EASTER 1607 — Biship Lancelot Andrewes

1 Corinthians 15:20

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and was made the first fruits of them that sleep.

The same Apostle that out of Christ’s resurrection taught the Romans matter of duty, the same here out of the same resurrection teacheth the Corinthians matter of hope. There, similiter et vos,* by way of pattern to conform ourselves to Him "in newness of life;" and here, similiter et vos, in another sense by way of promise; that so doing, He shall hereafter conform us to Himself,* "change our vile bodies," and make them like "His glorious body." That former is our first resurrection from sin, this latter our second resurrection from the grave; this, the reward of that. In that, the work what to do; in this, our reward, what to hope for. These two, labour and hope, the Church joineth in one Anthem to day, her first Anthem. They sort well, and being sung together make a good harmony. But that without this, labour without hope, is no good music.

To rise, and to reclaim ourselves from a sinful course of life we have long lived in, is labour sure, and great labour. Now labour of itself is a harsh unpleasant thing, unless it be seasoned with hope.* Debet qui arat in spe arare, saith the Apostle above at the ninth chapter, in the matter of the Clergy’s maintenance,* "He that plows must plow in hope;" his plough will not go deep else, his furrows will be but shallow. Men may frame to themselves what speculations they please, but the Apostle’s saying will prove true: sever hope from labour, and you must look for labour and labourers accordingly, slight and shallow God knoweth. Labour then leads us to hope.

The Apostle saw this, and therefore is careful, whom he thus presseth to newness of life and the labour therefore, to raise for them, and to set before them, matter of hope. Hope here in this life he could set them none. They were, as he was himself,* at quotidie morior every hour,* in danger to be drawn to the block. It must therefore be from another, or at least as the text is, by a hope of being restored to life again. It was their case at Corinth, here in this chapter, plainly: If we must die to-morrow, if there be all that shall become of us,* then "let us eat and drink" while we may. If we be not sure of another life, let us make sure of this. But when in the sequel of the chapter, he had shewed there was restoring, and that so sure he was of it that he falls to insult over them in these terms, they gird up their loins again, and fall to their labours afresh,* as knowing their labour should not be "in vain in the Lord." This hope leads us to our restoring.

Our restoring is but a promise—shall be restored: that necessarily refers to a party that is to make it good. Who is that? Christ.* "Christ is our hope." Why, "hope is joined to the living,"* saith the Wise Man. Christ is dead; buried last Friday. If He be our hope, and He be dead, our hope is dead too; and if our hope be dead, our labour will not live long, nay both are buried with Christ in His grave. It was their case this day that went to Emmaus: say they, supposing Christ to be dead,* nos autem sperabamus, "we were once in good hope" by Him, that is, while He lived; as much to say as ‘Now He is in His grave, our hope is gone, we are even going to Emmaus.’ But then after, as soon as they saw He was alive again, their hope revived, and with their hope their labour; and presently back again to Jerusalem to the Lord’s work, and bade Emmaus farewell. So He leads us to labour; labour, to hope; hope, to our restoring; our restoring to Christ’s, Who, as He hath restored Himself, will restore us also to life. And this keeps us from going to Emmaus. It is used proverbially. Emmaus signifieth ‘a people forlorn:’ all that are at sperabamus, have lost their hopes, are said to go thither; and thither we should all go, even to Emmaus, but for the hope that breathes from this verse, without which it were a cold occupation to be a Christian.

This then is the hope of this text, spes viva, spes beata, worth all hopes else whatsoever. All hopes else are but spes spirantium, ‘hopes while we breath;’ this is spes expirantium, ‘the hope when we can fetch our breath no longer.’ The carnal man—all he can say is, dum spiro spero, ‘his hope is as long as his breath.’ The Christian aspireth higher, goeth farther by virtue of this verse and saith, dum expiro spero; ‘his hope fails him not when his breath fails him.’* Even then, saith Job, reposita est mihi spes in sinu meo; this hope, and only this, is laid up in our bosom, that though our life be taken from us, yet in Christ we to do it, and it to us shall be restored again.

Our case is not as theirs then was: no persecution, nor we at quotidie morior, and therefore not so sensible of this doctrine. But yet to them that are daily falling toward death, rising to life is a good text; peradventure not when we are well and in good health, but the hour is coming, when we shall leave catching at all other hopes, and must hold only by this; in horâ mortis, when all hope save the hope of this verse shall forsake us. Sure it is, under these very words are we laid into our graves, and these the last words that are said over us, as the very last hold we have; and we therefore to regard them with Job, and lay them up in our bosom.

There is in this text, I. a text, and an II. exposition. I. The text, we may well call the Angels’ text, for from them it came first. II. The exposition is St. Paul’s. These words,* "Christ is risen," were first uttered by an Angel this day in the sepulchre;* all the Evangelists so testify.

This text is a good text,* but reacheth not to us, unless it be helped with the Apostle’s exposition, and then it will. The exposition is it that giveth us our hope, and the ground of our hope. "Christ is risen," saith the Angel. "Christ the first fruits," saith the Apostle. And mark well that word "first fruits," for in that word is our hope. For if He be as the "first fruits" in His rising, His rising must reach to all that are of the heap whereof He is the "first fruits." This is our hope.

But our hope must have "a reason," saith St. Peter, and we be ready with it.* The hope that hath a ground, saith St. Paul, that is,* spes quæ non confundit. Having then shewed us this hope,* he sheweth us the ground of it. This: that in very equity we are to be allowed to be restored to life, the same way we lost it. But we lost it by man, or to speak in particular, by Adam we came by our attainder. Meet therefore, that by man, and to speak in particular, that by Christ, we come to our restoring. This is the ground or substance of our hope.

And thus he hath set before us this day life and death, in themselves and their causes, two things that of all other do most concern us. Our last point shall be to apply it to the means, this day offered unto us toward the restoring us to life.

The doctrine of the Resurrection is one of the foundations, so called by the Apostle. It behoveth him therefore, as a skilful workman,* to see it surely laid. That is surely laid that is laid on the rock,* and "the rock is Christ." Therefore he laid it on Christ by saying first, "Christ is risen."

Of all that be Christians, Christ is the hope; but not Christ every way considered, but as risen. Even in Christ un-risen there is no hope. Well doth the Apostle begin here; and when he would open to us "a gate of hope,"* carry us to Christ’s sepulchre empty; to shew us, and to hear the Angel say, "He is risen." Thence after to deduce; if He were able to do thus much for Himself, He hath promised us as much, and will do as much for us. We shall be restored to life.

Thus had he proceeded in the four verses before, destructive.* 1. Miserable is that man, that either laboureth or suffereth in vain.* 2. Christian men seem to do so, and do so, if there be no other life but this. 3. There is no other life but this, if there be no resurrection.* 4. There is no resurrection, "if Christ be not risen;" for ours dependeth on His. And now he turneth all about again. "But now," saith he, 1. "Christ is risen." 2. If He be, we shall. 3. If we shall,* we have, as St. Paul calleth it, a "blessed hope," and so a life yet behind. 4. If such hope we have, we of all men "labour not in vain." So there are four things: 1. Christ’s rising; 2. our restoring; 3. our hope; and 4. our labour. All the doubt is of the two first, the two other will follow of themselves. If a restoring, we have good hope; if good hope, our labour is not lost. The two first are in the first; the other, in the last words. The first are, "Christ is risen;" the last, we shall be restored to life. Our endeavour is to bring these two together, but first to lay the cornerstone.

"Christ is risen," is the Angel’s text, a part of the "great mystery of godliness,"* which, as the Apostle saith, was "seen of Angels," by them "delivered," and "believed on by the world." Quod credibile primum fecit illis videntium certitudo, post morientium fortitudo, jam credibile mihi facit credentium multitudo. ‘It became credible at first by the certainty of them that saw it, then by the constancy of them that died for confession of it, and to us now the huge multitude of them that have and do believe it, maketh it credible.’ For if it be not credible, how is it credible that the world could believe it? the world, I say, being neither enjoined by authority, nor forced by fear, nor inveigled by allurements; but brought about by persons, by means less credible than the thing itself. Gamaliel said,* "If it be of God, it will prevail." And though we cannot argue, all that hath prevailed is of God, yet thus we can: that which hath been mightily impugned, and weakly pursued, and yet prevailed, that was of God certainly. That which all the powers of the earth fought but could not prevail against, was from Heaven certainly. Certainly, "Christ is risen;" for many have risen, and lift up themselves against it, but all are fallen. But the Apostle saith, it is a "foundation," that he will not lay it again; no more will we, but go forward and raise upon it, and so let us do.

"Christ is risen:" suppose He be, what then? Though Christ’s rising did no way concern us or we that, yet 1. first, In that a man, one of our own flesh and blood hath gotten such a victory, even for humanity’s sake; 2. Then, in that One that is innocent hath quit Himself so well for innoceney’s sake; 3. thirdly, In that He hath foiled a common enemy, for amity’s sake; 4. lastly, In that He hath wiped away the ignominy of His fall with the glory of His rising again, for virtue and valour’s sake; for all these we have cause to rejoice with Him, all are matter of gratulation.

But the Apostle is about a farther matter; that text, the Angel’s text, he saw would not serve our turn, farther than I have said. Well may we congratulate Him, if that be all, but otherwise it pertains to us, "Christ is risen." The Apostle therefore enters farther, telling us that Christ did thus rise, not as Christ only, but as "Christ the first fruits." "Christ is risen," and in rising become the "first fruits;" risen, and so risen; that is, to speak after the manner of men, that there is in Christ a double capacity. 1. One as a body natural, considered by Himself, without any relative respect unto us, or to any; in which regard well may we be glad, as one stranger is for another, but otherwise His rising concerns us not at all. 2. Then that He hath a second, as a body politic, or chief part of a company or corporation, that have to Him, and He to them, a mutual and reciprocal reference, in which respect His resurrection may concern us no less than Himself; it is that He giveth us the first item of in the word primitiæ, that Christ in His rising cometh not to be considered as a totum integrale, or body natural alone, as Christ only; but that which maketh for us, He hath besides another capacity, that He is a part of a corporation or body, of which body we are the members. This being won, look what He hath suffered or done, it pertaineth to us, and we have our part in it.

You shall find, and ever when you find such words make much of them, Christ called a "Head,"—a head is a part; Christ called a "Root,"*—a root is a part; and here Christ called "first fruits,"* which we all know is but a part of the fruits, but a handful of a heap or a sheaf, and referreth to the rest of the fruits, as a part to the whole. So that there is in the Apostle’s conceit one mass or heap of all mankind, of which Christ is the "first fruits," we the remainder. So as by the law of the body all His concern us no less than they do Him, whatsoever He did, He did to our behoof. Die He, or rise, we have our part in His death and in His resurrection, and all: why? because He is but the "first fruits."

And if He were but Primus, and not Primitiæ dormientium, there were hope. For primus is an ordinal number, and draweth after a second, a third, and God knoweth how many. But if in that word there be any scruple, as sometime it is, ante quem non est rather than post quem est alius, if no more come by one; all the world knows the first fruits is but a part of the fruits, there are fruits beside them, no man knoweth how many.

But that which is more, the "first fruits" is not every part, but such a part as representeth the whole, and hath an operative force over the whole. For the better understanding whereof, we are to have recourse to the Law, to the very institution or first beginning of them.* Ever the legal ceremony is a good key to the evangelical mystery. Thereby we shall see why St. Paul made choice of the word "first fruits," to express himself by; that he useth verbum vigilans, ‘a word that is awake,’* as St. Augustine saith, or as Solomon, "a word upon his own wheel." The head or the root would have served, for if the head be above the water, there is hope for the whole body, and if the root hath life, the branches shall not long be without; yet he refuseth these and other that offered themselves, and chooseth rather the term of "first fruits." And why so?

This very day, Easter-day, the day of Christ’s rising, according to the Law, is the day or feast of the "first fruits;" the very feast carrieth him to the word, nothing could be more fit or seasonable for the time. The day of the Passion is the day of the Passover, and "Christ is our Passover;"* the day of the Resurrection is the day of the first fruits, and Christ is our "first fruits."

And this term thus chosen, you shall see there is a very apt and proper resemblance between the Resurrection and it. The rite and manner of the first fruits, thus it was. Under the Law, they might not eat of the fruits of the earth so long as they were profane. Profane they were, until they were sacred, and on this wise were they sacred. All the sheaves in a field,* for example’s sake, were unholy. One sheaf is taken out of all the rest, which sheaf we call the first fruits. That in the name of the rest is lift up aloft and shaken to and fro before the Lord,* and so consecrated.* That done, not only the sheaf so lifted up was holy, though that alone was lift up, but all the sheaves in the field were holy, no less than it.* The rule is, "If the first fruits be holy, all the lump is so too."

And thus, for all the world, fareth it in the Resurrection. "We were all dead,"* saith the Apostle, dead sheaves all. One, and that is Christ, this day, the day of first fruits, was in manner of a sheaf taken out of the number of the dead, and in the name of the rest lift up from the grave, and in His rising He shook,* for there was a great earthquake, by virtue whereof the first fruits being restored to life, all the rest of the dead are in Him entitled to the same hope, in that He was not so lift up for Himself alone, but for us and in our names; and so the substance of this feast fulfilled in Christ’s resurrection.

Now upon this lifting up, there ensueth a very great alteration, if you please to mark it. It was even now, "Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits"—it should be of the dead too, for from thence He rose; it is not so, but "the first fruits"—"of them that sleep;" that you may see the consecration hath wrought a change. A change and a great change certainly, to change νεκροὶ into κεκοιμημένοι, a burial place into a cemetery, that is a great dortor; graves into beds, death into sleep, dead men into men laid down to take their rest,* a rest of hope, of hope to rise again. "If they sleep, they shall do well."

And that which lieth open in the word, dormientium, the very same is enfolded in the word "first fruits:" either word affordeth comfort. For first fruits imply fruits, and so we, as the fruits of the earth, falling as do the grains or kernels into the ground, and there lying, to all men’s seeming putrified and past hope, yet on a sudden, against the great feast of first fruits, shooting forth of the ground again. The other of dormientium the Apostle letteth go, and fastens on this of fruits, and followeth it hard through the rest of the chapter;* shewing, that the rising again of the fruits sown would be no less incredible than the Resurrection, but that we see it so every year.

These two words of 1. sleeping and 2. sowing would be laid up well. That which is sown riseth up in the spring, that which sleepeth in the morning. So conceive of the change wrought in our nature; that feast of first fruits, by "Christ our first fruits." Neither perish, neither that which is sown, though it rot, nor they that sleep, though they lie as dead for the time. Both that shall spring, and these wake well again. Therefore as men sow not grudgingly, nor lie down at night unwillingly, no more must we, seeing by virtue of this feast we are now dormientes, not mortui; now not as stones, but as fruits of the earth, whereof one hath an annual, the other a diurnal resurrection. This for the first fruits, and the change by them wrought.

There is a good analogy or correspondence between these, it cannot be denied. To this question, Can one man’s resurrection work upon all the rest? it is a good answer, Why not as well as one sheaf upon the whole harvest? This simile serves well to shew it, to shew but not prove. Symbolical Divinity is good, but might we see it in the rational too? We may see it in the cause no less; in the substance, and let the ceremony go. This I called the ground of our hope.

Why, saith the Apostle, should this of the first fruits seem strange to you, that by one Man’s resurrection we should rise all, seeing by one man’s death we die all? "By one man,"* saith he, "sin entered into the world, and by sin death;" to which sin we were no parties, and yet we all die, because we are of the same nature whereof he the first person; death came so certainly, and it is good reason life should do so likewise. To this question, Can the resurrection of one, a thousand six hundred years ago, be the cause of our rising? it is a good answer, Why not, as well as the death of one, five thousand six hundred years ago, be the cause of our dying? The ground and reason is, that there is like ground and reason of both. The wisest way it is, if wisdom can contrive it, that a person be cured by mithridate made of the very flesh of the viper bruised, whence the poison came, that so that which brought the mischief might minister also the remedy; the most powerful way it is, if power can effect it, to make strength appear in weakness; and that he that overcame should by the nature which he overcame, be "swallowed up in victory." The best way it is, if goodness will admit of it, that as next to Sathan man to man oweth his destruction, so next to God man to man might be debtor of his recovery. So agreeable it is to the power, wisdom, and goodness of God this, the three attributes of the blessed and glorious Trinity.

And let justice weigh it in her balance, no just exception can be taken to it, no not by justice itself; that as death came, so should life too, the same way at least. More favour for life, if it may be, but in very rigour the same at the least. According then to the very exact rule of justice, both are to be alike; if by man one, by man the other.

We dwell too long in generalities; let us draw near to the persons themselves, in whom we shall see this better. In them all answer exactly, word for word. Adam is fallen, and become the first fruits of them that die. "Christ is risen, and became the first fruits of them" that live,—for they that sleep live. Or you may, if you please, keep the same term in both, thus: Adam is risen, as we use to call rebellions risings;* he did rise against God by eritis sicut Dii; he had never fallen, if he had not thus risen; his rising was his fall.

We are now come to the two great persons, that are the two great authors of the two great matters in this world, life and death. Not either to themselves and none else, but as two heads, two roots, two first fruits, either of them in reference to his company whom they stand for. And of these two hold the two great corporations: 1. Of them that die, they are Adam’s; 2. Of them that sleep and shall rise, that is Christ’s.

To come then to the particular: no reason in the world that Adam’s transgression should draw us all down to death, only for that we were of the same lump; and that Christ’s righteousness should not be available to raise us up again to life, being of the same sheaves, whereof He the first fruits, no less than before of Adam. Look to the things, death and life; weakness is the cause of death, raising to life cometh of power.* Shall there be in weakness more strength to hurt, than in power to do us good? Look to the persons, Adam and Christ: shall Adam,* being but a "living soul," infect us more strongly than Christ, "a quickening Spirit," can heal us again?* Nay then, Adam was but "from the earth, earthy, Christ the Lord from Heaven." Shall earth do that which Heaven cannot undo? Never. It cannot be; sicut, sic, ‘as’ and ‘so,’—so run the terms.

But the Apostle, in Rom. 5. where he handleth this very point,* tells us plainly, non sicut delictum, ita et donum; "not as the fault, so the grace;" nor as the fall, so the rising, but the grace and the rising much more abundant. It seemeth to be a pari; it is not indeed, it is under value. Great odds between the persons, the things, the powers, and the means of them. Thus then meet it should be; let us see how it was.

Here again the very terms give us great light. We are, saith he, restored; restoring doth always presuppose an attainder going before, and so the term significant; for the nature of attainder is, one person maketh the fault, but it taints his blood and all his posterity. The Apostle saith that a statute there is,* "all men should die;" but when we go to search for it,* we can find none, but pulvis es, wherein only Adam is mentioned, and so none die but he. But even by that statute, death goeth over all men; even "those," saith St. Paul,* "that have not sinned after the like manner of transgression of Adam." By what law? By the law of attainders.

The restoring then likewise was to come, and did come, after the same manner as did the attainders; that by the first, this by the second Adam, so He is called verse 45. There was a statute concerning God’s commandments, qui fecerit ea,* vivet in eis; ‘he that observed the commandments should live by that his obedience,’ death should not seize on him. Christ did observe them exactly, therefore should not have been seized on by death; should not but was, and that seizure of his was death’s forfeiture. The laying of the former statute on Christ was the utter making it void; so judgment was entered, and an act made, Christ should be restored to life. And because He came not for Himself but for us, and in our name and stead did represent us, and so we virtually in Him, by His restoring we also were restored, by the rule,* si primitiæ, et tota conspersio sic; "as the first fruits go, so goeth the whole lump," as the root the branches. And thus we have gotten life again of mankind by passing this act of restitution, whereby we have hope to be restored to life.

But life is a term of latitude, and admitteth a broad difference, which it behoveth us much that we know. Two lives there be; in the holy tongue, the word which signifieth life is of the dual number, to shew us there is a duality of lives, that two there be, and that we to have an eye to both. It will help us to understand our text. For all restored to life; all to one, not all to both. The Apostle doth after, at the forty-fourth verse, expressly name them both. 1. One a natural life, or life by the "living soul;" the other, 2. a spiritual life, or life by the "quickening Spirit." Of these two, Adam at the time of his fall had the first, of a "living soul," was seized of it; and of him all mankind, Christ and we all, receive that life. But the other, the spiritual, which is the life chiefly to be accounted of, that he then had not, not actually; only a possibility he had, if he had held him in obedience,* and "walked with God," to have been translated to that other life. For clear it is, the life which Angels now live with God, and which we have hope and promise to live with Him after our restoring,* when we "shall be equal to the Angels," that life Adam at the time of his fall was not possessed of.

Now Adam by his fall fell from both, forfeited both estates. Not only that he had in reversion, by not fulfilling the conditions, but even that he had in esse too. For even on that also did death seize after et mortuus est.

Christ in His restitution, to all the sons of Adam, to all our whole nature, restoreth the former; therefore all have interest, all shall partake that life. What Adam actually had we shall actually have, we shall all be restored. To repair our nature He came, and repair it He did; all is given again really that in Adam really we lost touching nature. So that by his fall, no detriment at all that way.

The other, the second, that He restoreth too; but not promiscue, as the former, to all. Why? for Adam was never seized of it, performed not that whereunto the possibility was annexed, and so had in it but a defeasible estate. But then, by His special grace, by a second peculiar act, He hath enabled us to attain the second estate also which Adam had only a reversion of, and lost by breaking of the condition whereto it was limited. And so to this second restored so many as, to use the Apostle’s words in the next verse, "are in Him;" that is, so many as are not only of that mass or lump whereof Adam was the first fruits, for they are interested in the former only, but that are besides of the nova conspersio, whereof Christ is the primitiæ.

"They that believe in Him,"* saith St. John, them He hath enabled, "to them He hath given power to become the sons of God," to whom therefore He saith, this day rising, Vado ad Patrem vestrum;* in which respect the Apostle calleth Him Primogenitum inter multos fratres.* Or, to make the comparison even, to those that are—to speak but as Esay speaketh of them—"His children;"* "Behold, I and the children God hath given Me." The term He useth Himself to them after His resurrection,* and calleth them "children;" and they as His family take denomination of Him—Christians, of Christ.

Of these two lives, the first we need take no thought for. It shall be of all, the unjust as well as the just. The life of the "living soul," shall be to all restored. All our thought is to be for the latter, how to have our part in that supernatural life, for that is indeed to be restored to life. For the former, though it carry the name of life, yet it may well be disputed and is, Whether it be rather a death than a life, or a life than a death? A life it is, and not a life, for it hath no living thing in it. A death it is, and not a death, for it is an immortal death. But most certain it is, call it life if you will, they that shall live that life shall wish for death rather than it, and, this is the misery—not have their wish, for death shall fly from them.

Out of this double life and double restoring, there grow two resurrections in the world to come, set down by our Saviour in express terms. Though both be to life, yet, 1. that is called "condemnation to judgment;"* and 2. this only "to life."* Of these the Apostle calleth one "the better resurrection," the better beyond all comparison. To attain this then we bend all our endeavours, that seeing the other will come of itself, without taking any thought for it at all, we may make sure of this.

To compass that then, we must be "in Christ:" so it is in the next verse;* to all, but to "every one in order, Christ" first, "the first fruits, and then, they that be in Him."

Now He is in us by our flesh, and we in Him by His Spirit; and it standeth with good reason, they that be restored to life, should be restored to the Spirit. For the Spirit is the cause of all life, but specially of the spiritual life which we seek for.

His Spirit then we must possess ourselves of, and we must do that here; for it is but one and the same Spirit That raiseth our souls here from the death of sin,* and the same That shall raise our bodies there from the dust of death.

Of which Spirit there is "first fruits," to retain the words of the text, and "a fulness;" but the fulness in this life we shall never attain; our highest degree here is but to be of the number whereof he was that said,* Et nos habentes primitias Spiritus.

These first fruits we first receive in our Baptism, which is to us our "laver of regeneration,"* and of our "renewing by the Holy Spirit," where we are made and consecrate primitiæ.

But as we need be restored to life, so I doubt had we need to be restored to the Spirit too. We are at many losses of it, by this sin that "cleaveth so fast" to us. I doubt, it is with us,* as with the fields, that we need a feast of first fruits, a day of consecration every year. By something or other we grow unhallowed, and need to be consecrate anew, to re-seize us of the first fruits of the Spirit again. At least to awake it in us, as primitiæ dormientium at least. That which was given us, and by the fraud of our enemy, or our own negligence, or both,* taken from us and lost, we need to have restored; that which we have quenched,* to be lit anew; that which we have cast into a dead sleep, awaked up from it.

If such a new consecrating we need, what better time than the feast of first fruits, the sacrificing time under the Law? and in the Gospel, the day of Christ’s rising, our first fruits, by Whom we are thus consecrate? The day wherein He was Himself restored to the perfection of His spiritual life, the life of glory, is the best for us to be restored in to the first fruits of that spiritual life, the life of grace.

And if we ask, what shall be our means of this consecrating? The Apostle telleth us, we are sanctified by the "oblation of the body of Jesus." That is the best means to restore us to that life.* He hath said it, and shewed it Himself; "He that eateth Me shall live by Me." The words spoken concerning that,* are both "spirit and life," whether we seek for the spirit or seek for life. Such was the means of our death, by eating the forbidden fruit, the first fruits of death; and such is the means of our life, by eating the flesh of Christ, the first fruits of life.

And herein we shall very fully fit, not the time only and the means, but also the manner. For as by partaking the flesh and blood, the substance of the first Adam, we came to our death, so to life we cannot come, unless we do participate with the flesh and blood of the "second Adam," that is Christ. We drew death from the first, by partaking the substance; and so must we draw life from the second, by the same. This is the way; become branches of the Vine, and partakers of His nature, and so of His life and verdure both.

So the time, the means, the manner agree. What letteth then but that we, at this time, by this means, and in this manner, make ourselves of that conspersion whereof Christ is our first fruits; by these means obtaining the first fruits of His Spirit, of that quickening Spirit, Which being obtained and still kept, or in default thereof still recovered, shall here begin to initiate in us the first fruits of our restitution in this life, whereof the fulness we shall also be restored unto in the life to come;* as St. Peter calleth that time, the "time of the restoring of all things." Then shall the fulness be restored us too, when God shall be "all in all;" not some in one, and some in another, but all in all. Atque hic est vitœ finis, pervenire ad vitam cujus non est finis; ‘this is the end of the text and of our life, to come to a life whereof there is no end.’ To which, &c.

Andrewes, L. (1841). Ninety-Six Sermons (Vol. 2). Oxford: John Henry Parker. (Public Domain)

TEXT: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”—John 10:10.

THIS was the new note in the message of Jesus Christ. It fell, for the most part, upon uncomprehending ears. After nineteen centuries of alleged gospel preaching it is still for the most part uncomprehended.

That Christ was a teacher of ethics, as in the Sermon on the Mount, is understood. That He died for our sins is, as a fact, understood. That He changed the issue from righteousness by works to righteousness by faith, moving the centre from Mount Sinai in Arabia to Mount Calvary in Judea, is understood, though haltingly, but that He came to impart to believing human beings a new quality of life, even the very life which was and is in Himself—this is not understood.

Eternal life is, indeed, much spoken of, but it is understood to mean mere duration of being—the persistency of life notwithstanding the fact of physical death.

In the teaching of Jesus Christ, as in the apostolic writings, the eternal life imparted by Christ to all who believe in Him, is indeed a term implying endlessness of life, but, since endlessness is also a quality of mere human life, eternal life is, far more emphatically, a term of quality, of kind.

The ministry of John the Baptist also had its startling message, “And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees.” There was to be no more experimentation with the old Adamic tree, no more seeking of fruit from a stock that, after centuries of testing, could produce but wild fruit. “Make the tree good” is the new word, and this can only be done by giving the tree a new life and nature. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and can never be made aught else. The old man under the new gospel is to be crucified with Christ, not improved by higher ideals. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” The Adamic taint forbids it, and is ineradicable.

Two things are said by Christ in this tenth chapter of John: He gives his life for the sheep (vs. 11, 15, 17), and this is redemption; and He gives His life to the sheep (vs. 28) and this is regeneration.

Precisely this duality is found in the third chapter. The sheep are under a two-fold disability: they are “perishing” under the curse and sentence of the law, and must be redeemed by one able and willing to be “made a curse” in their stead; but also they are born of the flesh and therefore mere flesh-men, unable to “see” or “enter” the kingdom of God, and for this there is no remedy save in a re-birth.

But precisely these two needs are met by the gospel of the love of God; the Son of man must be lifted up on the cross to redeem the perishing, and the Holy Spirit imparts the divine nature and the new life to all who believe on the Son of man as crucified for their sins.

THE NEW LIFE IS CHRIST’S LIFE

Mere endlessness of being would not be “eternal” life. Eternal is “from everlasting to everlasting.” Only He who “was in the beginning with God * * * was God” would bestow, through the eternal Spirit, eternal life.

And this imparted life is His own life. “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” What a symbol of unity of life is the vine with its branches. The branch has no independent source of life. The life of the vine and the life of the branch are one. All possibility of renewal, of growth, of fruitfulness depends upon the life energy of the vine. Well might the vine say to the branch, “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

It would not be possible to state more strongly than does our Lord this identity in life of Himself and those who through faith in Him crucified have been born again. “As * * * I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” “I in them, and thou in me.”

The vital suggestions are, if possible, even more intense in our Lord’s simile of “the corn of wheat.” Just as a grain of wheat sown dies, indeed, yet dies into countless grains of wheat, giving its own life to each, so Christ speaks of His own death.

And this testimony to oneness of life with Christ pervades the apostolic explanation of the gospel. The church is declared to be His body. The human body, composed of many members, is the figure used to express the oneness with Him of the “many members” who constitute, like the members of the natural body, one organism, and this organism is called “Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). It is declared of Christ, not only that He gave life to the believer, but that He “is our life.” And John declares the record to be “that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

THE INLIVING CHRIST TO BE OUTLIVED

God expects nothing from the flesh—the self-man. In the divine reckoning our old man was crucified with Christ. The old man is summed up in one terrific word of three letters—sin. Acts of sin proceed from a nature which is sin.

In one great and luminous passage the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul states, in the terms of the apostle’s actual experience, the fact and method of the new life: “I am crucified with Christ.” This is a fact of revelation not a fact of consciousness. Paul does not “feel” crucified, but in the divine reckoning he is counted so, and this the apostle also reckons to be true. God expects nothing from the old Saul of Tarsus, and in the seventh of Romans experience the apostle has learned the final truth about Saul: “In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”

Then comes a fact of consciousness, “Nevertheless I live,” followed by another fact of revelation, “Christ liveth in me.” Saul lives as yet, but death or the return of Christ will be the end of the Saul life, and Christ also lives in Paul.

Then comes the practical, present outcome of it all, “The life which I now live in the flesh” (body). How shall that life be lived? The Holy Spirit gives an answer to which, speaking broadly, the church has never risen.

THE METHOD OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Two theories of Christian living here on earth have measured, and do measure, the average faith.

First, life by precept, by rule. There is a large truth here. The Bible is a great instruction in righteousness; a great revelation of the mind of God about human life. No inner light can take the place of the divine revelation. It is perfect ethically and also complete.

But it has the fatal defect of furnishing no dynamic. “The law made nothing perfect.” Precept gives a perfect rule of life, and by it life must always be tested, but precept carries no enablement. “The law * * * was weak through the flesh.” A chart does not carry us across the ocean, but it shows us where we are on the trackless deep, and where to go. The life by precept was tried under law and left the whole world of humanity in speechless guilt before God.

Still more hopeless is the notion of life by the example of Christ. “What would Christ do?” is the formula. As to immoralities, selfishness, worldliness, the answer is easy. In all the real crises of life it utterly breaks down. Our conclusions as to what Christ would do are vitiated by our limitations of habit of thought, of unspirituality, of ignorance of Christ. In His earth-life He constantly did the things that shocked every religionist in Palestine—Pharisee, Sadducee, Herodian. He did not do the things they thought He ought to do, but every day did something they thought inconsistent with His Messiahship.

What then is Christian living? It is Christ living out His life in the terms of our personality, and under the conditions which environ us. We do not ask, “What would Christ do?” we say to self, “Let not I,” and yield our powers to the sway of the inliving Christ. “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus,” (the practical expression of our co-crucifixion with Him being “having no confidence in the flesh”), “that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

And we are not to be discouraged by failures. Not all at once does Christ gain complete control over powers and faculties accustomed to the rule of self; but, “walking in the Spirit,” there assuredly comes an increasing sense of peace, rest, joy.

Scofield, C. I. (1915). The New Life in Christ Jesus (pp. 24–32). Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n. (Public Domain)

Come and Welcome, to Jesus Christ, Part 20

Christ Would Have Comers Not Once Think That He Will Cast Them Out

OBSERVATION THIRD.—I come now to the next observation, and shall speak a little to that; to wit, That Jesus Christ would not have them, that in truth are coming to him, once think that he will cast them out.

The text is full of this: for he saith, “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”  Now, if he saith, I will not, he would not have us think he will.  This is yet further manifest by these considerations.

First, Christ Jesus did forbid even them that as yet were not coming to him, once to think him such an one.  “Do not think,” said he, “that I will accuse you to the Father” (John 5:45).

These, as I said, were such, that as yet were not coming to him.  For he saith of them a little before, “And ye will not come to me;” for the respect they had to the honour of men kept them back.  Yet, I say, Jesus Christ gives them to understand, that though he might justly reject them, yet he would not, but bids them not once to think that he would accuse them to the Father.  Now, not to accuse, with Christ, is to plead for:  for Christ in these things stands not neuter between the Father and sinners.  So then, if Jesus Christ would not have them think, that yet will not come to him, that he will accuse them; then he would not that they should think so, that in truth are coming to him.  “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

Second, When the woman taken in adultery, even in the very act, was brought before Jesus Christ, he so carried it both by words and actions, that he evidently enough made it manifest, that condemning and casting out were such things, for the doing of which he came not into the world.  Wherefore, when they had set her before him, and had laid to her charge her heinous fact, he stooped down, and with his finger wrote upon the ground, as though he heard them not.  Now what did he do by this his carriage, but testify plainly that he was not for receiving accusations against poor sinners, whoever accused by?  And observe, though they continue asking, thinking at last to force him to condemn her; yet then he so answered, so that he drove all condemning persons from her.  And then he adds, for her encouragement to come to him; “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more” (John 8:1–11).

Not but that he indeed abhorred the fact, but he would not condemn the woman for the sin, because that was not his office.  He was not sent “into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).  Now if Christ, though urged to it, would not condemn the guilty woman, though she was far at present from coming to him, he would not that they should once think that he will cast them out, that in truth are coming to him.  “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

Third, Christ plainly bids the turning sinner come; and forbids him to entertain any such thought as that he will cast him out.  “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa 4:6).  The Lord, by bidding the unrighteous forsake his thoughts, doth in special forbid, as I have said, viz., those thoughts that hinder the coming man in his progress to Jesus Christ, his unbelieving thoughts.

Therefore he bids him not only forsake his ways, but his thoughts.  “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.”  It is not enough to forsake one if thou wilt come to Jesus Christ; because the other will keep thee from him.  Suppose a man forsakes his wicked ways, his debauched and filthy life; yet if these thoughts, that Jesus Christ will not receive him, be entertained and nourished in his heart; these thoughts will keep him from coming to Jesus Christ.

Sinner, coming sinner, art thou for coming to Jesus Christ?  Yes, says the sinner.  Forsake thy wicked ways then.  So I do, says the sinner.

Why comest thou then so slowly?  Because I am hindered.  What hinders?  Has God forbidden thee?  No.  Art thou not willing to come faster?  Yes, yet I cannot.  Well, prithee be plain with me, and tell me the reason and ground of thy discouragement.  Why, says the sinner, though God forbids me not, and though I am willing to come faster, yet there naturally ariseth this, and that, and the other thought in my heart, that hinders my speed to Jesus Christ.  Sometimes I think I am not chosen; sometimes I think I am not called; sometimes I think I am come too late; and sometimes I think I know not what it is to come.  Also one while I think I have no grace; and then again, that I cannot pray; and then again, I think that I am a very hypocrite.  And these things keep me from coming to Jesus Christ.

Look ye now, did not I tell you so?  There are thoughts yet remaining in the heart, even of those who have forsaken their wicked ways; and with those thoughts they are more plagued than with anything else; because they hinder their coming to Jesus Christ; for the sin of unbelief, which is the original of all these thoughts, is that which besets a coming sinner more easily, than doth his ways (Heb 12:1–4).  But now, since Jesus Christ commands thee to forsake these thoughts, forsake them, coming sinner; and if thou forsake them not, thou transgressest the commands of Christ, and abidest thine own tormentor, and keepest thyself from establishment in grace.  “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isa 7:9).  Thus you see how Jesus Christ setteth himself against such thoughts, that any way discourage the coming sinner; and thereby truly vindicates the doctrine we have in hand; to wit, that Jesus Christ would not have them, that in truth are coming to him, once think that he will cast them out.  “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

Reasons of Observation Third

I come now to the reasons of the observation.

1.  If Jesus Christ should allow thee once to think that he will cast thee out, he must allow thee to think that he will falsify his word; for he hath said, “I will in no wise cast out.”  But Christ would not that thou shouldst count him as one that will falsify his word; for he saith of himself, “I am the truth;” therefore he would not that any that in truth are coming to him, should once think that he will cast them out.

2.  If Jesus Christ should allow the sinner that in truth is coming to him, once to think that he will cast him out, then he must allow, and so countenance the first appearance of unbelief; the which he counteth his greatest enemy, and against which he hast bent even his holy gospel.  Therefore Jesus Christ would not that they that in truth are coming to him, should once think that he will cast them out.  See Matthew 14:31; 21:21, Mark 11:23; Luke 24:25.

3.  If Jesus Christ should allow the coming sinner once to think that he will cast him out; then he must allow him to make a question,

Whether he is willing to receive his Father’s gift; for the coming sinner is his Father’s gift; as also says the text; but he testifieth, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”  Therefore Jesus Christ would not have him, that in truth is coming to him, once to think that he will cast him out.

4.  If Jesus Christ should allow them once to think, that indeed are coming to him, that he will cast them out, he must allow them to think that he will despise and reject the drawing of his Father.  For no man can come to him but whom the Father draweth.  But it would be high blasphemy, and damnable wickedness once to imagine thus.  Therefore, Jesus Christ would not have him that cometh once think that he will cast him out.

5.  If Jesus Christ should allow those that indeed are coming to him, once to think that he will cast them out, he must allow them to think that he will be unfaithful to the trust and charge that his Father hath committed to him; which is to save, and not to lose anything of that which he hath given unto him to save (John 6:39).  But the Father hath given him a charge to save the coming sinner; therefore it cannot be, that he should allow, that such an one should once think that he will cast him out.

6.  If Jesus Christ should allow that they should once think that are coming to him, that he will cast them out, then he must allow them to think that he will be unfaithful to his office of priesthood; for, as by the first part of it, he paid price for, and ransomed souls, so by the second part thereof, he continually maketh intercession to God for them that come (Heb 7:25).  But he cannot allow us to question his faithful execution of his priesthood.  Therefore he cannot allow us once to think that the coming sinner shall be cast out.

7.  If Jesus Christ should allow us once to think that the coming sinner shall be cast out, then he must allow us to question his will, or power, or merit to save.  But he cannot allow us once to question any of these; therefore not once to think, that the coming sinner shall be cast out.  (1.) He cannot allow them to question his will; for he saith in the text, “I WILL in no wise cast out.”  (2.) He cannot allow us to question his power; for the Holy Ghost saith HE IS ABLE to save to the uttermost them that come.  (3.) He cannot allow them to question the efficacy of his merit; for the blood of Christ cleanseth the comer from all sin, (1 John 1:7), therefore he cannot allow that he that is coming to him should once think that he will cast them out.

8.  If Jesus Christ should allow the coming sinner once to think that he will cast him out, he must allow him to give the lie to the manifest testimony of the Father, Son, and Spirit; yea, to the whole gospel contained in Moses, the prophets, the book of Psalms, and that commonly called the New Testament.  But he cannot allow of this; therefore, not that the coming sinner should once think that he will cast him out.

9.  Lastly, If Jesus Christ should allow him that is coming to him, once to think that he will cast him out, he must allow him to question his Father’s oath, which he in truth and righteousness hath taken, that they might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to Jesus Christ.  But he cannot allow this; therefore he cannot allow that the coming sinner should once think that he will cast him out (Heb 6).

USE AND APPLICATION

I come now to make some GENERAL USE AND APPLICATION OF THE WHOLE, and so to draw towards a conclusion.

USE FIRST.—the First Use—A USE OF INFORMATION; And,

First, It informeth us that men by nature are far off from Christ.  Let me a little improve this use, by speaking to these three questions.  1.  Where is he that is coming [but has not come], to Jesus Christ?  2.  What is he that is not coming to Jesus Christ?  3.  Whither is he to go that cometh not to Jesus Christ?

1.  Where is he?

[Answer.] (1.) He is far from God, he is without him, even alienate from him both in his understanding, will, affections, judgment, and conscience (Eph 2:12; 4:18).  (2.) He is far from Jesus Christ, who is the only deliverer of men from hell fire (Psa 73:27).  (3.) He is far from the work of the Holy Ghost, the work of regeneration, and a second creation, without which no man shall see the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3).  (4.) He is far more righteous, from that righteousness that should make him acceptable in God’s sight (Isa 46:12, 13).  (5.) He is under the power and dominion of sin; sin reigneth in and over him; it dwelleth in every faculty of his soul, and member of his body; so that from head to foot there is no place clean (Isa 1:6; Rom 3:9–18).  (6.) He is in the pest-house with Uzziah and excluded the camp of Israel with the lepers (2 Chron 26:21; Num 5:2; Job 36:14).  (7.) His “life is among the unclean.”  He is “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:28).  (8.) He is “in sin,” “in the flesh,” “in death,” “in the snare of the devil,” and is “taken captive by him at his will” (1 Cor 15:17; Rom 8:8; 1 John 3:14; 2 Tim 2:26).  (9.) He is under the curse of the law, and the devil dwells in him, and hath the mastery of him (Gal 3:13; Eph 2:2, 3; Acts 26:18).  (10.) He is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knows not whither he goes; for darkness has blinded his eyes.  (11.) He is in the broad way that leadeth to destruction; and holding on, he will assuredly go in at the broad gate, and so down the stairs to hell.

2.  What is he that cometh not to Jesus Christ?

[Answer.] (1.) He is counted one of God’s enemies (Luke 19:14; Rom 8:7).  (2.) He is a child of the devil, and of hell; for the devil begat him, as to his sinful nature, and hell must swallow him at last, because he cometh not to Jesus Christ (John 8:44; 1 John 3:8; Matt 23:15; Psa 9:17).  (3.) He is a child of wrath, an heir of it; it is his portion, and God will repay it him to his face (Eph 2:1–3; Job 21:29–31).  (4.) He is a self-murderer; he wrongeth his own soul, and is one that loveth death (Prov 1:18; 8:36).  (5.) He is a companion for devils and damned men (Prov 21:16; Matt 25:41).

3.  Whither is he like to go that cometh not to Jesus Christ?

[Answer.] (1.) He that cometh not to him, is like to go further from him; so every sin is a step further from Jesus Christ (Hosea 11).  (2.) As he is in darkness, so he is like to go on in it; for Christ is the light of the world, and he that comes not to him, walketh in darkness (John 8:12).  (3.) He is like to be removed at last as far from God, and Christ, and heaven, and all felicity, as an infinite God can remove him (Matt 12:41).  But,

Second, This doctrine of coming to Christ informeth us where poor destitute sinners may find life for their souls, and that is in Christ.  This life is in his Son; he that hath the Son, hath life.  And again, “Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord” (Prov 8:35).  Now, for further enlargement, I will also here propound three more questions: 1.  What life is in Christ?  2.  Who may have it?  3.  Upon what terms?

1.  What life is in Jesus Christ?

[Answer.] (1.) There is justifying life in Christ.  Man by sin is dead in law; and Christ only can deliver him by his righteousness and blood from this death into a state of life.  “For God sent his Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).  That is, through the righteousness which he should accomplish, and the death that he should die.  (2.) There is eternal life in Christ; life that is endless; life for ever and ever.  “He hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11).  Now, justification and eternal salvation being both in Christ, and nowhere else to be had for men, who would not come to Jesus Christ?

2.  Who may have this life?

I answer, Poor, helpless, miserable sinners.  Particularly, (1.) Such as are willing to have it.  “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life” (Rev 22:17).  (2.) He that thirsteth for it.  “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life” (Rev 21:6).  (3.) He that is weary of his sins.  “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing” (Isa 28:12).  (4.) He that is poor and needy.  “He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy” (Psa 72:13).  (5.) He that followeth after him, crieth for life.  “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

3.  Upon what terms may he have this life?

[Answer.] Freely.  Sinner, dost thou hear.  Thou mayest have it freely.  Let him take the water of life freely.  I will give him of the fountain of the water of life freely.  “And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both” (Luke 7:42).  Freely, without money, or without price.  “Ho!  every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa 55:1).  Sinner, art thou thirsty?  art thou weary?  art thou willing?  Come, then, and regard not your stuff; for all the good that is in Christ is offered to the coming sinner, without money and without price.  He has life to give away to such as want it, and that hath not a penny to purchase it; and he will give it freely.  Oh what a blessed condition is the coming sinner in!  But,

Third, This doctrine of coming to Jesus Christ for life, informeth us, that it is to be had nowhere else.  Might it be had anywhere else, the text, and him that spoke it, would be but little set by; for what greater matter is there in “I will in no wise cast out,” if another stood by that could receive them?  But here appears the glory of Christ, that none but he can save.  And here appears his love, that though none can save but he, yet he is not coy in saving.  “But him that comes to me,” says he, “I will in no wise cast out.”

That none can save but Jesus Christ, is evident from Acts 4:12: “Neither is there salvation in any other;” and “he hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11).  If life could have been had anywhere else, it should have been in the law.  But it is not in the law; for by the deeds of the law, no man living shall be justified; and if not justified, then no life.  Therefore life is nowhere to be had but in Jesus Christ (Gal 3).

[Question.] But why would God so order it, that life should be had nowhere else but in Jesus Christ?

[Answer.] There is reason for it, and that both with respect to God and us.

1.  With respect to God.

(1.) That it might be in a way of justice as well as mercy.  And in a way of justice it could not have been, if it had not been by Christ; because he, and he only, was able to answer the demand of the law, and give for sin what the justice thereof required.  All angels had been crushed down to hell for ever, had that curse been laid upon them for our sins, which was laid upon Jesus Christ; but it was laid upon him, and he bare it; and answered the penalty, and redeemed his people from under it, with that satisfaction to Divine justice that God himself doth now proclaim, That he is faithful and just to forgive us, if by faith we shall venture to Jesus, and trust to what he has done for life (Rom 3:24–26; John 1:4).  (2.) Life must be by Jesus Christ, that God might be adored and magnified, for finding out this way.  This is the Lord’s doings, that in all things he might be glorified through Jesus Christ our Lord.  (3.) It must be by Jesus Christ, that life might be at God’s dispose, who hath great pity for the poor, the lowly, the meek, the broken in heart, and for them that others care not for (Psa 34:6; 138:6; 25; 51:17; 147:3).  (4.) Life must be in Christ, to cut off boasting from the lips of men.  This also is the apostle’s reason in Romans 3:19, 27 (Eph 2:8–10).

2.  Life must be in Jesus Christ with respect to us.

(1.) That we might have it upon the easiest terms, to wit, freely: as a gift, not as wages.  Was it in Moses’ hand, we should come hardly at it.  Was it in the pope’s hand, we should pay soundly for it.  But thanks be to God, it is in Christ, laid up in him, and by him to be communicated to sinners upon easy terms, even for receiving, accepting, and embracing with thanksgiving; as the Scriptures plainly declare (John 1:11, 12; 2 Cor 11:4; Heb 11:13; Col 3:13–15).  (2.) Life is in Christ FOR US, that it might not be upon so brittle a foundation, as indeed it would had it been anywhere else.  The law itself is weak because of us, as to this.  But Christ is a tried stone, a sure foundation, one that will not fail to bear thy burden, and to receive thy soul, coming sinner.  (3.) Life is in Christ, that it might be sure to all the seed.  Alas!  the best of us, was life left in our hand, to be sure we should forfeit it, over, and over, and over; or, was it in any other hand, we should, by our often backslidings, so offend him, that at last he would shut up his bowels in everlasting displeasure against us.  But now it is in Christ, it is with one that can pity, pray for, pardon, yea, multiply pardons; it is with one that can have compassion upon us, when we are out of the way; with one that hath an heart to fetch us again, when we are gone astray; with one that can pardon without upbraiding.  Blessed be God, that life is in Christ!  For now it is sure to all the seed.  But,

Fourth, This doctrine of coming to Jesus Christ for life informs us of the evil of unbelief; that wicked thing that is the only or chief hindrance to the coming sinner.  Doth the text say, “Come?” Doth it say, “and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out?” Then what an evil is that that keepeth sinners from coming to Jesus Christ!  And that evil is unbelief: for by faith we come; by unbelief we keep away.  Therefore it is said to be that by which a soul is said to depart from God; because it was that which at first caused the world to go off from him, and that also that keeps them from him to this day.  And it doth it the more easily, because it doth it with a wile.

[Of the Sin of Unbelief.]—This sin may be called the white devil, for it oftentimes, in its mischievous doings in the soul, shows as if it was an angel of light: yea, it acteth like a counselor of heaven.  Therefore a little to discourse of this evil disease.

1.  It is that sin, above all others, that hath some show of reason in its attempts.  For it keeps the soul from Christ by pretending its present unfitness and unpreparedness; as want of more sense of sin, want of more repentance, want of more humility, want of a more broken heart.

2.  It is the sin that most suiteth with the conscience: the conscience of the coming sinner tells him that he hath nothing good; that he stands inditeable for ten thousand talents; that he is a very ignorant, blind, and hard-hearted sinner, unworthy to be once taken notice of by Jesus Christ.  And will you, says Unbelief, in such a case as you now are, presume to come to Jesus Christ?

3.  It is the sin that most suiteth with our sense of feeling.  The coming sinner feels the workings of sin, of all manner of sin and wretchedness in his flesh; he also feels the wrath and judgment of God due to sin, and ofttimes staggers under it.  Now, says Unbelief, you may see you have no grace; for that which works in you is corruption.  You may also perceive that God doth not love you, because the sense of his wrath abides upon you.  Therefore, how can you bear the face to come to Jesus Christ?

4.  It is that sin, above all others, that most suiteth with the wisdom of our flesh.  The wisdom of our flesh thinks it prudent to question awhile, to stand back awhile, to hearken to both sides awhile; and not to be rash, sudden, or unadvised, in too bold a presuming upon Jesus Christ.  And this wisdom unbelief falls in with.

5.  It is that sin, above all other, that continually is whispering the soul in the ear with mistrusts of the faithfulness of God, in keeping promise to them that come to Jesus Christ for life.  It also suggests mistrust about Christ’s willingness to receive it, and save it.  And no sin can do this so artificially as unbelief.

6.  It is also that sin which is always at hand to enter an objection against this or that promise that by the Spirit of God is brought to our heart to comfort us; and if the poor coming sinner is not aware of it, it will, by some evasion, slight, trick, or cavil, quickly wrest from him the promise again, and he shall have but little benefit of it.

7.  It is that, above all other sins, that weakness our prayers, our faith, our love, our diligence, our hope, and expectations: it even taketh the heart away from God in duty.

8.  Lastly, This sin, as I have said even now, it appeareth in the soul with so many sweet pretences to safety and security, that it is, as it were, counsel sent from heaven; bidding the soul be wise, wary, considerate, well-advised, and to take heed of too rash a venture upon believing.  Be sure, first, that God loves you; take hold of no promise until you are forced by God unto it; neither be you sure of your salvation; doubt it still, though the testimony of the Lord has been often confirmed in you.  Live not by faith, but by sense; and when you can neither see nor feel, then fear and mistrust, then doubt and question all.  This is the devilish counsel of unbelief, which is so covered over with specious pretences, that the wisest Christian can hardly shake off these reasonings.

[Qualities of unbelief as opposed to faith.]—But to be brief.  Let me here give thee, Christian reader, a more particular description of the qualities of unbelief, by opposing faith unto it, in these twenty-five particulars:—

1.  Faith believeth the Word of God; but unbelief questioneth the certainty of the same (Psa 106:24).

2.  Faith believeth the Word, because it is true; but unbelief doubteth thereof, because it is true (1 Tim 4:3; John 8:45).

3.  Faith sees more in a promise of God to help, than in all other things to hinder; but unbelief, notwithstanding God’s promise, saith, How can these things be?  (Rom 4:19–21; 2 Kings 7:2; John 3:11, 12).

4.  Faith will make thee see love in the heart of Christ, when with his mouth he giveth reproofs; but unbelief will imagine wrath in his heart, when with his mouth and Word he saith he loves us (Matt 15:22, 28; Num 13; 2 Chron 14:3).

5.  Faith will help the soul to wait, though God defers to give; but unbelief will take huff and throw up all, if God makes any tarrying (Psa 25:5; Isa 8:17; 2 Kings 6:33; Psa 106:13, 14).

6.  Faith will give comfort in the midst of fears; but unbelief causeth fears in the midst of comfort (2 Chron 20:20, 21; Matt 8:26; Luke 24:26; 27).

7.  Faith will suck sweetness out of God’s rod; but unbelief can find no comfort in his greatest mercies (Psa 23:4; Num 21).

8.  Faith maketh great burdens light; but unbelief maketh light ones intolerably heavy (2 Cor 4:1; 14–18; Mal 1:12, 13).

9.  Faith helpeth us when we are down; but unbelief throws us down when we are up (Micah 7:8–10; Heb 4:11).

10.  Faith bringeth us near to God when we are far from him; but unbelief puts us far from God when we are near to him (Heb 10:22; 3:12, 13).

11.  Where faith reigns, it declareth men to be the friends of God; but where unbelief reigns, it declareth them to be his enemies (John 3:23; Heb 3:18; Rev 21:8).

12.  Faith putteth a man under grace; but unbelief holdeth him under wrath (Rom 3:24–26; 14:6; Eph 2:8; John 3:36; 1 John 5:10; Heb 3:17; Mark 16:16).

13.  Faith purifieth the heart; but unbelief keepeth it polluted and impure (Acts 15:9; Titus 1:15, 16).

14.  By faith, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us; but by unbelief, we are shut up under the law to perish (Rom 4:23, 24; 11:32; Gal 3:23).

15.  Faith maketh our work acceptable to God through Christ; but whatsoever is of unbelief is sin.  For without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb 11:4; Rom 14:23; Heb 6:6).

16.  Faith giveth us peace and comfort in our souls; but unbelief worketh trouble and tossings, like the restless waves of the sea (Rom 5:1; James 1:6).

17.  Faith maketh us to see preciousness in Christ; but unbelief sees no form, beauty, or comeliness in him (1 Peter 2:7; Isa 53:2, 3).

18.  By faith we have our life in Christ’s fullness; but by unbelief we starve and pine away (Gal 2:20).

19.  Faith gives us the victory over the law, sin, death, the devil, and all evils; but unbelief layeth us obnoxious to them all (1 John 5:4, 5; Luke 12:46).

20.  Faith will show us more excellency in things not seen, than in them that are; but unbelief sees more in things that are seen, than in things that will be hereafter;.  (2 Cor 4:18; Heb 11:24–27; 1 Cor 15:32).

21.  Faith makes the ways of God pleasant and admirable; but unbelief makes them heavy and hard (Gal 5:6; 1 Cor 12:10, 11; John 6:60; Psa 2:3).

22.  By faith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob possessed the land of promise; but because of unbelief, neither Aaron, nor Moses, nor Miriam could get thither (Heb 11:9; 3:19).

23.  By faith the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea; but by unbelief the generality of them perished in the wilderness (Heb 11:29; Jude 5).

24.  By faith Gideon did more with three hundred men, and a few empty pitchers, than all the twelve tribes could do, because they believed not God (Judg 7:16–22; Num 14:11, 14).

25.  By faith Peter walked on the water; but by unbelief he began to sink (Matt 14:28–30).

Thus might many more be added, which, for brevity’s sake, I omit; beseeching every one that thinketh he hath a soul to save, or be damned, to take heed of unbelief; lest, seeing there is a promise left us of entering into his rest, any of us by unbelief should indeed come short of it.

USE SECOND.  The Second Use—A USE OF EXAMINATION

We come now to a use of examination.  Sinner, thou hast heard of the necessity of coming to Christ; also of the willingness of Christ to receive the coming soul; together with the benefit that they by him shall have that indeed come to him.  Put thyself now upon this serious inquiry, Am I indeed come to Jesus Christ?

Motives plenty I might here urge, to prevail with thee to a conscientious performance of this duty.  As, 1.  Thou art in sin, in the flesh, in death, in the snare of the devil, and under the curse of the law, if you are not coming to Jesus Christ.  2.  There is no way to be delivered from these, but by coming to Jesus Christ.  3.  If thou comest, Jesus Christ will receive thee, and will in no wise cast thee out.  4.  Thou wilt not repent it in the day of judgment, if now thou comest to Jesus Christ.  5.  But thou wilt surely mourn at last, if now thou shalt refuse to come.  6.  And lastly, Now thou hast been invited to come; now will thy judgment be greater, and thy damnation more fearful, if thou shalt yet refuse, than if thou hadst never heard of coming to Christ.

Object.  But we hope we are come to Jesus Christ.

Answer.  It is well if it proves so.  But lest thou shouldst speak without ground, and so fall unawares into hell-fire, let us examine a little.

First, Art thou indeed come to Jesus Christ?  What hast thou left behind thee?  What didst thou come away from, in thy coming to Jesus Christ?

When Lot came out of Sodom, he left the Sodomites behind him (Gen 19).  When Abraham came out of Chaldea, he left his country and kindred behind him (Gen 12; Acts 7).  When Ruth came to put her trust under the wings of the Lord God of Israel, she left her father and mother, her gods, and the land of her nativity, behind her (Ruth 1:15–17; 2:11, 12).  When Peter came to Christ, he left his nets behind him (Matt 4:20).  When Zaccheus came to Christ, he left the receipt of custom behind him (Luke 19).  When Paul came to Christ, he left his own righteousness behind him (Phil 3:7, 8).  When those that used curious arts came to Jesus Christ, they took their curious books and burned them; though, in another man’s eye, they were counted worth fifty thousand pieces of silver (Acts 19:18–20).

What sayest thou, man?  Hast thou left thy darling sins, thy Sodomitish pleasures, thy acquaintance and vain companions, thy unlawful gain, thy idol-gods, thy righteousness, and thy unlawful curious arts, behind thee?  If any of these be with thee, and thou with them, in thy heart and life, thou art not yet come to Jesus Christ.

Second, Art thou come to Jesus Christ?  Prithee tell me what moved thee to come to Jesus Christ?

Men do not usually come or go to this or that place, before they have a moving cause, or rather a cause moving them thereto.  No more do they come to Jesus Christ—I do not say, before they have a cause, but—before that cause moveth them to come.  What sayest thou?  Hast thou a cause moving thee to come?  To be at present in a state of condemnation, is cause sufficient for men to come to Jesus Christ for life.  But that will not do, except the cause move them; the which it will never do, until their eyes be opened to see themselves in that condition.  For it is not a man’s being under wrath, but his seeing it, that moveth him to come to Jesus Christ.  Alas!  all men by sin are under wrath; yet but few of that all come to Jesus Christ.  And the reason is, because they do not see their condition.  “Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt 3:7).  Until men are warned, and also receive the warning, they will not come to Jesus Christ.

Take three or four instances for this.  Adam and Eve came not to Jesus Christ until they received the alarm, the conviction of their undone state by sin.  (Gen 3) The children of Israel cried not out for a mediator before they saw themselves in danger of death by the law (Exo 20:18, 19).  Before the publican came, he saw himself lost and undone (Luke 18:13).  The prodigal came not, until he saw death at the door, ready to devour him (Luke 15:17, 18).  The three thousand came not, until they knew not what to do to be saved (Acts 2:37–39).  Paul came not, until he saw himself lost and undone (Acts 9:3–8, 11).  Lastly, Before the jailer came, he saw himself undone (Acts 16:29–31).  And I tell thee, it is an easier thing to persuade a well man to go to the physician for cure, or a man without hurt to seek for a plaster to cure him, than it is to persuade a man that sees not his soul-disease, to come to Jesus Christ.  The whole have no need of the physician; then why should they go to him?  The full pitcher can hold no more; then why should it go to the fountain?  And if thou comest full, thou comest not aright; and be sure Christ will send thee empty away.  “But he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Mark 2:17; Psa 147:3; Luke 1:53).

Third, Art thou coming to Jesus Christ?  Prithee tell me, What seest thou in him to allure thee to forsake all the world, to come to him?

I say, What hast thou seen in him?  Men must see something in Jesus Christ, else they will not come to him.  1.  What comeliness hast thou seen in his person?  thou comest not, if thou seest no form nor comeliness in him (Isa 53:1–3).  2.  Until those mentioned in the Song were convinced that there was more beauty, comeliness, and desirableness in Christ, than in ten thousand, they did not so much as ask where he was, nor incline to turn aside after him (Song 5, 6).

There be many things on this side heaven that can and do carry away the heart; and so will do, so long as thou livest, if thou shalt be kept blind, and not be admitted to see the beauty of the Lord Jesus.

Fourth, Art thou come to the Lord Jesus?  What hast thou found in him, since thou camest to him?

Peter found with him the word of eternal life (John 6:68).  They that Peter makes mention of, found him a living stone, even such a living stone as communicated life to them (1 Peter 2:4, 5).  He saith himself, they that come to him, &c., shall find rest unto their souls; hast thou found rest in him for thy soul?  (Matt 11:28).

Let Us Go Back to the Times of the Old Testament

1.  Abraham found THAT in him, that made him leave his country for him, and become for his sake a pilgrim and stranger in the earth (Gen 12; Heb 11).

2.  Moses found THAT in him, that made him forsake a crown, and a kingdom for him too.

3.  David found so much in him, that he counted to be in his house one day was better than a thousand; yea, to be a door-keeper therein was better, in his esteem, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness (Psa 84:10).

4.  What did Daniel and the three children find in him, to make them run the hazards of the fiery furnace, and the den of lions, for his sake?  (Dan 3, 6).

Let Us Come Down to Martyrs

1.  Stephen found that in him that made him joyful, and quietly yield up his life for his name (Acts 7).

2.  Ignatius found that in Christ that made him choose to go through the torments of the devil, and hell itself, rather than not to have him.—Fox’s Acts and Monuments, vol.  1, p.  52, Anno.  111.  Edit.  1632.

3.  What saw Romanus in Christ, when he said to the raging Emperor, who threatened him with fearful torments, Thy sentence, O Emperor, I joyfully embrace, and refuse not to be sacrificed by as cruel torments as thou canst invent?—Fox, vol.  1, p.  116.

4.  What saw Menas, the Egyptian, in Christ, when he said, under most cruel torments, There is nothing in my mind that can be compared to the kingdom of heaven; neither is all the world, if it was weighed in a balance, to be preferred with the price of one soul?  Who is able to separate us from the love of Jesus Christ our Lord?  And I have learned of my Lord and King not to fear them that kill the body, &c.  P.  117.

5.  What did Eulalia see in Christ, when she said, as they were pulling her one joint from another, Behold, O Lord, I will not forget thee.  What a pleasure it is for them, O Christ!  that remember thy triumphant victory?  P.  121.

6.  What think you did Agnes see in Christ, when rejoicingly she went to meet the soldier that was appointed to be her executioner.  I will willingly, said she, receive into my paps the length of this sword, and into my breast will draw the force thereof, even to the hilts; that thus I, being married to Christ my spouse, may surmount and escape all the darkness of this world?  P.  122.

7.  What do you think did Julitta see in Christ, when, at the Emperor’s telling of her, that except she would worship the gods, she should never have protection, laws, judgments, nor life, she replied, Farewell life, welcome death; farewell riches, welcome poverty: all that I have, if it were a thousand times more, would I rather lose, than to speak one wicked and blasphemous word against my Creator?  P.  123.

8.  What did Marcus Arethusius see in Christ, when after his enemies had cut his flesh, anointed it with honey, and hanged him up in a basket for flies and bees to feed on, he would not give, to uphold idolatry, one halfpenny to save his life?  P.  128.

9.  What did Constantine see in Christ, when he used to kiss the wounds of them that suffered for him?  P.  135.

10.  But what need I give thus particular instances of words and smaller actions, when by their lives, their blood, their enduring hunger, sword, fire, pulling asunder, and all torments that the devil and hell could devise, for the love they bare to Christ, after they were come to him?

What Hast THOU Found in Him, Sinner?

What!  come to Christ, and find nothing in him!—when all things that are worth looking after are in him!—or if anything, yet not enough to wean thee from thy sinful delights, and fleshly lusts!  Away, away, thou art not coming to Jesus Christ.

He that has come to Jesus Christ, hath found in him, that, as I said, that is not to be found anywhere else.  As,

1.  He that is come to Christ hath found God in him reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses to them.  And so God is not to be found in heaven and earth besides (2 Cor 5:19, 20).

2.  He that is come to Jesus Christ hath found in him a fountain of grace, sufficient, not only to pardon sin, but to sanctify the soul, and to preserve it from falling, in this evil world.

3.  He that is come to Jesus Christ hath found virtue in him; THAT virtue, that if he does but touch thee with his Word, or thou him by faith, life is forthwith conveyed into thy soul.  It makes thee wake as one that is waked out of his sleep; it awakes all the powers of the soul (Psa 30:11, 12; Song 6:12).

4.  Art thou come to Jesus Christ?  Thou hast found glory in him, glory that surmounts and goes beyond.  “Thou art more glorious-than the mountains of prey” (Psa 76:4).

5.  What shall I say?  Thou hast found righteousness in him; thou hast found rest, peace, delight, heaven, glory, and eternal life.

Sinner, be advised; ask thy heart again, saying, Am I come to Jesus Christ?  For upon this one question, Am I come, or, am I not?  hangs heaven and hell as to thee.  If thou canst say, I am come, and God shall approve that saying, happy, happy, happy man art thou!  But if thou art not come, what can make thee happy?  yea, what can make that man happy that, for his not coming to Jesus Christ for life, must be damned in hell?

USE THIRD.—the Third Use—A USE OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Coming sinner, I have now a word for thee; be of good comfort, “He will in no wise cast out.”  Of all men, thou art the blessed of the Lord; the Father hath prepared his Son to be a sacrifice for thee, and Jesus Christ, thy Lord, is gone to prepare a place for thee (John 1:29; Heb 10).  What shall I say to thee?

[First,] Thou comest to a FULL Christ; thou canst not want anything for soul or body, for this world or that to come, but it is to be had in or by Jesus Christ.  As it is said of the land that the Danites went to possess, so, and with much more truth, it may be said of Christ; he is such an one with whom there is no want of any good thing that is in heaven or earth.  A full Christ is thy Christ.

1.  He is full of grace.  Grace is sometimes taken for love; never any loved like Jesus Christ.  Jonathan’s love went beyond the love of women; but the love of Christ passes knowledge.  It is beyond the love of all the earth, of all creatures, even of men and angels.  His love prevailed with him to lay aside his glory, to leave the heavenly place, to clothe himself with flesh, to be born in a stable, to be laid in a manger, to live a poor life in the world, to take upon him our sicknesses, infirmities, sins, curse, death, and the wrath that was due to man.  And all this he did for a base, undeserving, unthankful people; yea, for a people that was at enmity with him.  “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.  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” (Rom 5:6–10).

2.  He is full of truth.  Full of grace and truth.  Truth, that is, faithfulness in keeping promise, even this of the text, with all other, “I will in no wise cast out” (John 14:6).  Hence it is said, that his words be true, and that he is the faithful God, that keepeth covenant.  And hence it is also that his promises are called truth: “Thou wilt fulfil thy truth unto Jacob, and thy mercy unto Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”  Therefore it is said again, that both himself and words are truth: “I am the truth, the Scripture of truth” (Dan 10:21).  “Thy word is truth,” (John 17:17; 2 Sam 7:28); “thy law is truth,” (Psa 119:142); and “my mouth,” saith he, “shall speak truth,” (Prov 8:7); see also Ecclesiastes 12:10; Isaiah 25:1; Malachi 2:6; Acts 26:25, 2 Timothy 2:12, 13.  Now, I say, his word is truth, and he is full of truth to fulfil his truth, even to a thousand generations.  Coming sinner, he will not deceive thee; come boldly to Jesus Christ.

3.  He is full of wisdom.  He is made unto us of God wisdom; wisdom to manage the affairs of his church in general, and the affairs of every coming sinner in particular.  And upon this account he is said to be “head over all things,” (1 Cor 1; Eph 1), because he manages all things that are in the world by his wisdom, for the good of his church; all men’s actions, all Satan’s temptations, all God’s providences, all crosses, and disappointments; all things whatever are under the hand of Christ—who is the wisdom of God—and he ordereth them all for good to his church.  And can Christ help it—and be sure he can—nothing shall happen or fall out in the world, but it shall, in despite of all opposition, have a good tendency to his church and people.

4.  He is full of the Spirit, to communicate it to the coming sinner; he hath therefore received it without measure, that he may communicate it to every member of his body, according as every man’s measure thereof is allotted him by the Father.  Wherefore he saith, that he that comes to him, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 3:34; Titus 3:5, 6; Acts 2; John 7:33–39).

5.  He is indeed a storehouse full of all the graces of the Spirit.  “Of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).  Here is more faith, more love, more sincerity, more humility, more of every grace; and of this, even more of this, he giveth to every lowly, humble, penitent coming sinner.  Wherefore, coming soul, thou comest not to a barren wilderness when thou comest to Jesus Christ.

6.  He is full of bowels and compassion: and they shall feel and find it so that come to him for life.  He can bear with thy weaknesses, he can pity thy ignorance, he can be touched with the feeling of thy infirmities, he can affectionately forgive they transgressions, he can heal thy backslidings, and love thee freely.  His compassions fail not; “and he will not break a bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax; he can pity them that no eye pities, and be afflicted in all thy afflictions” (Matt 26:41; Heb 5:2; 2:18; Matt 9:2; Hosea 14:4; Eze 16:5, 6; Isa 63:9; Psa 78:38; 86:15; 111:4; 112:4; Lam 3:22; Isa 42:3).

7.  Coming soul, the Jesus that thou art coming to, is full of might and terribleness for thy advantage; he can suppress all thine enemies; he is the Prince of the kings of the earth; he can bow all men’s designs for thy help; he can break all snares laid for thee in the way; he can lift thee out of all difficulties wherewith thou mayest be surrounded; he is wise in heart, and mighty in power.  Every life under heaven is in his hand; yea, the fallen angels tremble before him.  And he will save thy life, coming sinner (1 Cor 1:24; Rom 8:28; Matt 28:18; Rev 4; Psa 19:3; 27:5, 6; Job 9:4; John 17:2; Matt 8:29; Luke 8:28; James 2:19).

8.  Coming sinner, the Jesus to whom thou art coming is lowly in heart, he despiseth not any.  It is not thy outward meanness, nor thy inward weakness; it is not because thou art poor, or base, or deformed, or a fool, that he will despise thee: he hath chosen the foolish, the base, and despised things of this world, to confound the wise and mighty.  He will bow his ear to thy stammering prayers he will pick out the meaning of thy inexpressible groans; he will respect thy weakest offering, if there be in it but thy heart (Matt 11:20; Luke 14:21; Prov 9:4–6; Isa 38:14, 15; Song 5:15; John 4:27; Mark 12:33, 34; James 5:11).  Now, is not this a blessed Christ, coming sinner?  Art thou not like to fare well, when thou hast embraced him, coming sinner?  But,

Second.  Thou hast yet another advantage by Jesus Christ, thou art coming to him, for he is not only full, BUT FREE.  He is not sparing of what he has; he is open-hearted and open-handed.  Let me in a few particulars show thee this:

1.  This is evident, because he calls thee; he calls upon thee to come unto him; the which he would not do, was he not free to give; yea, he bids thee, when come, ask, seek, knock.  And for thy encouragement, adds to every command a promise, “Seek, and ye shall find; ask, and ye shall have; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”  If the rich man should say thus to the poor, would not he be reckoned a free-hearted man?  I say, should he say to the poor, Come to my door, ask at my door, knock at my door, and you shall find and have; would he not be counted liberal?  Why, thus doth Jesus Christ.  Mind it, coming sinner (Isa 55:3; Psa 50:15; Matt 7:7–9).

2.  He doth not only bid thee come, but tells thee, he will heartily do thee good; yea, he will do it with rejoicing; “I will rejoice over them, to do them good-with my whole heart, and with my whole soul” (Jer 32:41).

3.  It appeareth that he is free, because he giveth without twitting.  “He giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not” (James 1, 5).  There are some that will not deny to do the poor a pleasure, but they will mix their mercies with so many twits, that the persons on whom they bestow their charity shall find but little sweetness in it.  But Christ doth not do so, coming sinner; he casteth all thine iniquities behind his back (Isa 38:17).  Thy sins and iniquities he will remember no more (Heb 8:12).

4.  That Christ is free, is manifest by the complaints that he makes against them that will not come to him for mercy.  I say, he complains, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt 23:37).  I say, he speaks it by way of complaint.  He saith also in another place, “But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob” (Isa 43:22).  Coming sinner, see here the willingness of Christ to save; see here how free he is to communicate life, and all good things, to such as thou art.  He complains, if thou comest not; he is displeased, if thou callest not upon him.  Hark, coming sinner, once again; when Jerusalem would not come to him for safeguard, “he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:41, 42).

5.  Lastly, He is open and free-hearted to do thee good, as is seen by the joy and rejoicing that he manifesteth at the coming home of poor prodigals.  He receives the lost sheep with rejoicing; the lost goat with rejoicing; yea, when the prodigal came home, what joy and mirth, what music and dancing, was in his father’s house!  (Luke 15).

Third.  Coming sinner, I will add another encouragement for thy help.

1.  God hath prepared a mercy-seat, a throne of grace to sit on; that thou mayest come thither to him, and that he may from thence hear thee, and receive thee.  “I will commune with thee,” saith he, “from above the mercy-seat” (Exo 25:22).  As who shall say, sinner, When thou comest to me, thou shalt find me upon the mercy-seat, where also I am always found of the undone coming sinner.  Thither I bring my pardons; there I hear and receive their petitions, and accept them to my favour.

2.  God hath also prepared a golden altar for thee to offer thy prayers and tears upon.  A golden altar!  It is called a “golden altar,” to show what worth it is of in God’s account: for this golden altar is Jesus Christ; this altar sanctifies thy gift, and makes thy sacrifice acceptable.  This altar, then, makes thy groans golden groans; thy tears golden tears; and thy prayers golden prayers, in the eye of that God thou comest to, coming sinner (Rev 8; Matt 23:19; Heb 10:10; 1 Peter 2:5).

3.  God hath strewed all the way, from the gate of hell, where thou wast, to the gate of heaven, whither thou art going, with flowers out of his own garden.  Behold how the promises, invitations, calls, and encouragements, like lilies, lie round about thee!  take heed that thou dost not tread them under foot, sinner.  With promises, did I say?  Yea, he hath mixed all those with his own name, his Son’s name; also, with the name of mercy, goodness, compassion, love, pity, grace, forgiveness, pardon, and what not, that may encourage the coming sinner.

4.  He hath also for thy encouragement laid up the names, and set forth the sins, of those that have been saved.  In this book they are fairly written, that thou, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, mightest have hope.  (1.) In this book is recorded Noah’s maim and sin; and how God had mercy upon him.  (2.) In this record is fairly written the name of Lot, and the nature of his sin; and how the Lord had mercy upon him.  (3.) In this record thou hast also fairly written the names of Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Samson, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul, with the nature of their sins; and how God had mercy upon them; and all to encourage thee, coming sinner.

Fourth.  I will add yet another encouragement for the man that is coming to Jesus Christ.  Art thou coming?  Art thou coming, indeed?  Why,

1.  Then this thy coming is by virtue of God’s call.  Thou art called.  Calling goes before coming.  Coming is not of works, but of him that calleth.  “He goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would; and they came unto him” (Mark 3:13).

2.  Art thou coming?  This is also by virtue of illumination.  God has made thee see; and, therefore, thou art coming.  So long as thou wast darkness, thou lovedst darkness, and couldst not abide to come, because thy deeds were evil; but being now illuminated and made to see what and where thou art, and also what and where thy Saviour is, now thou art coming to Jesus Christ; “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,” saith Christ, “but my Father which is in heaven” (Matt 16:17).

3.  Art thou coming?  This is because God hath inclined thine heart to come.  God hath called thee, illuminated thee, and inclined thy heart to come; and, therefore, thou comest to Jesus Christ.  It is God that worketh in thee to will, and to come to Jesus Christ.  Coming sinner, bless God for that he hath given thee a will to come to Jesus Christ.  It is a sign that thou belongest to Jesus Christ, because God has made thee willing to come to him (Psa 110:3).  Bless God for slaying the enmity of thy mind; had he not done it, thou wouldst as yet have hated thine own salvation.

4.  Art thou coming to Jesus Christ?  It is God that giveth thee power: power to pursue thy will in the matters of thy salvation, is the gift of God.  “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do” (Phil 2:13).  Not that God worketh will to come, where he gives no power; but thou shouldest take notice, that power is an additional mercy.  The church saw that will and power were two things, when she cried, “Draw me, we will run after thee” (Song 1:4).  And so did David too, when he said, “I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Psa 119:32).  Will to come, and power to pursue thy will, is double mercy, coming sinner.

5.  All thy strange, passionate, sudden rushings forward after Jesus Christ, coming sinners know what I mean, they also are thy helps from God.  Perhaps thou feelest at some times more than at others, strong stirrings up of heart to fly to Jesus Christ; now thou hast at this time a sweet and stiff gale of the Spirit of God, filling thy sails with the fresh gales of his good Spirit; and thou ridest at those times as upon the wings of the wind, being carried out beyond thyself, beyond the most of thy prayers, and also above all thy fear and temptations.

6.  Coming sinner, hast thou not now and then a kiss of the sweet lips of Jesus Christ, I mean some blessed word dropping like a honey-comb upon thy soul to revive thee, when thou art in the midst of thy dumps?

7.  Does not Jesus Christ sometimes give thee a glimpse of himself, though perhaps thou seest him not so long a time as while one may tell twenty.

8.  Hast thou not sometimes as it were the very warmth of his wings overshadowing the face of thy soul, that gives thee as it were a gload upon thy spirit, as the bright beams of the sun do upon thy body, when it suddenly breaks out of a cloud, though presently all is gone away?  Well, all these things are the good hand of thy God upon thee, and they are upon thee to constrain, to provoke, and to make thee willing and able to come, coming sinner, that thou mightest in the end be saved.

Bunyan, J. (2006).  Come and Welcome, to Jesus Christ (Vol. 1, pp. 271–273).  Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.  (Public Domain)

 

Easter 1606 — Bishop Lancelot Andrewes

Romans 6:9–11

Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.

For, in that He died, He died once to sin; but in that He liveth, He liveth to God.

Likewise think (or account) ye also, that ye are dead to sin, but are alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Scripture is as the feast is, both of them of the Resurrection. And this we may safely say of it, it is thought by the Church so pertinent to the feast, as it hath ever been and is appointed to be the very entry of this day’s service; to be sounded forth and sung, first of all, and before all, upon this day, as if there were some special correspondence between the day and it.

Two principal points are set down to us, out of the two principal words in it: one, scientes, in the first verse, "knowing;" the other, reputate, in the last verse, "count yourselves;"—knowing and counting, knowledge and calling ourselves to account for our knowledge.

Two points very needful to be ever jointly called upon, and more than needful for our times, being that much we know, and little we count; oft we hear, and when we have heard, small reckoning we make of it. What Christ did on Easter-day we know well; what we are then to do, we give no great regard: our scientes is without a reputantes.

Now this Scripture, ex totâ substantiâ, ‘out of the whole frame of it’ teacheth us otherwise; that Christian knowledge is not a knowledge without all manner of account, but that we are accountants for it; that we are to keep an audit of what we hear, and take account of ourselves of what we have learned. Λογίζεσθε is an auditor’s term: thence the Holy Ghost hath taken it, and would have us to be auditors in both senses.

And this to be general in whatsoever we know, but specially in our knowledge touching this feast of Christ’s Resurrection, where there are special words for it in the text, where in express terms an account is called for at our hands as an essential duty of the day. The benefit we remember is so great, the feast we hold so high, as though at other times we might be forborne, yet on this day we may not.

Now the sum of our account is set down in these words,* similiter et vos; that we fashion ourselves like to Christ, dying and rising, cast ourselves in the same moulds, express Him in both as near as we can.

To account of these first, that is, to account ourselves bound so to do.

To account for these second, that is, to account with ourselves whether we do so.

First, to account ourselves bound thus to do, resolving thus within ourselves, that to hear a Sermon of the Resurrection is nothing; to keep a feast of the Resurrection is as much, except it end in similiter et vos. Nisi, saith St. Gregory, quod de more celebratur etiam quoad mores exprimatur, ‘unless we express the matter of the feast in the form of our lives;’ unless as He from the grave so we from sin, and live to godliness as He unto God.

Then to account with ourselves, whether we do thus; that is, to sit down and reflect upon the sermons we hear, and the feasts we keep; how, by knowing Christ’s death, we die to sin; how, by knowing His resurrection, we live to God; how our estate in soul is bettered; how the fruit of the words we hear, and the feasts we keep, do abound daily toward our account against the great audit. And this to be our account, every Easter-day.

Of these two points, the former is in the two first verses, what we must know; the latter is in the last, what we must account for. And they be joined with similiter, to shew us they be and must be of equal and like regard; and we as know, so account.

But because, our knowing is the ground of our account, the Apostle beginneth with knowledge. And so must we.

Knowledge, in all learning, is of two sorts: 1. rerum, or 2. causarum, ὅτι, or δίοτι, ‘that,’ or ‘in that.’ The former is in the first verse: "knowing that Christ," &c. The latter, in the second; "for, in that," &c. And because we cannot cast up a sum, except we have a particular, the Apostle giveth us a particular of either. A particular of our knowledge quoad res, which consisteth of these three: 1. that "Christ is risen from the dead." 2. That now "He dieth not." 3. That "from henceforth death hath no dominion over Him." All in the first verse. Then a particular of our knowledge quoad causas. The cause 1. of His death, sin; "He died to sin." 2. Of His life, God; "He liveth to God." And both these but once for all. All in the second verse.

Then followeth our account, in the third verse. Wherein we consider, first, 1. the charge; 2. and then the discharge. 1. The charge first, similiter et vos; that we be like to Christ. And then wherein; 1. like, in dying to sin; 2. like, in living to God. Which are the two moulds wherein we are to be cast, that we may come forth like Him. This is the charge. 2. And last of all, the means we have to help us to discharge it, in the last words, "in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Before we take view of the two particulars, it will not be amiss to make a little stay at scientes, the first word, because it is the ground of all the rest. "Knowing that Christ is risen." This the Apostle saith, the Romans did;—"knowing." Did know himself indeed, that Christ was risen, for he saw Him. But how knew the Romans, or how know we? No other way than by relation, either they or we, but yet we much better than they. I say by relation, in the nature of a verdict, of them that had seen Him, even Cephas and the twelve; which is a full jury, able to find any matter of fact, and to give up a verdict in it. And that Christ is risen, is matter of fact. But if twelve will not serve in this matter of fact, which in all other matters with us will, if a greater inquest far, if five hundred will serve,* you may have so many; for "of more than five hundred at once was He seen," many of them then living ready to give up the same verdict, and to say the same upon their oaths.

But to settle a knowledge, the number moveth not so much as the quality of the parties. If they were persons credulous, light of belief, they may well be challenged, if they took not the way to ground their knowledge aright. That is ever best known that is most doubted of; and never was matter carried with more scruple and slowness of belief, with more doubts and difficulties, than was this of Christ’s rising. Mary Magdalene saw it first, and reported it. "They believed her not."* The two that went to Emmaus, they also reported it. They believed them not. Divers women together saw Him,* and came and told them; "their words seemed to them λῆρος,* an idle, feigned, fond tale." They all saw Him, and even seeing Him, yet they "doubted." When they were put out of doubt,* and told it but to one that happened to be absent, it was St. Thomas, you know how peremptory he was; "not he,* unless he might not only see with his eyes, but feel with his fingers, and put in his hand into His side." And all this he did. St. Augustine saith well: Profecto valde dubitatum est ab illis, ne dubitaretur a nobis; ‘all this doubting was by them made, that we might be out of doubt, and know that Christ is risen.’

Sure, they took the right course to know it certainly; and certainly they did know it, as appeareth. For never was any thing known in this world, so confidently, constantly, certainly testified as was this, that Christ is risen. By testifying it, they got nothing in the earth. Got nothing? Nay, they lost by it their living, their life, all they had to lose. They might have saved all, and but said nothing. So certain they were, so certainly they did account of their knowing, they could not be got from it, but to their very last breath, to the very last drop of their blood, bare witness to the truth of this article; and chose rather to lay down their lives and to take their death, than to deny, nay than not to affirm His rising from death. And thus did they know, and knowing testify, and by their testimony came the Romans to their knowing, and so do we. But, as I said before, we to a much surer knowing than they. For when this was written, the whole world stopped their ears at this report, would not endure to hear them, stood out mainly against them. The Resurrection! why it was with the Grecians at Athens, χλευασμὸς, a very ‘scorn.’* The Resurrection! why it was with Festus the great Roman, μανία, ‘a sickness of the brain, a plain frenzy.’* That world that then was and long after in such opposition, is since come in; and upon better examination of the matter so strangely testified, with so many thousand lives of men, to say the least of them, sad and sober, hath taken notice of it, and both known and acknowledged the truth of it. It was well foretold by St. John, hæc est victoria quæ vincit mundum,* fides vestra. It is proved true since, that this faith of Christ’s rising hath made a conquest of the whole world. So that, after all the world hath taken knowledge of it, we come to know it. And so more full to us, than to them, is this scientes, "knowing." Now to our particulars, what we know.

Our first particular is, That Christ is risen from the dead. Properly, we are said to rise from a fall, and from death rather to revive. Yet the Apostle rather useth the term of rising than reviving, as serving better to set forth his purpose. That death is a fall we doubt not, that it came with a fall, the fall of Adam. But what manner of fall? for it hath been holden a fall, from whence is no rising. But by Christ’s rising it falls out to be a fall, that we may fall and yet get up again. For if Christ be risen from it, then is there a rising; if a rising of one, then may there be of another; if He be risen in our nature, then is our nature risen; and if our nature be, our persons may be. Especially seeing, as the Apostle in the fourth verse before hath told us, He and we are σύμφυτοι, that is, so "grafted" one into the other, that He is part of us, and we of Him;* so that as St. Bernard well observeth, Christus etsi solus resurrexit, tamen non totus, ‘that Christ, though He be risen only, yet He is not risen wholly,’ or all, till we be risen too. He is but risen in part, and that He may rise all, we must rise from death also.

This then we know first: that death is not a fall like that of Pharaoh into the sea,* that "sunk down like a lump of lead" into the bottom, and never came up more;* but a fall like that of Jonas into the sea,* who was received by a fish,* and after cast up again. It is our Saviour Christ’s own simile. A fall,* not like that of the Angels into the bottomless pit, there to stay for ever; but like to that of men into their beds, when they make account to stand up again. A fall, not as of a log or stone to the ground, which, where it falleth there it lieth still;* but as of a wheat-corn into the ground, which is quickened and springeth up again.*

The very word which the Apostle useth, ἐγερθεὶς, implieth the two latter: 1. either of a fall into a bed in our chamber, where, though we lie to see to little better than dead for a time, yet in the morning we awake and stand up notwithstanding; 2. or of a fall into a bed in our garden, where, though the seed putrify and come to nothing, yet we look to see it shoot forth anew in the spring. Which spring is, as Tertullian well calleth it, the very resurrection of the year; and Christ’s Resurrection falleth well with it;* and it is, saith he, no way consonant to reason, that man for whom all things spring and rise again, should not have his spring and rising too. But he shall have them, we doubt not, by this day’s work. He That this day did rise, and rising was seen of Mary Magdalene in the likeness of a gardener,* this Gardener will look to it, that man shall have his spring. He will, saith the Prophet, "drop upon us a dew like the dew of herbs,* and the earth shall yield forth her dead." And so, as Christ is risen from the dead, even so shall we.

Our second particular is, That as He is risen, so now He dieth not. Which is no idle addition, but hath his force and emphasis. For one thing it is to rise from the dead, and another, not to die any more. The widow’s son of Nain,* the ruler’s daughter of the synagogue,* Lazarus,—all these rose again from death,* yet they died afterward; but "Christ rising from the dead, dieth no more." These two are sensibly different, Lazarus’ resurrection, and Christ’s; and this second is sure a higher degree than the former. If we rise as they did, that we return to this same mortal life of ours again, this very mortality of ours will be to us as the prisoner’s chain he escapes away withal: by it we shall be pulled back again, though we should rise a thousand times. We must therefore so rise as Christ, that our resurrection be not reditus, but transitus; not a returning back to the same life, but a passing over to a new. Transivit de morte ad vitam, saith He.* The very feast itself puts us in mind of as much; it is Pascha, that is, the Passover,* not a coming back to the same land of Egypt, but a passing over to a better, the Land of Promise, whither "Christ our Passover" is passed before us,* and shall in His good time give us passage after Him. The Apostle expresseth it best where he saith, that Christ by His rising hath "abolished death,* and brought to light life and immortality;" not life alone, but life and immortality, which is this our second particular. Risen, and risen to die no more, because risen to life, to life immortal.

But the third is yet beyond both these, more worth the knowing, more worthy our account; "death hath no dominion over Him." Where, as we before said, one thing it was to rise again, another to die no more, so say we now; it is one thing not to die, another not to be under the dominion of death. For death, and death’s dominion are two different things. Death itself is nothing else but the very separation of the life from the body, death’s dominion a thing of far larger extent. By which word of "dominion," the Apostle would have us to conceive of death, as of some great lord having some large signory.* Even as three several times in the chapter before he saith, regnavit mors, "death reigned," as if death were some mighty monarch, having some great dominions under him. And so it is; for look how many dangers, how many diseases, sorrows, calamities, miseries there be of this mortal life; how many pains, perils, snares of death; so many several provinces are there of this dominion. In all which, or some of them, while we live, we still are under the jurisdiction and arrest of death all the days of our life. And say that we escape them all, and none of them happen to us, yet live we still under fear of them, and that is death’s dominion too. For he is, as Job calleth him, Rex pavoris, "King of fear." And when we are out of this life too,* unless we pertain to Christ and His resurrection, we are not out of his dominion neither. For hell itself is secunda mors, so termed by St. John, "the second death,"* or second part of death’s dominion.*

Now, who is there that would desire to rise again to this life, yea, though it were immortal, to be still under this dominion of death here; still subject, still liable to the aches and pains, to the griefs and gripings, to the manifold miseries of this vale of the shadow of death? But then the other, the second region of death, the second part of his dominion, who can endure once to be there? There they seek and wish for death, and death flieth from them.

Verily, rising is not enough; rising, not to die again is not enough, except we may be quit of this dominion, and rid of that which we either feel or fear all our life long. Therefore doth the Apostle add, and so it was needful he should, "death hath no dominion over Him." "No dominion over Him?" No; for He, dominion over it. For lest any might surmise he might break through some wall, or get out at some window, and so steal a resurrection, or casually come to it, he tells them—No, it is not so.* Ecce claves mortis et inferni; see here, the keys both of the first and second death. Which is a plain proof He hath mastered, and got the dominion over both "death and him that hath the power of death,* that is the devil." Both are swallowed up in victory, and neither death any more sting, nor hell any more dominion.* Sed ad Dominum Deum nostrum spectant exitus mortis;* "but now unto God our Lord belong the issues of death;" the keys are at His girdle, He can let out as many as He list.

This estate is it, which he calleth coronam vitæ;* not life alone, but "the crown of life," or a life crowned with immunity of fear of any evil, ever to befal us. This is it which in the next verse he calleth "living unto God,"* the estate of the children of the resurrection, to be the sons of God, equal to the Angels, subject to no part of death’s dominion, but living in security, joy, and bliss for ever.

And now is our particular full. 1. Rising to life first; 2. and life freed from death, and so immortal; 3. and then exempt from the dominion of death, and every part of it; and so happy and blessed. Rise again? so may Lazarus, or any mortal man do; that is not it. Rise again to life immortal? so shall all do in the end, as well the unjust as the just; that is not it. But rise again to life immortal, with freedom from all misery, to live to, and with God, in all joy and glory evermore;—that is it, that is Christ’s resurrection. Et tu, saith St. Augustine, spera talem resurrectionem, et propter hoc esto Christianus, ‘live in hope of such a resurrection, and for this hope’s sake carry thyself as a Christian.’ Thus have we our particular of that we are to know touching Christ risen.

And now we know all these, yet do we not account ourselves to know them perfectly until we also know the reason of them. And the Romans were a people that loved to see the ground of that they received, and not the bare articles alone. Indeed it might trouble them why Christ should need thus to rise again, because they saw no reason why He should need die. The truth is, we cannot speak of rising well without mention of the terminus a quo, from whence He rose. By means whereof these two, 1. Christ’s dying, and 2. His rising, are so linked together, and their audits so entangled one with another, as it is very hard to sever them. And this you shall observe, the Apostle never goeth about to do it, but still as it were of purpose suffers one to draw in the other continually. It is not here alone, but all over his Epistles; ever they run together, as if he were loath to mention one without the other.

And it cannot be denied but that their joining serveth to many great good purposes. These two, 1. His death, and 2. His rising, they shew His two natures, human and Divine; 1. His human nature and weakness in dying, 2. His Divine nature and power in rising again. 2. These shew His two offices; His Priesthood and His Kingdom. 1. His Priesthood in the sacrifice of His death; 2. His Kingdom in the glory of His resurrection. 3. They set before us His two main benefits, 1. interitum mortis, and 2. principium vitæ. 1. His death, the death of death; 2. His rising, the reviving of life again; the one what He had ransomed us from, the other what He had purchased for us. 4. They serve as two moulds, wherein our lives are to be cast, that the days of our vanity may be fashioned to the likeness of the Son of God; which are our two duties, that we are to render for those two benefits, proceeding from the two offices of His two natures conjoined. In a word, they are not well to be sundered; for when they are thus joined, they are the very abridgment of the whole Gospel.

Of them both then briefly. Of His dying first: "In that He died, He died once to sin." Why died He once, and why but once? Once He died to sin, that is, sin was the cause He was to die once. As in saying "He liveth to God," we say God is the cause of His life, so in saying "He died to sin" we say sin was the cause of His death. God of His rising, sin of His fall. And look, how the Resurrection leadeth us to death, even as naturally doth death unto sin, the sting of death.

To sin then He died; not simply to sin, but with reference to us. For as death leadeth us to sin, so doth sin to sinners, that is, to ourselves; and so will the opposition be more clear and full: "He liveth unto God," "He died unto man." With reference, I say, to us. For first He died unto us; and if it be true that Puer natus est nobis,* it is as true that Vir mortuus est nobis; if being a Child He was born to us, becoming a Man He died to us. Both are true.

To us then first He died because He would save us. To sin secondly, because else He could not save us. Yes he could have saved us and never died for us, ex plenitudine potestatis, ‘by His absolute power,’ if He would have taken that way. That way He would not, but proceed by way of justice, do all by way of justice. And by justice sin must have death,—death, our death, for the sin was ours. It was we that were to die to sin. But if we had died to sin, we had perished in sin; perished here, and perished everlastingly. That His love to us could not endure, that we should so perish. Therefore, as in justice He justly might, He took upon Him our debt of sin, and said, as the Fathers apply that speech of His, Sinite abire hos, "Let these go their ways."* And so that we might not die to sin He did. We see why he died once.

Why but once? because once was enough, ad auferenda, saith St. John; ad abolenda,* saith St. Peter; ad exhaurienda, saith St. Paul; ‘to take away,* to abolish, to draw dry,’ and utterly to exhaust all the sins,* of all the sinners, of all the world. The excellency of His Person That performed it was such; the excellency of the obedience that He performed, such; the excellency both of His humility and charity wherewith He performed it, such; and of such value every of them, and all of them much more; as made that His once dying was satis superque, ‘enough, and enough again;’ which made the Prophet call it copiosam redemptionem,* "a plenteous redemption." But the Apostle, he goeth beyond all in expressing this;* in one place terming it ὑπερβάλλων,* in another ὑπερεκπερισσεύων, in another πλεονάζων,—mercy, rich,* exceeding; grace over-abounding, nay, grace superfluous, for so is πλεονάζων, and superfluous is enough and to spare; superfluous is clearly enough and more than enough. Once dying then being more than enough, no reason He should die more than once. That of His death.

Now of His life: "He liveth unto God." The rigour of the law being fully satisfied by His death, then was He no longer justly, but wrongfully detained by death. As therefore by the power He had, He laid down His life, so He took it again, and rose again from the dead. And not only rose Himself, but in one concurrent action, God, Who had by His death received full satisfaction, reached Him as it were His hand, and raised Him to life. The Apostle’s word ἐγερθεὶς, in the native force doth more properly signify, "raised by another," than risen by himself, and is so used, to shew it was done, not only by the power of the Son, but by the will, consent, and co-operation of the Father; and He the cause of it, Who for the over-abundant merit of His death, and His humbling Himself, and "becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross," not only raised Him,* but propter hoc, "even for that cause," exalted Him also, to live with Him, in joy and glory for ever. For, as when He lived to man He lived to much misery, so now He liveth to God He liveth in all felicity. This part being oppositely set down to the former; living, to exclude dying again; living to God, to exclude death’s dominion, and all things pertaining to it. For, as with "God is life and the fountain of life" against death,* even the fountain of life never failing, but ever renewing to all eternity; so with Him also is torrens deliciarum, "a main river of pleasures," even pleasures for evermore; never ebbing, but ever flowing to all contentment, against the miseries belonging to death’s dominion. And there He liveth thus: not now, as the Son of God, as He lived before all worlds, but as the Son of man, in the right of our nature; to estate us in this life in the hope of a reversion, and in the life to come in perfect and full possession of His own and His Father’s bliss and happiness; when we shall also live to God, and God be all in all, which is the highest pitch of all our hope. We see then His dying and rising, and the grounds of both, and thus have we the total of our scientes.

Now followeth our account. An account is either of what is coming to us, and that we like well, or what is going from us, and that is not so pleasing. Coming to us I call matter of benefit, going from us matter of duty; where I doubt many an expectation will be deceived, making account to hear from the Resurrection matter of benefit only to come in, where the Apostle calleth us to account for matter of duty which is to go from us.

An account there is growing to us by Christ’s rising, of matter of benefit and comfort; such an one there is, and we have touched it before. The hope of gaining a better life, which groweth from Christ’s rising, is our comfort against the fear of losing this. Thus do we comfort ourselves against our deaths:* "Now blessed be God that hath regenerated us to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Thus do we comfort ourselves against our friends’ death:* "Comfort yourselves one another," saith the Apostle, "with these words." What words be they? Even those of our Saviour in the Gospel, Resurget frater tuus,* "Thy brother" or thy father, or thy friend, "shall rise again." And not only against death, but even against all the miseries of this life. It was Job’s comfort on the dunghill: well yet,* videbo Deum in carne meâ; "I shall see God in my flesh." And not in our miseries alone, but when we do well, and no man respecteth us for it. It is the Apostle’s conclusion of the chapter of the Resurrection: Be of good cheer yet, labor vester non erit inanis in Domino,* your "labour is not in vain in the Lord," you shall have your reward at the resurrection of the just. All these ways comfort cometh unto us by it.

But this of ours is another manner of account, of duty to go from us, and to be answered by us. And such an one there is too, and we must reckon of it. I add that this here is our first account, you see it here called for in the Epistle to the Romans; the other cometh after, in the Epistle to the Corinthians.

In very deed, this of ours is the key to the other, and we shall never find sound comfort of that, unless we do first well pass this account here. It is I say, first, because it is present, and concerneth our souls, even here in this life. The other is future, and toucheth but our bodies, and that in the life to come. It is an error certainly, which runneth in men’s heads when they hear of the Resurrection, to conceive of it as of a matter merely future, and not to take place till the latter day. Not only "Christ is risen," but if all be as it should be, "We are already risen with Him,"* saith the Apostle, in the Epistle this day, the very first words of it; and even here now, saith St. John, is there a "first resurrection,"* and happy is he that "hath his part in it." A like error it is to conceit the Resurrection as a thing merely corporal, and no ways to be incident into the spirit or soul at all. The Apostle hath already given us an item to the contrary, in the end of the fourth chapter before, where he saith:* "He rose again for our justification," and justification is a matter spiritual;* Justificatus est Spiritu, saith the Apostle, of Christ Himself. Verily, here must the spirit rise to grace, or else neither the body nor it shall there rise to glory. This then is our first account, that account of ours, which presently is to be passed, and out of hand; this is it which first we must take order for.

The sum or charge of which account is set down in these words, similiter et vos; that we be like Christ, carry His image Who is heavenly, as we have carried the image of the earthly, "be conformed to His likeness;" that what Christ hath wrought for us, the like be wrought in us; what wrought for us by His flesh, the like wrought in us by His Spirit. It is a maxim or main ground in all the Fathers, that such an account must be: the former, what Christ hath wrought for us, Deus reputat nobis, ‘God accounteth to us;’ for the latter, what Christ hath wrought in us, reputate vos, we must account to God. And that is, similiter et vos, that we fashion ourselves like Him.

Like Him in as many points as we may, but namely and expressly, in these two here set down: 1. "In dying to sin," 2. "In living unto God." In these two first; then secondly, in doing both these, ἐφάπαξ, but "once for all."

Like Him in these two: 1. In His dying. For He died not only to offer "a sacrifice" for us,* saith St. Paul, but also to leave "an example" to us, saith St. Peter.* That example are we to be like. 2. In His rising: for He arose not only that we might be "regenerated to a lively hope,"* saith St. Peter, but also that we might be "grafted into the similitude of His resurrection," saith St. Paul, a little before, in the fifth verse of this very chapter. That similitude are we to resemble. So have we the exemplary part of both these, whereunto we are to frame our similiter et vos.

"He died to sin:"—there is our pattern. Our first account must be, "count yourselves dead to sin." And that we do when there is neither action, nor affection, nor any sign of life in us toward sin, no more than in a dead body; when, as men crucified, which is not only His death, but the kind of His death too, we neither move hand, nor stir foot toward it, both are nailed down fast. In a word, to "die to sin," with St. Paul here, is to "cease from sin,"* with St. Peter.

To "cease from sin" I say, understanding by sin, not from sin altogether—that is a higher perfection than this life will bear, but as the Apostle expoundeth himself in the very next words,* Ne regnet peccatum, that is, from the "dominion of sin" to cease. For till we be free from death itself, which in this life we are not, we shall not be free from sin altogether; only we may come thus far, ne regnet, that sin "reign not," wear not a crown, sit not in a throne, hold no parliaments within us, give us no laws; in a word, as in the fourth verse before, that we serve it not.* To die to the dominion of sin,—that by the grace of God we may, and that we must account for.

"He liveth to God." There is our similitude of His resurrection: our second account must be, count yourselves "living unto God." Now how that is, he hath already told us in the fourth verse, even "to walk in newness of life." To walk is to move; moving is a vital action, and argueth life. But it must not be any life, our old will not serve; it must be a new life, we must not return back to our former course, but pass over to another new conversation. And in a word as before, to live to God with St. Paul here, is to live secundum Deum,* "according to God in the Spirit," with St. Peter. And then live we according to Him, when His will is our law, His word our rule, His Son’s life our example, His Spirit rather than our own soul the guide of our actions. Thus shall we be grafted into the similitude of His resurrection.

Now this similitude of the Resurrection calleth to my mind another similitude of the Resurrection in this life too, which I find in Scripture mentioned; it fitteth us well, it will not be amiss to remember you of it by the way, it will make us the better willing to enter into this account.

At the time that Isaac should have been offered by his father,* Isaac was not slain: very near it he was, there was fire, and there was a knife, and he was appointed ready to be a sacrifice. Of which case of his, the Apostle in the mention of his father Abraham’s faith,—"Abraham," saith he,* "by faith," λογισάμενος, "made full account," if Isaac had been slain, "God was able to raise him from the dead." And even from the dead God raised him, and his father received him, ἐν παραβολῇ, "in a certain similitude," or after a sort. Mark that well: Raising Isaac from imminent danger of present death, is with the Apostle a kind of resurrection. And if it be so, and if the Holy Ghost warrant us to call that a kind of resurrection, how can we but on this day, the day of the Resurrection, call to mind, and withal render unto God our unfeigned thanks and praise, for our late resurrection ἐν παραβολῇ, for our kind of resurrection, He not long since vouchsafed us. Our case was Isaac’s case without doubt: there was fire, and instead of a knife, there was powder enough, and we were designed all of us, and even ready, to be sacrificed, even Abraham, Isaac, and all. Certainly if Isaac’s were, ours was a kind of resurrection, and we so to acknowledge it. We were as near as he; we were not only within the dominion, but within the verge, nay even within the very gates of death. From thence hath God raised us, and given us this year this similitude of the Resurrection, that we might this day of the resurrection of His Son, present Him with this, in the text, of "rising to a new course of life."

And now to return to our fashioning ourselves like to Him, in these: As there is a death natural, and a death civil, so is there a death moral, both in philosophy and in divinity; and if a death, then consequently a resurrection too. Every great and notable change of our course of life, whereby we are not now any longer the same men that before we were, be it from worse to better, or from better to worse, is a moral death; a moral death to that we change from, and a moral resurrection to that we change to. If we change to the better, that is sin’s death; if we alter to the worse, that is sin’s resurrection. When we commit sin, we die, we are dead in sin; when we repent, we revive again; when we repent ourselves of our repenting and relapse back, then sin riseth again from the dead: and so toties quoties. And even upon these two, as two hinges, turneth our whole life. All our life is spent in one of them.

Now then that we be not all our life long thus off and on, fast or loose, in dock out nettle, and in nettle out dock, it will behove us once more yet to look back upon our similiter et vos, even upon the word ἐφάπαξ, semel, "once." That is, that we not only "die to sin," and "live to God," but die and live as He did, that is, "once for all;" which is an utter abandoning "once" of sin’s dominion, and a continual, constant, persisting in a good course "once" begun. Sin’s dominion, it languisheth sometimes in us, and falleth haply into a swoon, but it dieth not quite "once for all." Grace lifteth up the eye, and looketh up a little, and giveth some sign of life, but never perfectly receiveth. O that once we might come to this! no more deaths, no more resurrections, but one! that we might once make an end of our daily continual recidivations to which we are so subject, and once get past these pangs and qualms of godliness, this righteousness like the morning cloud, which is all we perform; that we might grow habituate in grace, radicati et fundati, "rooted and founded in it;" ἐῤῥιζωμένοι, "steady,"* and ἑδραῖοι, "never to be removed;"* that so we might enter into, and pass a good account of this our similiter et vos!

And thus are we come to the foot of our account, which is our onus, or ‘charge.’ Now we must think of our discharge, to go about it; which maketh the last words no less necessary for us to consider, than all the rest. For what? is it in us, or can we, by our own power and virtue, make up this account? We cannot, saith the Apostle;* nay we cannot, saith he, λογίσασθαι, "make account of any thing," no not so much as of a good thought toward it, as of ourselves. If any think otherwise, let him but prove his own strength a little, what he can do, he shall be so confounded in it, as he shall change his mind, saith St. Augustine, and see plainly, the Apostle had reason to shut up all with in Christo Jesu Domino nostro: otherwise our account will stick in our hands. Verily, to raise a soul from the death of sin, is harder, far harder, than to raise a dead body out of the dust of death. St. Augustine hath long since defined it, that Mary Magdalene’s resurrection in soul, from her long lying dead in sin, was a greater miracle than her brother Lazarus’ resurrection, that had lain four days in his grave. If Lazarus lay dead before us, we would never assay to raise him ourselves; we know we cannot do it. If we cannot raise Lazarus that is the easier of the twain, we shall never Mary Magdalene which is the harder by far, out of Him, or without Him, That raised them both.

But as out of Christ, or without Christ, we can do nothing toward this account; not accomplish or bring to perfection, but not do—not any great or notable sum of it, but nothing at all; as saith St. Augustine,* upon sine Me nihil potestis facere.* So, in Him and with Him enabling us to it, we can think good thoughts, speak good words, and do good works, and die to sin,* and live to God, and all. Omnia possum, saith the Apostle. And enable us He will, and can, as not only having passed the resurrection, but being the Resurrection itself; not only had the effect of it in Himself, but being the cause of it to us. So He saith Himself:* "I am the Resurrection and the Life;" the Resurrection to them that are dead in sin, to raise them from it; and the Life to them that live unto God, to preserve them in it.

Where, besides the two former, 1. the article of the Resurrection, which we are to know; 2. and the example of the Resurrection, which we are to be like; we come to the notice of a third thing, even a virtue or power flowing from Christ’s resurrection, whereby we are made able to express our similiter et vos, and to pass this our account of "dying to sin," and "living to God." It is in plain words called by the Apostle himself,* virtus resurrectionis "the virtue of Christ’s resurrection," issuing from it to us; and he prayeth that as he had a faith of the former, so he may have a feeling of this; and as of them he had a contemplative, so he may of this have an experimental knowledge. This enabling virtue proceedeth from Christ’s resurrection. For never let us think, if in the days of His flesh there "went virtue out" from even the very edge of His garment to do great cures,* as in the case of the woman with the bloody issue we read, but that from His Ownself, and from those two most principal and powerful actions of His Ownself, His 1. death and 2. resurrection, there issueth a divine power; from His death a power working on the old man or flesh to mortify it; from His resurrection a power working on the new man, the spirit, to quicken it. A power able to roll back any stone of an evil custom, lie it never so heavy on us; a power able to dry up any issue, though it have run upon us twelve years long.

And this power is nothing else but that divine quality of grace, which we receive from Him. Receive it from Him we do certainly: only let us pray, and endeavour ourselves, that we "receive it not in vain,"* the Holy Ghost by ways to flesh and blood unknown inspiring it as a breath, distilling it as a dew, deriving it as a secret influence into the soul. For if philosophy grant an invisible operation in us to the celestial bodies, much better may we yield it to His eternal Spirit, whereby such a virtue or breath may proceed from it, and be received of us.

Which breath, or spirit, is drawn in by prayer, and such other exercises of devotion on our parts; and, on God’s part, breathed in, by, and with, the word, well therefore termed by the Apostle,* "the word of grace." And I may safely say it with good warrant, from those words especially and chiefly; which, as He Himself saith of them,* are "spirit and life," even those words, which joined to the element make the blessed Sacrament.

There was good proof made of it this day. All the way did He preach to them, even till they came to Emmaus, and their hearts were hot within them, which was a good sign; but their eyes were not opened but "at the breaking of bread,"* and then they were. That is the best and surest sense we know, and therefore most to be accounted of. There we taste, and there we see;* "taste and see how gracious the Lord is."* There we are made to "drink of the Spirit,"* there our "hearts are strengthened and stablished with grace."* There is the Blood which shall "purge our consciences from dead works," whereby we may "die to sin." There the Bread of God, which shall endue our souls with much strength; yea, multiply strength in them, to live unto God; yea,* to live to Him continually; for he that "eateth His flesh and drinketh His blood,* dwelleth in Christ, and Christ in him;" not inneth, or sojourneth for a time, but dwelleth continually. And, never can we more truly, or properly say, in Christo Jesu Domino nostro, as when we come new from that holy action, for then He is in us, and we in Him, indeed. And so we to make full account of this service, as a special means to further us to make up our Easter-day’s account, and to set off a good part of our charge. In Christ, dropping upon us the anointing of His grace. In Jesus, Who will be ready as our Saviour to succour and support us with His auxilium speciale, ‘His special help.’ Without which assisting us, even grace itself is many times faint and feeble in us; and both these, because He is our Lord Who, having come to save that which was lost, will not suffer that to be lost which He hath saved. Thus using His own ordinance of Prayer, of the Word, and Sacrament, for our better enabling to discharge this day’s duty, we shall I trust yield up a good account, and celebrate a good feast of His resurrection. Which Almighty God grant, &c.

Andrewes, L. (1841). Ninety-Six Sermons (Vol. 2). Oxford: John Henry Parker. (Public Domain)

TEXT: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself.”—Job 42:5, 6.

SOMEONE has called the Book of Job “The Epic of the Inner Life.” It is most felicitous. We all know that there is an inner life; that within the barriers of our being, behind all activities and externalities, we ourselves live. We all know that there is transacted the real life. We all know that there we are solitary, that there every man is a hermit.

And while this, past all controversy, is true, in another sense this strange inner life is immensely populous. Passions, desires, temptations, lurid and demoniacal thoughts, angelic thoughts, prayers, adorations, mean selfishnesses, wrestle and plead, and it is into this chaos that faith brings the nature of God, and the life of the risen Christ, and the immense peace and power and joy of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. And we all know that when we have received eternal life we have written but the first chapter in the new history of the inner life. New conflicts, new victories, alas! new defeats, too.

The most commonplace Christian whom you know is transacting in the recesses of his being an epic.

And we know that this inner life is, finally, the source and spring of the outer life. It is, of course, possible to keep these dissimilar for years, but soon or late the inner life becomes determinative of the external life. It is with this life, therefore, that God most concerns Himself. It is the distinctive characteristic of the gospel dispensation. “Now is the ax laid to the root of the tree,” says the forerunner, John. “Make the tree good, and his fruit good,” is almost the opening word of Christ. It was always so, indeed. “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts.” “The Lord pondereth the heart.”

I can not, I think, do better than to take the last chapter of the Book of Job for my point of departure, verses 5 and 6:

“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” It is

THE CRISIS OF THE TROUBLED PATRIARCH

The thing itself is very simple. “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.” There was a testimony concerning God which had come to Job, and upon which he had based a true faith and a good life. Ordinarily, Christian experience has just that history. There is a record concerning Christ, His person and work. It is God’s testimony, and we receive it and set to our seal that God is true. We are saved. It is a very real faith, though a faith based wholly upon testimony, the hearing of the ear. That was the faith of Job down to the very last chapter.

Here was a godly man whose outward life was so blameless that God could challenge the malice of Satan himself to find a flaw in it. Nor was he but negatively good. He was a good man in the positive sense. His life counted on the right and helpful side of things.

Then began that strange dealing of God, that permitted chastening, which has been the mystery in so many other lives. How strange a thing that the best man of his time should be the most troubled; should be the man upon whom, as it seemed, the hand of God lay most heavily. And the fact, as you know, called out various interpretations. The opinion of Satan concerning this man’s goodness and usefulness was that he was a mere hireling. “Hast not thou made an hedge about him?” You have given him unusual prosperity, and in a certain sense you have bribed him. That was Satan’s opinion. That was a lie. And God permitted Satan to demonstrate the falsity of his theory of this man’s life. God said, in effect, “Take away the hedge”; and then you know what happened: his property went, his children went, and yet the integrity of the man remained. He did not curse God. And then Satan fell back upon another theory which was just as false as the other. He said: “Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” You have left the man his health. “Put forth now thine hand, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” And so that was permitted. His health went, grievous pains fell upon him. Bereft of property, bereft of family, bereft of health, and yet this man, with a faith which was founded upon a hearing about God, maintained his integrity.

And then came the theories of his friends. They agreed in the belief that there must be in his life some secret sin, although he had succeeded in covering it from human vision. They were very sure that the only explanation of the sorrows which were falling so heavily upon him was, that he was a hypocrite; was not as good as he seemed to be, and upon that belief they argued the question with him. But Job knew that also to be false, and he made good his contention that he was not a hypocrite.

A VISION OF GOD

And now we come to the real epic of his inner life. God Himself took up the matter. And if you follow the closing chapters of this wonderful Book of Job, you will find the whole mechanics, so to speak, of the deeper dealing of God with the inner life of a saint whom He is about to make saintly.

There was, first of all, the unveiling of His power, His majesty, His greatness.

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. * * * Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? * * * Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? * * * Hast thou commanded the morning since the days, and caused the dayspring to know his place? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? * * * Wilt thou also disannul my judgment?”

Ah, poor Job! Thou wert able to maintain thy cause against Satan and against man, but what wilt thou answer to God? What, indeed, can Job say before this personal manifestation of God Himself but that which he did say:

“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself.”

THE UTTER COLLAPSE OF SELF

Yes, fellow-man, thyself. Now the secret is out.

It was not at all something Job had done, it was what Job was. Job himself was wrong. He had never judged self before God. He had not the sentence of death in himself. The interpretative chapter of Job is the twenty-ninth. The personal pronoun occurs forty-eight times in twenty-five verses. He was a good man, but he was too much aware of it, and he was in deep darkness as to the real state of his soul, of his inner life before God. And nothing, not the depth of his affliction, nor the reproaches of his friends, nor his own self-communings ever brought him to see himself. But when he passed from a knowledge about God to a personal acquaintance with God there was nothing to be said but the despairing:

“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself.”

The revelation of God, bringing a real sense of personal unworthiness and demerit, is what I think essentially we have in this experience of Job. It is not in exercises of self about self; not in any efforts of Job to discover the mystery of his inner life, that he comes to real self-consciousness; but it was the vision of God Himself which, flooding his inner being, brought the humbling, hateful vision of self.

A NEW AND HIGHER SERVICE

And then the most astonishing thing of all happened. God took up the vindication and restoration of the man who abhorred himself!

The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.”

And then, as you know, God made of Job a priest through whom alone the three reproachful moralizers could approach His offended holiness.

“My servant Job shall pray for you, and him will I accept.”

You see, we have essentially four things here: First, the vision of God; secondly, the utter collapse of self; thirdly, a new and higher service; and lastly, a doubled fruitfulness.

“Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

Now I believe we have here an order which is invariable, and I am very sure that we have here an experience which is not exceptional.

Oh, beloved, we too have heard of Him by the hearing of the ear, but we need to come to deeper things, closer things, with God. We need to come to that personal and underived acquaintanceship with Him, so that we may say with the men of Samaria, “Now we believe not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ,” although the first effect of it will be this awful humbling, this utter collapse of self. But oh, how blessed a place is that valley of humbling. No one falls there who does not rise to newness of life and service. But remember, it costs the sentence of death in self; the thorough reconstruction of the inner life.

NOT AN ISOLATED EXPERIENCE

It will help us in interpreting this experience to see that it came, not to Job alone, but to every man greatly used of God. The circumstances differ but the essence is the same—God is realized, self-strength is turned into helplessness, new power and blessing are given. Joshua fell at the feet of the Man with the drawn sword (Josh. 5:13–15); Isaiah must cry, “Woe is me” (Isa. 6:5–8), only to be cleansed and recommissioned; Jeremiah must learn that he “cannot speak” before the Lord will touch his mouth (Jer. 1:6–10); Ezekiel, prostrated by the glory, must fall on his face in the collapse of self before the Spirit can fill him, and Jehovah can say, “I send thee” (Ezek. 1:28; 2:1–10); Daniel must say, “I saw … and my comeliness was turned in me into corruption” (Dan. 10:5–12). Even John the Beloved, before the vision of the glorified Christ, must fall “at his feet as one dead” before the “right hand” can be laid upon him, and he can hear the “fear not.”

I wish now to gather up briefly what all this means. And first of all,

TWO THINGS WHICH IT IS NOT

It is neither the entire eradication of the flesh, the death, the extinction of self, nor is it sinless perfection. Self is abhorred, distrusted, detested, set at naught. But so uniform are the characteristics of this experience, whatever the age or dispensation, that it is not difficult to state both the result accomplished and the steps by which it is wrought.

1. We have, then, in this supreme experience, the revelation of God Himself to the soul. It is not something about God; some new testimony concerning God, or some lesson of sorrow or trial. It is God’s own act, His self-revelation of something which testimony had never communicated to heart or conscience, so that there is a new and intense apprehension of himself.
2. The instances quoted from the Scriptures agree, too, in the effect of this unveiling of God. Before that vision of God self is abhorred. So absolute is this effect that, as we have seen, it is constantly spoken of as the utter deprivation of strength. The self-life is not slain, but it is so seen in that glory as never again to be trusted, or in any way counted on in the things of God. As Paul said: “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the dead,” in the God of the resurrection, in the God of the new, undying life.
3. In agreement, too, are the biblical instances that this destruction of self-confidence is followed by the infilling with the strength of Him who was dead and is alive again. Not once is the man on his face before the awful, beautiful vision left prostrate. “I received strength,” is the unvarying testimony.
4. And then comes the new and higher service. This is the blessed consummation; this and the new fruitfulness.

Could I covet anything better for you than that you should see God face to face? Than that there should come to you this highest word in the epic of the inner life? May He grant it, for His name’s sake.

Scofield, C. I. (1915). The New Life in Christ Jesus (pp. 11–23). Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n. (Public Domain)

Come and Welcome, to Jesus Christ, Part 7

Objections That Usually Lie in the Way of Coming to Christ

Before I speak to the other head, I shall answer some objections that usually lie in the way of those that in truth are coming to Jesus Christ.

Objection 1.  Though I cannot deny but my mind runs after Christ, and that too as being moved thereto from a sight and consideration of my lost condition, for I see without him I perish; yet I fear my ends are not right in coming to him.

Quest.  Why, what is thine end in coming to Christ?

Answer.  My end is, that I might have life, and be saved by Jesus Christ.

This is the objection; well, let me tell thee, that to come to Christ for life, and to be saved, although at present thou hast no other end, is a lawful and good coming to Jesus Christ. This is evident, because Christ propoundeth life as the only argument to prevail with sinners to come to him, and so also blameth them because they come not to him for life.  “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). Besides, there are many other scriptures whereby he allureth sinners to come to him, in which he propoundeth nothing to them but their safety.  As, “whosoever believeth in him should not perish;” he that believeth is “passed from death unto life.”  “He that believeth-shall be saved.” “He that believeth on him is not condemned.”  And believing and coming are all one. So that you see, to come to Christ for life, is a lawful coming and good.  In that he believeth, that he alone hath made atonement for sin (Rom 2). And let me add over and above, that for a man to come to Christ for life, though he comes to him for nothing else but life, it is to give much honor to him.

1.  He honoureth the word of Christ, and consenteth to the truth of it; and that in these two general heads.  (1.)  He consenteth to the truth of all those sayings that testify that sin is most abominable in itself, dishonourable to God, and damnable to the soul of man; for thus saith the man that cometh to Jesus Christ (Jer 44:4; Rom 2:23; 6:23; 2 Thess 2:12).  (2.)  In that he believeth, as the word hath said, that there is in the world’s best things, righteousness and all, nothing but death and damnation; for so also says the man that comes to Jesus Christ for life (Rom 7:24, 25; 8:2, 3; 2 Cor 3:6–8).

2.  He honoureth Christ’s person, in that he believeth that there is life in him, and that he is able to save him from death, hell, the devil, and damnation; for unless a man believes this, he will not come to Christ for life (Heb 7:24, 25).

3.  He honoureth him, in that he believeth that he is authorized of the Father to give life to those that come to him for it (John 5:11, 12; 17:1–3).

4.  He honoureth the priesthood of Jesus Christ. (1.) In that he believeth that Christ hath more power to save from sin by the sacrifice that he hath offered for it, than hath all law, devils, death, or sin to condemn.  He that believes not this, will not come to Jesus Christ for life (Acts 13:38; Heb 2:14, 15; Rev 1:17, 18).  (2.)  In that he believeth that Christ, according to his office, will be most faithful and merciful in the discharge of his office. This must be included in the faith of him that comes for life to Jesus Christ (1 John 2:1–3; Heb 2:17, 18).

5.  Further, He that cometh to Jesus Christ for life, taketh part with him against sin, and against the ragged and imperfect righteousness of the world; yea, and against false Christs, and damnable errors, that set themselves against the worthiness of his merits and sufficiency.  This is evident, for that such a soul singleth Christ out from them all, as the only one that can save.

6.  Therefore as Noah, at God’s command, thou preparest this ark, for the saving of thyself, by which also thou condemnest the world, and art become heir of the righteousness which is by faith (Heb 11:7).  Wherefore, coming sinner, be content; he that cometh to Jesus Christ, believeth too that he is willing to show mercy to, and have compassion upon him, though unworthy, that comes to him for life.  And therefore thy soul lieth not only under a special invitation to come, but under a promise too of being accepted and forgiven (Matt 11:28).

All these particular parts and qualities of faith are in that soul that comes to Jesus Christ for life, as is evident to any indifferent judgment.  For, will he that believeth not the testimony of Christ concerning the baseness of sin, and the insufficiency of the righteousness of the world, come to Christ for life? No. He that believeth not this testimony of the word, comes not.  He that believeth that there is life anywhere else, comes not.  He that questions whether the Father hath given Christ power to forgive, comes not.  He that thinketh that there is more in sin, in the law, in death, and the devil, to destroy, than there is in Christ to save, comes not. He also that questions his faithful management of his priesthood for the salvation of sinners, comes not.

Thou, then, that art indeed the coming sinner, believest all this. True, perhaps thou dost not believe with that full assurance, nor hast thou leisure to take notice of thy faith as to these distinct acts of it; but yet all this faith is in him coming to Christ for life.  And the faith that thus worketh, is the faith of the best and purest kind; because this man comes alone as a sinner, and as seeing that life is, and is to be had only in Jesus Christ.

Before I conclude my answer to this objection, take into thy consideration these two things.

1st.  [Consider] that the cities of refuge were erected for those that were dead in law, and that yet would live by grace; even for those that were to fly thither for life from the avenger of blood that pursueth after them.  And it is worth your noting, that those that were upon their flight thither, are in a peculiar manner called the people of God:  “Cast ye up, cast ye up,” saith God; “prepare the way; take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people” (Isa 57:14).  This is meant of preparing the way to the city of refuge, that the slayers might escape thither; which flying slayers are here, by way of specialty, called the people of God; even those of them that escaped thither for life.

2dly. [Consider] that of Ahab, when Benhadad sent to him for life, saying, “Thus saith thy servant Benhadad, I pray thee let me live.”  Though Benhadad had sought the crown, kingdom, yea, and also the life of Ahab, yet how effectually doth Benhadad prevail with him! Is Benhadad yet alive?  saith Ahab; He is my brother; yea, go ye, bring him to me. So he made him ride in his chariot (1 Kings 20).

Coming sinner, what thinkest thou?  If Jesus Christ had as little goodness in him as Ahab, he might grant an humble Benhadad life; thou neither beggest of him his crown and dignity; life, eternal life, will serve thy turn.  How much more then shalt thou have it, since thou hast to deal with him who is goodness and mercy itself!  yea, since thou art also called upon, yea, greatly encouraged by a promise of life, to come unto him for life!  Read also these Scriptures, Numbers 35:11, 14, 15, Joshua 20:1–6, Hebrews 6:16–20.

Objection. 2.  When I say I only seek myself, I mean I do not find that I do design God’s glory in mine own salvation by Christ, and that makes me fear I do not come aright.

Answer.  Where doth Christ Jesus require such a qualification of those that are coming to him for life? Come thou for life, and trouble not thy head with such objections against thyself, and let God and Christ alone to glorify themselves in the salvation of such a worm as thou art.  The Father saith to the Son, “Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”  God propoundeth life to sinners, as the argument to prevail with them to come to him for life; and Christ says plainly, “I am come that they might have life” (John 10:10).  He hath no need of thy designs, though thou hast need of his. Eternal life, pardon of sin, and deliverance from wrath to come, Christ propounds to thee, and these be the things that thou hast need of; besides, God will be gracious and merciful to worthless, undeserving wretches; come then as such an one, and lay no stumbling blocks in the way to him, but come to him for life, and live (John 5:34; 10:10; 3:36; Matt 1:21; Prov 8:35, 36; 1 Thess 1:10; John 11:25, 26).

When the jailer said, “Sirs, What must I do to be saved?”  Paul did not so much as once ask him, What is your end in this question?  do you design the glory of God, in the salvation of your soul?  He had more wit; he knew that such questions as these would have been but fools’ babbles about, instead of a sufficient salve “Which Cambell seeing, though he could not salve, to so weighty a question as this.  Wherefore, since this poor wretch lacked salvation by Jesus Christ, I mean to be saved from hell and death, which he knew, now, was due to him for the sins that he had committed, Paul bids him, like a poor condemned sinner as he was, to proceed still in this his way of self-seeking, saying, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30–32).  I know that afterwards thou wilt desire to glorify Christ by walking in the way of his precepts; but at present thou wantest life; the avenger of blood is behind thee, and the devil like a roaring lion is behind thee; well, come now, and obtain life from these; and when thou hast obtained some comfortable persuasion that thou art made partaker of life by Christ, then, and not till then, thou wilt say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psa 103:1–4).

Objection. 3.  But I cannot believe that I come to Christ aright, because sometimes I am apt to question his very being and office to save.

Thus to do is horrible; but mayest thou not judge amiss in this matter?

How can I judge amiss, when I judge as I feel?  Poor soul!  Thou mayest judge amiss for all that.  Why, saith the sinner, I think that these questionings come from my heart. Let me answer. That which comes from thy heart, comes from thy will and affections, from thy understanding, judgment, and conscience, for these must acquiesce in thy questioning, if thy questioning be with thy heart.  And how sayest thou, for to name no more, dost thou with thy affection and conscience thus question?  Answer.  No, my conscience trembles when such thoughts come into my mind; and my affections are otherwise inclined.

Then I conclude, that these things are either suddenly injected by the devil, or else are the fruits of that body of sin and death that yet dwells within thee, or perhaps from both together.

If they come wholly from the devil, as they seem, because thy conscience and affections are against them, or if they come from that body of death that is in thee, and be not thou curious in inquiring from whether of them they come, the safest way is to lay enough at thy own door; nothing of this should hinder thy coming, nor make thee conclude thou comest not aright.  And before I leave thee, let me a little query with thee about this matter.

1.  Dost thou like these wicked blasphemies?  Answer.  No, no, their presence and working kills me.

2.  Dost thou mourn for them, pray against them, and hate thyself because of them?  Answer.  Yes, yes; but that which afflicts me is, I do not prevail against them.

3.  Dost thou sincerely choose, mightest thou have thy choice, that thy heart might be affected and taken with the things that are best, most heavenly, and holy?  Answer.  With all my heart, and death the next hour, if it were God’s will, rather than thus to sin against him.

Well then, thy not liking of them, thy mourning for them, thy praying against them, and thy loathing thyself because of them, with thy sincere choosing of those thoughts for thy delectation that are heavenly and holy, clearly declares, that these things are not countenanced either with thy will, affections, understanding, judgment, or conscience; and so, that thy heart is not in them, but that rather they come immediately from the devil, or arise from the body of death that is in thy flesh, of which thou oughtest thus to say, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom 7:17).

I will give thee a pertinent instance.  In Deuteronomy 22, thou mayest read of a betrothed damsel, one betrothed to her beloved, one that had given him her heart and mouth, as thou hast given thyself to Christ; yet was she met with as she walked in the field, by one that forced her, because he was stronger than she.  Well, what judgment now doth God, the righteous judge, pass upon the damsel for this?  “The man only that lay with her,” saith God, “shall die.  But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death.  For, as when a man riseth against his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter; for he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her” (Deut 22:25–27).

Thou art this damsel. The man that forced thee with these blasphemous thoughts, is the devil; and he lighteth upon thee in a fit place, even in the field, as thou art wandering after Jesus Christ; but thou criest out, and by thy cry did show, that thou abhorrest such wicked lewdness.   Well, the Judge of all the earth will do right; he will not lay the sin at thy door, but at his that offered the violence.  And for thy comfort take this into consideration, that he came to heal them “that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts 10:38).

Objection.  4.  But, saith another, I am so heartless, so slow, and, as I think, so indifferent in my coming, that, to speak truth, I know not whether my kind of coming ought to be called a coming to Christ.

Answer.  You know that I told you at first, that coming to Christ is a moving of the heart and affections towards him.

But, saith the soul, my dullness and indifferency in all holy duties, demonstrate my heartlessness in coming; and to come, and not with the heart, signifies nothing at all.

1.  The moving of the heart after Christ is not to be discerned, at all times, by thy sensible affectionate performance of duties, but rather by those secret groanings and complaints which thy soul makes to God against that sloth that attends thee in duties.

2.  But grant it to be even as thou sayest it is, that thou comest so slowly, &c., yet, since Christ bids them come that come not at all, surely they may be accepted that come, though attended with those infirmities which thou at present groanest under.  He saith, “and him that cometh;” he saith not, If they come sensible; so fast; but, “and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”  He saith also in the ninth of Proverbs, “As for him that wanteth understanding,” that is, an heart (for oftentimes the understanding is taken for the heart), “come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.”

3.  Thou mayest be vehement in thy spirit in coming to Jesus Christ, and yet be plagued with sensible sloth; so was the church when she cried, “Draw me, we will run after thee;” and Paul, when he said, “When I would do good, evil is present with me” (Song 1–4; Rom 7; Gal 5:19).  The works, strugglings, and oppositions of the flesh, are more manifest than are the works of the Spirit in our hearts, and so are sooner felt than they.  What then?  Let us not be discouraged at the sight and feeling of our own infirmities, but run the faster to Jesus Christ for salvation.

4.  Get thy heart warmed with the sweet promise of Christ’s acceptance of the coming sinner, and that will make thee make more haste unto him.  Discouraging thoughts they are like unto cold weather, they benumb the senses, and make us go ungainly about our business; but the sweet and warm gleads of promise are like the comfortable beams of the sun, which liven and refresh.  You see how little the bee and fly do play in the air in winter; why, the cold hinders them from doing it; but when the wind and sun is warm, who so busy as they?

5.  But again, he that comes to Christ, flies for his life. Now, there is no man that flies for his life, that thinks he speeds fast enough on his journey; no, could he, he would willingly take a mile at a step.  O my sloth and heartlessness, sayest thou!  “Oh that I had wings like a dove!  for then would I fly away, and be at rest. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest” (Psa 55:6, 8).

Poor coming soul, thou art like the man that would ride full gallop, whose horse will hardly trot!  Now, the desire of his mind is not to be judged of by the slow pace of the dull jade he rides on, but by the hitching, and kicking, and spurring, as he sits on his back. Thy flesh is like this dull jade; it will not gallop after Christ; it will be backward, though thy soul and heaven lie at stake.  But be of good comfort, Christ judgeth not according to the fierceness of outward motion (Mark 10:17) but according to the sincerity of the heart and inward parts (John 1:47; Psa 51:6; Matt 26:41).

6.  Ziba, in appearance, came to David much faster than did Mephibosheth; but yet his heart was not so upright in him to David as was his. It is true, Mephibosheth had a check from David; for, said he, “Why wentest not thou with me, Mephibosheth?”  But when David came to remember that Mephibosheth was lame, for that was his plea—“thy servant is lame” (2 Sam 19), he was content, and concluded, he would have come after him faster than he did; and Mephibosheth appealed to David, who was in those days as an angel of God, to know all things that are done in the earth, if he did not believe that the reason of his backwardness lay in his lameness, and not in his mind.  Why, poor coming sinner, thou canst not come to Christ with that outward swiftness of a courier as many others do; but doth the reason of thy backwardness lie in thy mind and will, or in the sluggishness of the flesh? Canst thou say sincerely, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26:41).  Yea, canst thou appeal to the Lord Jesus, who knoweth perfectly the very inmost thought of thy heart, that this is true?  Then take this for thy comfort, he hath said, “I will assemble her that halteth—I will make her that halted a remnant,” (Micah 4:6), “and I will save her that halteth” (Zeph 3:19). What canst thou have more from the sweet lips of the Son of God?  But,

7.  I read of some that are to follow Christ in chains; I say, to come after him in chains. “Thus saith the Lord, The labor of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee: in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee: they shall make supplication unto thee, saying—Surely there is none else” to save (Isa 45:14).  Surely they that come after Christ in chains, come to him in great difficulty, because their steps, by the chains, are straitened. And what chains are so heavy as those that discourage thee? Thy chain, which is made up of guilt and filth, is heavy; it is a wretched bond about thy neck, by which thy strength doth fail (Lam 1:14; 3:18). But come, though thou comest in chains; it is glory to Christ that a sinner comes after him in chains. The chinking of thy chains, though troublesome to thee, are not, nor can be obstruction to thy salvation; it is Christ’s work and glory to save thee from thy chains, to enlarge thy steps, and set thee at liberty.  The blind man, though called, surely could not come apace to Jesus Christ, but Christ could stand still, and stay for him (Mark 10:49).  True, “He rideth upon the wings of the wind;”  but yet he is long-suffering, and his long-suffering is salvation to him that cometh to him (2 Peter 3:9).

8.  Hadst thou seen those that came to the Lord Jesus in the days of his flesh, how slowly, how hobblingly, they came to him, by reason of their infirmities; and also how friendly, and kindly, and graciously, he received them, and gave them the desire of their hearts, thou wouldest not, as thou dost, make such objections against thyself, in thy coming to Jesus Christ.

Objection.  5.  But, says another, I fear I come too late; I doubt I have staid too long; I am afraid the door is shut.

Answer. Thou canst never come too late to Jesus Christ, if thou dost come.  This is manifest by two instances.

1.  By the man that came to him at the eleventh hour.  This man was idle all the day long. He had a whole gospel day to come in, and he played it all away save only the last hour thereof.  But at last, at the eleventh hour, he came, and goes into the vineyard to work with the rest of the laborers, that had borne the burden and heat of the day. Well, but how was he received by the lord of the vineyard?  Why, when pay-day came, he had even as much as the rest; yea, had his money first.  True, the others murmured at him; but what did the Lord Jesus answer them?  “Is thine eye evil, because I am good?  I will give unto this last, even as unto thee” (Matt 20:14, 15).

2.  The other instance is, the thief upon the cross.  He came late also, even as at an hour before his death; yea, he stayed from Jesus Christ as long as he had liberty to be a thief, and longer too; for could he have deluded the judge, and by lying words have escaped his just condemnation, for ought I know, he had not come as yet to his Savior; but being convicted, and condemned to die, yea, fastened to the cross, that he might die like a rogue, as he was in his life; behold the Lord Jesus, when this wicked one, even now, desireth mercy at his hands, tells him, and that without the least reflection upon him, for his former misspent life, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).  Let no man turn this grace of God into wantonness.  My design is now to encourage the coming soul.

Objection.  But is not the door of mercy shut against some before they die?

Answer.  Yea; and God forbids that prayers should be made to him for them (Jer 6:16; Jude 22).

Question.  Then, why may not I doubt that I may be one of these?

Answer.  By no means, if thou art coming to Jesus Christ; because when God shuts the door upon men, he gives them no heart to come to Jesus Christ.  “None come but those to whom it is given of the Father.”  But thou comest, therefore it is given to thee of the Father.

Be sure, therefore, if the Father hath given thee an heart to come to Jesus Christ, the gate of mercy yet stands open to thee.  For it stands not with the wisdom of God to give strength to come to the birth, and yet to shut up the womb, (Isa 66:9); to give grace to come to Jesus Christ, and yet shut up the door of his mercy upon thee. “Incline your ear,” saith he, “and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Isa 55:3).

Objection.  But it is said, that some knocked when the door was shut.

Answer.  Yes; but the texts in which these knockers are mentioned, are to be referred unto the day of judgment, and not to the coming of the sinner to Christ in this life. See the texts, Matthew 15:11; Luke 13:24, 25.  These, therefore, concern thee nothing at all, that art coming to Jesus Christ, thou art coming NOW! “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).  Now God is upon the mercy-seat; now Christ Jesus sits by, continually pleading the victory of his blood for sinners; and now, even as long as this world lasts, this word of the text shall still be free, and fully fulfilled; “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

Sinner, the greater sinner thou art, the greater need of mercy thou hast, and the more will Christ be glorified thereby. Come then, come and try; come, taste and see how good the Lord is to an undeserving sinner!

Objection.  6.  But, says another, I am fallen since I began to come to Christ; therefore I fear I did not come aright, and so consequently that Christ will not receive me.

Answer.  Falls are dangerous, for they dishonor Christ, wound the conscience, and cause the enemies of God to speak reproachfully. But it is no good argument, I am fallen, therefore I was not coming aright to Jesus Christ.  If David, and Solomon, and Peter, had thus objected against themselves, they had added to their griefs; and yet, at least they had as much cause as thou.  A man whose steps are ordered by the Lord, and whose goings the Lord delights in, may yet be overtaken with a temptation that may cause him to fall (Psa 37:23, 24).  Did not Aaron fall; yea, and Moses himself?  What shall we say of Hezekiah and Jehosaphat?  There are, therefore, falls and falls; falls pardonable and falls unpardonable.  Falls unpardonable are falls against light, from the faith, to the despising of, and trampling upon Jesus Christ and his blessed undertakings (Heb 6:2–5; 10:28, 29).  Now, as for such, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. Indeed, they have no heart, no mind, no desire to come to Jesus Christ for life, therefore they must perish.  Nay, says the Holy Ghost, “It is impossible that they should be renewed again unto repentance.”  Therefore these God had no compassion for, neither ought we; but for other falls though they be dreadful, and God will chastise his people for them, they do not prove thee a graceless man, one not coming to Jesus Christ for life.

It is said of the child in the gospel, that while “he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him” (Luke 9:42).  Dejected sinner, it is no wonder that thou hast caught a fall in coming to Jesus Christ.  Is it not rather to be wondered at, that thou hast not caught before this a thousand times a thousand falls? considering, 1.  What fools we are by nature. 2.  What weaknesses are in us. 3.  What mighty powers the fallen angels, our implacable enemies, are. 4.  Considering also how often the coming man is benighted in his journey; and also what stumbling blocks do lie in his way.  5.  Also his familiars, that were so before, now watch for his halting, and seek by what means they may to cause him to fall by the hand of their strong ones.

What then?  Must we, because of these temptations, incline to fall? No. Must we not fear falls? Yes. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12).  Yet let him not utterly be cast down; “The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up those that are bowed down.”  Make not light of falls! Yet, hast thou fallen?  “Ye have,” said Samuel, “done all this wickedness; yet turn not aside from following the Lord,” but serve him with a perfect heart, and turn not aside, “for the Lord will not forsake his people,” and he counteth the coming sinner one of them, “because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people” (1 Sam 12:20–22).

Bunyan, J. (2006).  Come and Welcome, to Jesus Christ (Vol. 1, pp. 249–254).  Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.  (Public Domain)