redemption of 
an eternal efficacy. As long as men receive any venom from the fiery ser- 
pent, they may be healed by the antitype of the brazen one, though it were 
so many years since he was lifted up. And those who were stung all over, 
as well as those who are bitten but in one part, may, by a believing looking 
upon him, draw virtue from him as difiusive as their sin. 

Now the new conversion of men of extraordinary guilt proclaims to the 
world, that the fountain of his blood is inexhaustible ; that the virtue of it is 
not spent and drained, though so much hath been drawn out of it for these 
five thousand years and upwards, for the cleansing of sins past before his 
coming, and sins since his death. This evidences that his priesthood now 
is of as much efficacy as his sufi'erings on earth were valuable ; and that his 
merit is as much in virtue above our iniquity, as his person is in excel- 
lency above our nothingness. He can wash the tawny American, as well as 
the moral heathen ; and make the black Ethiopian as white as the most vir- 
tuous philosopher. God fastens upon the worst of men sometimes, to adorn 
the cross of Christ ; and maketh them eminent testimonies of the power of 
Christ's death : ' He made his grave with the wicked,' Isa. Hii. 9. Heb. 
' He shall give the wicked (not grave), and the rich in his death.' God 
shall make man, wallowing in sinful pleasures, tied to the blandishments and 
profits of the world, to come to Christ, and comply with him, to be standing 
testimonies in all ages of the virtue of his sufferings. 

(4.) For the fruitfulness of this grace in the converts themselves. The most 
rugged souls prove most eminent in grace upon their conversion, as the most 
orient diamonds in India, which are naturally more rough, are most bright 
and sparkling when cut and smoothed. Men usually sprout up in stature 
after shattering agues. 



PART III. 

The fruits of converting grace, dc. 

1. A sense of the sovereignty of grace in conversion, will first increase thank- 
fulness. Converts only are fit to shew forth the praises of Christ : * That 
you should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of dark- 
ness into his marvellous light,' 1 Peter ii. 9 ; a^irag, the virtues of 



1 TiM. I. 15. J CHIEF SINNERS OBJECTS OF CHOICEST MERCY. 547 

Christ. The end why God sets men at libei-ty from prisons and dungeons, 
and from fear of death and condemnation for great sins, is, that they may 
be fitted, and gain a commodious standing, to publish to the world the vir- 
tues of him ; i. e. the mercy, meekness, patience, bounty, truth, and other 
royal perfections of Christ. 

Men at their first conversion receive the grace of God with astonishment ; 
for it is ^uv,aasTov fuig, 1 Peter ii. 9, most amazing at the first appearance 
of it ; as the northern nations, that want the sun for some months in the 
winter, are ready to deify it when it appears in their horizon ; for the thick- 
ness of the foregoing darkness makes the lustre of the sun more admirable. 
But suppose a man had been all his lifetime like a mole under ground, and 
had never seen so much as the light of a candle, and had a view of that 
weak light at a distance, how would he admire it, when he compares it with 
his former darkness ? But if he should be brought further, to behold the 
moon with its train of stars, his amazement would increase with the light. 
But let this person behold the sun, be touched with its warm beams, and 
enjoy the pleasure of seeing those rarities which the sun discovers, he will 
bless himself, adore it, and embrace that person that led him to enjoy such 
a benefit. And the blackness of that darkness he sat in before, will endear 
the present splendour to him, swell up such a spring-tide of astonishment, 
as that there shall be no more spirit in him. God lets men sit long in the 
shadow of death, and run to the utmost of sin, before he stops them, that 
their danger may enhance their deliverance. 

We admire more when we are pulled out of danger, than when we are prevented 
from running into it. A malefactor will be more thankful for a pardon, 
when it comes just as he is going to be turned ofi". If there be degrees of 
harmony in heaven, without question the convert thief on the cross warbles 
oat louder notes than others, because he had little time to do it on earth ; 
and his engagements are the greater, because Christ took him in his arms 
when he was hanging over hell. 

When Paul writ this epistle to Timothy, he"was about fifty-five years of 
age ; and yet those twenty years run out since his conversion had not stifled 
his admiration nor damped his thankfulness for converting grace. Take a 
prospect of it in this chapter : * And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who 
hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the 
ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious,' 
ver. 12, 13. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord. He seems to set his sin and 
God's mercy in opposition. I was injurious, but I obtained mercy. I was 
a blasphemer, but I obtained, &c. I — mercy. Who would imagine but that 
of all persons he should have passed by me, while he had taken this or that 
polished pharisee, this or that doctor of morality ? But that he should over- 
look them, and set his eye upon me, so injurious, such a blasphemer, such 
a persecutor ! A great sinner, when he reflects upon his sin, wonders that 
a butt was not made at him. You find that no apostle gives such epithets 
to the grace of God as our apostle does ; none so seraphical in his admiring 
expressions. Riches of grace, exceeding riches of grace, abundant grace, 
riches of glory, unsearchable riches of grace. He never speaks of grace 
without an emphasis. Single grace and single mercy would not serve his 
turn. 

2. Love and affection. Mary Magdalene, out of whom Christ had cast 
seven devils, was most early in her affection to bestow her provision of spices 
upon the dead body of her Saviour. The fire of grace cannot be stifled, but 
will break out in glory to God. This is such a grace that man in innocency 
could not have exercised in such a height ; because now the sinner is not 



548 CHA knock's woeks, [1 Tim. I. 15. 

only in his own sight unworthy of pardon, but worthy of the greatest hatred 
and punishment. You scarce find yourselves possessed with greater afiec- 
tion to any, than those who have been instruments to free you from your 
sinful fetters. How often do you bless them, could pull out your eyes for 
them, and think all ways too little to manifest the sense of your obligations to 
them ! And does the instrument carry away all ? Surely God has the 
greatest sacrifice of affection when the convert considers that his powerful 
grace was the principal agent to draw him out of this spiritual mire. As 
when a present is sent to you, you shew a courtesy to the servant ; but the 
chief part of your kindness is devoted to the master that sent him. What 
flames of love, raptures of joy, transports of affection, boilings of courage for 
God in a young convert ! The soul is most courageous for God at first con- 
version ; because it is then most stored with comforts, and is so struck into 
amazement at the marvellous light which darts upon him, that he is ambi- 
tious to be a martyr for God presently : ' After that you were illuminated, 
you endured a great fight of afflictions,' Heb. x. 82. Grace is not only 
attended with afflictions, but bestows a courage upon a convert to endure 
them. The soul then thinks it is able to undergo anything for God, who 
hath bestowed so much grace upon it. 

A Christian hath the greatest love to Christ at the first turning to him ; 
for since the horror of all his sins, and the natural ugliness and deformity of 
that which he has served so long, comes with a full sense upon him, and 
since the admirable excellency of Christ shines upon him, which is a sight he 
was never acquainted with before, the greatness of the danger he was in, and 
the incomparable love which beams upon him from his believing a Saviour, 
fills his aifection with full sails. Thus do men who have been tossed in a 
dangerous tempest, afflicted with the darkness of the night, as well as their 
danger, rejoice and welcome the rising sun in the morning, which dispels 
their tumultuous fears, as well as those gloomy shadows. 

God permits a man's sin to abound, that his love after pardon may abound 
too : ' Her sins, which are many, are forgiven ; for she loved much,' Luke 
vii. 47 ; ot-/, therefore, it is the consequent, not the cause of remission. And 
this interpretation agrees best with the following words : ' To whom little is 
forgiven, the same loves little.' It is more consonant to reason, that where 
there are greater mercies, there should be greater returns of affection. 
Remission of sins is the greatest evidence of God's love, and therefore should 
be the greatest incentive of ours. And indeed Christ never appears to a 
penitent with a more comely air in his countenance than upon the removal of 
great judgments or the pardon of great sins : ' In that day shall the branch 
of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be 
excellent and comelj^ for them that are escaped of Israel,' Isa. iv. 2. In that 
day ! In what day ? After great judgments, ver. 1 ; and in the foregoing 
chapter, in purging away great filth, ver. 4. The branch Jesus appears most 
lovely when he comes laden with the fiuit of grace, with the sanctifying juice 
of his blood, as a ripe bunch of grapes looks pleasantly in a thirsty traveller's 
eye. This convert Paul was more affectionate to Christ than any of the 
other apostles ; for when he could not look upon him, he is enamoured on 
his very name, and delights to express it no less than five hundred times, as 
I remember some have numbered it in his epistles ; more, proportionably, 
than Peter, James, and John did in what they writ. 

3. Service and obedience. Such will endeavour to redeem the time, 
because their former days have been so evil, and recover those advantages 
of service which they lost by a course of sin. They will labour that the large- 
ness of their sin may be answered by an extension of their zeal. Such will 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 549 

be almost as much ashamed to do but common service as they are'^now 
ashamed of their scarlet sins. As men, the further they go backward, the 
greater leap they usually take forward. Grace instructs a man in holiness 
out of gratitude. The grace of God ' teacheth us to deny ungodliness and 
■worldly lusts, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this pre- 
sent -world,' Titus ii. 12. Grace teaches us. The greater the grace, the 
more pressing is the instruction : as it increases gratitude, it increases 
service. 

That Peter, who had been so criminal in denying his Master, and adding 
perjury to his perfidiousness, was as active in service as he had been in apos- 
tasy. He laid the first stone of the Christian church among the Jews after 
Christ's ascension ; he preached the first sermon to them, and charged them 
home with his Master's murder, Acts ii. He was also the spokesman in all 
business described in the first six chapters of the Acts. He laid also the 
first foundation of the Gentile church ; for God in a vision revealed to him 
the calling of the Gentiles, passing by all the other apostles, to whom it was 
not known but by Peter's relation : ^'- ' Men and brethren, ye know how that 
a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth 
should hear the word of the gospel, and believe,' Acts xv. 7. A good while 
ago, which good while ago refers to the time. Mat. xvi. 18, wherein Christ 
said, ' Upon this rock will I build my church.' He was chosen by God to 
this purpose, i. e. separated from the rest of the apostles, and adorned with 
this prerogative. Great sins did not make Christ cbange his resolution. 

Never an apostle that had been bred up under Christ's wing that was so 
active an instrument as this Paul, who had been so bitter an enemy. He 
' laboured more abundantly than all,' 1 Cor. xv. 10. In matters of obe- 
dience he would not ask counsel of flesh and blood : ' Immediately I con- 
ferred not with flesh and blood,' Gal. i. 16. He was quick in his obedience. 
He had endeavoured to weaken Christ's kingdom ; he now endeavours to 
list men in his service. He had breathed out threatenings ; he now breathes 
out afi'ections. He could even spend and be spent for the interests of his 
Saviour. And usually we find converted souls most active in the exercise of 
that grace which is most contrary to that which was their darHng sin. 

4. Humility and self-emptiness. Christ ' ehose the foolish things of the 
world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound 
the things that are mighty,' 1 Cor. i. 26, 27, that nothing should be attri- 
buted to their worth and dignity, but to his grace and mercy. Were the 
gospel discovered only to the wise, they would look upon it rather as a dis- 
covery made by the optics of their own reason. And if God did bestow his 
grace only upon men of unspotted conversations, they would rather think it 
a debt God stood obliged to pay them than a free act of grace. As God 
reveals knowledge to the simplest. Mat. xi. 25, so be does manifest grace to 
the sinfuUest ; and as Christ blessed his Father for that, so no doubt but be 
doth return the same thanks for this. Such great sinners receive all from 
God, and so have more reason to hang down their heads ; others may some- 
times cast many a loving look to their own righteousness, and, like Nebu- 
chadnezzar, glory, This is the Babylon which I have built ; and boast of 
their good acts, and freedom from the common pollutions of the world. 

But such who were fallen over head and ears in the mire, and were dirty 
all over, have no cause to boast ; for God did not find them, but made them 
worthy. They brought nothing but dirt and rags, that were not worthy the 
washing ; only God would pick glory out of their worthlessness to his own 
grace. Such are sensible that God was not their debtor, but they his, 
* Cameron Myro. in Acts xv. 7. 



550 charnock's woeks. [1 Tui. I. 15. 

and that there was nothing in them to oblige God to bestow the least 
mite of mercy on them. 

Therefore we find not one of these mountainous sinners in Scripture 
ascribing their conversion to their own strength or merit. As no apostle 
was so God-magnifying, so none was so self-vilifying as Paul. Though he 
was the greatest apostle, yet he accounts himself less than the least of all 
saints : Eph. iii. 8, ' Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints.' 
Surely he might have put himself equal to the least ; it would have been 
great humility to do so ; but he is more humble than so ; even less than 
the least ; less even than him who was only fit to be a door-keeper in the 
house of God. And he esteems himself not only unworthy of the office of 
an apostle, but of the very name ; ' not worthy,' 1 Cor. xv. 9, not only to 
be, but ' to be called an apostle.' And why ? Because of his former sin ; 
' because I persecuted the church of God.' The remembrance of his great 
sin before his conversion kept him humble. And in ver. 10, when he had 
a little boasted of his abundant labour, he checks himself presently ; ' Yet 
not I, but the grace of God.' He attributes his very being as a Christian, 
as well as his actions, to the same cause, viz. the grace of God ; ' By grace 
I am what I am.' So, Gal. i. 16, how doth Paul attribute to gi'ace ; ' pleased 
by his grace to reveal;' revelation, not acquisition. 

5. Bewailing of sin, and self- abhorrence for it. When men are first 
translated out of darkness into the kingdom of Christ, and begin to know 
Christ truly, the ways of their former ignorance are very bitter and uncouth 
things unto them. The very disproportion and unsuitableness of them to 
the sweetness of that grace which now they taste from the hand of Jesus is 
an oflence to them, and hateful to their thoughts. Therefore the more sin 
a man hath run into before his return to God, the more he sees the vileness 
of his own nature, and consequently the more he abhors himself: ' Then 
shall you remember your iniquities, and shall loathe yourselves,' Ezek. 
xxxvi. 81. When? Yer. 29, when God had accomplished the promise 
of saving them from all their uncleanness. They shall remember with ab- 
horrency what was their own, sin, and shall enjoy what is purely God's. 
The time of pardoning great sins is the time of great self-loathing ; such 
prove the holiest persons, because they have had more experience of the 
evil of sin. 

Such are ashamei of their sins, not only at the instant of their conversion, 
but afterwards, every time they remember them : * What fruit had you then 
in those things whereof you are now ashamed?' Rom. vi. 21. Now, at 
that time when Paul writ to them, the very shame of their sins stuck upon 
them, though they had been converted before. The more they grew in the 
experimental kno\\ ledge of God and his goodness, the more a holy shame 
for sins committed ia their natural condition was stirred in their consciences, 
and they could not but blush every time they considered how dirty they had 
been towards God. Now the greater the shame, the greater the hatred of 
the occasion of that shame, and the more exact the watchfulness against 
it ; as a man that hath fallen into some slough by some stumble or over- 
sight, when he travels that way again, he cannot but remember what a pickle 
he was in, and will be watchful lest he meet with the same mishap. Whose 
heart was more melted by mercy than Mar}' Magdalene's ? All the pharisees 
that Christ converted never rained such showers of tears. How she used 
all her instruments of sin to be servants to her repentance ! Her eyes, 
which had inflamed so many hearts, been snares to catch men, she makes 
the conduits to convey her penitential tears to her Saviour's feet. Her hair, 
which had engrossed so much time in the curiosity of dresses, she uses as a 



1 TiJI. I. 15."] CHIEF SINNERS OBJECTS OF CHOICEST MEKCY. 551 

towel to wipe them. The ointment she had used for the tricking up herself, 
to gratify the senses of her lovers, she pours out to embalm her Lord. 
Her lusts should have no more of her choicest things, but her Saviour should 
have all. She would keep them not so much for her own use, as his. 

6. Faith and dependence. (1.) At present, in the instant of the first 
act of faith. Great sins make us appear in the court of justification, sub 
forma impii, with a naked faith, when we have nothing to merit it, but much 
to deserve the contrary : ' Believes on him that justifies the ungodly,' Rom. 
iv. 5. The more ungodly, the more elevated is that faith which lays hold 
on God. Thomas's unbelief was very black, for he had refused to give 
credit to all the testimonies of the disciples concerning Christ's resurrection ; 
but when he was sensible of his crime, and so kindly dealt with by his 
Saviour, he puts forth a stronger act 'of faith than any of the rest : ' My 
Lord, and my God,' John xx. 28. His faith was not satisfied with a single 
7/!// ; he gives him more honourable titles, and his heart grasps him more 
closely and aflectionately than any of the rest. 

The man that was born blind, and cured by Christ, owns him, acts some 
faith before the pharisees : ' If this man were not of God, he could do no- 
thing,' John is. 33 ; and he said, ' I believe,' ver. 39, and he worshipped 
him. But when Christ comes to talk with him particularly, vers. 36-38, he 
believes. When Christ comes to talk with a great sinner, one that hath 
had diseases naturally incurable, he exerts a stronger faith than others. It 
is then, Lord, 1 believe, and it is a faith accompanied with an adoration. 

(2.) In following occasions. Pardoning such great sins, and converting 
such great sinners, is the best credential letter Christ brings with him from 
heaven. Men naturally would scarce believe for his own sake, but for his 
work's sake they would, because they are more led by sense than faith. 
This Christ knew, when be bids his disciples believe him for the work's sake 
that he was sent by God, and that they are unanimous in this work of grace, 
as well as in other works : ' Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me, or else believe me for the very work's sake,' John xiv. 11. 
Therefore those that have been partakers of this converting grace, if they 
stagger and doubt afterwards, they give the greatest afi'ront to Christ. 

For their unbelief is not only against his person, but against its work too. 
That he has far more reason to say to such than he did to his disciples, 
* How long shall I be with you,' &c,. Mat. xvii. 17 : what should I stay to 
do such great works as these, and cannot be believed ? Such great sins 
pardoned and escaped, make men take faster hold of Christ afterward. As 
a man that hath lately got out of a deep lake, wherein there were many 
serpents, crocodiles, and venomous creatures, which he has escaped, and has 
no sanctuary to protect him from their fury but by hanging upon a small 
bough ; when he looks down upon them, and sees them gaping for him, and 
ready to devour him, if he were within their reach, he would summon up all 
his strength to hold fast that branch. In such a day will the branch of the 
Lord also be beautiful and glorious. 

Certainly when the soul went out to Christ in so desperate a condition, 
with the load of guilt and discouragement upon it, and resolved to venture 
upon him, come what would of it, and found success ; as it was the boldest 
adventure, which the Scripture frequently calls boldness, so it is the greatest en- 
couragement to come to Christ upon any occasion whatsoever hereafter. This 
first act of faith is of so noble and generous a quality, that it is set as the copy 
of all following acts of faith : ' Beginning of your confidence,' Heb. iii. 14 ; 
deyjiv, the primary act of faith, which was the principal act of confidence. 
Though there was a greater strength in the habit of faith after conversion, 



552 chaknock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

yet the first exercise of it upon Christ is the boldest and most vigorous, 
because it was for the saving the life when the soul saw no recovery any way 
but in Christ, and the most noble when it was under the discouragements of 
such mountains of guilt. 

It also gave Christ the greatest honour, for it was an act of 'greater confi- 
dence in him than any succeeding act could be. Now if thou didst put forth 
such a high and daring act of faith when all thy sins hung about thee, acd 
thou hadst neither a Hur nor Aaron to hold up thy hands, with much more 
confidence mayest thou come now, since thou hast tried how successful thy 
first faith has been. So when temptations assault thee, and the devil with 
all his black legions besets thee round, thou art not in a worse condition than 
at the first, when all thy sins did not only besiege thee, but possess thee. 
Well may such a soul say, If I acted faith when the devil had all the strong- 
holds in me at the worst, now it is but a start out, and exercise the power of 
that first faith. 

(3.) In case of corruptions likewise and unmastered sins. I have great 
corruptions, but the power which raised Christ raised me, when I had 
greater stones upon me wherewith I had even wearied God himself; and now 
when I have fewer, though they are too great still, shall I despair of that 
power which wrought gi-eater miracles for me, and threw away my gravestones 
when I was not able to stir myself? 

(4.) So in the case of desertion. I will venture to go to God, let him 
frown and strike ; for I am sure I did once go to him when I was his absolute 
sworn enemy, and he had not a greater hater of him in the world than I 
was, and he did receive me. I am not worse now than I was at that time, 
for I love him, and would do all that I can to please him ; therefore I will 
press into his presence now, and try the success of my first faith. Such 
men's faith is usually a more generous faith, because they have less of the 
principle of reason to support it. It is like that of Abraham's, a believ- 
ing 'in hope against hope,' Rom. iv. 18. A faith against mighty and 
mountainous opposition of high and mighty sins, that might scare a man 
from such acts of faith, and establish a diffidence of the promises of God in 
the soul. God receives no more glory from the faith of any than from those 
of the greatest sinners through their repentance. 

7. Fear and reverence. Such will never despise the riches of that good- 
ness and patience which has been given out to him, Eom. ii. 4, because it 
has led him to repentance ; and he will not provoke that goodness, which is 
conducting him to the enjoyment of all the fruits of repentance, to throw 
him off": ' There is forgiveness with thee,' saith David, * that thou mayest be 
feared,' or worshipped, Ps. cxxx. 4. If God should set a mark of death 
upon every iniquity, who could stand in his presence, or have any hope to 
be heard ? but because he is a God of forgiveness, therefore he is reverenced ; 
therefore the more forgiveness he doth expend upon any, the more he is 
reverenced. After a man's return to God, his fear of God is increased upon 
a more ingenuous account, for he fears God and his goodness, Hosea iii. 5, 
whereas before he feared God and his power, God and his justice. And the 
Jews, of whom he there speaks, shall fear or reverence that goodness the 
more, because the sin he has pardoned was so great, as the crucifying the 
Son of God, which, according to their fathers' wish, lay upon the heads of 
all their posterity. 

God's goodness once tasted will make ingenuity afraid to offend him. 
Self-interest also will make them afraid to provoke that mercy that formally 
relieved them, to cashier them out of his favour. When the man was in the 
deep dungeon, where the fetters of sin entered into his very soul, and bound 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest jiercy. 553 

up under the terrors of the law, when mercy stepped in and delivered him, 
and poured oil into his wounds, he will be afraid to provoke that mercy to 
leave him in the same condition in which it found him, and from whence it 
di-ew him. He will be loath to be numbered amongst the crew of transgressors 
and bank of galley-slaves from whence he has been redeemed. He that hath 
tasted the bitterness of sin will fear to commit it ; and he that hath felt the 
sweetness of mercy will fear to offend it. 

I might add, for others' sakes, to engage them to come to Christ. Every 
conversion of a great sinner is a new copy of God's love ; it is a repeated 
proclamation of the transcendency of his grace : ' Even when we were dead in 
sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,' Eph. ii. 5, 6. God hath 
quickened those rank sinners that w^ere as black as darkness itself, and hath 
raised them to a condition of light. Why ? Not only for themselves, but 
that in the ages to come he might shew forth, -iffsg/SaXXovra, transcendent 
riches of his grace, ver. 7. It was a picture God drew of his own heart, and 
exposed to the view of the world, that they might know, by the gracious 
entertainment and high advancement of those sinners, how liberal he is, and 
would always be, in the distribution of his grace, that penitent sinners of as 
great stains might be encouraged in all ages to rely upon him. This was 
his design in Paul's conversion, in this chapter : ' Howbeit for this cause I 
obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long- 
suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life 
everlasting,' ver 16 ; a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him. 
He sets up this apostle as a white flag to invite rebels to treat with him, and 
return to their loyalty. As every great judgment upon a grand sinner is as 
the hanging a man in chains, to deter others from the like practice, so every 
conversion is not only an act of God's mercy to the convert, but an invitation 
to the spectators. 

This is the argument David useth to persuade God to pour into him the 
joy of his salvation : ' Then will I teach transgressors thy ways,' &c., Ps. li. 
12, 13. I will make all Jerusalem ring of it, and sinners, seeing the multi- 
tude and long train of thy tender mercies, shall fly into thy arms to be par- 
takers of the same grace. For every great conversion is as a sea-mark to 
guide others into a safe harbour. And indeed, this he tells God when he 
had received pardon, that this would be the issue of God's pardon to David, 
Ps. lii. 5, 6, which is thought to be penned upon the same occasion. Ps. li., 
when, ver. 5, he had been forgiven, he tells God what the effect upon others 
would be : ' For this shall every one that is godly,' &c., ver. 6, judging it 
the fittest time to come when God is dealing out his mercy. Such effects 
we find when Christ was upon the earth ; when Christ called Matthew, Mark 
ii. 14, the next news we hear, ver. 15, is, that many publicans and sinners 
sat down with him, and followed him. Many of the same tribe were encou- 
raged by this kindness to one of their fellows to attend upon him. 

As when a physician comes into an house where many are sick, and cures 
one that is desperate, it is an encouragement to the rest to rely upon his skill. 

When Christ gives an experiment of his art on any sinner near thee, it is 
a call from heaven as well to excite thy emulation to come to him, as thy 
astonishment at it ; as the conversion of the Gentiles was to provoke the Jews 
to jealousy : ' Salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke,' &c., Rom. 
xi. 11. Indeed, such conversions may more rationally move men, than any 
miracle can objectively move the sense, to see such a remarkable change 
wrought in the soul of a devil, in a diabolical nature. If men believe not in 
Christ after the sight of such standing miracles, it is an aggravation of their 
impenitence, as much as any miracle Christ wrought upon tlie earth was of 



554 charnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

the Jews' obstinacy, and does put as black a dye upon it : ' Ye, when you 
had seen it, repented not aftei'ward, that you might believe him,' Mat. xxi. 32. 
Not any great sinner that thou hast seen take heaven by violence, but is writ 
down by God as a yet upon all thy unbelief. And how many hundred yets 
may Christ bring against thee, upon the account of others converted round 
about thee. The yet set upon Paul may refer to this. Acts ix. 1 ; because 
in the foregoing chapter Luke had related the successful progress of the gospel 
in Samaria and Jerusalem, which was au evidence of the power of this new 
doctrine ; yet_^Paul proceeded in his persecuting fury, against such clear tes- 
timonies. 

Had you been in the times of Christ, and seen those miracles he wrought 
among the Jews, you would all think you should never have been so stupid 
as they were, but would presently have believed in him upon a sight of those 
wonders. , Let me tell you, the success of Christ's grace upon the souls of 
men, whereof j^ou have seen many evidences, is a greater miracle, by Christ's 
own confession, than usually he wrought ; for he tells the apostles they should 
work greater works, John xiv. 12, which he means of their success in con- 
verting work. And so thy impenitency has as great aggravations as the 
Jewish perversity. Let every such conversion of a great sinner be a gromid 
of hope to thee, and a spur in thy side. 

Further, such conversions evidence that God's commands are practicable, 
that his yoke is not burdensome. Men naturally think God a hard master, 
that his commands are impossible to be performed ; but when they see men 
that had lain soaking in sin many years to have a fresh and fair verdure by 
grace, to run with delight in the ways of God's commands ; when they see 
men that had the greatest prejudices against the ways of God thorough^ 
turned, they may think with themselves, Why may not I observe those com- 
mands ? Is it more impossible for me than such a one ? It is natural to 
men not to believe unless they see miracles : ' Except ye see signs and 
wonders, ye will not believe,' John iv. 48. Therefore all the standing 
miracles God hath left in the world are the extraordinary conversions of men, 
and the worst of men, that men may thereby be convinced of the power of 
the gospel and the strength of his grace, by seeing the admirable effects of it 
upon others ; for many times conversion begins in admiration. 

The use of this subject is, 

1. First, Instruction. The doctrine manifests the power of the gospel. 
Nothing shews more the heavenly authority of the Christian religion, and the 
divine efficacy of the word, than the sudden conversions of notorious sinners ; 
that a man should enter into a church a tiger, and return a Iamb. It is this 
little stone which is instrumental to lay lusts, more giant-like than Goliath, 
grovelling in the dust. That Paul, mad with rage against the Christians, 
should, after an arrest in his journey, embrace a religion he hated ; a 
pharisee changed into a preacher ; a persecutor commence a martyr ; that 
one of eminent parts, in favour with the Sanhedrim, should fly from a pre- 
ferment expected, and patronise a doctrine contemned in the world, and 
attended with poverty, misery, cruel scourgings, and death ; whenever you 
see such effects, take them as credentials from heaven, to maintain the credit 
of the word, and to assert the authority of that conclusion Paul lays down, 
that it is 'the power of God unto salvation,' Ptom. i. 16. God gains a 
reputation to the gospel and the power of Christianity, that can in a moment 
change persons from beasts to men, from serpents to saints. 

2. Groundlessness of despair. Despair not of others, when thou dost reflect 
upon thy own crimes, and considerest that God never dealt with a baser heart 
in the world than thine was. Was not Paul as unlike to prove a convert as 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 555 

any relation of thine that wallows in his blood ? Who would have thought 
that Onesimus should run from his master and be catched in Christ's arms ? 
Neither despair of thyself. Shall any soul in anguish, and covered with peni- 
tential blushes, think itself cast out of the riches of God's affectionate grace? 
Shall any man so much blaspheme the merciful heart of Jesus Christ, as to 
fly to a knife, a halter, or a deep well for succour ? Though thou wert in 
hell, David tells thee God is with thee, even there in his essential presence, 
yea, though thou wert hell itself; for where the devil dwells, that is hell; 
yet if the soul throbs, sighs, groans under it, his infinite grace will break 
down the door, and come in upon thee. And we know that neither she that 
had seven devils, nor he that had a legion, were strong enough to keep out 
Christ. 

Secondly, Comfort of this subject. If God has made thee of a great sinner 
the object of his mercy, thou mayest be assured of, 1, continuance of his love. 
He pardoned thee when thou wert an enemy, will he leave thee now thou art 
his friend ? He loved thee when thou hadst razed out in a great measure 
his image and picture which he had set in thy soul, will he hate thee now 
since he has restored that image, and drawn it with fresh colours ? He 
justified thee when thou wert ungodly, and will he cast thee off since he hath 
been at such pains about thee, and written in thee a counterpart of his own 
divine nature in the work of grace ? Were his compassions first moved when 
thou hadst no grace, and will they not sound louder since thou hast grace ? 
Would the father embrace his son when his garments smelled of draff and 
swine, and will he cast him off after he hath put upon him a royal robe ? 
Will Pharaoh's daughter pity Moses when he was in the ark, and will she 
ecorn him when he is dressed ? 

2. Supplies of his grace. Thou hadst a rich present of his grace sent thee 
when thou couldst not pray for it, and will he not much more give thee what- 
soever is needful when thou callest upon him ? He was found of thee when 
thou didst not seek him, and will he hide himself from thee when thou art 
inquiring after him ? A wise builder does not begin a work when he is not 
able to finish it. God considered, before he began with thee, what charge thou 
wouldst stand him in, both of merit in Christ and grace in thee ; so that the 
grace he hath given thee is not only a mercy to thee, but an obligation on 
himself, since his credit is engaged to complete it. Thou hast more un- 
answerable arguments to plead before him than thou hadst, viz. his Son, his 
truth, his promise, his grace, his name, wherein thou hadst not the least 
interest. To what purpose has God called thee, and marked thee, if he doth 
not intend to supply thee with as much grace as shall bring thee to glory ? 
To what purpose should a creditor forgive part of a debt, and lay the debtor 
in prison for the other part ? Has God given thee Christ, and will he 
detain anything else ? Supplies of wants, grants of anything thou desirest, 
are but as a few grains of pepper that the grocer puts in as an overplus to 
many pounds. 

3. Strength against corruptions. Can molehills stand against him who 
has levelled mountains ? Can a few clouds withstand the melting force of 
the sun, which has dissolved those black mists that overspread the face of 
the heavens ? No more can the remainders of thy corruption bear head 
against his power, which has thrown down the great hills of the sins of thy 
natural condition, and has dissolved the thick fogs of thy unregeneracy. 
Thou canst neither doubt his strength nor his love ; amor gaudet inmaximis; 
he has done the greatest, and will he withdraw his hand from doing the 
least ? When Moses slew the Egyptain, it is said that he * supposed his 
brethren would have understood, that God intended by his hand to deliver 



556 chaenock's woeks. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

them,' Acts vii. 25. Moses was a type of Christ : has Christ overthrown a 
whole army of Egj'ptians, that did not only pursue thee, but keep thee in 
slavery ? Has he overturned them all in the Rod Sea ? And wilt thou 
not take notice thereby, that he intends to be thy deliverer from the scat- 
tered troops of them ? 
t. Thirdly, Exhortation. 1. To tho83 that God hath dealt so with. 

1. Glorify God for his grace. Admiration is all the glory you can give to 
God for his grace, seeing you can add nothing to his essential glory. Christ 
will come at the last day to be admired ; I pray send your admirations be- 
forehand to attend him at his coming. Who made thee thus to ditfer from 
another ? Was it not God ? Let him, then, have the glory. If he made 
thee to differ from others in the enjoyment of his mercy, do thou also differ 
from others in the sounding of his praise. If thou hast an angel's state, it 
is fit thou shouldest have an angel's note. If David, when he considered the 
glorious heavens God had made for man, cried out so affectionately, ' What 
is man, that thou art mindful of him !' Ps. viii. 4 ; surely when thou con- 
siderest that work of grace which God hath wrought in thee, thou mayest 
with astonishment cry out, Oh, what is man that thou art mindful of him ! 
What is such a vile creature, that thou shouldest take him into thy bosom ? 
For there is not a grace in thee but is more glorious than the sun with all its 
regiments of stars, and is more like to God than the great fountain of light with 
all its amazing splendour. It is something of that heaven which is more 
glorious than all the rest of the heavens, and is above the reach of the 
natural eye. Oh what is man, that thou art thus mindful of him, to make 
him, who is a hell by sin, to become heaven by grace ! Pardon of but one 
act of sin, makes us for ever debtors to God ; because one sin renders us ob- 
noxious to eternal torments, and every sin includes a hatred of God. What, 
then, is it to remit such vast sums, if to pardon one be a miracle ? To 
pardon many committed against a suffering Christ that hath invited us, and 
repeats his invitations, after they have been rejected, is a miracle of the 
greatest magnitude, something above a miracle ! 

How should you think Jacob's expression in temporal mercies, a few sheep, 
too mean, ' I am less than the least of all thy mercies,' Gen. xxxii. 10. Oh 
I am less, less, less than the least of all this mercy. A great sinner, when 
converted, should sing a note somewhat above David's ' What shall I 
render ?' Ps. cxvi. 12 ; and should say, I can render nothing, nothing ; 
but I will render praise, blessing, amazement, astonishment ;. that is 
all I can render, and I cannot render enough of that. Had you chosen 
God first, it had been some ingenuity in God to answer that affection ; but 
God chose you first, and that when there was nothing lovely in you, when 
he saw you the most deformed creatures in the world. There was no hke- 
ness between God and thee. Similis simile amat, is a rule in nature ; but 
in this case, Deus optimus diUfjit hominem pessimum. 

It is that which does amaze the disciples ; they could not tell the reason 
why Christ should manifest himself to them, John xiv. 22. Perhaps thou 
art only snatched out of a family ; the wrath of God may be fallen upon the 
rest, and thou only escaped. Has he not lopped down many cedars in mo- 
rality, and chosen thee, a thorn, a shrub, to deck heaven with ? Are not 
many damned that were not guilty of thy sins ? 

How wonderful is it that such a black firebrand should be made a statue 
fit for glory ! He might have written thy name as easily in his black book 
as in his white. Is it not admirable mercy for a God provoked, to take pains 
with stiff-necked sinners, and to beat down mountains of high imaginations, 
to rear up a temple to himself ? If mercy had knocked once or twice, and 



1 Till. I, 15.] CHIEF SINNERS OBJECTS OF CHOICEST MERCY. 557 

no more, thou hadst dropped into hell ; but mercy would not leave knock- 
ing. Perhaps thy sins were so great, that if thou hadst gone but a little 
farther, thou hadst been irrecoverable ; but God put a stop to the proud 
waves, saying, ' Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.' 

2. Often call to mind thy former sin. It hath been the custom of the 
saints of God formerly. When Matthew reckons up the twelve apostles. 
Mat. X. 3, whereof he was one, he remembers his former state, ' Matthew the 
publican ;' but none of the other evangelists call him so in that enumeration. 

(1.) It makes us more humble. Thoughts of pride cannot lodge in us, 
when the remembrance of our rags, bolts, and fetters is frequently renewed. 
What was there in thy former life, but misery, to move God to shew mercy to 
thee ■? Though Panl had a greater manifestation than any we read of, nay, 
than Christ himself had (for we do not read that Christ was rapt up into 
the third heavens), yet how frequently does he remember his sin of perse- 
cuting, to keep humiliation in exercise, and stop the growth of pride. 

(2.) It will make us thankful. Sense of misery heightens our obligation 
to mercy. Men at sea are most thankful for deliverance when they consider 
the danger of the foregoing storm. A long night makes a clear morning more 
welcome. 

(3.) It will make thee more active in the exercise of that grace which is 
contrary to thy former sin. Christ asked Peter thrice whether he loved 
him, John xxi,, to put him tacitly in mind of his late sin, and to have a 
threefold exercise of his love, proportionable to his threefold denial. 

(4.) It will be a preservative against falling into the same sin again. Per- 
haps Christ might press that threefold demand of Peter's love, to renew his 
repentance for his apostasy, as the best antidote against the falling into the 
same sin ; and therefore Peter was grieved when he asked him the third 
time ; not so much, it may be, for the suspicion his Master had of his 
fidelity, as for the just cause of jealousy his fall had given him. And at this 
third question, calling to mind his denial, he renewed his grief for his late 
unworthy carriage. Look back, then, upon thy former sin, but let it be with 
anger and shame, to strengthen thy detestation, to strangle thy former de- 
light in it, and to magnify the mercy of God, who has delivered thee from it. 
When the Corinthians were proud of their spiritual gifts, the apostle beats 
down their swelling plumes, by giving them a review of their accursed state : 
' Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols,' 1 Cor. 
xii. 2. When a convert frequently considers what he was once in his unre- 
generate state, he would not for all the honours, profits, and pleasures of the 
world, return to that state again, so great a delight he takes in the work of 
the new creature. 

The second branch of exhortation is to those that are in a doubting con- 
dition. The main objection such make is the greatness of sin. Oh, there 
was never such a gi-eat sinner in the world as I am ! If you rake all hell 
over, you will not find such another. Sure God will never pardon me ; my 
sins are too great to be forgiven. Such language as this does sometimes 
drop from men, which they are partly urged to by the devil, to disparage 
that royal prince Jesus, that came to destroy his works, and to keep up an 
enmity between God and man, in making the creature have jealous thoughts 
of the Creator; and partly from a man's own conscience, which, acting by 
those legal principles written in the heart by nature, which are directive, and 
upon non-observance condemning, but discover nothing of pardoning grace. 
This was the first act of natural conscience in Adam after he had sinned ; he 
had the least thoughts of forgiveness, for he studied nothing but how he 
might fly from the presence of God. Such speeches as these discredit thy 



558 charnock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

Creator if tliey V>e persisted in ; argue thee to be one of Cain's posterity, 
who indeed told Grod to his very face that his ' sin was greater than could be 
forgiven,' Gren. iv. 13. I will a little argue with such. 

But, 1, art thou indeed the greatest sinner? I can hardly believe it. 
Didst thou ever sin after the rate that Paul did ? or wert thou ever possessed 
with such a fury ? Sure there have been some as great sinners as thou art, 
be thou as bad as bad can be. If thou were to look over the names of all 
those now in heaven, and ask them all what sins they were guilty of before 
God shewed mercy to them, I cannot think but thou wouldest find many that 
would mate thee, yea, and exceed thee too ; and thou canst not charge thy- 
self with any black circumstances, but thou wouldest meet with some or 
other that would cry out presently. Oh, I was in the like condition, and 
rather worse ! What dost thou think of Christ's murderers, who resisted the 
eloquence of his sermons and the power of his miracles ? And when his 
death had darkened the sun, shook the earth, clave the rocks, rent the veil 
of the temple in twain, not one heart among that murderous crew had any 
saving relentings that we read of. And yet were not some of these converted 
by Peter's sermon, and the pardon of them left upon record by the Spirit of 
God? 

Have not some of God's greatest favourites been the greatest sinners ? 
Did not Adam draw upon him the guilt of all his posterity, and may in some 
sense be charged with the sins of all those that came out of his loins, even 
all mankind ? Yet to this very person was the first promise of the gospel 
made, and that before he pronounced any sentence against him for his sin. 
Gen. iii. 15. 

2. Suppose thou art the greatest, is thy staying from Christ the way to 
make all thy sins less ? Art thou so rich as to pay this great debt out of 
thy own revenue ? or hast thou any hopes of another surety ? Did any man 
or angel tell thee they could satisfy for thee ? Can complaints of a great 
load, without endeavouring its removal, ease that back that bears it ? 

3. Are thy sins the greatest ? Is not the staying from Christ a making 
them greater ? Does not God command thee to come to Christ ? and is not 
thy delay a greater act of disobedience than the complaint of thy sinfulness 
can be of humility ? Hast thou not load enough already ? but wilt thou add 
unbelief, which is as black as all thy other sins put together ? Is not a 
refusal of his mercy provocative ? Thou art mad if thou thinkest thy sin can 
decrease by trampling upon Christ's heart, and spurning at bis compassion. 
Thou hast sinned against justice, against wisdom, against common providence. 
Is not this enough, but wilt thou rob him of an opportunity to shew the 
riches of his grace, by refusing the blood of his Son, which his wisdom con- 
trived and his love offers ? Who is it persuades thee thus to keep off from 
Christ ? Does God ? Shew me where is his hand for it ? Shew me thy 
authority in God's warrant. But since thou canst not, I am sure it is thy 
own corrupt heart and the devil in league together. And mayest thou not 
say of him far better than Ahab did of Micaiah, ' Thou didst never prophesy 
good to me'? No, he never did, nor ever will. What, wilt thou more 
black thyself by following the devil's counsel than obeying God's command ? 
If thy sin be great, let it multiply thy tears, but by no means stop thy pro- 
gress to Christ. 

4. Were thy sins less than they are, thou mightest not so easily believe 
in Christ, as now thou mayest. If thou wilt not believe while thy sins are 
great, and thy heart naughty, I dare assure thee, if thy heart were not 
naught, and thy sins little, thou wouldst not believe ; for thou wouldst be 
apt to believe in thy own heart, and trust in thy own righteousness, rather 



1 Tim. I. 15.J chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 559 

than believe in Christ. Great sins and a bad heart felt and bewailed, is 
rather an advantage ; as hunger is an incentive to a man to seek for meat. 
If men had clean hearts, it is like they would dispose of them otherwise, 
and rather think Christ should come to them. Men's poverty should rather 
make them more importunate than more modest. To say, I will not come 
to Christ, because I have great sins, is as if one should say, I will never 
have anything to do with happiness if offered, because I have great misery ; 
I will go to no chirurgeon, because my wound is so great ; I will eat no 
bread, because I am so exceeding hungry and like to starve. This is ill 
logic ; and so it is with thee to argue, Because I am unclean, therefore I 
will not go to the fountain to be washed ; or to think to be sanctified before 
believing. Now since thou hast, as thou confessest, no righteousness to 
trust in, methinks thou shouldst be the more easily persuaded to cast thy- 
self upon Christ, since there is no other way but that. 

If, therefore, thou art afraid of drowning under these mighty floods which 
roll upon thee, methinks thou shouldst do as men ready to perish in the 
waters, catch hold of that which is next them, though it be the dearest 
friend they have ; and there is none nearer to thee than Christ, nor any 
such a friend ; catch hold therefore of him. 

5. The greatness of thy sin is a ground for a plea. Turn thy sins into 
arguments, as David doth, ' for it is great,' Ps. xxv. 11 ; some translate it, 
* though it be great ;' and the Hebrew word *3 will bear both. The psalmist 
useth two arguments, God's name, and the greatness of his sin. And both 
are as good arguments as they were then. Thou mayest go to God with 
this language in thy mouth ; Lord, my impurity is great, there is more need 
therefore of thy washing me ; my wound is deep, the gi-eater is the necessity 
of some plaster for a cm-e. What charitable man in the world would not 
hasten a medicine, rather than refuse to grant it ! What earthly physician 
would object, The disease is gi'eat, therefore there is no necessity of a cure ; 
therefore there is no room left for my skill ! And shall God be less chari- 
table than man ? Dogs may lay claim to crumbs that fall from the master's 
table. Thou mayest use also the argument of God's name. Sinners may 
plead for grace upon the account of God's glory, viz., the glory God will 
have by it. His wisdom is eminent in serving his own ends by his greatest 
enemy. His power in conquering sin, his grace in pardoning. Show him 
his own name, Exod. xxxiv., and see if he will deny any letter of it. 

If thy disease were not so great, Christ's glory would not be so illustrious. 
Pardon of such sins enhanceth the mercy and skill of thy Saviour. The 
multitude of devils which were in Mary Magdalene, are recorded to shew the 
power of that Saviour that expelled them, and wrought so remarkable a 
change. Are thy sins the greatest ? God that loves to advance his free 
grace in the highest manner, will be glad of the opportunity to have so great 
a sinner follow the chariot of it, and to manifest thereby its uncontrollable 
power. Use David's argument, Ps. xxxvii. 12, when, ver. 8, he prayed 
that God would deliver him from his transgressions ; ver. 12, he useth this 
argument, that he was a stranger. I know no reason but it may be thine, 
for if thy sins be great, thou art more alienated from God than the ordinary 
rank of men. Lord, thou dost command us to shew kindness to strangers, 
to love our enemies ; and wilt thou not use the same mercy to a stranger 
that thou commandest others to use, and shew the same love to so great an 
enemy as I am ? The greater my enmity, the more glorious will be thy 
love. 

Plead therefore, 1, the infiniteness of God's mercy. It is strange if thy 
debts should be so great, that the exchequer of the King of kings cannot 



560 chaenock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

discharge them. Why should the apostle say God was ' rich in mercy,' Eph. 
iv., and call it ' great love,' if it were spent only upon little sins, and if any 
debts could exhaust it; for surely an infinite God cannot be finitely rich. 
If God be rich in mercy, he is surely infinitely rich ; thou canst not think 
that any that have got to heaven before thee have drained his treasures, for 
then it had been finite, not infinite. They were not unsearchable riches, if 
the sins of all the world could find the bottom of them. 

God looks upon his grace as the greatest part of his estate. IJe calls it 
his riches, which title he gives not any other attribute. Now riches are not 
to lie by and rust, but to be laid out and traded with ; and the more they 
are traded with, the more wealth they bring in. God hath not dehght to 
keep these riches by him, and to hoard them up for no use ; for omne bomim 
est sui diffusiviim; therefore the more goodness anything hath, the more dif- 
fusive it is of itself. God loves to distribute his wealth upon his own terms, 
nd to venture out riches of grace, that he may have returns of riches of 
glory ; so that if you come to God, you have all his estate at your service. 
Till thou canst be as sinful as God is merciful, as evil as God is good, do 
not think thy iniquities can check an almighty goodness. Mercy bears the 
greatest sway in God's name, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. There is but one letter 
of his power, two of his justice, and nine or ten expressions of his mercy. 
His power attends his mercy as well as his justice, so that on mercy's side 
against justice there is five to one, which is great odds. 

Plead then with God, Lord, it is said in thy word, ' Say not unto thy 
neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give thee, when it is in 
the power of thine hand to do it,' Prov. iii. 28. Should a man not refuse to 
give to his neighbour when he has it by him ? and shall the merciful God deny 
me that mercy which I beg of him upon my knees, when he has it all in store 
by him ? Must I forgive my brother, if he ofiends seventy- seven times, a 
double perfect number ? and must I be more charitable to man than infinite 
mercy will be to me ? Shall thy justice only speak, and thy mercy be 
silent, and plead nothing on my behalf? Hast thou not said that thou art 
he ' that blots out transgressions for thy own sake ?' Isa. xliii. 25 ; that thou 
dost ' blot out iniquities like a thick cloud ?' Isa. xliv. 22. Is there any 
cloud so thick as to master the melting power of the sun ; and shall ever a 
cloud of sin be so thick as to master the power of thy mercy ? Has not thy 
mercy as much strength and eloquence to plead for me, as thy justice has 
to declaim against me? Is thy justice better armed with reason than thy 
kindness with compassions ? Have thy compassions no eloquence ? Oh, 
who can resist their pleasing rhetoric ! 

2. Christ's, and God's intent in his coming, was to discharge great sins. 
He was called Jesus, a Saviour, because he was to save his people from 
their sins. And do you think some of his people's sins were not as great as 
any men's sins in the world ? To save only from little iniquities, had not 
been a work suitable to the glorious name of Jesus. Neither can we con- 
ceive how Christ should enter into such strict bonds to his Father to be a 
surety only for some smaller debts. If this had not been his intent, he 
would have put some limitation in that prayer he taught his disciples, and 
not have commanded them to pray, ' Forgive us our trespasses,' but forgive 
us our little sins, or sins of such a size. He never asked what sins, and 
how many sins, men were guilty of when they came to him ; but upon faith, 
saith he, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee.' Plead therefore with Christ, and 
say, Thou didst come to do thy Father's will, which was, that none should 
be cast off that come unto thee ; and thou hast said the same ; it is not suf- 
ficient for thee to say it merely, and not to do it. Wilt thou draw me 



1 Tim. I. 15.] chief sinneks objects of choicest mercy. 561 

with the cords of a man (for I could not thus come to thee unless thou didst 
draw me), and shall I be beaten back with a frown ? 

3. Christ's death was a satisfaction for the greatest sins, both ex parte 
facientis, Christ, and exparte acceptantis, God ; for God could not accept any 
satisfaction but what was infinite. ' One sacrifice for sins for ever,' &c., 
Heb. X. 12 ; not one sin, but sins ; not little sins, but sins without exception. 
Yea, and it is all sin. 1 John i. 7 ; and all includes great as well as little. 
Satan once came to a sick man, and shews him a great catalogue of his 
sins, concluding from thence his eternal damnation. The sick man, strength- 
ening himself by the word of God, bid the devil write over the catalogue in 
great letters those words, 1 John i. 7, whereupon the devil presently leaves 
him.* Can thy sins be greater than Christ's merit ? or thine offences than 
his sacrifice ? It is strange if the malignity of thy sin should be as infinite 
as the virtue of his death. He hath satisfied for all the saints that ever came 
to heaven ; and put thy sins in the balance with theirs, and surely they can- 
not weigh so much. He was * a propitiation for the sins of the whole world ;* 
and are thy sins as great as the sins of the whole world ? If part of his 
merits be enough to save ten thousand damned souls in hell, if they had 
applied it, is it not enough to satisfy God for thy sins, which are far less '? 
Was not Christ charged with as great sins as thine can be when he was upon 
the cross ? Or are thy single sins bigger than all those the prophet means 
when he saith, ' And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all ' ? Isa. 
Uii. 6. 

Well, then, plead thy Saviour's death, since it was for his honour to satisfy 
for sins of so deep a dye. It is said in thy word, it is a joy to a righteous 
man to perform judgment, and shall it not be much more a joy to the righteous 
God ? Behold, here I offer thee the atonement thy Son and my Saviour has 
made, and if it be not enough, I am content to perish; but if it be, I desire 
thee to do me justice with that joy that a righteous man would do it with, 
and discharge my transgressions. And if thou dost object, that I have flung 
away this satisfaction, and would not have it, I answer, my Saviour's satis- 
faction was for such sins as those, otherwise none would be saved ; for was 
there any but refused the proffer of it at first, made demurs before they 
entertained it ? Let thy objections be what they will, Christ shall be my 
advocate to answer for me. 

4. Christ is able to take away great sins. Did he ever let any one that 
came to him with a great infirmity, go back without a cure, and dishonour 
himself so much, as that it should be said, it was a distemper too great for 
the power of Jesus to remedy ? And why should there be any sin that he 
cannot pardon ? It is as easy for him to heal the one as the other ; for he 
did with as much ease and delight say, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee;' as say, 
' Take up thy bed, and walk.' Hast thou seven devils ? Suppose a legion, 
i.e. six thousand six hundred and sixty-six ; he did dispossess a body of as 
many : can he not as easily dispossess a soul ? If thou hadst ten thousand 
legions, I dare say Christ would not lose an opportunity of such a conquest ; 
for it would please him more to do great works than little, and to shew how 
far his power could reach. 

Were it not for such objects, we could not know whether he could ' save 
to the utmost,' or no, Heb. vii. 25. What has he this abihty for? To lie 
idle ? No, surely to be exercised about the most difficult tasks. Suppose 
the scroll of thy sins were as long as to reach from earth to the highest 
heavens, would this reach to the utmost of Christ's ability ? If thou hadst 
* Goularl Tableau de la mort, Tableau 9, p. 131. 
VOL. V. NO 



562 chaenock's works. [1 Tim. I. 15. 

sinned as far as any man in the world can sin, yet still thou art not got with- 
out the verge of Christ's saving power. That word utmost I dare set against 
all thy objections. If you had the sins of all the damned in hell upon you, you 
could not put either his free grace or vast power to a nonplus. His blood 
is of that virtue, that were it poured out upon a devil, it would make him 
presently commence a glorious angel. What is either a great or a light dis- 
ease to omnipotence, when with the same word he can cure the greatest as 
well as the least distempers ? 

But may the soul say, I do not question his power, but his will. 
Therefore, 

5. Christ's nature leads him to shew mercy to the greatest sinners. 
Some question whether Christ will pardon them, for they look upon him as a 
hard master, that will not easily forgive. Bnt Christ gives another character 
of himself. Mat. xi. 28, 29, when he exhorts men to come to him ; he tells 
them they must not judge him to be of a rugged and implacable nature, but 
as meek as they are sinful. Meekness is seen in pardoning of injuries, not 
keeping them in memory, to beget and cherish revenge. Now, the greater 
the provocation, the more transcendent is that meekness to pass it b}'. Did 
he ever upbraid any with their offences, and hit them in the teeth with their 
former extravagances ? Luke vii. 44, Christ makes a narrative of Mary's 
acts of kindness to him, but not a syllable of her foul transgressions. Are 
thy sins so great ? Surely Christ, who delights in his compassions, will not 
lose such an opportunity of evidencing both his power and his pity upon 
such a subject ; for if there cannot be so great a sinner as thou art, he is 
never like to have such a season for it, if he miss of thee. 

6. Christ was exalted by God upon this very account : * Wherefore he is 
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him,' Ileb. 
vii. 25. How comes Christ to be so able to save to the uttermost ? It is 
' because he ever lives to make intercession for them.' For whom? For 
those that come to God by him. What has Christ his hfe in heaven for, 
but to intercede ? And would his Father's love to him, and the greatness 
of his interest in God be discovered by granting some small requests, the 
pardon of a few and little sins ? Christ is consecrated priest by the oath of 
God, Heb. vii. 28 ; would God put himself to his oath for a light business, 
a thing of little moment ? What is the end of this oath ? Compare it with : 
' For men verily swear by the greater : and an oath for confirmation is to 
them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew 
unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an 
oath,' Heb. vi. 16-18 ; and all is that you ' might have a strong consolation.' 
What strong comfort could there be, if only little debts were remitted ? 
What is the end of an oath ? Ver. 16, to take away strife. Men do not 
strive with God, or doubt of his mercy to forgive httle sins, for they think 
that will be done of course. But the great contest men have with God is 
about his willingness to remit great debts, scarlet sins : upon this account 
the strife is between God and doubting sinners ; therefore, to bring this con- 
test to a period, God hath put himself to his oath, and sworn that Christ 
should be a priest for ever, to take away all strife between him and believing 
sinners. For whom is this strong consolation founded upon God's oath ? 
For those that 'fly for refuge,' ver. 18. Now the cities of refuge were not 
appointed for ordinary crimes, but for blood, to secure the malefactor from 
the avenger. 

Shall I add further, God is best pleased with Christ when he makes inter- 
cession for the greatest transgressors. Suppose thou hadst been one of 
Christ's murderers, and hadst given thy vote against him ; perhaps thou 



1 Tim. I. 15.j chief sinners objects of choicest mercy. 568 

wouldst have thought this a more crimson sin than any thou art guilty of. 
You know Christ prayed for their pardon while he was upon the cross ; and 
God gives this as one reason why he would exalt him : ' He shall divide him,' 
&c., Isa. liii. 12. Why ? ' Because he poured out his soul to death.' What 
should he bear sin for, if God had no mind to pardon it ? And because ' he was 
numbered among the transgressors,' which the evangelist understands of his 
being crucilied with thieves, Mark xv. 28. And therefore his making inter- 
cession for transgressors, must be understood of his prayer upon the cross. 
And if God did exalt him for this, would God be pleased with him, or would 
Christ answer the end of his exaltation, if he did cease to make intercession 
for sinners of the like stamp ? Go and tell God, that he sent Christ to 
bless you. Acts iii. 26, in converting you ; and desire Christ to do his office. 

7. Christ is entrusted by God to give out his grace to great sinners. 
Christ is God's Lord-almoner, for the dispensing redemption, and the riches 
of his grace. To whom ? Not to the righteous, they have no need of it ; 
but to sinners, and those that have the greatest necessity. He would be 
an ill steward, who, when entrusted by his lord to bestow his alms upon the 
poor, should overlook the most miserable, indigent, and necessitous persons, 
when they crave it of him, and relieve those that had not so great and cry- 
ing wants. Christ is a priest for intents of the same nature as the legal 
typical priests were. They were to have compassion, Heb. v. 2, /MiT^io- 
iradiTv, to measure out their compassion, to order the sacrifice according to 
the nature of the sin of the person that presented it. So is Christ, by vir- 
tue of his office, to measm-e out his grace according to the greatness of 
a man's necessity, as manna was to be gathered according to every one's 
wants. 

Well, then, to conclude this exhortation. Embolden thyself to draw near 
to Christ. It is the apostle's use he makes of all his foregoing doctrine, 
Heb. X. 19, &c. God requires not a heart without sin, but a heart without 
guile. Who needs more boldness than great sinners ? And the apostle sets 
no limits to it. Let us, who have been as great sinners as any, resolve to 
do as they in Jeremiah did, Jer. iii. 22. They had both a command and a 
promise. ' Return,' there is the command. ' I will heal,' &c., there is the 
promise. Presently they reply, ' We will come to thee,' &c. They seem 
to snatch the promise out of God's mouth. How will these quick and ready 
converts rise up in judgment against thy slowness and dulness ! Shall they 
do this upon one promise ; and when thou hast all the promises in the book 
of God repeated to thee, shall God hear no other answer but this. We will 
not return, or We dare not come. We dare not believe thee ? Did God give 
but one promise to Adam, and did he embrace it, and live upon it all his 
life (for we read of no more he had than that of the seed of the woman break- 
ing the serpent's head) ; and wilt thou not return, when thou hast so many 
promises, filling every page in the Scripture ? 

Hast thou not a world of precedents ? Did not God take up all his saints 
from the dunghill with all their rags, and clothe them ? Were any of them 
born princes and sons of heaven ? Alas, every man at first sued for a 
Saviour in the right of a sinner ; and all pleaded in the court of heaven in 
forma pavperis. Were they not debtors, and could they do that which might 
make God cross out one of those sums they owed him ? Oh, think not 
then thou canst dam up that torrent of love that has flowed so freely to 
the world for so many ages. Though thy disease be grievous, yet it is not 
irrecoverable, provided thou goest to the physician. He can with a breath 
burn up thy corruption, as soon as dissolve the creation. Christ can turn 
the muddiest water into such wine that can please the heart both of God and 



564 chaenock's works. [1 Tm. I. 15 

man. As you have been vessels of sin, if you will be vessels of repentance 
God will make you brimful of mercy. Plead not, therefore, thy own un- 
worthiness. Man's unworthiness never yet hindered the flowing of God's 
kindness. It is too weak a bank to stop the current of God's favour. The 
gripater thy unworthiness, the greater advantage has free grace to manifest 
its uncontrollable excellency. That man dishonours God that sets his sin 
above God's goodness, or his unworthiness above God's condescension. 
You cannot do God a greater pleasure than to come to him to be made clean. 
When he reckons up thy sin, it is not with an upbraiding, but a compas- 
sionate sigh, Jer. xiii. 27. He longs for the time of thy returning, and 
minds thee of thy sin, that thou mayest the sooner seek a remedy, and won- 
ders thou wilt continue in such a filthy condition so long. 

Fourthly, The caution which this subject suggests. 1. Think not thy 
sins are pardoned because they are not so great as those God has pardoned 
in others. This is ad suam consolationem aliena numerare vitia* Consider 
God cast off Saul for less sins than David committed. Evil angels were cast 
off for one sin. A few small sands may sink a ship as well as a great rock. 
Thy sins may be pardoned though as great as others, but then you must 
have equal qualifications with them. They had great sins, so hast thou ; 
but have you as great a hatred and loathing of sin as they had ? 

2. Let not this doctrine encourage any person to go on in sin. If thou 
dost now suck such poison out of this doctrine, and boast of that name God 
proclaims, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7, take the cooler along with thee, and remember 
it is one part of his name ' by no means to clear the guilty.' He never 
intended those mercies for sinners as sinners, but as penitent. Penitents, 
as such, are not guilty, because repentance is a moral revocation of a sin, 
and always supposes faith in Christ. There is ' forgiveness with God,' Ps. 
cxxx. 4 ; but it is ' that he may be feared,' not despised. God never 
intended mercy as a sanctuary to protect sin. 

(1.) It is disingenuous to do so. Great love requires great duties, not 
great sins. Freeness of grace should make us increase holiness in a more 
cheerful manner. What high ingratitude is it to be incUned to sin because 
God is inclined to pardon, to have a frozen heart to him because he hath a 
melting heart to thee ! What, to rebel against him because he hath a com- 
passionate heart, and to be wicked because God is good ! to turn grace itself 
into wantonness ! Is this to fear his goodness ? No, it is to trample on it ; 
to make that which should excite thee to holiness a bawd to thy lust, and God 
himself a pander to the devil. If thou dost thus slight the design of this 
mercy, which thou canst never prize at too high a rate, it is certain thou 
never hadst the least taste of it. If thou hadst, thou couldst not sin so 
freely ; for when grace enters, it makes the soul dead to sin, Rom. vi. 1, 2. 
The apostle answers such a consequence with a God forbid I 

(2.) It is foolish so to do. Would any man be so simple as to set his 
house on fire because he has a great river running by his door, from whence 
he may have water to quench it ; or wound himself, because there is an ex- 
cellent plaster which has cured several ? 

(3.) It is dangerous to do so. If thou losest the present time, thou art 
in danger to lose eternity. There are many in hell never sinned at such a 
presumptuous rate. He is merciful to the penitent, but he will not be 
unfaithful to his threatenings. If thou art willing to receive grace, thou 
mayest have it, but upon God's conditions. He will not pin it upon thy 
sleeve whether thou wilt or no. This is to make that which is the savour 
of life to become the savour of death unto thee. See what an answer Paul 
* Hieron. in vol. i. p. 114, e. 



1 Tim. I. 15. j chief sinners objects of choicest mekcy. 665 

gives to such an imagination, ' Let us do evil, that good may come ; whose 
damnation is just,' Rom. iii. 8. He takes a handful of hell-fire and flings 
it in their faces. Let but Deut. xxix. 18, 19, stare thee in the face, and 
promise thyself peace in this course if thou canst : ' Lest there should be 
among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood ; and it cometh to pass, 
when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, 
faying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart.' 
As his goodness is great, which thou dost despise ; so the wrath will be the 
hotter thou dost treasure up. Though great sins are occasions of great 
grace, yet sin doth not necessitate grace. Who can tell whether ever God 
would have shewn mercy to Paul, had he done that against knowledge which 
he did ignorantly ? Repentance must first be ; see the order, ' Repent, and 
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,' Acts iii. 19. First, 
repentance and conversion, then justification. This grace is only given to 
penitent sinners. You know not whether you shall repent, but you may 
know, that if you do not repent you shall be damned. As there is infinite 
grace to pardon you, if you repent ; so there is infinite justice to punish 
you, if you do not repent. The gospel binds us to our good behaviour as 
much as the law. 



INDEX. 



Abiding in Christ, motives to, iv. 587. 

Ability to obey God's commands, was in man oriei- 
nally, iii. 224 ; was not taken away by God, but 
cast away by himself, ib.; hence the want of 
does not diminish God's right of demanding, or 
man's obligation to render, obedience, 225. 

A braham. Cabbalistic account of the change of his 
name, iii. 2.32 

AlCEPTABLENESS OF CHRIST'S DEATH, iV. 552. 

Acceptance of Christ, his work and sufferings, by 
God, proofs of, iii. 427. Is the stability of the 
covenant, 432. Justification founded" on, ib. 
Acceptation of our persons and services results 
from, 433. The constant wooings of men by God 
flow from, ib. 

Access to God, secured by the reconciliation, iii. 
484 ; with confidence, ib.; with delight and joy, 
485. 

Accidental, what is in repard of the creature, is 
not so in regard ol God, i. 486. 

Acquaintance with God, men unwilling to have 
any, i. 243. 

Actions, a greater discovery of a principle than 
words, i. 185. Many that" are materially good, 
done only because agreeable to self, 213. All 
known to God, 472. Natural or spiritual, im- 
possible without natural or spiritual life, iii 18. 

^c<n'% required in spiritual worship,!. 302. 

Adam, the greatness of his sin, ii. 327, 463. Vir- 
tually guilty of the breach of every command- 
ment of the law, but not expressly, iii. 132. In 
what respects his sin was greater, and in what 
less, than Eve's, v. 402. 

Additions in matters of religion, an invasion of 
God's sovereignty, ii. 465 

Admiration ought to be exercised in spiritual 
worship, i. 307. 

Adoption differs from regeneration, iii. 90. 

Adversity not absolutely an evil, nor prosperity 
absolutely a good, i. 34. 

A dvocacy of Christ, not for all men, but believers, 
V. 97. Its proper intendment is for sins after a 
stateof faith. 98. Excludes all pleas of our own 
righteousness, graces, or privileges, ib. Is as 
real as his sacrifice, 99. Is a part of his priestly 
office, 100. Was the end of his ascension and 
sitting down at the right hand of God, 101. Is 
founded on his oblation, 102 Differs from the 
intercession or advocacy ascribed to the Spirit, 
ib. Is authoritative, 103 ; wise and skilful, 104; 
righteous and faithful, 105 ; compassionate, ib ; 
ready and diligent, 107 ; earnest and pressing, 
ib ; joyful and cheerful, 108 ; acceptable, 109 ; 
exclusive, 110 How it is managed, ib. Not as 
God, essentially considered, ib.; not in such a 
supplicating manner as he prayed on earth, ib.; 
yet with a kind of petition or supplication. 111 ; 
such as is of the nature of a claim or demand, 
112 ; accompanied with a presenting the me- 
morials of his death, ib. ; presenting our persons 
to God, together with his blood, in an affection- 
ate manner, ib. Christ perpetually carries on, 
113. Its efficacy, 116 ; assured by his person, 
119 ; by the nature of his pleas, 122. Its particu- 
larity, 127. What he lives for, 129. Heinousuess 
of contempt or abuse of, 138. 



Affections, human, in what sense ascribed to God 
i. 401. Sudden stirring of, is not regsaeratlon, 
iii. 134. Corrupt, a Hindrance to the attainment 
of the knowledge of God, iv. 98. 

Afflictions, v. 17S 

AlHictions of the righteous, and prosperity ol the 
wicked, not inconsistent with God's providence, 
i. 30. Make atheists fear there is a God, 177. 
Many call upon God only under, 237. The pre- 
sence of God a comfort in, 451 ; and his know- 
ledge, 528. The wisdom of God appears best 
in, ii. 46. The wisdom ot God a comfort in, 87 ; 
and his power, ISO ; and his sovereignty, 482. 
Do not impeach his goodnes.s, 305. His goodness 
seen in, 361 His goodness a comtort in, 389. 
Are acts of God's sovereignty, 416. The conside- 
ration of which should make us entertain them 
as we ought, 486. Plough the tieart tor tlie re- 
ception of the good seed of the word, iii. 326. 
God does not send on his people without provid- 
ing them also with a cordial, iv. 164. God sends 
on his dearest children, ib. We must neitter 
slight, nor faint under, v. 179. Are all from 
God's hand, ib. God in imposing upon believers, 
treats them as children, 182. No child of God 
is always free from, 183. Are notalways punish- 
ments, 187. Though grievous, tlieir fruit is 
gracious to a believer, 188. 

Aoe, old ; many neglect the serving ot God till, i. 
204. 

Air; how useful a creature, i. 153. 

Almighty, God so called seventy times in Scrip- 
ture, ii. 104 ; about thirty-two times in the book 
of Job, 417. 

Ambition, the great hindrance of a thorough con- 
version, iii. 8. 

Angels, employed by God as ministers in some 
particular works of his providence, i. 11. Or- 
dered for the good of the church, 68. The 
highest orders not exempted from this service, 
69. Armies of them so employed, 70. Christ 
hath the government of, for the good of his 
church, ib. Great actions performed by, ib. 
Engage in work for the church with delight, 71. 
Probably plead for the church, 93. Good, what 
benefit they have by Christ, ii. 36, 321. Not in- 
struments in the creation of man, 130. Evil, 
not redeemed, 322. Not governors of the world, 
377. Subject to God, 422. Their confirmation 
under Christ as a head, in some sort a regene- 
ration, iii. 70. Had no thought of the recon- 
ciliation of sinners to God till it was revealed to 
the church, 349. At peace with the believer, 
482. Cannot know God perfectly, iv. 40. Have 
their clearest knowledge of God by Christ, 133. 
Why Christ seen of? 134 
Anointing of Christ with the Holy Ghost was of 
his human nature only, iii. 396. Yet the divine 
nature capacitated the human for the reception 
of greater gifts than any mere creature was cap- 
able of, ib. Was at his conception, 397. 
Anthropomorphism confuted, i. 276 
A nliquity hath often bewitched the minds of men, 
and drawn them from the revealed will of God, 
i 269. 
Apostasy. Men apostatize from Ood vhen his 



568 



will crosses theirs, i. 22S. In times of persecu- 
tion, 235. By reason of practical atheism, 25u. 
In a church is followed with a removal of the 
gospel, V. 192. 

Apostles; the wisdom of God seen in their selec- 
tion, ii. 72. Were mean and worthless men, 
154. Were spirited with divine power for 
spreading the gospel, 157. 

Apprehensions, spiritual, an antidote against un- 
belief, and the sorrow consequent upon it, iv. 
165. 

Arminian doctrine of the resistibleness of grace 
evacuates all the promises of God, v. 257 ; 
darkens the love of God, 258 ; disgraceth his 
wisdom and power, 259 ; sets him at uncertain- 
ties as to the objects of his love, ib.; subjects 
the grace of God to the will of man, 260 ; frus- 
trates the design and fruits of election, ib.; 
frustrates the fruits of Christ's mediation and 
ofiBces, 261 ; disparageth the work of the Spirit, i&. 

Assurance, possibility of, denied by the papists, 
iv. 484. 

Atheism, practical, i. 183. 

Athehm opens a door to all manner of wicked- 
ness, i. 128. No man without some spice of, *. 
Is the greatest folly, ib. 173. Is rife in our times, 
129, 175. Strikes at the foundation of all religion, 
129. We should establish ourselves against, ib. 
Is against the light of natural reason, 130. 
Against the universal consent of all nations, 132. 
Professed by few, if any, in former ages, 134, 
175. Would root up the foundations of all go- 
vernment, 173. Would introduce all evil into the 
world, ib. Pernicious to the atheist himself, 175. 
The cause of public judgments, 176. Men's lusts 
the cause of, 178. Most promoted by the devil 
since the destruction of idolatry, 179. Uncom- 
fortable doctrine, 180. Directions against, 181. 
Practical, natural to man in his depraved state, 
and very frequent in the hearts and lives of 
men, 183. Not natural by nature as created, but 
as corrupted, 184. Evidences of, 192 ; nauseat- 
ing God's rule, ih,; preferring other rules to that 
of God, 207 ; the rule of Satan, 208 ; of man, 209 ; 
setting up ourselves as our own rule, 211 ; ne- 
glecting to take God's directions upon emergent 
occasions, 215 ; wishingto make ourselves a rule 
to God, and to give laws to him, 216 ; seeking 
to be our own end and happiness, in opposition 
to God, 223 ; making anything rather than God 
our end and happiness, 229. Worldlings and 
sensualists virtually guilty of, 2.33. Evinced by 
unworthy imaginations of God, 240. Necessitates 
regeneration, 247. The cause of all apostasy, 250. 
Unreasonableness of, 252. Ingratitude of, 253. 
Misery of, 254. Directions against, 255. Of the 
natural heart, desperate, v. 510. 

Atheist, can never prove that there is no God, i. 176. 
All the creatures fight against, 177. In afflic- 
tions, suspects that there is a God, ib. How 
much pains he takes to blot out the notion, 178. 
His folly, even if it were equally probable that 
there is or is not a God, ib. Uses not means to 
imform himself, ib. 

Atoms, the world not made by a casual concourse 
of, i. 150. 

Attributes and existence of God, i. 121. 

Attributes of God, all bear a comfortable aspect to 
a believer, ii. 5. 

Authority, how distinguished from power, 11. 407. 



Baptism signifies nothing to adults without an In- 
ward renewal and baptism of the heart, iii. 21. 

Baptist, his dignity not diminished, but increased, 
by the appearance of Christ, iv. 300. 

Belief, not forced, iii. 7. 

Believers, their state far happier than that of Adam 
in innocence, iii. 490. Their fewness, iv. 3.3. 
Infallible happiness of, 338. 

Best we have, ought to be given to God, i. 315. 

Blessings all grow up from the pardon of sin, Ii. 
401. God only the author of. ib God acts as a 
sovereign in bestowing temporal, 448. All spi- 
ritual and temporal assured by God's being the 
author and accepter of reconciliation, iii. 467. 



Blindness, man's natural in the things of God, hr. 
35i) 

Blo.id, cleansing virtue of Christ's, iii. 351. 

Blood of Christ hath a perpetual virtue, and doth 
actually and perfectly cleanse believers from all 
guilt, iii. 503. Derives its value from his Son- 
ship, 514. Upon the conscience, the mark of 
his people, v. 382. 

Body of man, how curiously wrought, i. 162, ii. 25. 
Every one hath different featui-es, i. 164. God 
must be worshipped with, 2y6. Of Christ, fres 
from any taint of moral imperfection, iii. 394. 
Formed of the seed of the woman, that it might 
be mortal ; but not by ordinaiy generation, that 
it mif;ht be holy, ib. Glorified, v. 71. Is of a 
spiritual nature, in opposition to infirm flesh, 
ib. Is immortal, 73 

Brain, its curious workmanship, i. 163. 



Calf, golden, though the Israelites may have in- 
tended to worship the true God under, their sin 
was no less idolatry, i. 275. 

Callings, God fits and inclines men to several, 
ii. 32. 

Cause, a first, of all things must necessarily exist, 
i. 150. Is necessarily perfect, ib. 

Censure, not to be passed upon God in his counsels, 
actions, or revelations, i. 362 ; or on his ways, 
ii. 96. Of the hearts of others, an injury to (iod'i 
omniscience, i. 519 ; and a contempt of hi» 
sovereignty, ii. 473. 

Ceremonies, men are prone to bring their own into 
God's worship, i. 222. Legal, abolished to pro- 
mote spiritual worship, 290. Were not a fit 
means to bring the heart into a spiritual frame, 
291. Rather hindered than furthered spiritual 
worship, 292. Never intended to be perpetual, 
294. Abrogation of, does not argue any change 
in God, 405. God's holiness appears in, ii. 2 j8. 
Human, not to be urged, iv. 393. 

Chance, the world not made or governed by, i 158 

Charity, men may have bad ends in, i. 239. Should 
be exercised, ii. 398 Consideration of God's 
sovereignty would promote, 4S6. 

Cheerfulness, an ingredient in spiritual worship, 
i. 309. 

Chief sinkers objects of the choicest mbbct, 
V. 526. 

Child-bearing women, comfort of, v. 398. 

Child-bearing, the pain of, a punishment inflicted 
upon the woman for the first sin, v. 401. Not a 
punishment in a rigid sense, 402. Doth not 
hinder salvation, 403. 

Christ, cleansing virtue of his blood, iii. 501. 
knowledge of God in, iv. 110. 
crucified, knowledge of, iv. 494. 
ona PASSOVER, iv. 507. 
his death, voluntariness op, iv. 540. 
accbptableness of, iv. 552. 
necessity of, v. 3, 
his exaltation, nkcessitt of, v. 49. 
HIS intercession, v. 91. 

Christ, spiritual worship to be offered to God 
through, i. 314. The imperfectness of our ser- 
vices should make us prize his mediation, 331. 
His divinity proved from his eternity, 360 ; 
from his immutability, 406 ; from his omni- 
presence, 445 ; from his omniscience. 508; his 
perfect knowledge of the Father, 609 ; of all 
creatures, ib. ; of the hearts and affections of 
men, 510 ; of the particular i nclinations of men. 
before they are in actual operation, 511 ; from 
his wisdom, ii. 74 ; from his omnipotence, ma- 
nifest in creation, preservation, and resurrec- 
tion, 164; from his holiness, 255. The only fit 
person in the Trinity to assume our nature, 
66. Fitted to be our mediator and Saviour by 
his two natures, 60. Is God and man, 148. 
Should be imitated in his holiness, and often 
viewed by us to that end, 268. The highest gift 
that divine goodness could bestow, 324 ; greater 
than worlds, ib. ; than angels, 325 ; enhanced 
by consideration of the state of those to whom 
he was given, 327. Appointed by the Father to 
be our Redeemer, 458. His coming and suffer- 



669 



Ings would seem insignificant without reference 
to regeneration, iii. 2i. Not to know after the 
flesh, what it means, 84. How he enlightens 
every man, 166. All the spiritual blessings we 
have from, spring from the Father, 357. Came 
forth from the womb of a decree from eternity, 
from the womb of the virgin in time, 361. Ap- 
pointed by the Father for redemption, ib. How 
he glorified God by his work, 365. His fitness 
for it, 391. This fitness derived from the Father, 
392. His whole work prescribed to him, 406. 
God gave him instructions how to manage it, 
407. The miracles performed by him a confir- 
mation of the authenticity of his commission, 
4(j8. The end of his commission the redemption 
and reconciliation of man, 409. His actual mis- 
sion by God, 410. Greatness of his suflferings, 
417. His soul begirt with the wrath of God, 
420. Not necessary that his sufferings should be 
eternal, 422 His strength and sufficiency for all 
the concerns of his mediation, 466. Rejection 
of. a high contempt of God, 469. The only me- 
diator or reconciler, 471. None else ever ap- 
pointed by God, 472 ; none else ever fit for it, 
t6. ; none else ever accepted, or designed to be 
accepted, 473 ; none else ever did what was 
necessary to our reconcilement, ib.; none else 
can secure to us the fruits of reconciliation, 474. 
Justifies by taking sin upon himself, 518 ; by 
accounting the righteousness and suflSciency of 
his sufferings to us, 519. Was a voluntary re- 
deemer, iv. 6. The image of God, 111 ; not his 
humanity abstractedly considered, but his per- 
son, 112. Alone capacitated for the full dis. 
covery of God, 131 ; in regaid of his intimacy 
with the Father, ib. ; of his being the medium of 
the first discovery of God in creation, 132. Fit- 
ting that a higher knowledge of God should be 
manifested by him than by other prophets, ib. 
The discovery of God the great end of his oflice, 
133 By him the angels have their clearest 
knowledge of God, much more man, ib. In him 
a collection of all God's perfections, 138 ; and in 
exact harmony, 139. His tenderness of griev- 
ing his weak and distressed people, 166. His 
death and ascension highly necessary for the 
descent of the Spirit, 167. His fitness for his 
prophetical office, 303. The authority of his 
mission, 304. God has a special love to him, in 
his oflace of mediatorship, 305. Entrusted with 
all thines necessary to our salvation, 306. His 
admirable eloquence, 358. His death ordained 
by God, 496 ; an act of his sovereignty, ib.; of 
his choicest love, ib. ; of justice, 497. Fruits of 
his death, 498 ; appeasing the wrath of God for 
us. *.; silencing ihe law, 499 ; the removal of 
guilt, 600; the conquest of Satan, 501 ; sanctifi- 
cation, 602 ; opening heaven for us, 503. Know- 
ledge of, as crucified, will keep up life in our 
repentance, 604 ; will spirit our faith, 505 ; will 
animate us in our approaches to God, ib. ; will 
be a means to further us in holiness, ib.; will be 
a foundation of all comfort, 506. Was a sacrifice 
in his human nature, 526 ; sanctified by his 
divine nature, ib. As sacrificed, the true and 
immediate object of faith, 533. Did not die only 
for an example, 536. His sacrifice unites all the 
attributes of God together for a believer's in- 
terest, 537 ; is of eternal virtue, ib Voluntari- 
ness of his death appears in his willing offering 
of himself in the first counsel about redemption 
to stand in our stead, 547 ; in the whole course 
of his life, 648 ; in bis whole carriage at the time 
of his death, ib. 

Ctiristian, is ready and disposed to every good 
work on God's call, iii. 108. The true, his ex- 
cellency, iv. 71. In what sense he cannot sin, 
V. 415. 

Christianity, most opposed in the world, i. 202. Its 
excellency, 251. Is of divine extraction, ii. 71. 
Its excellence above any other religion that ever 
was in the world, iii. 467. Declares the glory of 
<iod, ib.; manifests his wisdom, 458 ; his power, 
459 ; the wonders of his goodness, ib. Shews 
the true way of obtaining peace with God, and 
no peace in ourselves, 460. 



CnrRcn's stabilitt, v. 317. 

Church, all things for her good, next to the glory 
of God, i. 64 ; all good things, ib ; the world, ib. ; 
the gifts and common graces of men, 67 ; angels, 
68 ; all bad things, 71 ; the devil, ib ; wicked 
men, 72; sin, 75; destroying judgments, 76; 
divisions, 77 ; persecutions, ib. Usually left to 
extremity before God sends help, 101. To fear 
the enemies of, is a wrong to God, 107. To be 
prayed for, 119. God's eternity a comfort to her 
in all her distresses and the threatenings of her 
enemies, 365. Is under God's special providence, 
458. His infinite knowledge a comfort in all 
subtile contrivances of men against her, 624. 
Troublers of her peace by corrupt doctrines no 
better than devils, ii. 3. God's wisdom a com- 
fort to her in her greatest dangers, 86. Hath 
shewn his power in her deliverance in all ages, 
142 ; and in the destruction of her enemies, 143. 
Ought to take comfort from his power in her 
lowest estate, 181. His goodness a comfort in 
dangers, 390. God's great love to her, 480. His 
sovereignty a comfort to her, 482. He will com- 
forc her in her fears, and destroy her enemies, 
500. God exercises patience towards her, 628 ; 
and for her sake to the wicked also, 629. Why 
her enemies are not immediately destroyed, 536. 
Her future glory in her universal extension, v. 
319 ; her happiness, 320. Shall continue as long 
as the world, and outlive the dissolution of na- 
ture. 321. Stability of, not meant of any par- 
ticular church, 322. Yet God will always have, 
not only a church, but a professing church, 323. 
Shall have a numerous progeny, 324. God hath 
hitherto established her, 326. No other society 
ever subsisted in the midst of such a multitude 
of enemies, 326. The violences against her have 
been useful to her, 327. Necessary for the 
honour of God, 329 ; as it is his main design in 
the creation of the world, ib ; as he hath been 
the author and builder of Sion, 330 ; as he hath 
been her preserver and enlarger to this day, 
331 ; in regard of the cost and pains he hath been 
at about her, 332 ; in regard of faithfulness to his 
promises, 333 ; in regard Sion is the seat of his 
glory, 335 ; in regard that it is the object of his 
peculiar affection, 336 ; in regard of the natural 
weakness of the church, 337 ; for the exercise of 
the ofiSces of Christ, 338. Founded upon Christ, 
341. Upon covenant, ib. 

lliurckes, the best, like the moon, have their spots, 
iv. 494. 

Circumcision and baptism, alike signified natural 
defilement, and the necessity of purification, iiL 
29. 

Cleansing virtue of Christ's blood, iii. 5ol. 

Cleansing and purging used in Scripture for justi- 
fying as well as sanctifying, iii. 602. By Christ's 
blood, is a continuous act, 603. Both effected by 
Christ's blood, 604. Is either meritorious or 
applicative, 605. From sin, the true and sole 
end of the incarnation and death of Christ, 512. 

Comfort of child-bearing women, v. 398. 

Comfort ; the holiness of God to be relied on for, 
ii. 258. God gives great, in or after temptations, 
363. None can be from the creatures, if God be 
angry, 479. A jewel belonging only to the 
cabinet of grace, iii. 137. Cannot be without 
the knowledge of God and Christ, iv. 36. 

Commands given by God do not signify a present 
ability in men to obey. iii. 223. Acquaint us 
with our present duty, but are no argument of 
a present power, ib. May be given to make us 
sensible of our impotency, 228 ; to urge us to 
have recourse to his grace, 229 ; to clear his 
justice, 230 ; to bring men to God, and keep 
them with God, 231. 

Communion with God, man has naturally no de- 
sire for, i. 24.1. Advantage of, 255. Can only 
be in our spirits, 280. We should desire, 373. 
Cannot be between God and unholy spirits, ii. 
252. Holiness alone fits us for, 270." 

Community of goods, not a standing institution ; 
did not exist in Paul's time, iv. 393. 

Comjjassions, God's, infinite, iii. 405. 

Conce^tiont, we cannot have adequate, of Qod, i. 



570 



2V5. We ought to labour after as high as we 
can, ib. Must not be of him as in a corporeal 
shape, 276. We ought to refine and spiritualize, 
279. Right, a great help to spiritual worship, 
341. 

Concurrence, of God to all the actions of his crea- 
tures, ii. 230 ; no blemish to his holiness, *. 

Conditions, various, of men, a fruit of divine wis- 
dom, ii. 32. 

Confession of sin, men may have bad ends in, i. 
239. Partial, a wronj; to God's omniscience, 
521. Auricular, no authority for, iv. 42S. 

Conflicts, sharp, to be expected and provided for, 
V. 367. 

Conscience proves a deity, i. 166. Fears and stings 
of, in all men on commission of sin, though 
never so secret, 16S. Cannot be totally shaken 
off, 109. Comforts a man in well-doing, ib. 
Necessary for the good of the world, 170. Terri- 
fied, wishes there were no God, 180. Men dis- 
pleased with, when it contradicts the desires of 
self, 212. Men obey carnal self against the light 
of, 228. Accusations of, evidence God's know- 
ledge of all things, 506. God alone can speak 
peace to the troubled, ii. 162, 426. His laws 
alone reach, 430, 466. Peace of, a fruit of recon- 
ciliation with God, iii. 487. A testimony to the 
being of God, iv. 166. Natural, its weakness, 
379. Its falseness and fallibility, 180. Terrified, 
is Maaor-Mismbih, 190. Peace of, suflScient 
ground for, in the sacrifice of Christ, 5^5. 

Constancy in that which is good, we should labour 
after, and why, i. 417. 

Contentment, nothing can give to the soul, but an 
infinite good, i. 170. 

Contradictions cannot be made true by God, ii. 117. 
This is no infringement of his omnipotence, ih. 
An abuse of God's power when it is made use of 
to justify (as in transubstantiation), 177. 

Contrary qualities linked together in the creatures, 
i. 152, ii. 26. 

Conversion, carnal self-love a great hindrance to, 
i. 225. There may be a turning from sin which 
is not, 236. Men enemies to, 245. Its difficulty, 
and necessity of the Spirit's agency to effect, 
248. Wisdom of God appears in, ii. 43 ; in the 
subjects, 44 ; the seasons, ih. ; the manner, 45. 
And his power, 159. And his holiness, 215. 
And his goodness, 359. And his sovereignty, 
435. He could convert all, 436. Not bound to 
convert any, 439. Various means and occasions 
of, 456. Differs from regeneration, iii. 88. Ra- 
rity of, a ground of fear of judgments, v. 200. 

Conviction of sin, iv. Ia4. 

Conviction, genuine, would be promoted by right 
and strong apprehensions of God's holiness, ii. 
260. May be a long time without conversion, 
iii. 8. Insufficient for entrance into the king- 
dom of God, 62. Is a knitting of the heart and 
the law, conversion of the heart and the gospel, 
iv. 184. Natural, are light, uncertain, and of 
short duration, 197 ; are not growing, 198 ; arise 
from some external cause, ib. Difference be- 
tween legal and evangelical, 199. Legal arises 
from a consideration of God's justice chiefly, 
evangelical from a sense of his goodness, ib.; 
legal from a sense of God's power, evangelical of 
his holiness, ib.; legal from a sense of God's 
omniscience, evangelical of his disaffection to 
sin, 200 ; legal is a sense of sin in the death 
of the soul, evangelical a sense of sin arising 
from the death of Christ, ib.; a legal con- 
vict accounts his torture the greatest evil, 
an evangelical his sin, 201 ; a legal convict 
is convinced of some sin, but is also conceited 
that he hath some good, ib.; a legal convict 
snatches at comfort, though never so false, an 
evangelical will take comfort only from the 
mouth of God, 203 ; a legal convict seeks only 
freedom from pain, an evangelical from sin, ib. 
Legal doth not of itself soften, but rather harden, 
204. Legal of itself tends only to destruction, 
evangelical to health and salvation, 205. Legal 
is transitory, evangelical is permanent, ib. Ex- 
hortations respecting, 214. 

Corruption, the knowledge of God a comfort under 



the fear of, i. 529. The remainders of, God 
orders for the good of his people, ii. 38. The 
power of God a comfort when they are strong 
and stirring, ISO. In God's people, shall be 
subdued, 481. Cannot reasonably be expected 
to be got rid of at once, iii. 142. Original, a 
cause of unbelief, iv. 372. 

Covenant of God with his people eternal, i. 363 ; 
and he in it an eternal good to them, 364. Un- 
changeable, 412. Of grace, condition of, evi- 
dences the wisdom of God, ii. 67 ; suited to 
man's lapsed state, and God's glory, ib ; oppo- 
^ite to that which was the cause of the fall, 68 ; 
.suited to the common sentiments and customs 
of the world, and the consciences ot men, ib.; 
only likely to attain the end, 69. The wisdom 
of God made over to believers, iv. 86 ; and his 
power, 179. An evidence of God's holiness, 214. 
In it his holiness made over to believers, 259. 
Of works, a promise of life implied in, 314. Why 
not expressed. 316. Of grace, goodness of God 
manifested in, 331 ; in making another covenant 
with man after the breach of the first, ib.; in 
the nature and tenor of it, 332 ; in the choice 
gift of himself in it, 333 ; in the confirmation of 
it, 334; in the condition of it, which is faith. 
335 ; in his methods of treating with men to 
embrace it, 339 ; in the sacraments affixed to it, 
341. Promises a more excellent reward than 
this life in paradise, 345. Of works, perpetual 
in its requirement of righteousness, iii. 22. Of 
redemption, between the Father and the Son, 
371. Proofs of its existence, 372. Accounts 
for the salvation of men before the coming of 
Christ, 373. Of redemption, distinct from that 
of grace, 374. Their differences in eight par- 
ticulars, ib. Conditions of, 377; that Ohrist 
should undertake for man as a common head, 
ib.; that he should take a body, ib.; that in that 
body he should pay sei-vice and obedience to his 
Father, ib. ; that in this body he should die, 378. 
Promises of, 379 ; assistance, ib. ; a seed, as the 
success of his undertaking, 381 ; and that a 
numerous seed, ib.; a succession of seed, 382 ; a 
perpetual seed, ib.; of glory upon his suffering, 
385 ; a resurrection, fi86 ; a royal inheritance, 
ib.; an extensive power, i6.; a perpetual an(l 
royal priesthood, 387 ; a universal victory, ib. 
Confirmation of, ib. Of redemption, is the foun- 
dation of that of grace, 390. 

Creation, God's wisdom appears in, ii. 22 ; in the 
variety of the creatures, ib. ; in their beauty, 
order, and situation, ib. ; in the fitness of every 
thing for its end, 24 ; in the subordination of 
each to all for a common end, 26. Should be 
meditated upon, 27. God's power appears in, 
124 ; in making the world of nothing, 127 ; in 
raising such variety of creatures from the barren 
womb of nothing, 129 ; in doing all this with the 
greatest ease and facility, ib. ; in producing all 
things instantaneously, 132. More than once 
ascribed to Christ, 164 ; and that not merely as 
an instrument, 167. God's holiness appears in, 
204. His goodness, 306. Mainly intended to 
carry out the decree of election, iii. 369. 

Creation, new, affords comfort against troubles in 
the world, iii. 140 Against temptations. 141. 
Against fears of falling away, ib. Against weak- 
ness of grace, and strength of corruption, 143. 
Against the fear of death, ib. As well as the old, 
begins with a Fiat lux, iv. 3). 

Creatures evidence the being of God, i. 131, 142 ; 
in their production, 143 ; intheir harmony, 151 ; 
in pursuing their several ends, 158 ; in their pre- 
servation, leO. Were not, and could not be, 
from eternity, 145, 359. Could not make them- 
selves, 146. Are subservient to one another, 
152 ; and that regularly, uniformly, and con- 
stantly, 155. Variety of, 156, ii. 22. Have 
several natures, i. 159. All fight against the 
atheist, 177. God to be studied in, 180. All 
manifest something of God's perfections, 181. 
Used by man to contrary ends to those that God 
appointed, 234. By the providential order of 
God, serve man with the best they have, 316. 
Shall be restored to their primitive end, 377, ii. 



571 



348 Are all changeable, i. 393. Therefore aa 
unchariKeable God to be preferred to, 4lo. None 
of them can be omnipresent, 433. Are nothing 
in comparison with God, 448. Are all known to 
God, 471. Their beautiful order and situation, 
ii 23. Fitted for their several ends, 24. None 
of can be omnipotent, 110. God could have 
made more than he hath, 112. Could have made 
them more perfect than they are, 114. Yet all 
are made in the best manner, 116. The power 
that is in them demonstrates a greater to be in 
God, 121. Ordered by God as he pleaseth, 144. 
The meanest can destroy us by God's order, 187, 
479. Making different ranks of, doth not im- 
peach God's goodness, 295. Cursed for the sin 
of man, 310, 347. What benefit they have by 
the redemption of man, ib. All subject to God, 
422. Cannot comfort us if God be angry, 479. 
All obey God, 494. All at peace with believers, 
iii. 483. All absolutely under the sovereignty 
of God, V. 353. 

Creature, neiv, is naturally active, iii. 110 ; volun- 
tarily active, ib. ; fervently. 111 ; unboundedly, 
112; powerfully, 113; easily, 114; pleasantly, 
ib. ; permanently, 115 ; orderly, 116. Its like- 
ness to God, 124; in affections, 127 ; in actions, 
ib. ; in holiness, 128. Not many in the world, 
123. -Its excellency, 135. A higher perfection 
bestowed upon than any natural perfection in 
the world, 153. To be preserved in vigour, 154. 
To be earnestly sought, 160. Motives to seek, 
161. Means to obtain, 163. 

Cross, Christ does not remove from his people, but 
comforts them under it, v. 147. 

Crttoified, Christ, Knowledge of, iv. 494. 

Crucifixion of Christ, in what senses it may be said 
to have been at Rome, iv. 255. 

Cup, refusal of to the laity, unscriptural, iv. 429. 

Curiosity in inquiries about God's counsels and 
actions, a great folly, i. 362. An injury to God's 
knowledge, 518. A contempt of his wisdom, 
ii. 84. Should not be employed about what he 
hath not revealed, 95. Consideration of God's 
sovereignty should check, 487. 



Day and night, alternation of, an instance of God's 
wisdom, ii. 25. 

Death, Cheist's, voluntariness op, iv. 640. 
accbptableness op, iv. 552. 
Necessity op, v. 3. 

Death, spiritual, most properly meant as the 
penalty of sin, iii. 40. Originally threatened was 
not corporeal, 57. Comfort in, a fruit of recon- 
ciliation with God, 488. 

Death of Christ, value of, is from his divine nature, 
ii. 60. Vindicated the honour of the law, both 
as to precept and penalty, 62. Overturned 
the devil's empire, 64. Suffered for our rescue, 
326. By the command of his Father, 459. Its 
fruits manifest God's high acceptance of it, 
iii. 427 ; the mission of the Spirit, ib. ; the an- 
swer of prayers in his name, 428. Not abso- 
lutely necessary, but conditionally, v. 5. Sup. 
poses the entrance of sin, ib. ; death to be settled 
as the punishment of sin ; God's purpose to re- 
deem men, 7 ; Christ's voluntary undertaking of 
the office of Redeemer, 8. To suffer, the im- 
mediate end of his interposition, 10. Without 
it, none could have been saved from the founda- 
tion of the world, 12. Since some were saved 
before on account of his future death, God had 
been highly dishonoured if he had not died, 13. 
The veracity of God made it necessary, 17. 
Doctrine of, is the substance of the gospel, 35. 
Nacessary in regard of the offices of Christ, ib. 
Necessary on account of the predictions and 
types of it in the Scriptures, 38. Shews the evil 
of sin, 45. Necessity of an interest in, 47. 

Debauched persons wish there were no God, i. 100. 

Decrees of God, no succession in, i. 353. Un- 
changeable, ii. 76, 170. 

Defilement, God not capable of from any corporeal 
thing, i. 279, 444. 

Delight in prayer, v. 370. 

Delight of Qod iu his people, i. 91. Holy duties 



should be performed with, 308. Is the frame 
and temper of glory, 309. All delight in wor- 
ship doth not prove it to be spiritual, ib. We 
should examine ourselves after worship what 
delight we had in it, 327. May be in fruition or 
in desire, hope and contemplation, v. 371. Is 
active or passive, 372; settled or transient, spi- 
ritual or sensitive, ib. In prayer, is inward and 
hearty, 373. In God, who is the object of prayer, 
ib. ; in the precepts and promises of God, which 
are the ground and rules of prayer, ib. ; in 
prayer itself, 374 ; in the things asked, ib. ; in 
the graces and affections which are exercised, 
»6 Springs from the Spirit of God, 375 ; from 
gi-ace, ib, ; from a good conscience, it>. ; from a 
holy and frequent familiarity with God, 376; 
from hopes of speeding, ib. ; from a sense of 
former mercies and acceptation, ib. 

Deliverances chiefly to be ascribed to Qod, i. 458. 
The wisdom of God seen in, ii. 49. Specially 
wrought by God for the church when her ene- 
mies are in flourishing prosperity, v. 354 ; 
swelling pride, ib. ; eager malice, 355 ; confident 
security, 356. Wrought suddenly, 36j ; mag- 
nificently, 361 ; severely, 362 ; universally, 363 ; 
totally, ib ; justly, ib. ; wisely, 364. 

Depravity of man's nature, its extent shewn by 
the necessity of regeneration, iii. 57. 

Dtsires of man, naturally after an infinite good, 
i 170; an evidence of the being of God, *. 
Naturally have none of remembrance of God, 
244 ; or of converse with him, 245 ; or of a 
thorough return to him, ib. ; or of any close 
imitation of him, 246. After happiness, left in 
man after the fall by the mercy of God, on the 
interposition of the mediator, iii. 71. Are the 
foundation on which the grace of regeneration 
is grafted, ib. Yastness of man's, a proof of the 
being of God, iv. 170. 

Despair, deservedly counted a horrid sin, as it is a 
wrong to the mercy of God, iv. 234. 

Devil, man naturally under his dominion, i. 208. 
Shall be totally subdued by God, ii. 4. Outwitted 
by God, 64. His first sin, what it was, 462, iv. 267. 
Acts out of malice what God commands out of 
sovereignty and fir gracious designs, iii. 38. 
May as soon be saved as a man without regene- 
ration, iii. 65. In what sense under chains and 
darkness, 173. Caunot work immediately upon 
men's wills, 177. Always sins, and with evil 
intention, 210. Is the head of the unbelieving 
world, iv. 269. 

Direction should be sought from God, ii. 79. Great 
sin of not seeking, 83. Presumption of giving to 
him, 84. 

Disappointments make many cast off their obe- 
dience to God, i. 2U6. Of the devices of men by 
God, ii. 453. 

Dispensations, God's, with his own law, ii. 430. 

Distance from God naturally desired by men, 
i. 243. How great it is in respect of holiness, 
ii 250. 

Distraction in the service of God, an evidence of 
practical atheism, i. 205, 327. Will occur while 
we have natural corruption within, 328 ; while 
we are in the devil's precinct, ib. Most frequent 
in time of affliction, 329. May be improved to 
make us more spiritual, ib. ; when we are hum- 
bled for them in worship, ib ; and for the base- 
ness of our nature, which is the cause of them, 
330 ; make us prize duties of worship the more, 
ib. ; fill us with admirations of the graciousness 
of God, ib. ; make us prize the mediation of 
Christ, 331. Should not discourage us if we 
resist them, ib. ; and narrowly watch against 
them, 332. Should be speedily cast out, 343. 
Thoughts of God's presence a remedy against,456. 

Distrust of God, a contempt of God's wisdom, 
ii. 86 ; of his power, 175 ; of his goodness, 369. 
Too great fear of man occurs from, 175. 

Divine providence, i. 6. 

Divisions in churches, sad consequences of, iv. 
392. Bring judgments on a people, v. 201. 

Doctrines that are self-i'leasing desired by man, 
i. 227. Test of the truth of, bumbling man and 
exalting God, iii. 24u. 



572 



PoMiKioy, God's, ii. 400. 

Dominion of God, founded not on might only, but 
on right, ii. 407. Notion of, inseparable from 
the notion of God, 408. God cannot divest him- 
self of, 409. Founded on the excellency of his 
nature, 410 ; on his act of creation, 411 ; on his 
being the final cause or end of all, 412 ; on his 
preservation of things, 413. Strengthened by 
the innumerable benefits he bestows on his 
creatures, ib. Is independent, 414 ; absolute, 
415 ; not tyrannical, 418. Extends over all crea- 
tures, 422. Is etermil, 426. Its first act is the 
making of laws, 427. Exercised in the sovereign 
disposal of his creatures and his own goods, 
433 ; in governing states and kingdoms, 449 ; 
raisingand ordering the spirits of men according 
to his pleasure, 451 ; restraining the furious pas- 
sions of men, 452 ; defeating the purposes and 
devices of men, 453 ; sending his judgments 
upon whom he pleaseth, 455 ; appointing to 
every man his calling and station in the world, 
ib. ; in the means and occasions of men's con- 
versions, 456. Disposing of the lives of men, ib. 
Manifest in redemption, 457 ; in requiring satis- 
faction for sin, ib. ; in appointing Christ to the 
work of redemption, 458 ; in transferring our 
sins upon Christ, ib. ; in exalting Christ to so- 
vereign dignity as Redeemer, 460. Contempt of, 
461. This is the nature of all sin, 462. Was the 
sin of Adam, 463. His sovereignty as a lawgiver 
contemned when laws are made in any state con- 
trary to his laws, 464 ; in making additions to his 
laws, 465 ; when obedience to men's laws is pre- 
ferred before obedience to God's laws, 467. His 
dominion as proprietor contemned by envy, 468 ; 
by actual or virtual theft, ib ; by abuse of his 
gifts, ib His dominion as governor contemned 
in idolatry, 469 ; impatience, 470 ; limiting him 
in his way of working to our methods, 471 ; pride 
or presumption, ib. ; slight or careless worship, 
472 ; omission of the service he hath appointed, 
473 : censuring others, i6. Dreadful to all 
rebels against God, 477. Comfortable to his 
people, 480. Motives to obey, 492. Manner and 
kind of obedience, 494. 

Dulness in prayer, not suitable to the things wo 
pray for, nor to the duty, v. 371. 

Duties of religion often performed merely for self- 
interest, i. 236. Men unwieldy to, i6. Many 
perform only in afiBiction, 237. And privileges, 
external religious, insufficient for entrance into 
the kingdom of God, iii. 62. Both matter and 
manner of, to be regarded, iv. 480 

Jhvelling, God's, in heaven and in the temple, in 
what sense to be understood, i. 439. 



Ear of man, how curious an organ, i. 163. 

Education cannot root out corruption from the 
heart, iii. 17. Cannot of itself produce regene- 
ration, 5$, 289. 

Efficient of eegenekatiok, iv. 166, 249. 

Ejaculatory prayer, how useful, i. 341. 

Elect, God knows all their persons, i. 525. Have 
no interest in God's favour of delight till they 
are regenerated, iii. 41. Before their conversion 
are in a state of enmity, darkness, ignorance, 
slavery, 345. 

Election evideuceihj holiness, il. 271. Sovereignty 
of God appears in, 433. Not grounded on merit 
in the creature, 434 ; nor on fore.sight of faith 
and good works, 43.i. Ascribed exclusively to the 
Father, iii. 358. Was in him an act of love, 
which in nowise falls under the merit of Christ, 
ib 

Elements, though contrary, yet linked together, 
i. 152. 

End of the Lord's Supper, iv. 392. 

End, all creatures con.'-pire to one common, i. 152. 
Pui'sue this in their several ways, though they 
know it not, 159. Men may have corrupt, in re- 
ligious duties, 221, 236 ; or evil, 196. Man natu- 
rally would make himself his own end, 223. 
Would make any thing his end rather than God, 
229. Would make himself the end of all crea- 
tures, 233. Would make himself the end of God, 



235. Cannot make God his end, till converted, 
247. Spiritual, required in spiritual worship, 
313. God orders the hearts of all men to his 
own, ii, 141. In regard of sin, God hath one, 
man another, 234. God should be our, 272. In 
what sense God makes himself his own, 292. 
His being the end of all things, a foundation of 
his dominion, 412. A great sin not to use his 
gifts for the end for which he gives them, 468. 

Enemies, we should be kind to our worst, ii. 399. 

Enjoyment of God in heaven, always fresh and 
glorious, i. 364. We should endeavour after 
here, ii. 391. 

Enmity, Man's to God, v. 459. 

Enmity and disobedience to God, an outrage and 
high ingratitude, iii. 470. Natural man's to God, 
wherein it consists, v. 463. Not hatred of God, 
as God, 467 ; not as creator and preserver, 468 ; 
but as a sovereign, ib. ; as a judge, 469. Shewn 
in unwillingness to know the law of God, inquire 
into it, or think of it, 473 ; unwillingness to be 
determined by any law of God, 474 ; aversion to 
the spirituality of the law, 475 ; hatred of con- 
science when it puts in mind of the law of God, 
476 ; setting up another law in opposition to 
God's law, 477; being at greater pains and charge 
to break God's law than would be neces.sary to 
keep it, 478; doing what is just and righteous 
on any other consideration rather than obedi- 
ence to God's will, ib. ; being more observant of 
the laws of men than of the law of God, 480 ; in 
unwillingness that any should observe God's 
laws, 481 ; in taking pleasure to see others break 
his law, ib. Shewn in setting up other sove- 
reigns instead of God, ib. ; idols, 482 ; self, t6. ; 
the world, 483 ; sensual pleasures, ib ; Satan, 
484. Directed against all his attributes, 486 ; 
his holiness, ib. ; wisdom, 489 ; sufficiency, 491 ; 
omniscience, 492 ; mercy, 494 ; justice, 495 ; 
truth, 496 ; providence, 497 ; his content and 
pleasure, 498. Against the truth, 500 Against 
the duties he enjoins, 502. Against Christ, 505. 
Against the saints, 506. Causes of, ib. ; dis- 
similitude between God and a natural man, ib. ; 
guilt, 507 ; God's crossing the desires and inte- 
rests of the flesh; love of sin, 508; injury we 
have done to God, ib. ; slavish fear, ib. ; pride, 
6U9 ; love of the world, ib. In many respects 
worse than atheism, 511. 

Envy of the gifts and prosperity of others is an 
evidence of practical atheism, i. 220. Is an 
imitation of the devil, ib A sense of God's 
goodness would check, ii. 396. Is a contempt of 
God's dominion, 468. 

Epistles to the seven churches, descriptive of the 
condition of the church in successive ages, v. 
190. 

Essence of God incommunicable, iii. 124. 

Eternity of God, i. 345. 

Eternity of God, the foundation of the stability of 
the covenant, the great comfort of the Christian, 
i. 347. What it is, 348. God without beginning, 
349 ; without end, 351 ; without succession, ib. 
His eternity evident by the name he gives him- 
self, 355. If he were not eternal, he were not 
immutable in his nature, 357 ; nor infinitely 
perfect, ib. ; nor omnipotent, ib. ; nor the first 
cause of all, 358. Proper to God only, and not 
communicable, 359. Yet belongs to Christ, 
therefore he is God, 360. Consideration of, 
should abate our pride, 368 ; take off our love 
and confidence from the world, 370. We should 
provide for a happy interest in, 371. Should 
often meditate on, 372. Renders him worthy of 
our choicest affections, and strongest desires of 
communion with him, 373 ; and of our best ser- 
vice, ib. 

Exaltation, Christ's, necessity of, v. 49. 

Exaltation of Christ, the holiness of God appears 
in, ii. 213 ; his goodness to us, as well as to 
Christ, 326 ; and his sovereignty, 460. A mighty 
encouragement to faith in Christ, iii. 451. Ter- 
rible to the unbeliever and unregenerate, 455. 
A ground of praise to God, 457. As necessary 
as his passion, v. 53 ; in regard of the truth of 
God's promise to him, ib.; and of his promises 



573 



and predictions of him, 55 ; upon the account of 
righteousness and goodness, ib.; on account of 
God's lore to him, 57 ; on account of Christ's 
nature, 58 ; in re;;ard of his offices, 59. Neces- 
sary on our account, 64 ; that God's acceptance 
of his sacrifice might be manifested, ib.; that 
the Spirit might have a ground to comfort us, 

65. That we might have a firm ground of faith, 

66. The end of, 78. 

EXAMINATIOS, SELF, iv. 483. 

Examination of ourselves before and after worship, 
i. 324. See Self-examination. 

EXISTENCB AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, 1. 121. 

Existence of God, i. 126. 

Existence of God, the foundation of all religion, 
i. 129. Belief of, universal, 132 ; constant and 
unintermpted, 135; natural and innate, 137. 
Could not be by mere tradition, 138 ; nor by mu- 
tual intelligence of governors, 139 ; nor was it 
first introduced by fear, 142. Manifested by all 
the creatures, ib. ; in their production, 1J3 ; 
their harmony, 151 ; their preservation, 160 ; 
by the nature of man in his body and soul, 161 ; 
by extraordinary occurrences in the world, 171. 
Only acknowledged aright by worship, ISl. 

Experience of God's goodness, a preservative 
against atheism, i. 181. 

Extremities, God usually delivers his church in, 
ii. 181. 

Eye of God, in Scripture, signifies his knowledge 
and his providence, i. 7. Of man, its curious 
workmanship, 163. 



Fear, not the cause of belief of a God, i. 141. 
Slavish, men under, wi.sh that there were no 
God, 190. Of man, a contempt of God's power, 
ii. 175. Should be of God, and not of the pride 
or force of man, 186. And reverence, should ba 
excited by consideration of God's sovereignty, 
491. Servile, cannot make a sei-vice good, iii. 36. 
Slavish, is from an appi'ehension of God's justice 
and anger; filial, from an apprehension of his 
love, iv. 33. 

Features, ditferent in every man, i. 164, ii. 22. 

Fellows, in what sense believers are ca'led Christ's, 
iii. 404. 

Fellowship with God, by means of Jesus Christ, 
the chief happiness of man, iii. 60 1 . 

Fiduciary acts, encouragements to, v. 413. 
Nothing more pleasing to God, ib. ; nothing 
more successful, ib. ; nothing more calms the 
spirit, ib. 

Fifth of November, discouese upon, v. 3.50. 

/' lesh, the legal services called, i. 290. Taken for 
man corrupted, iii. 11. 

" Fool," in Scripture, signifies a wicked man, i. 126. 

Fore-knowledge, God's, of voluntary actions doth 
not force the will of man, i. 492. Is not, simply 
considered, the cause of anything, 493. Fore- 
knows things because they will come to pass, 
but they come not to pass because he fore-knowi 
them, 494. Of sin, no blemish to his holiness, 
ii. 220. Implies that his will is the cause of aii, 
iii. 255. 

Freedom of the will, what it is, ui. 211. 



Faenlties in man, all oppose the gospel, iii. 176. 
Faith, the object of, v 145. 
Faith, existence of God not only discovered by, 
but by reason also, i. 130. Must be exercised in 
spiritual worship, 305. Must look back as far as 
the foundation promise, ii. 4. Obedience flow- 
ing from, alone acceptable to God, 9. Distinct, 
but inseparable, from obedience, ib. The condi- 
tion of the covenant of grace, 3; 5. An easy con- 
dition, ib. ; reasonable, 337 ; necessary, ib. 
Foresight of, not the ground of election, 436. 
And love, the essential parts of the new creature, 
iii. 85. Its strong foundation, 462. Its nature 
and necessity, 464. Its true object, 465. Its 
acceptableness to God, 466. In what sense said 
to justify, 522. Never called righteousness, ib. 
The root of all other graces, as unbelief is the 
foundation of all other sins, iv 277. Its nature, 
3(j3 ; its excellency, 3u4. Not a general accep- 
tation of Christ or profession of him, 453 ; not a 
dogmatic faith, ib. ; not a temporary joy in the 
doctrine of the gospel, 454 ; not a presumptuous 
persuasion of a secure and happy state, ib. Is 
a taking Christ as Christ, ib. ; taking him en- 
tirely, and on his own terms, 455 ; to serve him, 
ib. ; to be saved by him, ib. Its formal act 
taking Christ's righteousness, 456. Its adjuncts, 
ib. ; mourning and penitence, {'6. ; a high esteem 
and valuation of Christ, ib. ; holiness, 457 ; 
growth, ib. Is wrought and preserved by the 
word, ib. Its necessity for the Lord's supper, 
458. Object of, not now God as Creator, v. 150. 
God is the object of, 151 ; in his attributes, ib ; 
particularly his veracity, 152 ; as the author of 
redemption, 163. Christ the immediate object 
of, 154. Was so in the times of the patriarchs, 
155 ; under the law, 168 ; not then so distinct as 
now, 162. Christ in his person, 164 ; as sent by 
God for redemption, 165 ; in all his offices, 166 ; 
yet more especially as crucified, 167 ; a» risen 
and exalted, 171. 

Fall of man, God in no way the author of, ii. 202, 
218. Ilow great it is, 250. Doth not impeach 
God's goodness, 294. Evidence of, 374. Its 
effects In corrupting man's nature, iii. 17. 
Misery of man by, 234. 

Foils of God's children turned to their good, II. 37. 

Father is the only true God, to the exclusion of 
all false gods, but not to the exclusion of the 
persons who have one godhead with him, iv. 11. 

Fatherhood of God, the highest ground of confi- 
dence In prayer, iv. 6. 



Gabriel, always sent on messages relating to tha 

gospel, ii. 169. 
Generations of men, animals, and plants, could 

not be from eternity, i. 145. 
Gifts, God's sovereignty exercised in giving to 
men, ii. 425. In giving greater measures to one 
than another, 445. And graces, wherewith 
Christ was endowed by the Spirit, were habitual 
holiness, iii. 399 ; wisdom and knowledge, 401 ; 
tenderness to men, 402; mighty power to go 
through his undertaking, t6. ; and to accomplish 
all the fruits of reconciliation in his seed. 404. 
Glorification of Christ was by the Father, iii. 439 ; 
in regard of donation, 442 ; of fitness for the 
government, ib. ; of defence and protection in 
it, 443. Was on account of his death, ib. 
GloT J of God, little minded in many seemingly 
good actions, i. 213. Of all they do or have, men 
apt to ascribe to themselves, i. 226. Men more 
concerned for their own reputation than for 
God's, 227. God's should be aimed at in spiritual 
worship, 213. God's permission of sin is in 
order to, x 228. God's should be advanced by 
us, 490. And dominion of Christ twofold, 
essential and mediatory, iii. 440. His whole 
person the .subject of his mediatory, 441. Of 
God must be principally in our minds, and 
nearest our hearts, in all our supplications, iv. 
7. Of the Father and of the Son linked together, 
ib. Of Christ, whether merited by his suffer- 
ings, V. 50. Nature of, 68. His deity glorified 
manifestatively, ib.; his humanity really and 
intrinsecally, 71. Is a mediatory glory, 75. Con- 
sists in power over all creatures, 76. A security 
of the justification of believers, 83 ; and of sanc- 
tification, 84. A subject of profitable medita- 
tion, 88. 
God, existence and attributes of, i. 12L 

Existence of, i. 126 

Spirituality of, i. 258. 

Eternity of, i. 345. 

Immutability of, i. 374. 

Knowledge of, i. 467. 

Wisdom of, ii. Z 

Power of, ii. 99. 

Holiness of, ii. 188. 

Goodness of, ii. 275. 

Dominion of, ii 400. 

Patience of, ii. 500. 

The Author of RECONClLiATioif, lit. 336. 

Knowledge op, iv. 3. 

IN CUBI3T, iT. 110. 



574 



Con, Man's enmitt to, v. 459. 

God, his existence known from the creatures, i. 

131. Miracles not wrought to prove it, ib. 
Owned by the universal consent of all nations, 

132. Never disputed of old, 134. Denied by 
very few, if any, ib. Constantly owned in all 
changes of the world, 135 ; under anxieties of 
conscience, 136. The devil not able to root out 
the belief of it, *. Natural and innate, 137. 
Not introduced merely by tradition, 138 ; nor 
policy, 130 ; nor fear, 141. Witnessed toby the 
very nature of man, 161 ; and by extraordinary 
occurrences, 171. Impossible to prove that there 
is none, 176. Motives to endeavour to be settled 
in the belief of, 179. Directions, 180. Classes 
of men who wish there were none, 189. 

Good, what is materially, may be done out of in- 
ferior respects, i. 216. Actions cannot be per- 
formed before conversion, 247. Thoughts of 
God's presence incite to, 455. God alone is, ii. 
276. 
Goodness of God, ii. 275. 

Goodness, pure and perfect, is the royal prerogative 
of God alone, ii. 280. AH nations in the world 
have acknowledged, ib. The notion of, insepar- 
able from the notion of God, 281. What it is, 
282. Not his blessedness, 283 ; nor his holiness, 
ib.; nor his mercy, ib.; but his bounty, ib. 
Comprehends all his attributes, 284. Belongs 
to his essence, 285. He is the prime and chief, 
286. Is communicative, 287. Is necessary, 288 ; 
yet free, 290. Is communicative, with the 
greatest pleasure, 291. The display of, the mo- 
tive and end of all works of creation and pro- 
vidence, 292. All created, God the cause of, 
293. Not impaired by suffering sin to enter into 
the world, 294. Not prejudiced by not making 
all things equally the subjects of it, 295. Not 
infringed by his judgments in the world, 298. 
Manifestation of, in creation, 306. Creation the 
first external act of, ib. No creature but hath 
a character of, 307. Manifestation of, in re- 
demption, 317. The spring of redemption, ib. 
The height of in redemption exceeds that in 
creation, 319. Wherein it appears, 323 ; in the 
resolution to redeem, ib. ; in the gift of Christ, 
324 ; in his being given to rescue us by his death, 
325. Enhanced by considering the state of man 
in the fii'st transgression, and since, 327. Ap- 
pears in the high advancement of our nature, 
after it had so highly offended, 330. Manifest 
in the covenant of grace made with us, 331. By 
restoring us to a more excellent condition than 
Adam had in innocence, 345. In redemption, 
extends itself to the lower creation, 346. Mani- 
festation of, in government, 348. In conver- 
sions, 357. In answering prayers, 359. In bear- 
ing with the infirmities of his people, 360. In 
affiictions and persecutions, 361. In tempta- 
tions, 362 Contempt and abuse of, 364 ; by for- 
getfulness of his benefits, 366 ; impatient mur- 
muring, 367 ; unbelief and impenitency, 369 ; 
distrust of his providence, ib. ; omissions of 
duty, 370 ; relying upon our services to procure 
God's good will to us, ib. ; making God's gifts 
his rivals in our esteem, 371 ; sinning more 
freely on account of, 372 ; ascribing our benefits 
to other causes, 373. 
Gospel, removal of, v. 190. 
Gosi)el, men greater enemies to, than to the law, 
i. 249 Its excellency, 251. Called spirit, 290. 
The sole means of a Christian's establishment, 
ii. 6. Is nothing else but the revelation of 
Christ, ib. Of an eternal resolution, though 
temporary revelation, ib. Libertinism and 
licentiousness find no encouragement In, 8. 
Wisdom of God in its propagation, 70 ; and his 
power, 151. Why called the kingdom of God, 
iii. 14. Why so few receive, 198. Cannot of it- 
self produce conversion, 203. Is the instrument 
of regeneration, 310 ; not a natural instrument, 
31 1 ; but the only appointed instrument, 312 ; 
therefore a necessary instrument, ib. ; and the 
standing instrument to the end of the world, 
314. How it works, 317 ; objectively, by propos- 
ing to the understanding the way of salvation. 



ib. ; discovering our misery by nature, 318 ; and 
the necessity and the existence of another bot- 
tom, ib. Has an active operative force upon the 
will, ib. Its admirable power, 319 ; above that 
of all moral philosophy, 320 ; above that of the 
law, ib. ; appears in the subjects it hath been in- 
strumental to change, ib. Its power seen in the 
suddenness of its operations, 321 ; in its sim- 
plicity, ib. Certainly of divine authority, ib. 
Keasons why so much opposed by Satan in the 
world, 322. How injurious they are to God, 
who obstruct its progress, ib. Shall endure till 
all the elect be gathered in, 323. God hath 
always blessed, more or less, 328. Is the copy 
of God's heart from eternity, 336. Is the gold 
of the promise made to Christ in the cove- 
nant of redemption, beaten out into leaf, 359. 
Proclamation of, an inestimable blessing to a 
nation, iii. 461. Its excellency, iv. 157. Repre- 
sents God with honour, 158 ; and with unspeak. 
able comfort to the creature, 159. Hath been 
mighty successful, ib. To be studied, 161. 
Hath the same names in part that Christ hath, 
ib. Does not destroy reason and rational pro- 
ceeding, 210. Doctrine of, indulgeth no liberty 
to sin, v. 96. Removal of, the saddest judg- 
ment that can befall a nation, 192. This has 
happened, 193 ; the Jews, ib. ; the seven 
churches of Asia, 195. This the greatest judg- 
ment, as the gospel is the greatest blessing, 196. 
All other blessings depart with, 197. Indicates 
God's intention to be the utter ruin of the na- 
tion, 198. Is accompanied with spiritual judg- 
ments, ib. 
Government of the world, God hath an absolute 
and indisputable right to, i. 8. He alone quali- 
fied for, 9 ; by power, ib. ; holiness and right- 
eousness, ib. ; knowledge, ib. ; patience, ib. No 
reason why he should not actually exercise, 11. 
Consists in nothing being acted without his 
knowledge, 11 ; nothing being done without his 
will, 12 ; nothing subsisting without his care 
and power, ib. Is over the highest creatures, 
13; and the lowest, 14. Extends to all the 
actions and motions of the creatures, 15. God 
could not manage without immutability, 395 ; 
and knowledge, 507 ; and wisdom, ii. 18. His 
■wisdom appears in the government of man as a 
rational creature, 27 ; in the law he gives to 
man, ib. ; in the various inclinations and condi- 
tions of men, 32. In the government of men as 
fallen and sinful, 33. In the government of man 
in his conversion and return to him, 43. In his 
discipline and penal evils, 46. In the deliver- 
ances he effects, 49. God's power appears in, 
132; in natural government, 133 ; preservation, 
ib. ; propagation, 135 ; the motions of all crea- 
tures, 137 ; in moral government, 139 ; restrain- 
ing the malicious nature of the devil, ib. ; and 
the natural corruption of man, 140 ; framing 
men's hearts to his own ends ; in gracious and 
judicial government, 142. The goodness of God 
in, 348. God alone fit for, 376. Contempt of, 469. 
Grace, weak, victorious, v. 225. 
Grace, the power of God in planting, ii. 158 ; and 
preserving, 163. God's withdrawing, no blemish 
to his holiness, 238. Shall be perfected in the 
upright, 259. God exercises sovereignty in be- 
stowing and withholding, 437. Most discovered 
in opposition to besetting sins, iii 9. Without 
glory, is intelligible, but not glory without grace, 
23. Alone gives being to a Christian, 28. Alters 
the character of services, 33. Itself a reward, 
49. Fits for glory, but does not merit it, ib. In 
the new creature, is predominant, 117. Re- 
straining and renewing, two different things, 133. 
Communications of, are giadual, 143. Man can- 
not prepare himself for, 178. A natural mind 
hath no right notion of, 187. ; nor desire of, ib. 
Common, what it is, 210. By it men can avoid 
many sins, 215 ; can do many more good actions 
than they do, 218 ; can attend on the outward 
means, 219; can exercise consideration, 221. 
God not bound to bestow upon any, 226 God 
alone gives preserving, 292 ; strengthening, 293 ; 
increasing, 294 ; quickening, ib. ; perfecting, 



575 



295. Is an imitation of God, a resemblance of 
his perfections in the creature, iv. 34. Covenant 
of. in the hand of a mediator, is the last cove- 
nant God will make, 311. Doth not privilege 
Bin, V. 191. True, though weak, shall be pre- 
served, and in the end prove victorious, 226. 
Hath great allies, 227 ; the Father in his attri- 
butes, ib. ; his love, ib ; power, ib. ; holiness, 
229 ; wisdom, ib. ; glory, 230 ; Christ engaged in, 
as a purchaser, ib. ; as an actual proprietor and 
possessor, 231 ; as having a charge from the 
Father for this purpose, 234 ; and power to per- 
form it, 233 ; and an engagement on his part, 
238 ; as the author of grace, 241 ; as the exemp- 
lar and pattern of grace, 242 ; as the head and 
husband of believers, 244 ; as an advocate of 
grace, in respect of his intercession, 247. The 
Spirit engaged in, 252. Operations of may be 
interrupted, 254. The comfort of may be 
eclipsed, 255. Relative cannot be lost, ib. The 
habit of interest cannot be lost, 256. Though 
oppressed, will recover itself, ib. Doctrine of 
the preservation of, is the crown of glory, and 
sweetness of all other privileges, 263. Comfort 
against the weakness of, 274. Not in its own 
nature immutable, nor independent, 276. Con- 
verting, fruits of, 546 ; thankfulness, ib. ; love 
and affection, 547 ; seiTice and obedience, 548 ; 
humility and self-emptiness, 549 ; bewailing of 
sin, and self-abhorrence for it, 550 ; faith and 
dependence, 551 ; fear and reverence, 652. 

Graces, must be acted in worship, i. 304. We 
should examine ourselves as to their exercise, 
325. 

Growth in grace, annexed to true sanctification, 
ii. 402. 



Habits, spiritual, to be acted in spiritual worship, 
i. 303. The rooting up of evil, shews the power 
of God, ii. 161. Evil, are either innate, or con- 
tracted and increased, iii. 173. 

Hand, Christ's sitting at God's right, does not 
prove the ubiquity of his human nature, i. 433. 

Hardness, in what sense God, and in what sense 
man, is the cause of. ii. 238. Occasioned, 
through the just judgment of God, by the fre- 
quent and unprofitable hearing of the word, iii. 
335. 

Harmony of the creation shews the being and the 
wisdom of the Creator, i. 151. 

Hatred, in what sense God bears to his elect De- 
fore their actual reconciliation, iii. 345. 

Heart (bodily) of man, how curiously contrived, 
i. 163. 

Heart, whether prepared for worship, a subject ot 
self-examination, i. 324 ; how they are fixed in 
it, ib. ; and how they are after it, 325. God 
orders all men's to Tiis own ends, ii. 141. New, 
to be laboured and longed for, iv. 106. 

Heaven ; the enjoyment of God in, will be always 
fresh and glorious, i. 364. Why called God's 
throne, i. 440. Its duties, iii. 61 ; attendance on 
God, ib. ; contemplation of God, 52 ; love, 53 ; 
praise, ib. Is not only a place, but a nature, r>i. 
Its privileges, ib.; perfect likeness to God and 
Christ, ib.; fruition of God, 55; the company of 
the .saints, 66 ; spiritual delights inconceivable, 
ib. Its happiness consists in a clear knowledge 
of God, and a pure affection to him, iv. 38. 

Heavenly bodies subservient to the good of the 
world, i. 152. 

Holiness of God, ii. 188. 

Holiness, a necessary ingredient in spiritual wor- 
ship, i. 312. A glorious perfection belonging to 
the nature of God, ii. 190. Acknowledged both 
by heathens and heretics. *. God cannot be 
conceived without, 191. If any attribute have 
an excellency above his other perfections, this 
hath it, ib. ; most loftily and frequently sounded 
forth by the angels, ib. ; has honour by it, 192. 
Is the glory of all the rest, 193. Is as necessary 
as hfe being, 194. What it i.s, and how distin- 
guished from righteousness, ib. He alone abso- 
lutely holy, 195 Makes it impossible that he 
should do other than perfectly abhor any evil 



done by another, 197. Slakes him love holiness 
in others, 200. Appears in the creation, in 
framing man in perfect uprightness, 2j4. In 
his laws, 205 ; the moral law, ib. ; the ceremonial, 
208 ; in the sanctions of the law, ib In the 
restoration of sinners. 211. In all his acts about 
or concerning sin, 215. Not chargeable with 
any blemish for creating man in a mutable state, 
216. Not blemished by enjoining man a law 
which he knew that he would break, 219. Not 
blemished by decreeing the eternal rejection of 
some men, 221. Not blemished by his secret 
will to suffer sin to enter into the world, 222. 
Not blemished by his concurrence with the crea- 
ture in the material part of a sinful act, 229. 
Not blemished by proposing objects to a man 
which he makes use of to sin, 235. Not blemished 
by his sometimes commanding what seems to be 
against nature, or to thwart some of his precepts, 
241. Contempt and injury of, 242. Necessarily 
obliges him to punish sin, 252 ; and exact satis- 
faction for it, 253. Fits him for the government 
of the world, 255 Comfortable to holy men, 
258. We should get and preserve right appre- 
hensions of, 259. Should glorify God for, 263. 
Should labour after a conformity to, 266. Mo- 
tives to do so, 268. Directions, 271. Should 
labour to grow in, 272. Should exercise in our 
approaches to God, 273. Should seek it at his 
hands, ib. No happiness without, iii. 50. The 
duties of heaven cannot be done without, 51 ; 
nor its privileges enjoyed, 54. Of God displayed 
in the work of regeneration, 272. 

Holy Ghost, his deity, ii. 169. See Spirit, Holy. 

Rosea, when he prophesied, ii. 515. 

Humility, a necessary ingredient in spiritual wor- 
ship, i. 311. Should examine ourselves respect- 
ing, after worship, 327. Consideration of (Jod's 
eternity would promote, 368 ; and of his know- 
ledge, 535 ; and of his wisdom, ii. 89 ; and of his 
power, 186 ; and of his holiness, 260 ; and of his 
goodness, 394; and of his sovereignty, 487 
Increases with increase of knowledge, iv. 85. 

Hypocrites, their false pretences a virtual denial 
of God's knowledge, i. 522. This attribute ter- 
rible to, 531. 



Idleness, an abuse of God's mercies to make them 
an occasion of, ii 372. Avoiding of, a protection 
from sinful thoughts, v. 310. 

Idolaters, the greatest, are the fiercest enemies 
against the church of God, v. 352. 

Idolatry of the heathen proves the belief of a God 
to be universal, i. 132. The first object of, was 
the heavenly bodies, 143. Arises from unworthy 
imaginations of God, 241. An abuse of God's 
omnipresence, 443. Arose from the want of a 
due notion of God's infinite power, ii. 174. A 
contempt of God's dominion, 469. 

Ignorance of God, natui-al to man, iv. 72. Under 
the gospel, must be wilful, 74. Frequent among 
us, 75. Inconsistent with Christianity, 76. 
Satan's tool and chain, whereby ho keeps men 
in captivity, 77- The cause of all sin in the 
world, ib. Is damning, 78. Inexcusable, 160. 

Image, of God, in which man was made, consisted 
in the spiritual faculties of the soul, and the 
holy endowments of them, i. 271. Worship, un- 
reasonable, 273 ; yet natural to man, 274. De- 
facing God's in our souls an injury to God's 
holiness, ii. 244. 

Imaoinations, men naturally have unworthy of 
God, i. 24o. Vain, the cause of idolatry, super- 
stition, and presumj)tion, 241. Worse than 
idolatry or atheism, 243. An injuiy to God's 
holiness, ii. 244. 

Imitation of God, man hath naturally no desire of, 
i. 246. Should strive after imitation of him in 
unchangeable goodness, 417 ; in holiness, ii. 
268 ; and in goodness, 398. 

IMMDTABILITY OF GOD, i. 374. 

Immutability of God, in his essence, nature, and 
perfections, i. 380. Anciently represented by 
the figure of a cube, ib. Is a perfection, :<8l. 
A glory belonging to all the attributes of God, 



576 



<b. Necessarily belongs to the nature of God, 
t6. Kelongs to God's essence, 382 ; his know- 
ledge, 3S4 ; his will and purpose, 387. Proofs 
of, 391. From the name Jehovah, ib. ; from the 
perfection of his being, 392 ; from his simplicity, 
:i93; from his eternity, 394; from his infinite- 
ness and omnipotence, ib. ; from his ordering 
and governing the world, 395. Is proper to God, 
and incommunicable, ib. Clearing of, from ob- 
jections, 397. Ascribed to Christ, 406. A ground 
and encouragement for worship, 407. How con- 
trary to, is the inconstancy of man, 408. Ter- 
rible to sinners, 411. Comfortoble to the 
righteous, 412. An argument for patience, 416. 
Should make us prefer God before all creatures, 
ib. Should imitate his immutability in good- 
ness, 417. Motives to it, ib. 

Imputation of Christ's righteousness implies union 
to him, iii. 521. 

Impatience of men when God crosses them, 1. 219. 
A contempt of God's wisdom, ii. 85 ; and of his 
goodness, 367 ; and of his dominion, 470. 

Impenitence is an abuse of God's goodness, ii. 369. 
Will clear the equity of God's justice, 529. An 
abuse of patience, 531. 

Imperfections in holy duties, we should be sensible 
of, i. 306. Should make us prize Christ's media- 
tion, 331. 

Impossible, some things are in their own nature, 
ii. 117. Some to the nature, being, and perfec- 
tions of God (as to die, to lie, &c ), 118. Some 
things because of God's ordination, 120. Do not 
infringe God's omnipotence, ib. 

Inability of man to obey God's commands does 
not rele ise him from the obligation to obedience, 
iii. 231 ; because the commands of the gospel 
are not difficult in themselves to be believed and 
obeyed, ib. ; because we have a foundation in 
our nature for such commands, 232 ; because the 
means God gives are not simply insufficient in 
themselves, ib. ; because his inability is rather 
a wilfulness than a simple weakness, 233 ; be- 
cause God denies no man strength to obey, if he 
seek it at his hands, ib. 

Incarnation of Christ, the power of God seen in, 
ii. 146. 

Incomprehensible, God is, i. 447. 

Inconsistency, in conduct, exemplified in Nicode- 
mus, iii. 8. 

Inconstancy in man, the contrary of God's un- 
changeableness, i. 408. Natural to man, ib. ; 
in the knowledge of the truth, 409 ; in will and 
affections, ib ; in practice, 4l0. Is the root of 
much evil, 411. 

Infants, God's judgments upon, justified, v. 514. 

Infirmities, God's knowledge a comfort to his 
people under, i 529. God's goodness in bearing 
with, ii. 360. His patience a comfort under, 538. 

Injuries, men make much of those done to them- 
selves, little of those done to God, i. 227. God's 
patience under should make us the more resent 
those done to him, ii. 539. 

Injustice, a contempt of God's dominion, ii. 468. 

Innocent persons, whether God might, as an act of 
sovereignty, inflict torments upon, ii 416 

Instrument of Regenbeation ; the woed, iii. 307. 

Instntments, men apt to pay service to, rather 
than to God, i 2:jl ; which is a contempt of 
divine power, ii. 176 ; and of his goodness, 373, 
Deliverances not to be chiefly ascribed to, i. 45.«. 
God makes use of sinful, ii. 34. None employed 
in creation, 130. God's power seen in his effect- 
ing his purposes by weak, 145 

Integrity, natural or moral, instanced in king 
Abimelech,iii. 68. 

l!(TEECE.ssioN, Christ's, v. 91. 

Intercession of Christ; see Advocacy. Of saints 
and angels, unknown to St John, v. 93. 

Invitations of the gospel, God's sincerity in, iii. 
227. 

Isaac, offering of, a type of the death of Christ, v. 45. 



Jealousies of God, unworthiness of, iii. 469. 
Jews, their misery, a monument of God's anger 
against unbelief, iv. 319. 



Job, when he lived, ii. 102. 

Jonah, how he came to be believed by the Nin«- 
vites, ii. 37. 

Joseph of Arimathea, his name not found in any of 
the catalogues of disciples, i. 94. 

Joy, a necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, 
i. 308. Should accompany all our duties, ii. 496. 
And delight in God, cannot be without know- 
ledge of him, iv. 33. 

Judas ; did he partake of the Lord's supper ? ii. 
447. 

Judging the hearts and eternal state of others, a 
great sin, i. 519. 

Judgment, day of, its certainty, i. 512, ii. 77. 

Judgments, extraordinary, prove the being of God, 
i. 171. We are apt to putbold interpretations on, 
221. God's justice in, 247 ; especially after the 
abuse of his justice and patience, ii. 375, 529. 
On God's enemies, matter of praise, as well as 
his mercies to his people, 190. Declare God's 
holiness, 209 ; which should be observed in 
them, 264. Not sent without warning, 303, 514. 
Mercy mixed with, 303. God sends on whom he 
pleases, 455. Delayed a long time even where 
there is no repentance, 516. God pours out 
unwillingly when he cannot longer delay, 618. 
Inflicted by degrees, 519. Moderated, 521. 
Spiritual, upon men that sit under the gospel, 
more frequent than is usually imagined, iii. 77. 
God doth not bring upon a people till their 
wickedness hath outgrown the goodness of his 
own children, v. 381. 

Justice of God, a motive to worship, i. 285. Its 
plea against man, ii. 53. Reconciled with mercy 
in Christ, 55. Punitive, essential to the nature 
of God, 251. Requires satisfaction, 254. Im- 
possible but that it should flame out again.st sin, 
V. 17. This a general notion in the minds of 
men, 18. The holiness of God seems to infer it, 
19. Must be satisfied before man could be re- 
stored, 20. This satisfaction must be by death, 
23. None could satisfy but the Son of God in- 
carnate, 24. Christ the fittest and alone capable 
to satisfy, 34. 

Justification cannot be by the best and strongest 
works of nature, i. 250, 514, ii 247. God's holi- 
ness appears in the gospel method of, 214. Ex- 
pectations of, by the outward observance of the 
law, cannot satisfy an inquisitive conscience, 
277. Men naturally look for by works, 278. 
And adoption give a right to the inheritance, 
regeneration and sanctification make meet for 
it, iii. 50. Differs from regeneration. 88. The 
effect and consequent of reconciliation, 339. 
Not an act of God as creator, 523. God's method 
of, strips us of all matter of glorying in oui-- 
selves, 529. 



Kingdom of God, the gospel why so called, iii. 14. 
All without regeneration insufficient for en- 
trance into, 59 ; knowledge, ib. ; outward refor- 
mation, ib. ; morality. 60 ; religious profession, 
61 ; external religious duties and privileges, 62 ; 
convictions, ib. 

Kingdoms disposed of by God, ii. 449. 

Knowledge, God's, i. 457. 
OF God, iv. 3. 

in Christ, ir. 110. 
OF Christ crocified, iv. 494. 

Knowledge, pride in, the greatest hindrance to 
saving knowledge, iii. 11. Whether natural or 
spiritual, insufiicient for entrance into the king- 
dom of God, 59. 

Knowledge, Gods, hath no succession, i. 353, 3S1, 
499. Is immutable, 384, 504. The manner of, 
incomprehensible, 387, 476, 485. God infinite 
in, 459. This owned by all, 4f0. Variously 
divided by the schools, 461 ; knowledge of sight 
and of understanding, ib.; speculative and prac- 
tical, 462 ; of approbation as well as apprehen- 
sion, 463. Objects ot, 46+ ; himself, ib. ; all 
things, whether possible, past, present, or fu- 
ture, 466 ; of all creatures, their actions and 
thoughts, 471 ; of all sins, 475 ; of all future 
things, 477 ; of all futuie coutingeucies. 4U5. 



INDEX. 



577 



Dorti not necessitate the will of man, 492. How 
God knows all things, 496. His knowledge in- 
tuitive, 49S ; independent, 501 ; distinct, 502 ; 
infallible, 5o3 ; immutable, 504 ; perpetual, ib. 
Infinite, ascribed to Christ, 508. Infers his 
providence, 512 ; and a day of judgment, ib. ; 
and the resurrection, 513. Destroys all hopes 
of justification by any thing in ourselves, 514. 
Calls for adoring thoughts of him, 515 ; and for 
humility, 516. How injured in the world, and 
wherein, 517. Comfortable to the righteous, 
62*. Terrible to sinners, 530. We should have 
a sense of on our hearts, 533. 
Knowledge of God is eternal life, not formally, but 
efficiently, iv. 10. Is of the Son as well as of 
the Father, 13. What kind of knowledge it is, 
15 ; not speculative, ib.; but practical, 17 ; en- 
livening, 18 ; assimilating, i6. ; experimental, 
19. Difi'ers from speculative in the means and 
manner of knowing, not in the object known, 
20 ; in the clearness, 21 ; in regard of effects, 
ib. It is interested, 22. This knowledge of 
God necessary, 23. Is the subject matter of the 
gospel promises, i6. No way of conveying happi- 
ness without, ti. God's happiness consists in 
his knowledge of himself, and delight in his own 
perfections, 24. The happiness of heaven con- 
sists in the knowledge of God, ib. The devil 
most endeavours to hinder, 25. In what re- 
spects necessary, ib. Without it there can be 
no motion towards God, or for God, 26 ; no 
proper worship, 27 ; all obedience ariseth from, 
29 ; no grace without, though some knowledge 
may be without grace, 30 ; no faith, 31 ; no de- 
sire for God, i6. ; no love to God, 32 ; no joy and 
delight in God, 33 ; no repentance, ib. ; no fear 
of God, ib; no true patience, 34; no acting of 
any grace, ib.; no growth in grace, 35 ; no con- 
tinuance in grace, 36 ; no comfort in this life, 
37 ; no pleasure if it were possible to be admitted 
into heaven, 38. Properties of the knowledge 
of God in Christ, ib. It is not immediate, ib. ; 
nor is it comprehensive, 39 ; nor in this life as 
perfect as is possible for a creature to attain, 41. 
Differs not from other knowledge in regard of 
the object, but the manner of knowing, and the 
effects of the knowledge, ib. In its effects it is 
transforming, 42 ; affective, 44 ; active and ex- 
pressive, 49. Of God without knowledge of our- . 
selves is fruitless speculation ; of ourselves 
without knowledge of God and his mercy is a 
miserable vexation, ib. Is humbling, self-abas- 
ing, 52 ; weaning, 56 ; fiducial, 57 ; progressive, 
60. In its manner it is distinct, 63 ; certain, 
64 ; firm, 66 ; inexpressible, 67. All other in- 
sufficient to eternal happiness, 68 ; cannot of 
itself help to the knowledge of divine things, 
69 ; often hinders from the saving knowledge 
of God and Christ, ib. Comfort of having the 
true, 80. He who has it knows more than all 
the carnal world, ib Is an evidence of grace, 
81. A comfort in all kinds of affliction, ib.; and 
this even in its inferior degrees, 82. An evi- 
dence of a future state, and an earnest of the 
heavenly vision, 83. A ground of expecting all 
other needful knowledge, 84. Discursive not to 
be rested in, 86. We must endeavour daily to 
increase in, 87. Motives to seek for, 91 ; the 
object excellent, ib.; the great works God and 
Christ have done for us, sufficient allurement, 
92 ; hereby only can we satisfy our natural 
thirst for knowledge, ib. All bound by the law 
of nature to know God, 93. The perfection of 
the soul, ib. Highly delightful, 95 ; its delight 
pure, ib. ; full, ib. ; durable, 96 ; like to God's 
own, ib. If we do not labour to know God, we 
do all we can to make him lose the glory of his 
creation and-revelation, ib. Easy to acquire, if 
Bought aright, ib. Our time unprofltably spent 
while this is neglected, 98. Hindrances to, ib ; 
corrupt affections, tfc. ; sensuality, 99 ; carnal 
conceptions of God, ib. ; earthliness, ib. ; pride 
of reason, 100 ; curiosity, ib. ; taking truth upon 
trust from men, 101. Directions for attainment 
and improvement of, t6.; prayer, »6.; much study 
of the Scriptures, 103; cntertaimng spiritual 
VOL. V. 



motions with affection, 105 ; labouring and long- 
ing for new hearts, 106 ; obedience and purity 
of heart, 107 ; humility, ib. ; heavenly medita- 
tion, 108 ; communication of what knowledge 
we have upon occasion, 109 ; Christian society, 
ib. True and saving, of God, is only in and by 
Christ, i;0. Natural, 114; by implanted notions, 
ib. ; by the creatures, 115 ; by the nature of our 
souls, 117. Imperfections of this, 118. By the 
law, 123. That by Christ superior to that by 
nature and the law, 124 ; in clearness, ib. ; the 
clearness of the medium, 125 ; the nearness of 
the object, 126 ; fulness of discovery, ib. That 
by Christ superior in certai aty, 128. Clear, at- 
tained only by Christ, 130. In him we know 
more of God than we should if we knew all the 
works of his hands, 137. 



Law, in the minds of men, a rule of good and evil, 
i. 166. A changfe of, does not infer a change in 
God, 405. Moral, !-uited to the nature of man, 
ii. 27 ; to his happiness and benefit, 28 , to his 
conscience, 29. Vindicated, both as to precept 
and penalty, in the death of Christ, 62. We 
should submit to, 95. Transgression of, punished 
by God, 209, 432. God's enjoining one which he 
knew man would not obey, no blemish to his 
holiness, 219. A great sin to charge with rigid- 
ness, 249. Should imitate the holiness of, 267. 
The goodness of God in that given to man in in- 
nocence, 312. Cannot but be good, S86. God 
gives to all, 428. His sovereignty in giving ar- 
bitrary, ib. His alone reach the conscience, 430. 
Dispensed with by him, but cannot be by man, 
ib., 464. To make any contrary to God's, how 
great a sin, ib. ; or to make additions to his, 465 ; 
or to obey man's rather than his, 467, 495. 
Should be delighted in, iii. 34. In the heart of 
the regenerate, not wholly the same with that of 
nature, 119. Vet is a restoring of that which was 
that of nature originally, ib. Is written in the 
heart wholly, 120. Does not make the outward 
useless, *. Consists in an inward knowledge of 
the law, and approbation of it in the understand- 
ing, ib. ; an inward conformity of the heart to 
the law, 121 ; a strong propension to obedience, 
122 ; a mighty affection to the law, ib. ; an actual 
ability to obey it, 123. Cannot convert a man, 
202. Barely of itself does not convince tho- 
roughly of all sin, iv. 177. 

Licentiousness, the go.spel no friend to, ii. 8. 

Life, eternal, assui-ed to the people of God, i. 414, 
ii. 395. 

LigM of nature shews the being of God, i. i;». A 
glorious ci-eature, ii. 288. In what sense Christ 
is called the true, iii. 166. 

Limiting God, a contempt of his dominion, ii. 456. 

Lord's sdppee, end of, iv. 392. 

SUBJECTS OF, iv. 427. 

UNWORTHY RECEIVING OF, iV. 472. 

Love, God's to his people, i. 89, ii. 48o. To God, 
sometimes arises merely from some self-pleasing 
benefits, i. 235. A necessary ingredient in 
spiritual worship, 305. Is a great help to it, 
341. God highly worthy of, 373, il. 264, 272, 380. 
Outward expressions of, without obedience, 
useless, 279. Is God's gospel name, 318. 
Christ's, in his death, a bond and obligation to 
love him, iii. 82. In what sense God bears to 
his elect before their conversion, 344. God's, 
incomprehensible, 474. To God, cannot be 
without knowledge of him, iv. 32. To God, a 
subject of examination in preparation for the 
Lord's supper, 462 ; also to God's people, 467. 

Lusts of men make them atheists, i. 128. God 
orders for his own praise,' v. 353. 



Magistrates, God's goodness in setting, for the 
preservation of human society, ii. 353. Subor- 
dinate to God, 475. Are not to lule against him, 
476. Ought to imitate him in ways of justice 
and righteousness, *. Must be obeyed when 
they act according to God's order, and witbia 
the bounds of their commission, 477. 



O O 



578 



Man's enmity to God, v. 459. 

Man could not make himself, i. 146. The world 
subservient to, 153. Js the abridgment of the 
universe, 161, ii. 309. Naturally disowns the 
rule God hath set him, i. 192. Owns any rule 
rather than God's, 207. Would set up himself as 
his own rule, 209. Would give laws to God, 216. 
His natural corruption, greatness of, ii. 140. 
Made holy at first, yet mutable, 216. Made 
after God's image, 308. The world made and 
furnished for, 310. In his corrupt state, without 
any motives to excite God's redeeming love, 327. 
Restored to a more e.\cellent state than his first, 
346. Under God's dominion, 424. The lowest 
of intelligent creatures, iv. 39. Cannot com- 
prehend the creatures that are near him, ib. 
His glory, greatness, and righteousness must 
veil to the honour and glory of Christ, 301. 

Mary, the virgin, never associated with God or 
Christ in the glory ascribed to them, il. 10. 

Means of gi-ace, to neglect, an affront of God's 
wisdom, 83. To depend on the power of God, 
and neglect, is an abuse of it, ii. 177. Given to 
some, and not to others, 443. Have various in- 
fluences, 444. The pipe through which the 
Spirit breathes, iii. 80. Slighting of, a ground 
to fear the sorest judgments, v. 20O. 

Mediation, Christ's with God, inexpressible value 
of, iii. 433. 

Mediators of redemption and intercession, Romish 
distinction of, unfounded, v. 93, 110, 138. 

Meditation, on God's law, men have no delight in, 
i. 194. A means of increasing divine knowledge, 
iv. 108. Serious, a cure for evil thoughts, v. 
3u7. Matter ^f, should be some truth which 
will aid in reviving some languishing grace, or 
fortify against some triumphing corruption, ib. 
Should be intent, 308 ; affectionate and practi- 
cal, ib. 

Members, bodily, ascribed to God, do not prove him 
to be corporeal, i. 269. Only those attributed to 
him which are the instruments of the noblest 
actions, and under that consideration, 270. May 
have respect to the incarnation of Christ, ih. 

Mbrot received, v. 205. 

Chief sinners objects of choicest, v. 526. 

Mercy of God to sinners, how wonderful, i. 246. A 
motive to worship, 284. Former should be re- 
membered, when we come to beg new, 346. Its 
plea for fallen man, ii. £4. And justice recon- 
ciled in Christ, 55. Holiness of God to be ob- 
served in, 265. A foundation of God's dominion, 
413. Given after great provocations, 521. In 
God, can desire nothing to the prejudice of his 
holiness, justice, and wisdom, iii. 26. And good- 
ness, God's rectoral and paternal, 264. The 
utmost of, displayed in regeneration, 265. Its 
freeness, 266. One often a strong plea for the 
obtaining of another, iv. 10. Received, are in 
a special manner to be remembered, v. 206. 
Are the mercies of God, ib. ; purchased by 
Christ, 207 ; beneficial to us, ib. Should be re- 
membered admiringly and thankfully, ib. ; 
affectionately, ib. ; obediently and fruitfully, 
208 ; humbly, ib. ; in their circumstances, ib. ; 
argumentatively and fiducially, 209. Are en- 
couragements to ask, and grounds to hope, for 
more, ib. 

Merit, of Christ, not the cause of God's first resolu- 
tion to redeem, ii. 323. Not the cause of elec- 
tion, 434. Man incapable of, 475. Twofold, 
absolute, and ex pacta, or covenanted, iii. 353. 
As regards us, Christ's is absolute : as regards 
God, covenanted, 354. 

Ministers, death of the ablest, a sad prognostic, v. 
201. 

Ministry and ordinances, perpetual, v. 342. 

Miracles prove the being of a God, though not 
wrought to that end, i. 131, 172. Wrought by 
God but seldom, ii. 49. Wrought by the power 
of God, 125. Yet his power not more manifest 
in, than in his ordinary works, 138. Many 
wrought by Christ, 150. Not necessary when 
doctrine is settled and the church established, 
iii. 7. The permanent one is the conversion of 
Sinners, 8. Do not of themselves convert men. 



199, 202. Not appointed as means of conver- 
sion, but only as attendants on the word of 
truth, 327. 

Misery of unbelievers, iv. 296. 

Moral goodness, encouraged by God, ii. 355. Some 
sparks of, preserved in men, by virtue of the 
mediation of Christ, iii. 210. 

Moral law commands things good in themselresy 
i. 188, ii. 428. Holiness of God appears in, 205 ; 
In the matter and measure of its precepts, 206. 
Reaches the inward man, 207. Is perpetual, ib. 
Published with majesty, 430. 

Morality, insufficient for entrance into the king- 
dom of God, iii. 60. Is often rather a great 
hindrance of regeneiation than a help, 61. Is 
not the new-creature change, 131. Even the 
highest but flesh, 132. Not a cause of gi-ace, 
179. Sometimes sets a man farther from the 
kingdom of God, ib. 

Mortification, v. 214. 

Mortification, how difficult, i. 248. Must be uni- 
versal, V. 215. Man, an agent in, ib. A univer- 
sal duty, 216. Not the work of nature, but of 
the Spirit, ib A sure sign of saving grace, ib. 
Is a breaking of the league we naturally hold 
with sin, ib. ; a declaration of open hostility, 
217 ; a strong and powerful resistance, i6. ; a 
killing of sin, 218 How we may judge of, ib. 
No expectation of eternal life without, 221. 
Directions for, 223 

Motions, of all creatures in God, ii. 137. Variety 
of, in a single creature, ib. 

Mountains, how useful, i. 153. Before the deluge, 
347. 

Mourning for other men's sins, v. 380. 

Mourning for the sins of the times and places 
where we live, a duty, v. 383. The practice of 
believers in all ages, 384. Our Saviour's prac- 
tice, 385. Angels practise, so far as they are 
capable, 386. Is acceptable to God, ib. Is a 
means of preservation from public judgments, 
389. 

Mouth, how curiously contrived, i. 163. 



Nations, their interest to bear a respect to the 
church, and countenance the worship of God, i. 
95. Judgments upon, generally because they 
will not serve the interest of God in his people, 
96. 

Nature of regeneration, iii. 82. 

Nature; of man must be sanctified before he can 
perform spiritual worship, i. 299. Human, 
highly advanced by its union with the Son of 
God, ii. 330. Corrupt, its special character- 
istic to prefer self before God, ill. 21. Without 
a new, there could be no enjoyment of God, 50. 
Divine and human in Christ, union of, the work 
of God by his Spirit, 395. Cannot represent God 
in his brightest apparel, iv. 28. Of God, a natu- 
ral man may have some pleasure in knowing, 
but cares not for knowing his ways, 50. God 
discovered in, for contemplation, in Christ to 
be embraced as well as admired, 129. Fallen, 
its light insufficient to cause a thorough convic- 
tion of sin, 174 ; discovers not the root of sin, 
175 ; nor sin as the greatest evil in the world, 
ib. ; nor the extent of sin in the invisible and 
secret veins of it, 176; discovers not unbelief, 
the greatest sin of all, ib. State of, what is 
meant by, v. 462. 

Necessity of regeneration, iii. 7. 
OF Christ's death, v. 3. 

exaltation, v. 49. 

Necessity, either of constraint, or of immutability, 
iii. 212. 

Nicodemus, his condition and character, iii. 7. 
His strange ignorance of scriptural truth, 10. 

Night, how necessary, ii. 25. 

November, Discourse upon the Fifth of, t. 353. 



Obedience, iv. 587. 

Obedience, to God, not true unless it be universal, 
i. 200. Due to him on account of his eternity, 
373. Evangelical alone acceptable to God, ii. 9. 



579 



la distinct from faith, though inseparable, ib. 
Will be rewarded, 30. Redemption a strong In- 
centiye to, 66. Nothing will avail us without, 
279. God's goodness in accepting, though im- 
perfect, 360. Due to him on account of his 
goodness, 385. Motives to, from God's sove. 
reignty, 492. Manner and kind, 494 ; most be 
with respect to his authority, ib. ; the best and 
most exact, 495 ; sincere and inward, ib. ; to 
him alone, ib. ; universal, ib. ; undisputing, 496 ; 
Joyful, t6 ; perpetual, t6. Cannot be without 
knowledge of him, iv. 28. Its nature, 589. 
Must be positive, «6. ; sincere, ib. ; affectionate, 
590 ; willing, ib. ; free, ib. ; as opposed to con- 
straint, 591 ; as opposed to dulness and heavi- 
ness, ib ; diligent, 592 ; constant, 593 ; of the 
whole man, 594 ; to the whole of Christ's com- 
mands, i6. Our privilege as well as our duty, 
695. Directions for, 597. 
Object of faith, v. 145. 
Objects of the choicest meect, chief sinnees, 

V 526. 
Objects, God's proposing to a man, which he knows 
he will use to sin, no blemish to God's holiness, 
ii. 235. 
Obligation, none can lie upon God to confer grace, 

iii. 180. 
Obstinacy in sin, a contempt of divine power, ii. 

174. 
Old-Testament believers, what they might know of 

the gospel, iii. 508. 
Omissions of prayer, a practical denial of God's 
knowledge, i. 523. Of duty, a contempt of his 
goodness, ii. 370. 
Omnipeesexce, God's, i. 420. 
Omnipresence. God essentially present everywhere 
in heaven and earth, i. 423. Acknowledged by 
the wisest in all ages, 424. Omnipresent influ- 
entially, 425. His essential presence without 
any mixture, 429. Without any division of 
himself, 430. Incommunicable, 433. Proofs of, 
ib. ; the infinity of his essence, ib ; his con- 
tinual operation in the world, 436 ; his supreme 
perfection, 437; his immutability, 438. Doctrine 
cleared from exceptions, 439. Different from 
pantheism, 442. No ground for idolatry, 443. 
Ascribed to Christ, 445. A confirmation of God's 
spiritual nature, 446. An argument for provi- 
dence, ib. His omniscience inferred from, 447 ; 
and his incomprehensibleness, ib. Often for- 
gotten, 448 ; or contemned, 449. Terrible to 
sinner."!, 450. Comfortable to the good, ib. Ad- 
vantage of often thinking of, 454. 
Omniscience, God's, inferred from his omnipre- 
sence, i. 447. Injured by invading the rights of 
it, 517 ; by presuming upon it, 520 ; by practical 
denial of it, ib. A ground of great comfort, 524. 
Of terror to juggling hypocrites, 531. Advan- 
tages of meditating on, 534. 
Opinions, regeneration not a mere change of, iii. 

130. False, how difficult to change, iv. 299. 
Opposition in the heart of man naturally against 

the will of God, i. 194. 
Othee mes's siks, modbsing foe, v. 380. 



Pantheism, does not follow from God's omnipre- 
sence, i. 442. 

Paraclete, signifies an advocate, a comforter, or 
an exhorter, v. 91. 

Paedok of 8IN-, V. 434. 

Pardon, God's infinite knowledge a comfort in 
seeking, i. 530. power of God in granting, and 
in giving a sense of, ii. 162. The spring of all 
other bles.sings, 401. Always accompanied with 
regeneration, iT>. Punishment remitted upon, 
4i)2. Is perfect, ib. From God alone gives a 
full security, 481. In actual, Christ is the mov- 
ing cause by his intercession, the meritori- 
ous cause by his propitiation, iii. 337. The 
foundation of, in Christ'i pas.sion, 519. Of sin, 
la the taking away of its guilt, or obligation to 
punishment, v. 437. God the author of, 438. 
Proceeds from the tenderness of his mercy, 439. 
How carried on, 441. The certainty of, 442. 
The extent of, 443. The coDtinuance of, 444. 



The worth of, ib. Perfectness of, ib. The eflect 
of, blessedness, 447. True signs of, 454. 

Parents, Christian, should seek the regeneration 
of their children, iii. 58. Often err in chastis- 
ing their children, v. 186. 

Passovee, Cheist oce, iv. 507. 

Passover, its design was to set forth Christ, Ir. 
609. Was regarded by believers amongst the 
Jews as a type of the Messiah, 510. The paschal 
lamb the fittest to represent Christ, ib. 

Patie.nxe, God's, ii. 50O. 

Patience under afflictions, a duty, ii. 98. God's 
immutability should teach us, i. 416. A sense 
of God's holiness would promote, ii. 263 ; and 
his goodness, 395. Motives to, from God's so- 
vereignty, 497. From nature of, in regard to 
God, 498. Consideration of God's patience to 
us would promote, 539. True, cannot be without 
knowledge of God, iv. 34. 

Patience, God's, wonderful in suffering so many 
millions of practical atheists to exist in the 
world, i. 246. His wisdom, the ground of, ii. 76. 
A property in the divine nature, 504. Seen in 
his providential works in the world, 505. Is 
part of his goodness and mercy, yet distinct 
from both, 506. Is not insensible, 507. Not 
constrained or faint-hearted, ib. Not from 
want of power over the creature, but from ful- 
ness of power over himself, 508. Exercise of, 
founded in the death of Christ, 509. His vera- 
city and holiness no bars to the exercise of, ib. 
Manifested to our first parents, 512 ; to the 
Gentiles, 513 ; to the Israelites, ib. In giving 
warning of judgments before he inflicts them, 
514. In long delaying his threatened judg- 
ments, 516. In his unwillingness to execute 
his judgments when he can delay no longer, 518. 
Why he exercises so much, 524. Is extended to 
wicked men for the sake of the church, 528. 
Abuse of, 530 ; by misinterpretations of it, 531 ; 
by continuing in a course of sin under the influ- 
ence of, ib. ; by repeating sin when afiBiction is 
removed, ib. Sin and danger of abusing, 532. 
Exercised towards sinners and saints, 535. Com- 
fortable to all, but especially to the righteous, 
536. Should be meditated on, 538. We should 
admire and bless God for, 540. Should not be 
presumed on, 543. Should be imitated, 544. In 
permitting unbelief to exist in the world, iv. 282. 

Peace, God alone can speak to troubled souls, 
ii. 162. 

Pelagian doctrine, that by generous love of virtue 
we may deserve the grace of God, iii. 179. De- 
prives God of his sovereign independence, 188. 
Puts a blot on his wisdom, 189. Denies his fore- 
knowledge, 190. Makes his truth a great un- 
certainty, 191. Despoils him of his worship, 192. 

Perfection, not to be found in this world, iv. 302. 
V. 137. 

Perfections of God, all manifested in Christ, iv. 
138 ; and in exact harmony, 139 ; his patience, 
ib. ; his love, goodness and pardoning mercy, 140. 
His love, in the freeness of it, 142 ; the tender- 
ness of it, 143; the fulness of it, i^. His wis- 
dom, 145. His justice, 148. His holiness 151. 
His truth, 152. His power, 153. 

Permission of sin, no blemish to God's holiness, 
ii. 222. 

Persecutions, the goodness of God seen in, ii. 361. 

Persecutors, their victories secure them not from 
being tne triumph of others, ii. 500. 

Perseverance of the saints, secured by the nn- 
changcableness of God, i. 413. Of believers in 
grace, a gospel doctrine, ii. 5. Depends on 
God's wisdom, ib. ; and power, 163. 

Pleasures, sensual, men strangely addicted to, i. 
230. We ought to take heed of, 256. 

Poems, fewer sacred ones good than of any other 
kind, i. 230. 

Poor, God's wisdom in making some, ii. 32. 

Popery and Komish episcopacy an invasion of 
God's sovereignty, ii. 464. 

Power of Gou, ii. 99. 

Power, infinite and incomprehensible, pertains to 
the nature of God, and is expressed in part in 
his works, ii. 103. Nature of, 105. That ability 



580 



and strength by which he can bring to pass 
whatever he pleaseth, 106. Gives activity to all 
other perfections of his nature, 108. Is ori- 
ginally and essentially in his nature, and not 
distinct from his essence, 109. Is infinite, 111. 
The impossibility of his doing some things, no 
disparagement to his omnipotence, 117. Proofs 
of his omnipotence, 121 ; from the power that is 
in the creatures, ib. ; from his infinite perfection, 
122 ; from the simplicity of his being, 123 ; from 
the miracles that have been wrought in the 
world, 124. Manifested in creation, ib. In the 
government of the world, 132. In redemption, 
145. In the pubUcation and propagation of the 
gospel, 151. In planting and preserving grace, 
and pardoning sin, 158. Ascribed to Christ, 
164 ; and to the Holy Ghost, 169. Infers his 
blessedness, immutability, and providence, 170. 
A ground of worship, 171. A ground for belief 
of the resurrection, 172. Contempt of, 174. 
Abuse of, 177. Terrible to the wicked, 178. 
Comfortable to the righteous, 180. Should be 
meditated on, 182 ; and trusted in, 183. 
Should teach us humility and submission, 186 ; 
and to fear God, and not man, ib. Appears 
in the work of regeneration, iii. 273 More than 
in creation, 274. As much as in the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, 276. 

Practical Atheism, i. 183. 

practices, gracious, cannot be without gracious 
principles, iii. 33. 

Praise, consideration of God's wisdom and good- 
ness would lead us to, ii. 90, 396. Men back- 
ward to. 400. Due to God, 488. Without un- 
derstanding, neither pleasant to the offerer, nor 
acceptable to God, iv. 37. 

Prayer, mighty force of with God to make his pro- 
vidence work for the good of the church, L 91. 
God hath a mighty delight in, 92. Is a pleading 
of God's promises, ib. Man impatient if God do 
not answer, 238. For secret, we should take the 
most melting opportunities, 343. Not unneces- 
sary because of God's immutability and know- 
ledge, 407, 520. To creatures, is a wrong to 
God's omniscience, 517. Omission of, a practical 
denial of God's knowledge, 523. Comfort that 
the most secret are known to God, 527. God's 
wisdom in delaying or denying to answer, ii. 87. 
For success in wicked designs, sinfulness of, 246. 
God fit to be trusted for an answer to, 257. 
Goodness of God in answering, 359. His good- 
ness a comfort in, 388. His dominion an en- 
couragement to, 481, 491. To be joined with 
attendance on the word, iii. S31. Pleas in, from 
the consideration of God's being the author of 
reconciliation, 371. Christ's, in John xvii., 
seems to claim the pre-eminence over all the 
rest of Scripture, iv. 4. Should be argumenta- 
tive, 8. Of unconverted men, how to be regarded, 
v. 504. 

rreaching, end of, to humble man, and clear God, 
iii. 213. The most eloquent, not always the 
most effective, 238. Its main matter the word 
of truth, the gospel, 325. 

Preparation requisite for spiritual worship, i. 324. 
Consideration of God's knowledge good for every 
duty, 534. Sin of coming into God's presence 
without, ii. 247. 

Presence of God in his church makes all providences 
work for its good, i. 91. Of men more regarded 
than God's, 231. We should seek for God's 
special and influential, 456. 

Preservation, no creature capable of its own, i. 
148, ii. 135. God's, of the world, i. 160. Hjs 
power seeii in, ii. 133. Is a foundation of his 
domioioa, -113. 

Presumption springs from vain imaginjitions of 
God, i. 242. Is a contempt of God's dominion, 
ii. 471. 

Pride, its commonness, i. 225. An exalting of 
ourselves above God, 233. Thoughts of God's 
eternity should abate, 368. Is an affront to 
God's wisdom, ii. 85. Of our own wisdom, 
foolish, 92. God's benefits abused to foster, 372. 
Is an invasion of God's dominion, 471. Danger 
of its entering the hearts, evea aft«r regenera- 



tion, iii. 243. And envy, the springs of most of 
the church's calamities, iv. 297. Consideration 
of God's sovereign disposal a bridle to sugges- 
tions of, 29S. 

Principles better known by actions than words, i. 
185. Some kept up by God to facilitate the re- 
ception of the gospel, ii. 71. 

privileges, external, cannot entitle us to the king- 
dom of grace or glory, iii. 10. 

Profaneness, a just ground of fearing the sorest 
judgments,v. 199. Especially in the clergy, 200. 

Profession, religious, insufficient for entrance into 
the kingdom of God, iii. 61. 

Promises, men break with God, i. 207, 410. God's, 
shall be performed, 366, ii. 180, 537. We should 
believe, and leave God to his own season of ac- 
complishing, 4. Distrust of, a contempt of 
God's wisdom, 86. God's holiness in the per- 
formance of, 2a5. Their fountain his goodness, 
their executor his faithfulness, iv. 31. 

Propagation of creatures, the power of God seen 
in, ii. 135. Of mankind, one end of God's pa- 
tience, 527. 

Prophecies prove the being of God, i. 173. And 
types of Christ, fulfilment of, iii. 363. 

Prophetical office of Christ, real and permanent,, 
iv. 162. 

Prosperity of the wicked goes before their down- 
fall, V. 354. 

Providence, divine, i. 6. 

Providence of God universal, i. 13 ; over all crea- 
tures, ib. ; the highest, ib. ; the meanest, 14. 
Extends to all the actions and motions of the 
creature, 15 ; natural actions, ib. ; civil actions, 
16 ; preternatural actions, ib. ; supernatural 
and miraculous actions, 17 ; fortuitous actions, 
t6. ; voluntary actions, both good and bad, ib. 
Is mysterious, 18. Its ways above human 
methods, ib. Its ends of a higher strain than 
the aims of men, ib. Hath several ends in the 
Eame action, 19. Hath more remote ends than 
men can espy, ib. Discovered in his acting by 
small means, 20 ; by contrary means, 22 ; by 
casual means, ib. Evidenced by restraints 
on the passions of men, ib. ; by the sudden 
changes in the spirits of men, 23 ; by causing 
enemies to do things for others which are con- 
trary to all rules of policy, ib. ; by infatuating 
the counsels of men, 24 ; by making the coun. 
sels of men subservient to the very ends they 
design against, 25 ; by making the fancies of 
men su'oservient to their own ruin, ib. God's 
ordering of all things does not make him the 
author of sin, 26. Denial of, gives a liberty to 
all sin, 39 ; destroys all religion, ib. la a high 
disparagement of God, 40 ; is clearly against 
natural light, ib. Ways in which it is practi- 
tically denied, 42. To be trusted, and that in 
the greatest extremities, ib. ; in the way of 
means; 56; in the way of precept, 57. To be 
submitted to, 58. Not to be murmured at, 69. 
To be studied, ib. All its motions ultimately 
for the good of the church, 62. Is all for the 
glorifying of his grace in Christ, 82. Administra- 
tion of, committed to Christ for the good of his 
church, 83. Dark, God not to be censured in, 
109. Former, should be considered, 113. Faith 
tobe acted on, 116. Never wearied, 346. Proved, 
446, 512, ii, 170. Is specially over the church, 
and the meanest in it, i. 45^. Extends to all 
creatures, ii. 349. Distrust of, a contempt of 
God's goodness, 369. 

Punishment, of notorious offenders by God, why 
not immediate, i. 37. God always just in, 247, 
ii. 375. Of sinners eternal, i, 363. "The wisdom 
of God seen in, ii. 47. Necessarily follows sin, 
251. Does not impeach God's goodness, 298. 
Is not God's primary intention, 302. Inflicting, 
is a branch of God's dominion, 432. Necessarily 
follows on the doctrine of sovereignty, 478. Of 
the wicked unavoidable and terrible. 479. Does 
not alter the nature, iii. 134. Temporal, of 
original sin (toil, death, and the pain of child- 
bearing) though it remains, does not prejudice 
a believer's interest, v. 406. Why continued, 
4U7. Not for satisfaction, ib. 



581 



Purgatory, held by the Jews, i. 215. Inconsistent 
with the cleansing virtue of Christ's blood, iii. 
524. 



Rain, an instance of God's wisdom and power, ii. 
24, 100. 

Season, not the measure of God's revelations, ii. 
94. Natural, can discover the necessity of re- 
generation, iii. 27. Pride of, a hindrance to the 
attainment of the knowledge of God, iv. 100. 
Insufficiency of, without revelation, 154. Is 
blind in the things of God, ib. Is uncertain, 
155. Is an enemy of the knowledge of God in 
Chri.st, 156. Carnal, its subtle evasions to put 
away conviction of sin, 181. Corrupt, an enemy 
to faith, and a friend to unbelief, 355. Pride of, 
unreasonable, 378. 

Receiving, unwobtht, of the Lord's supper, iv. 
472. 

Eeconciliation, God the author op, iii. 336. 

Heconciliation, the most admirable mystery In 
Christianity, iii. 336. Twofold ; fundamental, 
at the death of Christ, actual, on faith, ib. 
Christ the cause of the former by his death, of 
the latter by his life ; of the former by himself 
in person, of the latter by his deputy, the Spirit, 
337. To God, not the taking away of the enmity 
of our hearts to him, but the pacifying of his 
anger against us, 338. Justification is the effect 
and consequent of, 339. Distinction between 
reconciliation, justification, and adoption, 340. 
God the great spring and author of, 341. To- 
wards the world God acts as a reconciling God, 
towards believers as reconciled, ib. Each per- 
son of the Godhead has a distinct part in, ib. 
Implies that there was a former friendship, 342. 
Implies an enmity or hatred, at least on one 
side, ib. Does not imply change in God, 343. 
No man actually reconciled till he comply with 
the conditions on which God offers, 346. In 
the decree is from eternity, in the purchase 
from the death of Christ, in the act from the 
time of believing, ib. Is very congruous to the 
honour of God, 347 ; of his wisdom, ib. ; his 
trulU and j ustice, ib. Very necessary for us, ib. 
God the Father the author of, 348. No creature 
could invent, ib. The Father must needs be 
principal in, 350. Not under obligation to en- 
tertain any thoughts of, 351. Not obliged to 
receive any satisfaction, however valuable in it- 
self, 352. Is a discovery of God's dearest love 
and profoundest wisdom, 355. All the thoughts 
of God in all ages of the world were about, 360. 
The agency of the Father in, appears, as choosing 
and supporting Christ, .361. In solemnly calling 
him, 366. Depth of God's wisdom, and vehe- 
mency of his kindness in, 370. Christ fitted by 
the Father for the work of, 390. Corner-stone 
of, laid in the suflerings of Christ, 413. These 
inflicted by the Father, 414. Its first rise in the 
love and compassion of God, 476. The greatest 
love that God can shew, ib. More illustrious 
than if he had pardoned us by his absolute pre- 
rogative without a satisfaction, ib. A greater 
love than has yet been shewn to angels, 478. 
Magnified by a view of the condition we were in, 
vb. A love in the freest manner. 479. Shewn 
by the greatness of the blessings designed, 480. 
A perpetual love, ib. Effectual, 488 ; and per- 
petual, 489. Terms of, on our part, 491. Mo- 
tives to seek, 492 

Redemption, wisdom of God manifested in, ii. 51 ; 
in reconciling justice and mercy, 52; in the 
person by whom it was wrought, 56; in the 
union of the two natures in Christ, 57 ; in vin- 
dicating the honour and righteousness of the 
law, both as to precept and penalty, 62 ; in 
manifesting at once the greatest hatred of sin, 
and the greatest love to the sinner, 63 ; in 
overturning the devil's empire by the nature he 
had vanquished, 64; in giving us in this way 
the surest ground of comfort, and the strongest 
incentive to obedience, 65. In the condition he 
hath settled for enjoying the fruits of redemp- 
tion, 67 ; in the manner of publishing and pro- 



pagating the doctrine of redemption, 70. God's 
power appears in, 145 ; in the person redeem- 
ing, 146 ; his conception, ib. ; tlie union of na- 
tures in his person, 148 ; the progress of his life, 
J 50; his resurrection, ib.; in the publication 
and propagation of the doctrine of, 151 ; in the 
application of, 158. Of man, well-pleasing to 
God, V. 81. 

Reformation, outward, insufficient for entrance 
into the kingdom of God, iii. 59. May proceed 
from force and fear, or from sense of outward 
interest, 60. 

Reformations are reductions of things to their 
original pattern and first institution, v. 192. 

Kegenerate, sins of, v. 414. 

Regenerate ; their sins have a greater aggravation 
than others, iii. 136. Cannot rid themselves of 
the remainders of sin, 200. Cannot quicken 
themselves in duty, 209. Exhortation to, 297. 
Cannot live in the customary practice of any 
known sin, either of omission or commission, v. 
418. Cannot have a fixed resolution to walk in 
such a way of sin, were the impediments to it 
removed, 423. Cannot walk in a way doubtful 
to them, without inquiries, and without admit- 
ting of reproofs and admonitions, 425. Cannot 
have a settled, deliberate love to any one act of 
sin, though they may fall into it, 427. Cannot 
commit any sin with a full consent and bent of 
will, 428. Their sins arise either from a sU-ong 
passion or inconsiderateness, 432. 

Regeneration, necessity of, iii. 7. 
NATURE OF, iii. 82. 
EFFICIENT OF, iii. 166, 249. 
INSTRUMENT OF, iii. 3U7. 

Regeneration, doctrine of, laid down in the Old 
Testament, iii. 11. Is not a relative, but a real 
change, 15. Necessity of, propositions con- 
cerning, 16. Not conceivable that God can 
make any man happy without, 22. Necessary 
in every part of the soul, 26. Necessary to the 
performance of gospel duties, 29. Necessary for 
the enjoyment of gospel privileges, 40 ; the 
favour of God, ib. ; union with God and Christ, 
41. There can be no justification without, 43 ; 
no adoption, ib. ; no acceptance of services, 44 ; 
no communion with God, 45 : no communication 
of Christ to our souls can be relished and im- 
proved, 46 ; we cannot be in covenant, 47. 
Necessary to a state of glory, 48. Does not, in 
its own nature, give a right to glory, 48 ; but 
makes a man capable of it, 49. Sad ignorance 
of the doctrine of, 58. Is never without reforma- 
tion of life, 59. The time of, not necessarily 
known, 66. Is the evidence of justification, 67. 
The ground of assurance, ib. Tests of, 68. Is 
to be sought, 69. Something equivalent to, 
seems necessary for all rational creatures, 70. 
As necessary [as justification, 71. Advantages 
accruing by, 72. To be soucht presently, ib. 
Early, advantages of, 73. Folly of deferring the 
seeking of, 75. How to be got, 78. Is not 
merely a conversion from idolatry to the profes- 
sion of Christianity, 85. Nature of, difficult to 
describe exactly, 86 Different from conversion, 
88; from justification, ib. ; from adoption, 90 ; 
from sanctification, ib. Not a removal of the 
old substance or faculties of the soul, 91. Not a 
change of the essential acts of the soul, as acts, 
ib. Not the awakening of some gracious prin- 
ciple which lay hid in nature, 92. Not an addi- 
tion to nature, 93. Not baptism, ib. Is a real 
change from nature to grace, as well as by grace, 
94. A change common to all the children of 
God. and peculiar to them, ib. A change quite 
contrary to the former frame, ib. A universal 
change of the whole man, 95. Bears resem- 
blance to creation and generation, U6. Dears 
proportion to corruption, ib. Influences every 
faculty of the soul, ib. Is a change of principle, 
97 ; and of end, 99. Considered as the bestowal 
of a vital principle, 105 ; as a habit, »6.; as a law 
put into the heart, 118. Is never without faith, 
love, and righteousness. 1.30. Marks of, 144 ; 
fervent longings after likeness to God, 145 ; 
subjection of the heart to God's authority, 146 ; 



582 



relish for Inward aud spiritual duties, 147 ; 
valuation of the word and institutions of Christ, 
148 ; holiness in heart and life, ib. ; antipathy 
to those things which are contrary to a divine 
nature, 149 ; delight in God and his ways, 151. 
Cannot be effected by man, 169. Man cannot 
prepare himself for, 178. Doth not produce and 
work it in himself, 188 Cannot co-operate with 
God in the first production of, 205. Cannot, by 
his own strength, actuate grace after it is re- 
ceived, 208. Cannot, by the power of his own 
will, preserve grace in himself, 209. What 
power man has in regard to, 210. Not wrought 
only by moral suasion, 238. Is subjectively in 
the creature, efficiently from God, 249. God 
always appropriates to himself, 250. None other 
can be the author of, 254. None other can 
change the heart and will, 255. Nature of the 
change, 257. Its suddenness, ib. Its excel- 
lency, 258. Its end, 259. The weakness of the 
means shews it to be the work of God, 260. 
From what principles in God it flows, 263; 
mercy and goodness, ib. ; sovereignty, 267 ; 
truth, 269 ; wisdom, 270 ; holiness, 272 ; power, 
273. Change wrought upon the understanding, 

279. By removing indisposition and prejudices, 

280. By bringing the mind and object close to- 
gether, 281. By bringing the soul to actual 
reasoning and discourse upon the sight of the 
evidence, 282. Hence follows full conviction, 
283. Change wrought upon the will, ib. Is an 
immediate work, and not merely a result of that 
on the understanding, 284. Is not compulsive, 
286. Is free and gentle, 287. Is insuperably 
victorious, 288. The instrument of, is the word, 
309. Not the law, ib. But the gospel, 310. Ex. 
cellency of, 324. Signs of, *. Does not give a 
dispensation from the law of God, v. 419. 

Religion, often pretended to justify cruelty, iv. 
16.i. 

KE.MOVAL OP THE GOSPEL, V. 190. 

Repentance, not properly in God, i. 400. Ascribed 
to him in accommodation to our weak capacity, 
401. Only a change in his outward conduct, ac- 
cording to his infallible foresight and immutable 
will, ib. A reasonable condition of salvation, 
ii. 68. The end of God's patience, 527. The 
consideration of God's patience would make us 
frequent and serious in, 638. Cannot be with- 
out knowledge of God, iv. 33. A subject of self- 
examination in preparation for the Lord's sup- 
per, 459. 

Reprobation, not inconsistent with God's holiness 
and justice, ii. 221. 

Reproof may be administered for evil ends, 1. 
239. 

Reputation, men more concerned for their own, 
than for God's glory, i. 227. Desire of, mixes it- 
self with our most spiritual exercises, iii. 8. 

Resignation should flow from consideration of 
God's wisdom, ii. 95. And of his sovereignty, 
486. 

Resolutions, good, how soon broken, i. 410. 

Rest, God's, on the seventh day was /rom the work 
of creation, but not in his works, but in Christ, 
iii. 48. 

Restraint of men and devils by God in mercy to 
man, ii. 33, 140, 227, 354, 452. 

Resurrection of the body, no incredible doctrine, 
i. 513, ii. 172. Of Christ, effected by the Father, 
iii. 435. In what sense for our justification, 437. 
How our regeneration depends upon, 438. Of 
Christ, a proof of the acceptance of his sacrifice, 
iv. 659. Of our bodies, assurance of, from the 
glory of Christ, v. 86. 

Revelations of God not to be censured, ii. 83. Not 
to be measured by reason, 94. Something hid 
in whatever is revealed, 97. Necessity of, iv. 
157. Reason must be submitted to, ib. 

Reverence necessary in the worship of God, i. 310. 

Riches, inordinate desire after, a hindrance to 
spiritual worship, i. 342. God's sovereignty in 
the bestowal of, ii. 447. 

Righteousness, always necessary, iii. 19 ; before the 
fall, ib. ; after the fall, ib. ; in the time of the 
law, 20 ; under the gospel, 21. Our own, na- 



tural desire to stand by, iv. 357. Popish doc- 
trine of resting upon our own, to be abandoned, 
679. 

Rivers, how useful, ii. 24. 

Rome, why called Uabylon, i. 140. In what senses 
Christ may be said to have been crucified at, 
iv. 255. 

Romanists ; their doctrine of the merit of works 
performed after grace, examined, iii. 49. 



Sabbath, probable reason of its change from tl^e 
seventh to the first day of the week, iv. 615. 

Sacraments, the goodness of God in appointing, 
ii. 341. 

Sacrifices, the shedding of blood in, implied guilt, 
iii. 513. Instituted as types of Christ, iv. 518. 
Could not expiate sin, 621. Christ only fit to 
be a real expiatory, 524. Practised by all na- 
tions, v. 42. Could not arise from the light of 
nature, ib. Must therefore be from in-^titution, 
ib. If instituted by God, must be figures of 
something else intended, 43. 

Sacrifice of Christ, all his other sacerdotal acts de- 
pendent upon, iv. 5'27. Was voluntary, 542. 
The Father's appointing doth not impair his 
■willingness In undertaking, 643. The necessity 
of, impeacheth not its voluntariness, 544. Ac- 
ceptable to God and efficacious for men, 552. 
God not absolutely bound to accept for us, 503. 
The acceptation depended on the will of the 
lawgiver, the acceptableness on that of the Re- 
deemer, 554. God took pleasure in the design- 
ment and expectation of, ib. By it God had a 
restoration of his rest, which had been disturbed 
by the entrance of sin, 556. The highest per- 
fections of God's nature had a peculiar glory 
from it, 557. Was as honourable to God as our 
sins had been a dishonour to him, 558. Greater 
pleasure arose to God from it than noisome- 
ness from our sins, ib. All this proved by his 
resurrection, 659 ; and by his ascension and full 
exaltation, 560. Is sufficient for all, if all would 
accept it, 563. Its effects, 564 ; remission of 
sin, ib.; confirmation of the covenant, 565 ; re- 
storation of peace and intercourse with God, 
566 ; the mission of the Spirit, 567 ; the accep- 
tance of our persons and services, 568 ; joy and 
peace of conscience, ib.; heaven, ib. Rendered 
acceptable to God and efficacious for men by 
the dignity of his person, 569 ; by its purity, 
673 ; by the graces exercised in it, 574 ; his 
obedience, ib. ; his humility, 575 ; his faith, 576. 
A desperate thing to refuse, 581. 

Saints, glorified, probably plead for the church, 
i. 93. Men apt to be drawn from Christ by ad- 
miration of, iv. 237. The highest sensible of 
original corruption, 302. 

Salvation of men, how desirous God is of, ii. 339, 
624. From sin, more Christ's work than from 
hell, iii. 25. Upon the most certain terms to 
every believer, 388 ; since every believer is the 
seed of Christ, ib. ; in regard of the firmness of 
the covenant of redemption, 389 ; in regard that 
Christ hath suffered and performed all his part, 
ib. ; since it is linked with God's glory, ib. 

Sanctification deserves our thanks as much as 
justification, ii. 401. Differs from regeneration, 
iii. 90. Of our natures could not have been 
without redemption of our persons, 340. 

Sipphire, an emblem of the kingly and priestly 
office, iii. 362. 

Satan, conquest over, secured by the reconcilia- 
tion affected by Christ, iii. 485. Sometimes sets 
sin in order before the soul, iv. 2u5. Differences 
between this and the convictions wrought by the 
Spirit, ib. He sets sin in order as an accuser, 
the Spirit as a comforter, 206. He presents God 
only as a judge to punish, the Spirit also as a 
sovereign and Father in Christ, who hath power 
to pardon, 207. He conceals the remedy for sin 
by the mercy of God. the Spirit discovers it, ib. 
When he cannot conceal the remedy, he endea^ 
vours to disparage it, 208. He endeavours to 
drive the soul to despair, the Spirit to encourage 
it to faith, ib. He works most by the passions 



533 



and humours of the body, the Spirit works upon 
the mind, 209. Is the great stifler of true con- 
victions, 212. 

Satisfaction of the soul only in God, i. 170, 281, 
371. For sin, necessary, ii. 2.53. 

Sceptics must own a first cause, i. 150 

Scoffing at holiness a great sin, ii. 246. And at 
convictions in others, 260. 

Scriptures are wrested and abused, i. 197, 222. 
Oupht to be prized and studied, 256. The not 
fulfilling of some predictions in, doth not prove 
God to be changeable. 403. Of the Old Testa- 
ment give credit to the New, and the New illus- 
trates the Old, ii. 7. All truth to be drawn from, 
ib. Of the Old Testament to be studied, ib. 
Contain something suitable to all sorts of men, 
29. Written so as to prevent foreseen corrup- 
tions, 31. To study arguments from, for de- 
fence of sin, a contempt of God's holiness, 245. 
God's goodness in giving, 356. Plain, as to their 
main design, iv. 104. Directions for studying, ib. 

Sea, how useful, i. 153. The wisdom of God seen 
in, ii. 24. And his power, 101, 134. 

Sealing of Christ signifies his separation to, and 
authority to exercise, his offices, iii. 406. 

Searching the hearts of men, how to be understood 
of God, i. 476. 

Seasons, the variety of them necessary, ii. 25. 

Secresy, a poor refuge for sinners, i. 531. 

Secret sins cause stings of conscience, i 168, 506. 
Known to God, 447, 530. Shall be revealed in 
the day of judgment, 513. Griefs, prayers, and 
works known to God, 527. 

Security, men abuse God's blessings to, ii. 372. 

Self, man most opposed to those truths which 
are most contrary to, i. 198. Man sets up as his 
rule, 211. Dissatisfied with conscience when it 
contradicts its desires, 212. Agreeableness to, 
the spring of many materially good actions, 213, 
235, 313. Would make it a rule to God, 216. 
Applauding thoughts of, how common, 225. 
Men ascribe to it the glory of what they have or 
do, 228. Desire doctrines pleasing to, 227. 
Highly concerned for injuries done to, ib. 
Obey, against the light of conscience, 228. The 
only cause of many men's love to God is his 
giving mercies pleasing to, 2-35. Men unwieldy 
to their duty when it is not concerned, 237. Is 
the great enemy to the gospel and conversion, 
249. 

Self-denial, the chief lesson of the gospel, iii. 38. 

SBLF-EXAillNATION, iV. 483. 

Self-examination, a necessary preparation for the 
Lord's supper, iv. 448 ; to clear up a right, 449 ; 
to excite grace, ib. ; to prevent sin, 450. Sub- 
jects of, 451. A necessary duty, 4S4 ; in regard 
of our comfort, 485. Requires diligence and 
care, 486. Directions for. 460. 

Self-love, threefold ; natural, carnal, gracious, i. 
223. Natural, shews itself in frequent self-ap- 
plauses and inward overweening reflections, 
225 ; in ascribing the glory of what we have or 
do to ourselves, 226 ; in desires to hear self- 
pleasing doctrines, 227 ; in being highly con- 
cerned for injuries done to ourselves, and little 
for those done to God, ib. ; in trusting to our- 
selves, ib. Atheism lurks in, 228. Leads man 
to make himself the end of the creatires. 233 ; 
to make himself the end of God, 235. Evidenced 
in our loving God because of self- pleasing bene- 
fits distributed by him, i6. ; in abstinence from 
some sins, n< t because they are displea-sing to 
God, but huriful to our self-interests, 236 ; in 
performing religious duties purely for a selfish 
interest, ib. 

Sensuality, a hindrance to the attainment of the 
knowledge of God, iv. 99. 

Service of God, man's dislike to, i. 203. Slightness 
in the performance of, 204. They shew no vigour 
in the performance of, as they do in their worldly 
business, 205. Soon weary of, ib Often desert, 
206. Presence of God a comfort in, 453. Hypo- 
critical pretences for avoiding, a denial of God's 
knowledge, 523. A sense of (iod's goodness 
would make us faithful in, ii. 386. Some called 
to, and fitted for, more eminent, 446. Omissions 



of, a contempt of God's sovereignty, 473. Evan- 
gelical cannot be without a new nature, iii. 30. 
We should be industrious and affectionate in, 
497. 

SlK, CONVICTIOJf OF, iV. 164. 

Ukbelief the greatest, iv. 220. 
Pardon of, v. 434. 

Sins, other hen's, .mocbnino for, t. 380. 
OF the regenerate, v. 414. 

Sin, God not the author of, i. 26. All founded in 
a secret atheism, 186. Implies that God is un- 
worthy of being, 1S7. In its nature would ren- 
der God a foolish and impure being, 188. In its 
nature endeavours to render God a most miser- 
able being, 189. Is more difficult than holiness, 
202. To make it our end, a great debasing of 
God, 231. No excuse, but rather an aggrava- 
tion, that we serve but one, 232. Abstinence 
from, often proceeds from an evil cause, 236, 521. 
God's name, word, and mercies abused to coun- 
tenance, 239, ii. 245, 372, 534. Spiritual, to be 
avoided, i 281. Is folly, 362. Hath brought a 
curse on the creation. 379. Past, known to God, 
469. A sense of God's knowledge and holiness 
would check, 534, ii. 262. God's wisdom seen 
in the branding of, 33. And in the bringing 
glory to himself out of, ib. And good to us, 40. 
In redemption God hath shewn the greatest 
hatred of, 63. Is a contempt of God's power, 
174. Is abhorred by God necessarily, 197, 251 ; 
intensely, 198 ; universally, ib. ; perpetually, 

199. In this world more severely punished in 
God's people than in others, ib. God cannot 
himself commit, or be the author of in others, 

200. God punishes, and cannot but do so, 209, 
251. The instruments of, detestable to God, 209. 
All his acts about or concerning, consistent with 
perfect holiness, 215. Is opposite to the holi- 
ness of God, 242. To charge on Ocd, or defend 
by his word, a great sin, 245. Entrance of into 
the world doth not impeach God's goodness, 294. 
Is a contempt of God's dominion, 461. God daily 
provoked by, 522, 540. Is an abuse of God's 
patience, 5,''.l God's fore-knowledge of, iii. 190. 
Its vast power, 235. The order of its working, 
307. Perfectly cleansed by the blood of Christ, 
515 ; not here in regard of the sense of it, ib. ; 
nor in regard of the stirrings of it, 516 ; but in 
regard of condemnation and punishment, t*. 
Hereafter in every regard, 517. Its false dis- 
guises, iv. ISO. 

Sins of believers, God punishes many times by 
visible judgments, but wilful unregeneracy by 
spiritual, iii. 77. Of believers, God hates, 345. 

Sincerity required in spiritual worship, i. 300. 
Cannot be unknown to God, 526. Consideration 
of God's knowledge would promote, 535. Can- 
not be without a new nature, iii. 36. 

Sinful times; in them we should be most holy, ii. 
266. 

Sinfulness and cure of thoughts, v. 288. 

Sinners, chief ; objects of the choicest mssct, 
V. 526. 

Sinners, God's great love to, and hatred of their 
sins, ii. 63. Everything in their possession 
hateful to God. 210. The chiefest, God hath 
formerly made invitations to, v. 520. Examples 
in Scripture, 527. The stock whereof Christ 
came seems to intimate this, 628. It was Christ's 
employment in the world to court and gain such, 
529. The commission he gave to his apostles 
was to this purpose, 530. The practice of the 
Spirit to lay hold of such persons, 531. W hy he 
chooses the greatest, 532. There is a passive 
disposition in them to see their need, t*. To 
shew the insufficiency of nature for conversion, 
533. His regard for his own glory, 5.35 ; the 
glory of his patience, ib. ; of his grace, 636 ; of 
his power, 540 ; of his wisdom, 642. 

Society, human ; God's goodness evident in the 
preservation of, ii. 353. 

Socinians deny that any knowledge of God can be 
obtained from the light of nature, i. 131. 

Sr^'hip of God, none without likeness to God, iii, 
19. 

&n.i, the vastness of its capacity, and quickness 



584 



of its motion, ii. 165. Its union to the body, 
wonderful, 1G6. Alone can converse with God, 
2h0. Should be the object of our chiefest care, 
281. We should worship God with, 286. The 
wisdom and goodness of God seen in, ii. 33, 308. 
Christ's, glorified, v. 73. 

Sovereignty of God, illustrious in regeneration, 
iii. 267. 

Spaces, imaginary, beyond the world, God is pre- 
sent in, i. 451. 

SPIKIT, (iOD'S BEING A, i. 258. 

Spirit, that God is, only once categorically asserted 
in Scripture, i. 2P2, Is as evident as his being. 
ib. If he were not, he could not be creator, 265 ; 
could not be one, ib. ; could not be invisible, ib. ; 
could not be infinite, 266 ; nor independent, 
267, nor immutable, ib ; nor omnipresent, 268 ; 
nor the most perfect being, ib. 'VVhy members 
are so often ascribed to him, 269. Inferences, 
279. 

Spirit of God, his assistance necessary to spiritual 
worship, i. 299. His office to comfort and re- 
new, and he comforts by renewing, iii. 67. 
Could not have come unless the justice of God 
had been satisfied by the death of Christ, iv. 
167 ; unless Christ had ascended, ib. His pre- 
sence a greater comfort than simply the presence 
of Christ in the flesh, ib. His office to convince 
of sin, 168 ; of righteousness, 16y ; of judgment, 
170. An advocate for righteousness and the 
law in the work of conviction ; for the soul in 
the work of consolation, 173. How a spirit of 
truth, of bondage, of adoption, ib. Is the in- 
fuser of all giace into the heart, and the 
author of all preparation to grace, 174. How he 
works conviction, 182. His great instrument is 
the law, 183 ; then the conscience, in the con- 
viction of the fact, ib. Discovers sin by the law, 
184 ; not only open, but secret and lurking sins, 
18j. Discovers the wrath of God due to sin by 
the law, ib. Lets loose those truths in the heart 
which were prisoners in the chains of unright- 
eousness, 186. Irradiates and enlightens the 
mind and practical judgment, ib. Excites and 
actuates the conscience, 187. Brings forgotten 
sins to mind, and presseth them upon the con- 
science, 188. Fixeth the sense of the most ter- 
rible attributes of God upon the soul, ib. Re- 
moves all the supports on which the soul formerly 
leaned, 189. Makes the soul intent upon tha 
consideration of its sin, ib. Brings up fears in 
the soul at the consideration of its state, 190. 
Brings the soul to self-debasement and humilia- 
tion, 191. Usually singles out some one sin at 
the first to let loose upon the soul, 192. Usually 
convinceth the soul first of gross sins, ib. Thence 
proceedeth to the conviction of the bosom sin, 
193. Thence directs the soul to a sight of its 
corruption by nature, ib. Convinces of the evil 
nature of sin, 194 ; of its filthiness and pollu- 
tion, ib. Convinces of spiritual sins, 195. Con- 
vinceth the soul of its ownimpotency and weak- 
ness, 196. Continually cc^nvinces of the conse- 
quences and demerits of sin, ib. Differences of 
his manner of presenting sin to us and Satan's, 
205. Sinfulness of resisting his convictions, 
212. His convictions will have a good issue, if 
not resisted, 213. 

Spirits in prison ; in what sense Christ preached 
to, iv. 172. 

Spiritual Worship, i. 283. 

Stability, the church's, v. 317. 

Straits, the church's, are her enemies' hopes) but 
God's opportunities, v. 354. 

Subjection to superiors, God remits of his own 
rights for preserving, ii. 355. 

Subjects of the Lord's supper, iv. 427. 

Success, men apt to ascribe to themselves, i. 226, 
ii. 373. God's sovereignty shewn in giving or 
withholding, 447. 

Sufferings of Christ ; their greatness, iii. 418. In- 
flicted by the Father, 419. God had a choice 
delight in inflicting, 421. His graces most emi- 
nent in his endurance of, ib. ; his kindness nd 
tenderness to man, ib. ; his obedience to his 
Father, ib. ; his fiduciary trust in God, ib. &&• 



quired to be infinite, but not eternal, ib. His 
Father's inflicting does not imply his approba- 
tion of the acts of those who crucified him, 423. 

Summer, how necessary, ii. 25. 

Sun, conveniently placed, i. 152. Its motion use- 
ful, ib. God's jiower seen in, ii. 138. 

Supererogation, idea of, injurious to the holiness 
of God, ii. 249. 

Superstition proceeds from vain imaginations of 
God, i. 241. 

Supper, the Lord's, end op, iv. 392. 

subjects of, iv. 427. 
unworthy receiving of. It. 
472. 

Supper, the Lor(Ts ; the goodness of God in ap- 
pointing, ii. 342. Seals the covenant of grace, 
ib. In it we have union and communion with 
Christ, 344. Sin of neglecting, 345. Ought to 
be often administered, iv. 393. Chiefly instituted 
for remembering and shewing forth the death of 
Christ, 394. Reasons of its necessity, 396. Sets 
forth the painfulness of his death, ib. ; the in- 
tention of his death for us, 397 ; its sufficiency 
for us, ib. ; its acceptableness to God, 398 ; its 
present efficiency, ib. To be observed reveren- 
tially, 399 ; holily, ib.\ believingly, 400 ; humbly, 
401 ; thankfully, ib. Is not a sacrifice, but a 
commemoration of a sacrifice, 402. Frequency 
of its celebration not determined, 403. Reasons 
for not neglecting, 404. Its ends, 405 ; the re- 
membrance of Christ, ib. ; sealing of the cove- 
nant, 406 ; renewing our covenant with him, 
407 ; communion with God, ib. Benefits of, 408 ; 
weakening of sin, not physically but morally, ib. ; 
nourishment of the soul, 409 ; increase and ex- 
ercise of grace, ib. ; sense and assurance of love, 
410. Union with Christ promoted, 411. Evils 
of neglecting, ib. Exhortation to observe, and 
that frequently, 414. Is a lasting and continu- 
ing institution, not to be put down at the plea- 
sure of any man, 419. Who are excluded from, 
428. All persons incapable of self-examination, 
ib. ; all who on examination find no stamp of 
grace in them, ib. Eating and drinking un- 
worthily, 431. Not all men outwardly profess- 
ing Chnstianity are in a capacity to partake of, 
432. Only regenerate men, ib. Faith a neces- 
sary qualification, which the unregenerate have 
not, 433. Only those who are in covenant, 434. 
Only those who are alive and need nourishment, 
435. Only those who are capable of inward com- 
munion with Christ, ib. Only true Christians, 
ib. Penitent persons, mourning for sin, though 
without assurance, have a right to, 436. Igno- 
rant persons, not in a capacity for, 437. Men 
guilty of a course of sin unfit for, 440. Not 
likely to be a converting ordinance, 445. Un- 
worthy receiving of, not proper only to a man in 
a natural state, 475 Not to be measured by 
our sensible joy or comfort after receiving, 476. 
It is an unworthy receiving when evil disposi- 
tions and beloved sins are not laid aside and 
forsaken, ib. ; when there is not a due prepara- 
tion, suitable to the quality of the institution, 
ib. ; when we rest only in the ordinance, ex- 
pecting from it what we should expect only from 
Christ in it, 477 ; when there is a garishness and 
looseness of spirit in the time of our attendance, 
ib. Sinfulness of unworthy receiving, 478. An 
implicit approbation of the Jews' act in crucify- 
ing Christ, ib. ; exceeds the sin of the Jews in 
some circumstances, ib. ; in regard of the rela- 
tion the ordinance hath to C hrist, 479 ; as against 
the greatest testimony of his love, ib. The 
worthy receiver hath a special interest in the 
body and blood of Christ, 481. 

Swearing by any creature, an injury to God's om- 
niscience, i. 619. 



Temple, wherein the second was more glorious than 
the first, iii. 461. 

Temptations, the presence of God a comfort in, 
i. 451. The thoughts of it would be a shield 
against, 454. The wisdom and power of God a 
comfort under, ii. 86, 180. God's goodr.xss seen 



585 



In, 382 ; in shortening, *. ; in strengthening 
his people under, ib. ; in giving great comforts 
in and after, 363 ; in discovering and advancing 
inward grace by, ib. ; in preventing sin which 
we were likely to fall into, 364; in fitting us 
more for his service, ib. 
Testament, Old, advantages of studying, iv. 615. 
Thankfulness, a necessary ingredient in spiritual 
worship, i. 307. Due to God, ii. 396, 489, 540. 
A sense of his goodness would promote, 397. 
Theft, an invasion of God's dominion, ii. 468. 
Thoctghts, sinfulness and cure of, v. 288. 
Thoughts, should be often upon God, i. 182. Sel- 
dom are on him, 230, 244. All known by God 
alone, 473 ; and by Christ, 510. Cherishing evil, 
a practical denial of God's knowledge, 523. 
Consideration of God's knowledge would make 
us watchful over, 534. What kinds of, are sin- 
ful, v. 290 ; not a simple apprehension of sin, 
ib. In regard of God, cold thoughts, 291 ; de- 
basing conceptions, ib ; accusing thoughts, 292 ; 
curious thoughts about things too high for us, 
t*. In regard of ourselves, ambitious thoughts, 
ib. ; self-confident, ib. ; self-applauding, ib. ; 
ungrounded imaginations of the events of 
things, 293 ; immoderate thoughts about lawful 
things, ib. In regard of others, all thoughts 
against the rule of charity, ib. Guilt of, aggra- 
vated by delight, 294; contrivance, ib. ; react- 
ing, 265. Proofs that they are sins, ib. In 
some respects more provoking than actions, 298. 
Directions respecting, 304. 
Threatenings, the not fulfilling of, in some in- 
stances, does not argue any change in God, 
i. 402. Are conditional, ib. The goodness of 
God in, ii. 315. 
Time cannot be infinite, i. 144. Of bestowing 

mercy, God orders as a sovereign, i!. 448. 
Tonmie, curious workman.ship of, i. 163. 
Tradition, old, generally lost, i. 138. BeUef of a 

God not due to, ib. 
Transubstantiation, an absurd doctrine, iL 177. 
Unknown to the church in primitive times, iv. 
429. Hangs on a slender thread, 615. Its 
groundlessness, v. 80. 
Trees, usefulness of, i. 153, ii. 25. 
Trinity, all the persons in, concern themselves in 

man's recovery, iv. 210. 
Trust, men put in themselves, and not in God, 
i. 227. Should not be put in the world, 370, 415. 
God the fit object of, 5'.i7, ii. 65, 77, 183, 257, 383, 
491. Means to promote, i. 536, ii. 484. Should 
not be in our own wisdom, 92. In ourselves is a 
contempt of God's power and dominion, 176, 
470. God's power the main ground of, 184. 
Should be placed in God against outward ap- 
pearances, 265. Goodness the first motive of, 
383. More grounds and motives for, under the 
gospel than the law, 384. Gives God the glory 
of his goodness, ib. God's patience to the 
wicked, a ground to the righteous to trust in his 
promise, 537. 
Truth, of God apparent in regeneration, iii. 269. 
"The word of," either a Hebraism for "the 
true word," or called by way of eminency, 308. 
And grace go hand in band, and spur on one 
another, iv. 36. 
Truths, those most disliked by men which are 
most opposed to self, that are most holy and 
spiritual, that lead most to God, and relate most 
to him, i. 197. Men inconstant in the belief of, 
4o9. 
TyTpes in the Old Testament, represented the 
work and sacrifice of Christ in jarts, v. 41. ' 



Ubiquity of Christ's human nature confuted, i. 
433. 

TJkbelief, the geeatest 8i», iv. 220. 

Unbelief, reason of, i. 249. Is a contempt of God's 
power, ii. 176 ; and goodness, -369. Is a flat 
contradiction to God, iii. 7. And despair, main 
cause of, is ignorance of the Father's interest in 
redemption, 388. ltsblackne.ss, i7). How gro.ss 
a sin it is, 404, 412. Is the fountain of all sin, 
iv. 220. The ligament and band of all sin, 221. 



Reason cannot convince of, ib. Natural con- 
science helps not in the conviction of, 222. Is 
a sin against the gospel, ib. ; against the highest 
testimony, 223. As faith is the choicest grace, 
so unbelief the greatest sin, i6. Is more odious 
to God than sins against the light of nature, ib. 
What it is not, 224. What it is, 228. Wherein 
its sinfulness consists, 231. Is the greatest re- 
proach and undervaluing of God, ib. Is pecu- 
liarly against Christ, 247. Is a wrong to the 
Spirit of God, 253. Is as bad or worse than the 
sin of the Jews in crucifying Christ, 254. Is 
much of the same nature with the first sin of the 
devil, 266. Is of the same nature with the first 
sin of Adam and Eve, 273 Is the cause of all 
the abominations and neglects of God com- 
mitted by men under the gospel, 277. Is the 
cause of all other sins, 278. Slights that which 
alone can enable us to conquer sic, 279. Main- 
tains every sin in strength, 280. Excites all 
kinds of sin in the heart, ib. Denies all that 
evil which God declares to be in sin, 281. Pos- 
sesseth the choicest faculties of the soul, ib. Is 
most odious to God, ib. Is irrational, 285. Is un- 
grateful, 288. Is inexcusable, 289 ; continued and 
final, renders a man infallibly an object of God's 
eternal wrath, 307. Is not the only sin that 
damns, yet is that without which no other sin 
would damn, 308. Is in the same way unpar- 
donable in the next world, as the sin against the 
Holy Ghost is in this, 316. God hath discovered 
his anger against, more than any other sin, 319. 
Is a greater sin than any breach of the covenant 
of works can be, 331. Misery of, is inevitable, 
£28 ; speedy, 330 ; sharp, 331 ; irreversible, 3.35. 
Extreme folly and madness of remaining in, 336. 
Should be detested, 346. Natural to man, 354. 
Causes of, 372. Its frequency lamentable, 3X5. 
Kemainders of, believers have cause to be 
ashamed of, 388. 
TJnbelievees, misery of, iv. 296. 
WHO are ? iv. 348. 
Unbelievers ; greatness of their misery, iv. 289. 
Cannot possibly, according to the economy of 
the gospel, be saved by mercy, 312. Christ him- 
self is the judge to condemn, 315. Many are 
really, who profess to be Christians, 352. Classes 
of, 361. The ignorant and inconsiderate, ib. 
Those who receive not the gospel upon a divine 
account, ib. Those who do not diligently seek 
after what is proposed in the gospel, 364. Pro- 
fane persons, 365. Those who live in habitual 
omission of known duties, 366. Who wholly 
neglect the means of grace, 367. Who seldom 
or never look into the Scriptures, 368. Who 
never pray to God, or content themselves with 
formal and customary addresses to him, ib. Who 
never exercise any serious sorrow for sin, ib. 
Who are wholly sunk in worldly affections, 369. 
Those who distrust the providence and the pro- 
mises of Christ, and murmur at his proceedings, 
.^70. Who doubt of the grace of God in Christ, 
371. Hypocrites, 372. Apostates, ib. 
Understanding, sin began in, iii. 184. Naturally 
dark in all men, 185. Change wrought upon, in 
regeneration, 279. Is the eye of the eouI, the 
flower of the spirit, the queen in ns, the sun in 
our heaven, v. 303. 
Union, of two natures in Christ, made no change 
in his divine nature, i. 399. Shews the wisdom 
of God, ii. 51. How necessary for us, 60. Shews 
the power of God, 148. Is without confusion of 
the natures, or change of one into the other, 149. 
And communion with Christ, the ground of im- 
puting his blood to us for cleansing, iii. 520. 
Efi'ected by faith, 521. Of Christ with believers, 
is both a marriape union, and a natural union 
of head and members, v. 244. Secured from 
dissolution by the covenant of prace, 245. 
Strengthened by the union of Christ to the 
Father, 246. 
Unregenerate ; the misery of their condition, 
iii. 63. Their sinfulness, 64. Exhortation to, 
244. 

USWORTHT EBCBIVINO OF THE LOED'8 SUPPBE. iV. 

472. 



586 



Usurpations of men, an invasion of God's so- 
vereignty, ii. 464. 

Venial sins, opinion of, does injury to the holi- 
ness of God, ii. 249. 
Vice, all arises from imaginations, v. 303. 

VlRTnE, CLEANSING, OF CHRIST'S BLOOD, iii. 501. 

Virtue, and vice, not arbitrary things, i. 188. 
Moral, different in its origin and its nature from 
regeneration, iii. 132. 

Vision of Christ here transforms to a likeness to 
him in his death and resurrection ; vision here- 
after to a likeness to him in glory, iii, 139. 

VOLUNTABINESS OF CHEIST'S DEATH, iV. 540. 



Water, an excellent creature, ii. 288. Being born 

of, what it is, iii. 12. Not baptism, ib. One and 

the same thing with being born of the Spirit, 13. 

Weak grace victorious, v. 225. 

Weakness, sense of, a necessary ingredient in 

spiritual worship, i. 306. 
Will, not necessitated by God's fore-knowledge, 
i. 492. Subject to God, ii. 425. Change wrought 
upon in regeneration, iii. 283. Conceit of its 
power and freedom to anything good, is ground- 
less, 235 ; is a high piece of pride, 236 ; a dis- 
paragement to God, ib ; takes away a great part 
of the glory of the Spirit's work in the world, 
237 ; puts a bar to all evangelical duties, ib. ; 
and augurs a man's destruction by encouraging 
delays, ib. 
Will, GocCs, cannot be defeated, i. 189. The same 
with his essence, 387. Always accompanied with 
his understanding, 388. Is unchangeable, ib. 
Yet the things willed by him are changeable, 
389. Is free, 390. How conversant about sin, 
ii. 222. 
Winds, usefulness of, ii 24. 
Winter, importance of, ii, 25. 
WisnoM OF GOD, ii. 3. 

Wisdom is the flower, knowledge the root, i. 461. 
Consists in acting for a right end, ii. 11 ; in ob- 
serving all circumstances for acting, ib. ; in 
willing and acting according to a right judgment 
of things, ib. No man should be proud of, or 
trust in, 92. Should be sought from God, 94. 
Wisdom of God, is an essential and personal attri- 
bute, ii. 12. Is the property of God alone, 13. 
He only wise necessarily, ib. ; originally, i6. ; 
perfectly, 14 ; universally, ib. ; perpetually, 15 ; 
incomprehensibly, ib. ; infallibly, 16. Proofs of, 
17. In creation, 21 ; in government, 27 ; in 
redemption, 51 Struck at by sin, 79 ; particu- 
larly by the introduction of rules and modes of 
worship different from divine institutions, 81 ; 
by neglecting means instituted by God, 83 ; by 
censuring Cod's revelations and actings, ib. ; 
by prescribing to God, 84 ; by murmuring and 
impatience, 85 ; by pride and haughtiness of 
spirit, ib. ; by distrust of God's promises, 86. A 
ground of comfort in all straits and afflictions, 
ib. ; in denials or delays of answers to prayer, 
87 ; in all evils threatened to the church by her 
enemies, ib. Exhibited in regeneration, iii. 
270 ; more than in the creation of the world, 
272. Profoundest, discovered in the scheme of 
reconciliation, 355. Manifested in Christ, in 
nniting the greatest extremes, iv. 146 ; the 
divine and human natures in one person, ib. ; 
the justice and mercy of God in a joint applause, 
147; God and man in eternal fellowship, i6. In 
effecting this reconciliation without the perpe- 
tual prejudice of the Mediator, but with his great 
honour and advantage, ib. In frustrating the 
subtlety of Satan, 148. In propagating the gos- 
pel, ib. More glorious in redemption than in 
creation, iv. 230. 



Women, comfort of cbild-bearino, v. 398. 

Women, named in our Lord's genealogy ; one in- 
cestuous, one a harlot, one an idolater, one an 
adulteress, v. 528. 

Word, the instrdment of regeneration, iii. 307. 

Word of truth, must be the main matter of preach- 
ing, iii. 325. God to be highly glorified for, 326. 
To be highly prized, t6. Its preservation and 
success the object of prayer and endeavour, 327. 
God to be waited upon in, ib. Why so few re- 
newed by, 335. Mighty power and excellency 
of, in the hand of the Spirit, iv. 211. 

Works, after grace, not meritorious, iii. 49. The 
best, before grace, but a refined sensuality, 204. 
Either before or after grace, cannot be the 
ground of acceptance with God, 625. 

World, must have had a creator, i. 145. Its har- 
mony, 152. Shall not be annihilated but refined, 
376. Made in the best manner, ii. 116. Made 
and richly furnished for man, 311. 

Worldly things greedily pursued by men, t 230. 
Inordinate desires after, a great hindrance of 
spiritual worship, 342. Our love and confidence 
not to be placed in, 370. Inconstancy of, 414 
Our thoughts should not dwell much on, ib. 
Much less should we trust or rejoice in, 415. A 
sense of God's goodness would lift us above, iL 
396. 

Worship, Spiritdal, i. 283. 

Worship, of God, folly to neglect, i. 181. If not 
according to his rule, is no better than devil- 
worship, 208. Man prone to corrupt with his 
own rites and inventions, 222. Spiritual, men 
naturally have no heart to, 245. The foundation 
of, is God's nature ; the rule, his will, 260. 
Gestures of the body are helps to, 261. Of the 
creatures is idolatry, 274. Of God, cannot be 
right without a true notion of God, 277. Should 
be spiritual, and spiritually performed, 283. 
Founded on the spirituality of God, 284. Spirit- 
ual, the light of nature teacheth to be due to 
God, 285. Was always required by him, 288. 
The ceremonial law abolished to promote the 
spirituality of, 290. Under the gospel, is spiri- 
tual in its matter, motives, meaning, assistances, 
295. Bodily, not to be rejected. 298. What 
spiritual iS, t6. Is from a spiritual nature, 299. 
Is done by the influence of the Spirit of God, 
299 ; with sincerity, 300 ; with unitedness of 
heart, 301; with spiritual activity, 302; with 
acting spiritual habits, 303 ; faith, 305 ; love, ib.; 
sense of weakness, 306 ; spiritual desires, 307 ; 
thankfulness and admiration, ib. ; delight, 308 ; 
reverence, 309; humility, 311; holiness, 312; 
spiritual ends, 313 ; in Christ's name, 314. A 
duty incumbent on all men, 321. To neglect, 
a high degree of atheism, 322. To offer to a 
false God, or to the true God in a false manner, 
a less sin than to neglect altogether, ib. Dili- 
gence in outward, not to be rested in, 323. Dis- 
tractions in, to be improved, 329. Danger of 
carnal, 338. Directions for spiritual, 340. Im- 
mutability of God, aground and encouragement 
of, 407. Of creatures, not countenanced by 
God's omnipresence, 442. 'God's, bringing human 
inventions into, an affront to his wisdom, ii. 81. 
Sense of God's holiness would make us reverent 

in, 261. Ingenuous, would be promoted by a 
sense of God's goodness, 394. Slight and care- 
less, a contempt of God's sovereignty, 472. 
Thoughts of God's sovereignty would make us 

diligent in, 485. Must be in and through Christ, 

iii. 471. Cannot be right without knowledge of 

God, iv. 27. 
Wron^i, God cannot do, 1. 254, ii. 474. 



Zeal, ignorant, the ereatest enemy 
tianity, iv. 165. 



SCRIPTUEE TEXTS. 



587 



i. £0, 
i. 26, 27 
i. 26, 
i. 27, 
ii. 17, 
ii. 17, 
ii. 17, 
ii. 17, 
iii. 3, 
. iii. 3, 
iii. 4, 
iij. 5, 
iii. 5, 
iii. 8, 
iii. iO, 
iii. 10, 
iii. 12, 
iii. 15, 
iii. 15, 
iii. 15, 
iii. 15, 
iii. 15. 16, 
iii. 20, 
iii. 21, 
iii. 21, 
iii. 22, 
iii. 22, 
iv. 1, 
iv. 1, 
iv. 7,8, 
iv. 16, 
iv. 20. 22, 
iv. 23, 
V. 29, 
vi. 3, 
VI. 5, 
VI. 6, 
viii. 20-22, 
viii. 21, 
ix. 9, 
xii. 3, 
xii. 3, 
XV. 1, 
XV. 3, 
xvii. 23, 
xviii. 17, 18, 
xix. 33, 35, , 
XX. 6, 
XX. 6, 
xxi. 33, 
xxii. 2, 
XXV. 16-18 
xxvii. 41, 
XXX. ], 

XXX. 1, 2, 
XXX. 6, 
XXX vii. 24 
xlix. 6, 
xlix. 7, 
xlix. 10, 
xlix. 18, 
Exod. iii. 2. 

iii. 5, 

iii. 14, 

iv. 24, 

V. 2. 



IV. 357 
II. 518 

IV. 460 
II. 309 
II. 319 

IV. 484 
II. 314 
ni. 40 
III. 57 
in. 414 

III. 285 

IV. 368 

V. 15 
1.136 

IV. 245 
1.270 
1.448 

II. 260 

V. 487 
III. 20 
III. 182 

V. 38 

V. 163, 167 

V. 402 

V. 156 

III. 313 
V. 42 

IV. 373 
IV. 245 

V. 157 
V. 293 
I. 37 
V. 5(8 
IV. 68 
IV. 201 
V.293 

III. 11 

V. 288 
1.401 
V.331 

IV. 658 
1.140 
1.120 

IV. 270 
1.149 
IV. 283 
IV. 692 
IV, 84 
V.419 



III. 133 
I. 650 
V. 45 
I. 14 
V. 479 
II. 96 
III. 252 
I. 62 
V.463 
V.390 
I. 77 

III. 411 
V. 161 
II. 59 
11.273 

1.355 

IV. 319 
V. 468 



Exod. vi. 3, 
viii. 12, 23 
ix. 16, 
xii. 3-5, 
xii. 4,8,! 
xii. 5, 
xii. 6-9, 
xii. 7, 
xii. 35, 
XV. 9,10, 
XV. 11, 
XX. 19, 
XX. 19,20, 
sxiv. 3-7, 
xxiv. 5,8, 
xxiv. 11, 
xxviii. 12, 
xxviii. 29, 
xxviii. 36-38, 
xxix. 24, 

XXX. 

XXX. 25, 26, 
XXX. 34, 
xxxi. 17, 
xxxii. 3, 
xxxii. 4, 
xxxii. 10, 14, 
xxxii. 33, 
xxxiii. 2, 3, 
xxxiii. 20, 
xxxiii. 22, 
xxxiv. 6. 7, 
xxxiv. 6, 7, 
xxxiv. 6,7, . 
xxxiv. 6, 7, 
xxxiv. 7, 
xsxvii. 26, 
Levit.vi. 12,13, 
s. 1.2, 
X. 3, 
xiv. 7, 
xvi. 12-14. 
xvi. 20, 
xvi. 21, 
xvi. 21, 
xvii, 4, 
xxvi. 40, 
Num.iiL 1, 
xiv. 3, 
ix. 13, 
xi. 22, 
Xiv. 11, 
xiv. 16, 
xiv. 17, 
xiv. 17, 
xiv. 19, 
xxi. 8,9, 
Deut. v. 24, 
xviii. 15, 
xviii. 16-18, 
xviii. 16, 17, 
xviii. 18, 19, 
xxiv. 10, 
xxvi. 16-18, 
xxvii. 26, 
XXX. 6, 
xxxii. 3, 
xxxii. 4, 



II. 126 
V. 391 
II. 142 
IV. 507 

IV. 513 
IV. 512 
IV. 397 
IV. 433 

III. 284 

V. 350 
II. 188 

IV. 123 
V. 474 

III. 236 

IV. 566 
IV. 99 

IV. 415 

V. 128 
1.331 

II. 408 
III. 396 

III. 107 

IV. 552 

III. 426 
1.253 
1.274 

V. 120 
I. 14 
V. 2t9 
V. 59 

IV. 113 
II. 637 

V. 439 

III. 509 
V. 560 
V. 8 
V. 105 
V. 261 

IV. 481 
II. 264 
V. 47 

. 100, 108 
III. 419 

III. 518 

IV. 455 

IV. 535 

V. 383 

III. 325 
I. 51 

IV. 403 
II. 121 

IV. 224 
III. 140 
HI. 459 

V. 439 
V. 209 
V. 166 

III. 129 

V. 41 
III. 229 
III. 435 

III. 408 
V. 160 

IV. 407 
V. 517 

III. 46 
1.448 
1.381 



Deut. xxxii. 8, 


I. 67 


xxxii. 5, 


V. 421 


xxxiii. 29, 


V. 194 


Josh. V. 7-10,1 


4, IV. 416 


xxiv. 19, 


II. 252 


xxiv. 19, 


V. 19 


Jud. vii. 2, 


III. 316 


vii. 20, 


IV. 405 


ISam.ii. 2, 


11. 195 


ii. 2, 


II. 265 


ii. 17, 


V. 212 


iii. 9, 


V. 201 


iv. 19, 


V. 397 


iv. 21, 


V, 200 


XV. 23, 


V.484 


XV. 29, 


1. 366 


XXV. 38, 39, 


V. 224 


2Saiii.xi. 


V. 529 


xii. 9,10, 


I. 199 


xii. 11, 


I. 30 


xii. 13, 14, 


V. 463 


xii. 14, 


V.4C7 


xviii. 3, 


IV. 570 


xxiii. 16, 17, 


V. 433 


1 Kings vii. 21, 


I. 413 


viii. 27, 


1. 424 


viii. 27, 


I. 431 


viii. 39. 


I. 510 


xi. 7, 


I. 222 


xviii. 9, 


V. 193 


xviii. 39, 


. III. 202 


xix. 18, 


. III. 260 


xxi. 27-29, 


. III. 181 


xxii. 19, 20, 


II. 529 


2 Kings vi. 33, 


II. 470 


viii. 12, 13, 


V. 218 


xii. 2, 


III. 133 


xiv. 15, 


11.515 


xiv. 26, 27, 


V. 366 


xvii. 36, 


11. 171 


xix. 22, 


11. 190 


IChr. xxviii. 9, 


1.535 


xxix. 14, 


1.311 


xxix. 18, 


. III. 209 


2Chr. ii. 6, 


1.267 


XVI. 9, 


1. 6 


xvi. 10, 


V.427 


xxxiii. 


V. 627 


xxxiii. 12, 13, 


IV. 52 


xxxiii. 18, 


III. 328 


Ezra ix. 13, 


V.212 


Neh. vi. 11, . 


III. 130 


viii. 10, . 


V. 373 


X. 28, 29, . 


IV. 439 


Est. vi. 1,2, . 


I. 2^3 


vi. 4, vii. 10, 


V.355 


Job i. 5, . 


1.183 


i. 6, 


III. 55 


i. 8, 


1.120 


ii. 9, 


IV. 370 


iv. 18, 


V. 30 


viii. 20, 


V. 281 


ix. 2,3, . 


111. 527 


ix. 2,3, . 


V. 26 


X. 3, 


III. 292 


xi. 6, 


V. 146 


xi. 7, . 


1.112 


xi. 7, . 


11. 123 



588 



Job xi. 12, 
xii. 16, 
xii. 18, 
xiv. 4, 
xix. 25, 
xxi. 14, 
xxi. 14,15, 
xxii. 27, 
xxii. 28, 
XXVI. 14, 
xxix. 3,6,7, 
xxxiii. 14-17, 
xxxiii. 24, 
xxxiv. 17, 
XXXV. 9, 10, 
xxxvi. 29, 
xxxviii. 6, 7, 
xlii. 5,6, 
xlii. 7,8, 



iv. 6, 
V. 9. 
viii. 3, 4, 
ix. 20, 
X. 4, 
X. 11, 
X. 14, 
X. 14, 
xi. 7, 
XIV. 1, 
xiv. 1, 
xiv. 1, 
xvi. 1, 
xvi. 2, 
XVI. 11, 
xvii. 1, 
xvii. 3, 
xviii. 26, 
xix. 1,2, 
xix. 7, 
xix. 11, 
xix. 14, 
xxi. 2, 
xxi. 3-6, 
xxii. 
xxii. 4, 
xxii. 4, 5, 
xxii. 30,' 
xxv. 11, 
xxvi. 6, 
xxvii. 10, 
xxix. 10, 
xxix. 10, 11, 
xxxi. 15, 
xxxi. 21, 22, 
xxxi. 22, 
XXXII. 1, 2, 
xxxii. 2, 
xxxiii. 10, 
xxxvi. 4, 
xxxvi. 5, 6, 
xxxvi. 6, 
xxxvi. 8, 9, 
xxxvii. 1, 
xxxvii. 3, 
XXXVII. 4, 
xxxvii. 5, 
xxxvii. 16, 
xxxvii. 23, 
xxxvii. 23, 
xxxvii. 39, 



nr. 18 
II. 423 
11. 450 

III. 31 

III. 509 
v. 465 
V. 425 
I. 55 
1.215 

II. 99 
V. 448 
V. 315 

IV. 555 
I. 9 
I. 44 
1.155 

III. 302 

IV. 21 

III. 344 

V.422 

III. 380 
V. 103 
V. Ill 

IV. 276 
V. 300 
V. 309 
V. 410 
1.182 
I. 39 
i. 53 
1.536 

iir. 23 
126, 183 

I. 40 
V. 299 
V.412 

III. 354 
V. 73 
1.522 
V. 424 
1.404 
1.143 

III. 310 

II. 30 

II. 330 
V. 117 

III. 450 
V. 40 
II. 185 
V. 413 

HI. 24 
V. 559 
iv. 448 
1.103 
11. 426 
I. 75 

III. 76 
II. 360 

I. 7 
V. 434 

III. 481 
1.103 
V. 423 
V. 269 
1.161 

HI. 56 
I. 48 
I. 46 
y. 370 



>s. xl. 6, 

xl. 9. 10, 
xiv. 4, 
xiv. 11, 
xlvii. 7, 
xlviii. 26, 
xhs. 5, 
xlix. 20, 
1. 5, 
1. 11, 12, 
1. 17, 21, 
1.21, 
1.21, 
1.21, 
li. 3, 
li. 4, 
li. 7, 
li. 10, 
li. 12, 
Ivi. 3, 
Ivi. 10, 
LVi. 12, 13, 
Ivii. 7, 
Ixii. 11, 
Ixii. 11, 12, 
Ixv. 3, 
Ixv. 7, 
Ixv. 7, 
Ixvi. 18, 
Ixvi. 18, 
Isviii. 18, 
Ixviii. 28, 
Ixix. 13, 
Ixxii. 17, 
Ixxiii. 
Ixxiii. 6, 
Ixxiii. 16, 17, 
Isxiii. 24, 28, 
Ixxiii. 25, 28, 
Ixxiii. 27, 
Ixxvi. 10, 
Ixxviii. 36, 
Ixxviii. 41, 
Ixxx. 17, 
Ixxx. 17, 
Ixxxi. 12, 
Ixxxiv. 5, 6, 
Ixxxiv. 11, 
LXXXVII. 6, 
Ixxxix. 
Ixxxix. 26-58, 
Ixxxix. 27-32, 
Ixxxix. 35, 
Ixxxix. 36, 
xc. 1, 2, 
xc. 2, 
Xci. 11, 
xcii. 14, 
xciv. 10, 
xcvi. 11-13, 
c. 1,2, 
c. 3, 
c. 3, 
cli. 13, 
cii. 26, 27, 
ciii. 7, 
ciii. 13, 14, 
CIII. 19, 
civ. 31, 
cvi. 7. 
ex. 1, 
ex. 1, 4, 
exv. 17, 
cxvi. 11, 



III. 21 
V. 104 

III, 309 
V. 240 
V. 29 
V. 211 
V. 425 
V. 296 

IV. 566 
V.491 
1.277 
1.242 
V. 477 
V. 525 

II. 41 

1.494 
V.431 
IV. 192 

III. Ill 

IV. 226 
V. 411 
V. 205 
1.324 

II. 103 
IV. 154 

V. 29 
I. 22 

II. 354 
I. 233 
V. 425 
V. 77 
V. 284 

III. 427 
III. 382 

V. 312 
V. 455 
1.160 
V. 273 
HI. 98 
1.255 
I. 78 
1.236 
I. 51 

III. 418 



13 



I. 27 
HI. 116 
III. 295 

V. 317 

III. .374 

V. 103 

V. 406 

II. 192 

III. 387 
V. 326 
1.345 
1.219 

IV. 594 
1.506 
1.398 
1.287 
1.146 

III. 242 
1.106 
1.374 
I. 61 
V. 239 

II. 400 
1.181 
1.115 

in. 443 

HI. 510 

V.375 

V. 432 



Ps. cxvi. 16, 
cxviii. 24, 
cxix. 3, 
cxix. 47, 48 
cxix. 59, 
cxix. 106-108 
cxix. 112, 
cxix. 112, 1 
cxix. 163, 
ex XX. 4, 
exxx. 5, 7, 
cxxx. 7, 8, 
cxxxiv. 3, 
cxxxvii. 5, 6, 
cxxxviii. 2, 
exxxix. 7-9, 
cxxxix. 14, 
ex.xxix. 14, 15, 
CXXXIX. 14, 15, 
cxxxix. 21-24, 

CXLVII. 5, 

cxlvii. 19, 20, 
Prov. i. 29, 
ii. 10, 
iv. 18, 
iv. 23, 
iv. 23-26, 
viii. 30, 
viii. 31, 
X. 20, 
xiii. 1, 
xiii. 4, 
xiii. 22, 
XV. 3, 
XV. 9,10. 
xvi. 9, 
xvi. 33, 
xviii. 10, 
xix. 3, 
xix. 11, 
xix. 31, 
XX. 27, 
xxi. 27, 
xxiii. 7, 
xxiii. 17, 18 
xxiii. 26, 
xxvii. 19, 
xxviii. 26, 
xxviii. 26, 
XXX. 2. 
Eccles. iii. 11, 
iii. 11, 
V. 1. 
vii. 29, 
vii. 29, 
viii. 11, 
xi. 5, 
xii. 11, 
xii. 13, 
Cant. i. 4, 
i.l6, 
iv. 6, 
v. 4, 
v. 10, 
vi. 10, 
vii. 4, 
viii. 7. 
viii. 12, 
Isa. i. 5, 
i. 6, 
i. 24, 
ii. 3. 
iv. 1.2, 
iv. 2. 



INDEX. 



589 



Isa. 



IV. £92 



vi. 6, 


V. 126 


▼ii. 13, .: 


IV. 231 


f ix. 6, 


I. £08 


ic. 6,7, . 


V.333 


i . 7, . 


ni. 449 


X. 5, . 


I. 109 


X. 5.7. . 


II. 234 


X. 26, 27, . 


V.350 


xi. 1-3, . 


III. 379 


xi. 2, . 


V.236 


xi. 6,9, . 


IV. 55 


xi. 15, 


v.350 


xvi. 3,4. . 


I. 74 


xxii. 12. 13, . 


V.393 


xxvi. 4, 


1.412 


xxvi. 9, 


1.333 


xxTi. 16, 


V. 503 


xxvii. 3, 


V. 334 


xxvii. 9, 


V. 409 


xxvii. 11, 


V. 150 


xxviu. 15-17, . 


in. 475 


xxviii. 18, 


V. 512 J 


xxs. 18, 


V.226 


xxxi, 4, 


I. 98 


xxxiii.18. 


V. 286 


xxxiii. 22, 


II. 421 


iL 1. 


III. 480 


xL 4,6,7, 


III. 240 


xl. 10,11, 


111. 367 


xl.ll,' . 


V.267 


xl. 15. 17, . 


IV. 623 


xli. 2, . 


III. 408 


xlii. 1. . 


III. 364 


xlii. 4. . 


III. 380 


xUi. 9. 10, . 


III. 405 


xlii. 19, . 


IV. 250 


xliii. 1, . 


III. 140 


xliii. 10. . 


IV. 31 


xliii. 15. . 


III. 272 


xliiL 20,21, 


III. 259 


xliii. 22-24, . 


V. 537 


xliii. 24, . 


1.189 


xliii. 24, 25, . 


III. 5^)7 


xliv. 24, 


II. 130 


xliv. 25. . 


I. 24 


xliv. 28, 


1.173 


xliv. 28, 


1.488 


xlv. 6, 7, . 


1.150 


xlv. 9, 


I. 49 


xlv. 10, . 


V.336 


xlv. 21, 


III. 365 


xlv. 22. . 


IV. 12 1 


xlv. 22-25, . 


V.154 


xlix. 1, 


1.372 


xlix. 2, 


III. 323 


xlix. 3, 


11 .351 


xlix. 3,6, . 


V. 194 


xlix. 9, 10, . 


V.233 


xlix. 16, 


I. 90 


1. 5. . 


II!. 377 


1. 7,9,10 


in. 422 


1. 11, 14, . 


1.293 


11. 1-3, . 


V.328 


li. 12, 13. . 


II. 175 


lii. 13. 15, . 


III. 402 


liii. 


V. 11 


liii. 2. . 


IV. 382 


liii. 4. 


IV. 576 


liii. 7, . 


IV. 511 


liii. 10, 


III. 416 


liii. 10.11,. 


111. 191 


liii. 11, . 


IV. 67 



Isa. liii. 12. 
liii. 12, 
liii. 12. 
liv. 9, 10 
liv. 10, 
Iv. 5, 
Iv. 7, 
Iviii. 3. 
lix. 9. 
Ix. 12, 
Ixi. 1, 
Ixii. 1-4, 
l.'cii. 4, 
Ixiii. 2.3, 
Ixv. 2, 
Ixv. 12, 
Ixv. 25, 
Ixvi. 1, 
Ixvi. 1, 
Ixvi. 1. 
Ixvi. 1, 2, 
Ixvi. 1, 2, 
Ixvi. 3,4, 
Jer. ii. 5, 
iv. 1, 
iv. 14. 
v. 12, 
vi. 21, 
vii. 22, 23 
ix. 7, 
xi. 14. 
xii. 9, 
xiii. 23, 
xiii. 23, 
xiii. 27, 
xvii. 5, 
xvii. 10, 
xvii. 12, 
XXIII. 24, 
XXX. 21, 
XXX. 21. 
XXX. 21, 22, 
XXX. 23, 
xxxi. 3, 
Xxxi. 18, 20, 
xxxi. 22, 
xxxi. 25, 26, 
xxxi. 32, 
xxxi. 33, 
xxxi. 33, 34, 
xxxii. 40. 
xxxii. 40, 
Lam. iii. 33, 
v. 19, 
Ezek. i. 14. 
i.l8, 
i. 18. 
i. 19, 
IX. 4. 
X. 4,18, 
xi. 19. 
xiv. 14, 
xvii. 22, 
xviii. 31. 
xxiv. 13, 
xxiv, 13, 
XXV. 11. 12, 
xxviii. 12-17, 
xxxiii. U. 
xxxvi. 21, 
xxxvi. 25-27 
xxxvi. 26. 27 
xxxvi. 27, 
xxxvii, 5-14, 



II. 425 ' Ezek. xxxvii. 14, 



IV. 548 


xliv. 2. 


V. i<22 


v. 115 1 


xlvii. 3-5, . 


V. 266 


V. 266 


Dan. ii. 22, . 


IV. 131 


iir. 489 i 


ii. 47, 


1.480 


III. 383 


iv. 26, . 


II. 404 


V. 456 


iv. 27, . 


V. 421 


I. .313 


iv. 30. 31. . 


1.226 


v.226 


v. 23, . 


I. 47 


V. 325 


vi. 7-9, . 


V.485 


11.406 


vii. 9. 


1.350 


III. 41 


vii. 13, 


V. 65 


v.336 


ix. 24. . 


V. 41 


V. 365 


ix. 26. . 


V. 55 


V.477 


Hos. i. 4. . 


V.479 


1.449 


i. 7, . 


1. 102 


111. 20 


i. 7, 


III. 357 


1.432 


i. 9, . 


V. 196 


IV. 213 


i. 11, . 


in. 456 


V. 33 


ii. 2, . 


11. 530 


111.265 


ii. 14. 16, . 


III. 288 


ni. 430 


ii. 16. . 


1.305 


III. 212 


ii. 18, 


i. 65 


II. 3r:5 


ii. 18. 22. . 


in. 483 


1.236 


ii. 19, 


in. 254 


V. 304 


ii.21.22. . 


I. 13 


IV. 234 


ii. 21, 22, . 


11. 26 


II. 235 


ii. 23, 


III. 99 


III. 21 


iii. 5. 


in. 258 


11. 361 


V. 4. 


III. 173 


V. 140 


Vi. 2, . 


in. 88 


1.411 


vi. 3, 


III. 295 


III. 34 


Vi. 3. . 


IV. 89 


III. 174 


vi. 5.7, . 


III. 63 


III. '^28 


vii. 13, 


IV. 234 


V. 172 


vii. 14. 


in. 33 


1.512 


vii. 15, 


II. 373 


I. fc6 


viii. 5, 


III. 233 


I. 420 


ix. 10, 


I. 89 


1. 103 


ix. 15, . 


V. 515 


III. 364 


xi. 8, . 


in. 480 


V. 248 


xiii. 4, 


V.208 


V.361 


xiii. 14, 


V.241 


T,258 


xiv. 3, 


I. 53 


V. 456 


xiv. 4, 


V. 270 


III. 395 


xiv. 4, . 


V. 405 


V.109 


xiv. 5, 


III. 141 


III. 120 


Joel ii. 30-32, . 


V.395 


111.119 


iii. 4. 


v.361 


in. 30 


Amos ii. 6. 


V. 451 


v.233 


iii. 2, 


IV. 47 


V.252 


iv. 2. . 


11. 192 


II. 618 


Jonah i. 10, 


II. 37 


1.365 


ii. 


V. 433 


IV. 692 


iv. 2. . 


1.220 


I. 11 


iv. 9. . 


V.428 


I. 63 


Mic. i. 4, . 


v.361 


1.119 


iv. 5. 


1.116 


V. 380 


V. 3.4, . 


III. 383 


V. 3i'3 


vi. 6, 


1.203 


III. 38 


vi. 6,7, . 


III. 493 


III. 74 


vi. 6.7. . 


V. 31 


V. 55 


vi. 7, 


IV. 521 


III. 133 


vi. 7,8, . 


V. 478 


III. 78 


vii. 18. 


V.441 


III. 246 


vii. 18. 19. . 


III. 43 


II. 468 


vii. 18,19, . 


in. 266 


IV. 267 


vii. 19, 


V.455 


IV. 23c 


> Nahumi. 3, 


II. 500 


V.636 


Hab. i. 12. , 


III. 273 


III. 165 


) i. 13. 


V. 19 


III. Ui 


) i. 13, 


V. 153 


111. « 


i i. 16. 


V.498 


111. 24 


) Zeph. i.l2. 


I. 4i 



590 



Zeph. iii. 17, 



Hag. 
Zech. 



9, 

i. 11, 12 
i. 12. 
i. 12, 



iii. 



iii. 10, 
iv. 1, 
iv. 2,3, 
V. 8. 
vi. 1, 
Ti. 2-5 



MaL 



vi. 13, 

vi. 13, 

vii. 5, 

xii. 8, 

xii. 10. 

xii. 10, II 

xiii. 7, 

xiii. 7, 

xiii. 7, 

i. 8, 

i. 13, 



Matt. 



21, 
-.21, 

iii. 14, 

iv. 1, 

iv. 3-6, 
V. 45, 

vi. 31, 32, 

vi. 33, 

vii. 7, 

vii. 11, 
vu. 11, 

vii. 22, 23. 
viii. 2, 
viii. 9, 
viii. 10, 
viii. 29, 
X. 41,42, 

xi. 5, 

xi. 21-24, 

xi. 25, 

xi. 25, 

xi. 25, 26, 

xi. 27, 

xi. 27, 28, 

xi. 29, 
XII. 20, 
xii. 24, 
xii. 33, 34, 
xii. 34, 
xiii. 11, 
XV. 6, 
XV. 6, 



xvi. 17, 
xvi. 17, 
xvi. 18, 
xvi. 23, 
xvii. 2, 
xviL 5, 
xviiL 17, 
xix. 27, 
xix. 28, 
xxii. 3, 
xxiv. 21, 



I. 91 

III.H61 

v. 107 

1.104 

V. 112 

III. 411 

III. 393 

I. 7 

V. 441 

III. 379 

1.327 

III. 253 
ir. 533 

1.387 
I. 12 
V. 358 
V. 123 
V. 339 
V. 482 
V. 227 
in. 147 
V. 168 

IV. 534 

IV. 570 
V. 4 

III. 36 

III. 33 

III. 412 

1.263 

V. 60 

III. 25 

IV. 589 
IV. 53 

III. 402 

IV. 370 
II. 352 
IV. 371 
III. 15 

1.408 
II. 257 
III. 487 
III, 69 

V. 210 
II. 496 

III. 302 

IV. 270 

III. 36 
II. 358 

IV. 334 

III. 251 
in. 275 

II. 4t4 
I. 83 

V. 89 

IV. 517 

V. 225 
III. 104 

V. 534 
III. 30 
III. 227 

I, 201 

V. 475 
V. 294 

III. 11 

III. 185 

V. 335 

V. 512 

III. 91 
I. 295 

IV. 446 
II. 279 

III. 62 

IV. 463 
1. 106 , 



Matt. xxiv. 24, 
xxiv. 36, 
XXV. 26, 
XXV. 41-43 
xxvi. 26, 
xxvi. 27, 
xxvi. 29, 
xxvi. 41, 
xxvi. 41, 
xxvii. 46, 
xxviii. 18, 
xxviii.' 18, 
Markvi. 52, 
ix. 33-33, 
X. 18, 
X. 21, 
X. 24, 25 
xiv. 23, 
xiv. 33, 34, 
xiv. 62, 
xvi. 15, 
xvi. 16, 
xvi. 16, 
xvi. 16, 
Luke i. 35, 
ii. 1-4, 
ii. 14, 
ii. 19, 51, 
ii. 29, 
ii. 52, 
iv. 41, 
V. 8, 
vii. 20, 
vii. 29, 
vii. 44-50, 
vii. 47, 
ix. 31, 
ix. 53-55, 
xi. 27, 
xi. 34, 
XV. 18, 
XV. 20-22, 
xvi. 22, 23, 
xvii. 5, 
xviii. 7, 
xviii. 8, 
xviii. 8, 
xviii. 10-12, 
xviii. 12, 
xix. 42, 44, 
xix. 43, 
xxii. 6, 
xxii. 19, 20, 
xxii. 32, 
xxii. 32, 
xxii. 44, 
xxiii. 34, 
xxiv. 13, 
XXIV. 26, 
xxiv. 46, 47, 
xxiv. 49, 



John 



13, 

i. 16, 

i. 19, 

i. 29, 

i. 41, 

i. 46, 
ii. 18-21, 
iii. 6, 
III. 3,5, 
iii. 8, 
iii. 12, 
iii. 16, 



v. 260 

III. 401 
in. 234 
IV. 469 

IV. 430 

IV. 394 
IV. 420 

V. 107 
V. 314 
II. 180 

I. 86 

V. 121 
IV. 374 

1.794 
IT. 275 
III. 234 



IV 


.394 


III. 418, 420 


II 


. 104 


V 


.445 


III 


. 12 


IV 


308 


Iv 


434 


IV 


573 




17 


II 


317 


V 


316 


III 


488 


IV 


61 


III 


409 


IV 


292 


III 


277 


III 


469 


V 


454 


V 


548 


III 


507 


V 


387 


III 


162 


III 


37 




461 


II 


341 


V 


527 


III. 


294 


V. 


353 


1 


101 


V. 


323 


Ill 


530 


II. 


278 


V. 


197 


I. 


30 


V. 


432 


.IV. 


447 


V. 


134 


V. 


248 


V. 


412 


V. 


118 


V. 


269 


V. 3 


,49 


III. 


513 


III. 


106 


ir. 


166 


III. 166, 249 


V. 


264 


IV. 


365 


V. 


444 


V. 


175 


IV. 


71 


III. 


435 


III. 


127 


III. 


7 


III. 


87 


IV. 


356 


II. 


319 



John iii. 16, 
iii. 16, 
iii. 17, 
iiL 18, 
iii. 23, 

III. 36, 
iv. 14, 

IV. 24, 
IV. 24, 
iv. 24, 
iv. 39, 
iv. 42, 

V. 3. 
V. 17, 
V. 19, 
V. 19, 

V. 22-30, 
V. 23, 
V. 25, 
V. 26, 
V. 40, 
V. 45, 
vi. 27, 
vi. 37-39, 
vi. 44, 
vi. 45, 
VI. 64, 
vi. 65, 
vii. 16-18, 
vii. 39, 
vii. 39, 
vii. 50, 51, 
viii. 24, 
viii- 24, 
viii. 44, 
ix. 2, 3, 
X. 16, 
X. 27, 28, 
X. 28, 
X. 29, 
X. 29, 30, 
X. 36, 
xi. 15, 45, 
xi. 38-42, 
xii. 27, 
xii. 28, 
xii. 28, 
xii. 31, 
xii. 32, 
xii. 39-41, 
xii. 40, 
xiii. 2-4, 
xiii. 7, 
xiii. 8-10, 
xiii. 27, 
xiii. 30, 
xiii. 31, 
XIV. 1, 
xiv. 6, 
xiv. 6, 7, 
xiv. 12, 
xiv. 17, 
xiv. 21, 
xiv. 26, 
xiv. 28, 
XV. 14, 
XV. 15, 
XV. 22, 
XV. 24, 
xvi. 7, 
xvi. 8, 9, 
xvi. 8, 9, 
XVI. 8, 9, 
XVI. 9. 



591 



John xvi. 10, 


V. 65 


Rom. iii. 9-12, . 


1.184 


Rom. xii. 2, 


V, 465 


xvi. 14, 


III. 103 


iii. 10-12, . 


III. ISO 


xii 3,4, . 


I. 225 


xvi. 14, 


V. 129 


iii. 23, 


III. 38 


xii. 11, 


III. 97 


xvi. 24, 


III. 49 


iii. 25, 


IV. 536 


xii. 12, . 


V. 376 


xvi. 26, 27, . 


V. 125 


iii. 25, 


V. 14 


xiv. 9, 


1. 85 


xvii. 


III. 314 


iii 2o, 


V. 443 


xiv. 10, 11, . 


IV. 12 


xvii. 1, 


V. 57 


iii. 25, 26, . 


IV. 558 


xiv. 17, 


III. 103 


xvii. 1, 5, . 


V. 54 


iii 26, 


iv. 147 


XV. 3, . 


V. 385 


XVII. 3, 


IV. 3, 110 


iii. 26, 


iv. 532 


xvi. 20, 


III. 486 


xvii. 5, 


III. 365 


iv. 17, . 


II. 131 


xvi. 25, 


II. 4 


xvii. 5, 


V. 70 


iv. 24, 25, . 


III. 437 


XVI. 27, 


II. 3 


xvii. 11, 


II. 259 


iv. 25, 


V. 86 


ICor. i 8, 


V. 268 


xvii. 11, 12, . 


V. 251 


iv. 25, 


V. 442 


i. 21, 


iv. 74 


xvii. 12, 


IV. 447 


V. 1, 2, . 


III. 484 


i. 23, 


iv. 377 


xvii. 20, 


IV. 422 


V. 6, 8, . 


III. 170 


i. 23, 24, . 


III. 34 


xvii. 23, 


V. 124 


V. 6, 8, . 


V. 26 


i. 24, . 


II. 145 


xvii. 23, 


V. 246 


V. 6, 10, . 


III. 339 


i. 26, 


IV. 383 


xvii. 24, 


V. 87 


V. 7, 


II. 283 


i. 29-^1, . 


III. 303 


xix. 34, 35. . 


III. 505 


V. 10, 


V. 450 


n. 2, . 


IV. 494 


xix. 36, 


V. 44 


V. 10, 


V. 471 


ii. 2, . 


V. 168 


xix. 38, 


III. 9 


V. 12-18, . 


V. 16 


ii 6, 


III. 148 


XX. 21 


III. 439 


V. 15, 16, . 


III. 353 


ii. 7, 


III. 362 


XX. 28, 


V. 551 


V. 18, 


IV. 564 


ii. 11, 


I. 4(J4 


xxi. 15, 


V. 220 


V. 19, 


111. 16 


ii. 14, 


III. 187 


xxi. 22, 


II. 487 


vi 4, 


II. 151 


ii 14, 


V. 463 


Acts ii. 22, 


III. 409 


vi 4, 


in. 436 


ii. 14, 15, . 


III. 135 


ii. 23, 


II. 36 


vi. 12, 13, . 


V. 416 


ii. 15, . 


III. 87 


ii.31, 


IV. 398 


vi. 17, 


III. 121 


iii. 9, . 


III. 271 


ii. 42, 


IV. 403 


vi. 21, 


iv. 176 


iii. 20, 


V. 295 


ii. 46, 


IV. 403 


vii. 12, 


II. 205 


iii 22, 


I. 34 


iii. 19, 


III. 517 


vii 12, 


V. 296 


iv. 5, 


I. 31 


iii. 19, 21, 


V. 404 


vii. 12-14 . 


III. 203 


iv. 7. 


III. 297 


iiL22, 


V. 271 


vii. 13, 


V. 447 


iv. 15, 


. III. 289 


iv. 20, 


V. 415 


vii. 14, 


V. 475 


V. 7, 


IV. 507 


V. 3, 


III. 217 


vii 18, 


III. 109 


V. 13, . 


IV. 446 


vii. 51, 


1.195 


vii. 20-22, 


V. 429 


vi. 9, 


III. 63 


vii. 51, ' 


V. 473 


vii. 23, 24, 


III. 123 


vi. 9-11 


III. 345 


vii. 55, 


III. 290 


vii. 25, 


II. 39 


vi. 17, 


V. 245 


viii. 3, 4, 


I. 78 


vii. 25, 


III. 527 


vi. 19, 20, 


III. 101 


viii. 22, 23, 


III. 220 


viii. 1, 


V. 455 


vi. 19, 20, 


V. 231 


viii. 26, 


iir. 328 


viii. 3, 


III. 415 


vi. 20, 


1.296 


ix. 3, 


V. 644 


viii. 3, 


V. 272 


viii 5,6, 


V. 99 


ix. 4, 


V. 339 


VIII. 7, 


V. 461 


viii. 6, . 


III. 357 


ix. 6, 


III. 74 


viii. 7, 


V. 28 


viii. 6, 


V. 153 


ix. e; 


in. 313 


viii. 8, 


III. 170 


ix. 9, 


I. 15 


X. 38, 


III. 114 


VIII. 13, 


V. 214 


ix. 16, 


III. 110 


xu. 19-23, 


1.171 


viii. 14, 


III. 89 


ix. 27, 


V. 217 


xiiL 32-34, 


V. 172 


viii. 17, 


III. 125 


x. 1-4 


V. 160 


xiii. 33, 


II. 151 


viii 19, 


V. 423 


x. 4, 


IV. 515 


xiv. 17, 


I. 117 


viii. 20, 


1.396 


X. 11, 


II. 357 


xiv. 8-11, 


II. 281 


viii. 21, 


1.377 


X. 13, 14, 


V. 280 


XV. 18, 


1. 353 


viii. 21, 


II. 347 


X. 16, 


IV. 468 


XV. 18, 


I. 386 


viii. 29, 


V. 242 


X. 20, 21, 


I. 208 


XV. 36-39, 


I. 177 


viii. 32, 


111. 487 


X. 31, 


III. 104 


xvi 14, 


III. 175 


viii. 32, 


V. 211 


xi. 23, 


IV. 405 


xvii 34, 


V. 268 


viii. 33, 34, 


IV. 584 


XI. 26, 


iv. 392 


XX. 22, 


III. 282 


viii. 33, 34, 


V. 129 


xi. 27, 


iv. 255 


XX. 24, 


III. 101 


viii. 34, 


III. 449 


XI. 27, 29, 


IV. 472 


XX. 28, 


I. 400 


ix. 11, 


II. 435 


XI. 28, 29, 


IV. 427 


xxvi. 9, 


V. 543 


ix. 15, 


III. 268 


xii. 7-10, 


III. 327 


xxvi. 18, 


III. 48 


ix. 18, 


11. 222 


xii. 8, 


ir. 12 


xxvi 18, 


V. 165 


ix. 22, 


II. 178 


xii 19, 


I. 32 


xxvi. 18, 


V. 442 


X. 11-13, 


IV. 564 


xii. 22, 


ir. 296 


Rom. i. 19, 


I. 131 


X. 14, 


I! I. 324 


xiii 2, 


IV. 69 


i 21, 


III. 184 


X. 17, 


IV. 446 


xiii. 2, 3, 


Jir. 33 


i23, 


V. m 


X. 18. 


II. 525 


xiii. 3, 


iv. 550 


in. 


I. 176 


xi 


V. 265 


XV. .3, 


III. 513 


i28. 


V. 500 


xi 20, 


IV. 581 


XV. 10, 


HI. 28 


i32, 


IV. 518 


xi. 32, 33, 


11. 295 


XV. 10, 


III. 208 


i 32, 


V. 18 


xi. 33, 


1. 496 


XV. 13, 


V. 86 


ii4. 


II. 526 


xi. 33, 


11. 88 


XV. 24, 


III. 441 


ii8. 


r. 217 


xi. 33, 


II. 419 


XV. 28, 


III. £86 


ii. 15, 


I. 166 


xi 36, 


11. 490 


XV. 47, 


IV. 530 


iii 5, 


V, 523 


xii. 1,. 


I. 295 


1 XV. 48, 49, 


. in. 42 



] Cor. XV. 48, 49 
XV. 55, 56, 
XV. 58, 
xvi. 22, 
2Cor.iu. 15, 
iii 5, 
iii. 5, 
in. 16, 17, 
iu. 17, 
iii. 18, 
iv. 4, 
iv. 6, 
iv. 20, 
V. 1, 5, 
V. 5, 

V. 14, 15, 
V. 16, 
V. 17, 
V. 17, 18, 
V. 18, 19, 
V. 19, 
V. 20, 
V. 21, 
V. 21, 
vL 16, 
vi. 17, 18, 
viL 1, 
viiL 9, 
ix. 7, 
xi. 3, 
xiL 1-7, 
xii 4, 
xii. 7, 
xtLL 5, 
XIII. 5, 
Gal. iii. 2, 
iii. 5, 
iu. 10, 
iii 13, 
iii. 16, 19, 
iv. 3, 
iv. 4, 
V. 2, 
V. 4, 
V. 7, 8. 
v.- 17, 
V. 19, 22, 
V. 22, 
V. 22. 



V. 



Eph. 



24, 
vi. 1, 
i. 3, 
i. 4, 
i. 4, 
i. 4-6 

1. 6, 
i. 7, 
i. 8, 
i. 8, 
i. 10, 
i. 10, 
i. 11, 
L 17, 
i. 19, 20, 
i. 19, 20, 
i. 22, 23, 
i. 23. 
ii. 1, 
ii. 2, 3, 
ii. 3, 
ii. 6, 6, 
ii.&-7, 



in. 126 
IV. 560 
IV. 198 

V. 524 
III. 429 
ui. 180 

V. 228 

III. 112 
I. 262 
V. 243 

IV. 382 

IV. 104 
III. 113 

Ji. 316 
III. 271 

II. 65 
III. 41 
III. 82 
III. 498 

III. 336 

V. 437 
II. 340 

IV. 496 
IV. 531 

I. 452 
nr. 43 
IV. 368 
IV. 542 
II. 394 
IV. 77 

I. 329 
IV. 303 

V. 187 
IV. 386 
IV. 483 
III. 310 
III. 80 

III. 52'j 

IV. 531 
111. 381 

L 405 

V. 9 

III. 533 

III. 523 

III. 222 
III. 106 

IV. 591 
I. 309 
V. 315 
V. 373 

III. 117 
V. 279 

in. 357 
1.353 
II. 271 

III. 44 
V. 23 

in. 476 

IV. 50 
II. 52 
IV. 146 

I. 82 
m. 472 
in. 189 
HI. 468 

III. 276 
V. 333 

IV. 430 
II. 288 

III. 89 

V. 300 

1.312 

iv. 369 

V. 563 



Eph. ii. 6, 



PhiUp. 



m. 

iv 

2Tlie8.i 



9. 

10, 

10, 

14, 

15, 16, 

9, 10, 

10, 

10, 

10, 

16, 

20, 

20, 

21, 



25-27 
27, 
28-30 
29, 

29, 30, 
12, 
12, 
16, 
24, 
.6, 

io,'ii, 

14, 
29, 
6,7, 
9, 

10, 11, 
11, 
12, 13, 

11, 12, 
4-7, 
8-10, 
5-7, 
9,11, 
12, 
13, 
15, 
15, 
16, 
17, 

,21, 

21, 22, 

21, 22 

2, 
, 10, 11, 

11, 
,12, 

14, 15, 
, 14, 15, 

1. 
.1,5, 
.3, 

■ 8, 10, 
. 9, 10, 
.10, 
.11, 
,16, 

■ 1,2, 
.10, 

10, 
. 4, 



III. 525 

III. 529 

•ill. 110 

v. 542 

II. 431 

III. 474 
V. 329 
1. 76 

m. 349 

IV. 134 
in. 154 

II. Ill 

n. 360 

V. 335 

V. 310 

V. 122 

IV. 374 

in. 17 

ni. 117 

IV. 540, 552 

IV. 529 

III. 16 

III. 125 

V. 230 

V. 84 

V. 244 

I. 87 

V. 341 

n. 166 

in. 150 

V. 284 

V. 454 

in. 141 

III. 39 

II. 48 
III. 243 

V. 56 

V. 63 

HI. 386 

III. 456 

III. 231 
V. 232 

IV. 381 
III. 85 

V. 306 
III. 294 
in. 50 
in. 95 
II. 61 
V. 34 
11. 166 
II. 168 
in. 23 
ni. 395 

IV. 566 
iv. 291 
111. 22 
III. 129 

III. 84 

IV. 400 

V. 446 
III. 100 

V. 132 
V. 246 
IV. 589 

III. 107 
n. 205 

III. 163 
in. 359 
I. 206 
in. 135 
V. 536 
II. 464 



2Thes. 


ii. 11, 


i] 


.12, 


ii 


.1.3, 


ii 


.13, 


iii 


. 3, 


V 


23, 


ITim.i 


1, 


i 


9, 


i 


12,13, 


i 


13, 


i 


13, 


i 


14, 


I. 


15, 


i. 


15, 17, 


i. 


17, 


i. 


17, 


i! 


17, 


i. 


17, 


ii. 


5,6, 


II. 


15, 


iii. 


6, 


iii. 


16, 


iii. 


16, 


iv. 


4, 


V 


2, 


vi! 


6, 


vi. 


16, 


vi. 


16, 


vi. 


16, 


2Tim.i. 


12, 


i 


14, 


ii 


8, 


ii 


19, 


ii 


25, 26, 



iii. 2, 



Heb. 



iv. 


8, 


i 


1, 


i. 


2, 


i. 


12, 


i. 


15, 


i. 


15, 


i. 


15, 


iii. 


5,6, 


i. 


2, 


i 


2. 


i 


3, 


i 


6, 


i. 


9, 


i 


9, 


i 


9, 


i 


9, 


i 


9, 


i 


10, 11, 


i 


12, 


i 


14, 


i 


14, 


ii 


3, 


ii 


7, 


ii 


9, 


ii. 


10, 


ii 


10, 


ii. 


16, 


ii. 


16, 17, 


ii. 


17, 


ii. 


17,18 


iii. 


3,4, 


iii. 


14, 


iii. 


17-19, 


iv. 


1,2, 


iv. 


10, 


iv. 


12. 



INDEX. 



593 



V. 297 
V. 106 
V. 242 
in. 367 
V. Ill 

III. 429 

IV. 565 
II. 91 

II. 32 
HI. 134 

V. 477 
I. 52 

II. 324 
I. 
II. 120 

III. 453 




iJohniu. 9, 


V. 255 


iii. 15, 


V. 471 


iii. 20, 


I. 5!4 


iv. 10, 11, . 


in. 499 


iv. 18, 


V. 480 


V. 7, 


III. 453 


''■ }^' • 


V. 247 


V. 19, 


111. 162 


•Jude 6, 


II. 209 


19. 


V. 463 


^' • 


III. 466 


Kev. i. 6, 


III. Ill 


i- 8, 


1.358 


i. 10, 


I. 339 


i. 13, 16, ; 


IV. 330 


i.]5, . 


n. 534 


i. 17, 18, . 


V. 235 


i. 18, . 


V. 141 


11. 5, . 


V. 190 


u. 8, . 


V. 340 


ii. 10, 


I. 418 


H- 13, . 


1. i08 


ii. 19, 


I. 524 


iii. 4, 


III. 156 


iH- f> • 


V. 128 


^- 5, . 


V. 190 


iii. 12, 


HI. 385 


iii. 15, 


V. 112 


iii. 19, 


V. 180 


iv. 3, . 


111. 489 


IV. 8, 10, . 


II. 261 


V. 6, 


I. 63 


^- 6,7, . 


111. 445 


VI. 2, . 


V. 199 


VI. 9, 10, . 


I. 93 


^- i^' • 


11. 257 


VI. 10, 


11. 528 


xi. 8. 


IV. 255 


xi. 9-19 . 


V. 327 


xi. 10-11, . 


V.328 


xii. 3, 6, . 


V.321 


xu. 6, 


V. 342 


xii. 10, 


IV. 206 


xii. 10, 


V. 130 


xii. 11, 


V. las 


xii. 16, 


I. 74 


xiii. 5, 7, . 


V. 367 


^■^o • 


in. .511 


XV. 2, 3, . 


II. 188 


XV. 7, 


IV. 453 


xvi. 14, 16, . 


V.356 


xvii. 17, 


IV. 344 


x^iii. 8, 


V. 363 


xix. 1-3, . 


1.119 


xix. 1-6, 


in. 53 


xix. 16, 


in. 442 


XX. 1, 


V. 348 


XX. 6, 


HI. 65 


xxi. 3, 


IV. 419 


xxi. 16, 


v.321 



END OF VOL. V. 



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