A Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6).

In the last verse of the former chapter, the blessed apostle sets out the dignity of the gospel above the things of Moses and the things of the law. “We all,” he says, “with open face, as in a glass, behold the glory of God, and are changed into the same image, from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18). And on this ground, at the beginning of the next chapter, he sets out the excellency of the gospel ministry, since it is occupied with so excellent a mystery, and he shows his fidelity in it. “Therefore,” he says, “we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but, by manifestation of the truth, commend ourselves to the consciences of all men in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:1-2).

Here he shows his fidelity in the ministry, and his courage, for he does not faint; and likewise his sincerity, for he labors to approve himself to their consciences “in the sight of God.” Perhaps he did not have all their good words; but it is better to have the consciences of people give testimony of us than their words, their hearts than their mouths. Therefore the apostle took no notice of what they criticized, but knew he had gained some authority in their consciences; and therefore he labors to approve himself to them “in the sight of God,” which shows his sincerity. For this is the property of sincerity, to do everything as “in the sight of God”; to do good at all times, in all places, to all persons, in all actions. He who is sincere honors God in all.

Objection. Well, it might be objected, “Many care nothing for the ministry or the gospel; it is too obscure.” It is the common course of the popish Jesuits to fall to accusing Scripture of being dark.

Answer. But, he says, “If the gospel be hid, it is hid to them whom the god of this world hath blinded” (2 Cor 4:3-4). And for further answer to the objection, “If the gospel be hid from any, it is from them that perish.” And what is the cause? It lies in their own hardness of heart, joined with the malice of Satan. The god of the world has thrown dust in their eyes; otherwise the gospel is clear enough. The blessed apostle was so conscious of his own fair, open, free dealing that he dares to say freely, “If the gospel be hid, it is to them that perish.” In effect he says, “There is no unfaithfulness, no obscurity in me.” Satan has a hand in it: “the god of this world hath blinded their eyes.”

The god of this world. What! Does he put God out of his place? No; but the world makes him so, namely, a god, by doing to Satan, partly in himself and partly to his instruments, what they should do to God. They are at his beck, and run at his command; he leads them by worldly profits and pleasures, as a sheep is led by a green pasture. His influence acts. Wicked men are rightly styled “men of the world” (Ps 17:14); and Satan is truly called, by our apostle, “the god of the world,” for they make him so by yielding to him in his designs.

Satan has ruled in the church for many hundreds of years, yet more formerly than he does in these times; but he did it subtly. Great persons ruled through their friends, their friends were ruled by popish spirits; they by Jesuits, and the Jesuits by the man of sin, and he by Satan. So you see it all traced back to the first principle. Satan has a great hand in the government of the world. Doubtless the frogs that came out of the mouth of the beast (Rev 16:13) are Jesuits and irksome, devilish spirits. Satan lies hidden in a corner and is not seen; but he is the god of the world, because by this chain of subordinates he rules as he pleases.

Use. Here you see the malice of man, the justice of God, and the usurpation of Satan. Man is the delinquent, God the judge, Satan the executioner. Man has a hard and malicious heart against the light; he swells against it, and hates nothing so much as the light. Take a worldly man who has great abilities, offer him the word, contrary to his lusts and his advancement, and he will swell. Satan cavils against it. Indeed, men hate nothing so deadly as light, and this is the procuring cause of all mischief. When the truth is pressed upon you and you will have none of it, then God, as a just judge, says, “Take him, Satan; take him, Jesuit; take him, this or that profane person or vice.” And how can such persons escape the blackness of darkness forever?

And, beloved, can a man receive this glorious light of the Lord Jesus, when men are so dull and ignorant in the great point of religion? This comes not only because they hate the light and put off God’s just judgments, but also from Satan’s temptations, either immediately from himself or from his instruments.

And lest this should seem to be spoken somewhat too loftily, “the gospel is hid to them that perish,” therefore, he says, “we preach not ourselves, but Christ; and ourselves your servants for his sake” (2 Cor 4:5). He did not speak this arrogantly, for all his ministerial office. He does not aim at himself, but says, I serve Christ; and am your servant for his sake. He was not the servant of your lusts, for if he had been the servant of men he would not have been the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ; but he was the servant of their souls, one who would have laid his head at their feet to serve them, and would have been their servant indeed for their souls’ good.

Now, the words that I have read to you show the chief and principal cause of the glorious light of the gospel, and the means both to remove the cause of obscurity from the Scripture and from St. Paul’s ministry, and to show where it really is.

The principal cause of all light is God: “God, that hath commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts,” not only outwardly in his word, but in our hearts. And to that end he gave the word. So here is the chief cause of the chief end.

First, the chief cause of all saving light that we have in the ministry of the word is God, who shines in our hearts by the ministry of the gospel. And,

Secondly, the chief end is to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; not obscurely, like popish spirits, who impose darkness upon the Scriptures. Darkness does not come from the Scriptures; for their subject declares the image of God, not an accidental image but the real image of God the Father, who is light; and so those popish spirits oppose God, who is light in himself. But the end of the gospel is to give light, and “the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” If therefore the cause and the matter and the end are light, where is the cause of obscurity?

To come to the words:

First, you see the cause of light, of inward light in the heart. There is a double light: a light in the air and a light in the eye. So there is a light in the heart and a light in the truths themselves. Now, God is the cause of that inward light: “God hath shined in our hearts”; not only to us, but in our hearts, by his Holy Spirit.

Second, the end of this light is not to shine in our hearts to no purpose, but to shine in our hearts that we may shine to others; that we may prove the light we have, which shines to us in darkness, by conveying the knowledge of God to all. What knowledge? The knowledge of Christ, and saving knowledge “in the face of Christ.” And why does God enlighten the ministers so that they may convey light to others? That God’s glory may be manifested. All is for his glory. The glory of his goodness and justice and his sweet attributes are manifested in Christ, which I shall speak of when I come to them.

Here he sets out God shining in the hearts of his ministers and children, by comparing together the light shining in darkness and God’s commanding light to shine out of darkness in the creation. He rises from works of nature to works of grace, and from earthly things he leads the Corinthians to spiritual things, showing an exact proportion between the things of nature and the things of grace; and therefore so should we do in the matter of grace and glory.

This he does to help our understanding of heavenly things by mirrors of this kind.

Therefore look how he takes things of nature to this end, and mark what he says. He does not say, Almighty God has shined in our hearts; but he sets down that glorious attribute of God’s almightiness by a word more familiar to our understandings: “He that hath commanded light to shine out of darkness.” And from this he shows the almighty power, wisdom, and goodness, in that God has graciously shined in our hearts. It is a wonderful comfort to the soul to single out of God what is fittest, whether out of his attributes, his word, his works, or his creation.

But here we will speak first of that from which he raises his proportion, of God’s commanding light to shine out of darkness; and then, secondly, we will show the proportion between outward and spiritual light.

1. The proportion of God’s commanding light to shine out of darkness, and of light to shine in the soul. The starting point from which he fetches this is the creation: “God commanded light to shine out of darkness.” You know there was an original light, the firstborn light, as Basil calls it, the first light, which existed before the body of the sun and was afterward put into the body of the sun on the fourth day. He created the light first. God “commanded that light to shine out of darkness.”

Now, there is much ado, to no great purpose, about what that light was which was created out of darkness before the sun was made the receptacle of light. The time is short, and to spend it in unnecessary speculations is too curious a search, and it is too rash to determine what that light was and where it was taken from. Was it taken out of the confused mass, or out of the purest part of it, and so lifted up to shine in the world? Or did he create light out of darkness, taking darkness for the starting point and not for the matter, creating light out of darkness because there was nothing but darkness before? Or did God create this original light out of some body in the mass, or was it created out of darkness as out of a mass? But the Scripture does not determine it, and therefore we will not meddle with anything in these matters without the light of Scripture.

Certain it is that this light distinguished day and night, and afterward was carried to the body of the sun. And it was created by God’s commandment; for it is said, “He that commanded light out of darkness hath shined in our hearts.”

Now, it is said here that light is God’s creature. It is out of darkness, and it is by God’s command. It took only his word, “Let it be,” and it was: a word and a world. As it was spoken, it was made (Gen 1:3).

(1) The thing created was light.

(2) The manner how: by the word.

(3) Out of what? From darkness.

I will not speak of them separately, for that would be to little purpose, but all together: “God hath commanded light to shine out of darkness.”

This command shows that God did it quickly and easily. It was only a word, a command; and he did it without any influence at all, by a mere word.

It was done by God independently. There was no matter to make it of, or at least none better than nothing; for it was made of the mass, and the mass was made of nothing.

Reason 1. Now, if you ask why God created light in the first place, I answer, it was so that he might distinguish his six days’ works. If there had not been light to distinguish day and night, where would that distinction have been?

Reason 2. And then again, God would have lost the glory of his works if he had not created light. Light has a heavenly quality, the principal of all qualities, the most excellent part of all.

Reason 3. And God created it first, that it might reveal itself and all other things. It was the first visible thing, which made all others seen. What would the beauty of created things have been if light had not been created? They would all have been covered in darkness. What purpose would there have been for the eye and for colors?

Indeed, there is no quality that so much resembles God and divine things as light. The Scripture is exceedingly delighted in using this term light: God is the light of the world (John 1:4 and following). “Christ is the light of the world, that lighteth every one that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). The Holy Spirit is light, the angels are light, the saints are the children of light. So God takes from this source the terms by which he sets out the dignity and excellency of himself, his children, and his servants; and he shows you the reasons of that light “that enlightens every one that cometh into the world.”

Light shows and reveals all the excellency of things, and distinguishes one thing from another, and therefore Ambrose calls it the first grace of the world, that ornament of creation which sets out all other ornaments, and which distinguishes one from another.

Reason 4. Again, it is that quality which quickens and enlivens, and therefore the things that quicken and enliven are full of light; it is a lively quality that puts life and cheerfulness into things. Light is sweet (Eccl 11:7). And it has this further quality, that it is not alone, for it is a vehicle, a conveyer of all influence from heaven. What conveys the virtue of life into things on the earth is the light. Heat is only an accompaniment. Heat comes with light; and heat, together with light, fosters and cherishes all things in the world. As in nature, if there were no fire and heat, what could be good in nature? And if there were no heat and light, what would become of the world?

All progressions and motions come from this; and when light reveals good or ill, danger or profit, this or that, the creature then moves toward it or moves away from things hurtful, by the benefit of the light. To be in darkness is a most hideous and irksome condition. Darkness breeds nothing but fear and terror, which weakens the spirit, and does whatever is contrary to light. Light is the glory of creation; darkness is its reproach.

I might say a great deal in setting out the excellency of light, and all to good purpose, that we might see the excellency of its benefit.

O beloved, what would our lives be without it! We forget common benefits. How dark, disconsolate, fearful, terrible, and uncomfortable our lives would be if they were without this quickening and solacing quality of light! And therefore we ought to take notice even of St. Paul’s starting point. I am giving only a taste: “For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We see then that God by his authority commanded light to shine out of darkness. But what God? God the Father or God the Son? I answer, Elohim, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All things were first from the Father, but the Son was the Word, and it was the Word that gave this command (Heb 1:3). But the will of God is his word. The will of Christ is the word; for God created all things by the Son, who is the Wisdom of the Father. Therefore this word, “Let there be light,” came from that Word which is the cause of all things, as in John 1:3, “By him were all things made that were made.”

And the Spirit was an immediate cause; for the Spirit of God lay upon the waters. It lay upon the chaos. By it all things were made. It brooded as a hen upon the chickens, and as an eagle flutters over her young ones. The Holy Spirit cherished and fostered the original matter, on which all things were made. But they all agree in one.

You have the story in the first chapter of Genesis. Elohim did it, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I would willingly come to some observation that may make it useful to us. Before I come to the main thing, this is worth our observing.

Observation 1. God commanded light out of darkness, to show that God is the Almighty God, gracious and wise. We see that all things came from an almighty power. So too the use of everything, the connection and subordination of one thing to another, shows that all things came from a wise and gracious beginning. For we see that on the earth there are many beautiful things. The heavens, how glorious they are! And in the world how many excellent beauties! What would these be if there were no light? And what would light be if there were no eye? Now, where one thing has reference to another, and there is a connection of things, and a use of one thing to serve another, it shows that he who made all was a God, and a wise God. This principle cannot be stood upon too much, because the weight of Christianity lies upon it. The order and use and goodness of things, and the connection of things, show there is a good and a wise God. Take that for granted.

So you see what manner of worker God is in the creation: independent, one who can do all things at a word, with ease, without influence, without help. He does not depend on matter as we do, who can do nothing without matter and a subject to work upon; but he can work his own matter, and can raise things out of nothing.

Use. And it is very much to be observed, as a help in the dealings of our lives, that we should have such a conception of God that we do not limit God in our thoughts, tying him, when we are in any extremity, to this thing or to that thing. He can make matter out of nothing. Why should we limit the unlimited God, and so hinder our own comfort?

Therefore we should infer from this that God commands light to shine out of darkness. Observe this when we are in dark conditions, and dark in sin, whatever sin and dark conditions we are in, as in Isaiah 45:7, I the Lord create light out of darkness, that is, out of a darksome condition. Now light is taken for a comfortable condition (Esth 8:16). When we are in any dark condition, do not limit God. He is an independent worker. Do not question how this may be and that may be. We must not bring God within the compass of our conceptions and reasons. God is not as man; and therefore, whatever our condition may be, let us never limit God.

God’s people should never be better; the times were never worse. Where we are bad, God is good. Times are bad, God is good. He can alter all. When there is no hope of escaping, no likely outcome, God can make it good. In the hardships, the exigencies of the soul, God takes occasion to show the glory of his power, as in Isaiah 4:5, where God, he says, created a pillar of fire, to go before the Israelites out of Egypt into Canaan. If we lack any comfort in any condition, being in covenant with such a God, if we are his children, he can create light, and can make a pillar of fire to go before his people to bring them to Canaan.

See what the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 1:3: “He is the God of all consolations”; not of this or that consolation, but the God of all consolations. So if we are in want he can work good out of the contrary, light out of darkness; he can draw matter of comfort out of discomfort; he can make every condition serve his own ends; he can make “all things work together for the good of his children” (Rom 8:28). The greater the power of this great God is, the greater is our comfort. We serve a God who can “command light to shine out of darkness,” and shall we despair in any condition whatever? He can give rest without sleep, and strength without food. He cannot be limited. Therefore let us not limit him.

Use 2. So again, for the state of the church, whatever condition it is in, consider the creation. “God commands light to shine out of darkness.” When the church is in darkness, God can command the light at once to shine out of darkness, as in Esther’s time (Esth 6:3 and following). What terrible darkness the church was in when Haman was commanded to destroy all the Jews! And what a terrible case the church was in, in Egypt and Babylon! It was in a most darksome condition; and yet God brought light out of darkness, as in Esther’s time.

And so in later times. A little before Luther’s time, was not the church brought low, so that darkness overspread the world? And cannot God raise up the blessed light of the truth? And also in later times, look only at last year, the year 1631, and see in what a dark condition the church was. But God begins to act for his church again. Who would have thought this the other year, when the enemy began to be so insolent? But God can fetch Cyrus from the east and from the north to help his people (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1). God can fetch a man from the north, from this place and that place, to help his church.

Therefore in no condition of the church despair; for we are in covenant with God, who can “command light out of darkness.” “He that is in darkness, and hath no light,” let him trust in the name of his God (Isa 50:10). We must cast anchor at midnight, and trust in the midst of darkness. We see that darkness is hideous, yet a little spark of light banishes it and overcomes it, as a little rotten wood that has a shining in it expels it in some measure. Now, beloved, is this darkness in the world, this lower darkness, driven away by a spark of light in some proportion? And shall we not think that the great Light, the Father of lights, God, when he shines on the soul, will quickly banish all darkness? It must be so.

Use 3. This may likewise help us for time to come. Great things are promised for time to come. We must help ourselves by this former work of creation. God who “commanded light to shine out of darkness” will restore the Jews, his ancient people, again. St. Paul calls it the resurrection from the dead (Rom 11:15). It shall be a raising from the dead, as it were. He who “commanded light to shine out of darkness” can do it, and will do it. He who made all things out of nothing can bring about that which is less, a resurrection.

And so with the fullness of the Gentiles: they are now in darkness and in the shadow of death. What pitiful darkness the East and West Indies are in, and many of the southern countries, that serve the devil, not God! Better times are coming. The converting of the Gentiles will come, and in due time we may expect that the “man of sin” shall be laid flat in the dust. Babylon shall fall (Rev 14:8). It has fallen exceedingly much, especially in the hearts of the people, which is the way to the last fall; but antichrist must fall altogether, and then the church will be glorious.

He who made all things out of nothing can make great things out of nothing. He who made glorious things of nothing can make glorious things nothing. It is the same power to annihilate as it is to create. God, who made all things out of nothing, can bring all things to nothing. God will consume, and blast, and blow upon that “man of sin.” Jehovah is mighty, and acts mightily. Therefore the vast world shall be consumed before long. Comfort yourselves therefore with these things from this truth, that God who made all things of nothing can turn those things that are into nothing again.

Would you know how? “Strong is the Lord that judgeth her” (Rev 18:8). He answers an objection: “Oh, but she flourishes, and has many princes, emperors, potentates, and strong arms of flesh to support her.” “But strong is the Lord that hath spoken it,” and he can do it. If God will consume her, who can support her? Thus we see what use to make of the foundation of St. Paul: he fetches it from God’s commanding light out of darkness.

It is a very sweet use to search the former works of God, to look back and consider what God has done in former times. You may see in Isaiah 27:3 and Psalm 74:16, “The day is thine, the night is thine.” You have made the distinction between day and night; you can deliver your church.

It is a singular grace to make use of common things, even of the works of creation; for in this a child of God differs from another. Another takes God’s common mercies, and sees the works of God, and goes on brutishly. A fool does not consider these things. Oh, but the intelligent Christian considers the great work of creation, of God’s commanding all things out of nothing, and he can make no merely common use of things. And that is the excellency of a Christian: to support his faith, he can make use of sacraments, and word, and creation.

Therefore, let us know that we are God’s children by gaining glory for God by our gracious spirits, by showing our skill by the Spirit to let nothing pass unobserved which may support our faith and encourage our souls, as the apostle fetches comfort from the work of creation. Let us make use of so great a God, who can do great things, and you can do great things with him. If a company would join in an army of prayers, it would be worth all the armies in the world; it would set the great God to work. He who can raise light out of darkness, what can he not do for his poor church, if they had a spirit of prayer to set him to work!

Let us pray with much confidence for the things we have promises for: for the conversion of the Jews, and the confusion of the “man of sin.” We have the word for it. God goes before it. The enemies begin to fall before the church. Follow God wherever he goes. There is something for faith to lay hold upon, and encouragement, that he is mighty; and whatever he can do, he will do for the good of the church; and you see how he can do it. He only commands, and it is done. God with his beck commands all. He can hiss for an enemy from the farthest part of the world, and have them come at once (Isa 5:26). His finger will do great things: what then will his arm do?

When our blessed Savior was in the days of his flesh, and said, “Avoid, Satan” (Matt 4:10), Satan had to be gone at once. He commanded away the devil at a word; he rebuked fevers, sicknesses, waves, tempests. He spoke only the word, and all was quiet and still; the devil and all, at his command. And is he not as strong in heaven as on earth? It takes only a word, without doubt, to deliver his church and restore days full of light again.

“What aileth thee, O thou Jordan, that thou gatherest thyself on heaps? The sea fell back at thy rebuke, O Lord” (Ps 114:5). He has all things at command. A whale is commanded to receive Jonah (Jonah 1:17); a fish was at his command to bring tribute (Matt 17:27); and so are all things in heaven and earth. Oh, what a God we serve, who, as he can bring out of darkness, so he can do it by his word!

Use 4. Therefore, labor from this for perfect resignation of our souls and bodies and conditions into the hands of this God, who can do all with his word, as those three men did in Daniel 3:17: God can deliver us if he will, but we will resign ourselves into his hands. What did they lose by that? And the poor man in the gospel: “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matt 8:2). Immediately, “I will, be thou clean.” If we can, in any disconsolate condition, say, “If you will, Lord, you can,” we shall, in God’s blessed time, have an answer: “I will; therefore you shall be in a better condition.” Leave it to him who knows better than we ourselves do what is for our good.

And therefore, I beseech you, make this use of it. Give yourselves up to God, and serve him exactly and perfectly. Will you have a rule and a ground for serving God exactly at every beck and command? Remember that you have such a God as commands light out of darkness, and shall we not serve him? Shall we be slack in obedience to him who can create comforts when we are in want? Who can bring us out of any condition, or at least can make any condition comfortable? He can enter into dungeons and prisons, and make prisons paradises. He can by his Spirit do immediately what the creature does; for what command is in the creature that is not in him? And he can speak that comfort to the soul that the creature cannot.

And therefore, shall we not walk perfectly with him who is an independent worker, who can work above means and against means, who can do all he has done, and more than he has done, who can do all that he will do, and will do more than we can conceive he can? And shall we not resign ourselves to him, and walk perfectly with him? Shall we displease him to please men? Shall we leave his subjects and children for this and that fear? However uncomfortable our condition may be, he can make it comfortable, and he can make the greatest and most glorious condition in the world a hell. And therefore, let us make use of these things in all the extremities of the church.

The apostle labors, in the beginning of the chapter, to remove a charge cast upon the gospel, as if it were not true doctrine. But if it is so, it is so to those “in whom the god of this world hath blinded their eyes” (2 Cor 4:4).

Secondly, he labors to remove the charge of vainglory, as if his preaching did such great wonders. And he shows that the power of it all is from above, from God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness; and for this end, “to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The words have these two parts: the chief and principal cause of all heavenly light in us (ministerial light will not serve the turn), “God commanded light to shine …”

For the first, “God hath commanded light to shine out of darkness.” There is no less work to shine in that dark heart of man than to create the world, to create light out of darkness. It is so much harder than that (though not in regard to an omnipotent power, for to that nothing is hard, but in regard to the thing itself), because there is so much obscurity and rebellion in the heart. There is no help at all.

To add a little, so that we may be raised up to admire the excellency of the new creature: there is nothing at all of it in our nature. There is something in nature to join with duty; there is a seed of it in us. But for heavenly light, for the knowledge of God in Christ, there is nothing at all of it in nature. This must be no repairing and patching, but a whole creation.

And therefore there are more good lessons in the gospel than in the law, because the law has something in it that accords with us, for the law and the law in our hearts agree. But the gospel is altogether from outside us, both the truth itself and the special grace worked by the gospel. And therefore the proud and vain hearts of men invent this and that notion of Christ and his offices, because nature will not submit to the gospel, having nothing of it in itself; and therefore the gospel must raise opposition. It brings in self-denial as its first doctrine, so contrary to the will, which turns a man out of himself. Therefore God, who created light out of darkness, must shine in our hearts.

And yet let me add this: we should not despair, for it is God who shines. Come under the means by which God is pleased to be effectual, attend at the posts of wisdom, and God will stir the waters in his good time (John 5:3), and will convey an almighty power in the use of the ordinances. Let no one therefore despair, because it is in God’s power to shine in our hearts. And it is well for us that it is in the power of God to work grace, for now it is out of our own. And all depend immediately on God. Meet him, attend on him there, and he will meet us; depend on him, and undoubtedly he will work grace sooner or later. This is God’s way, and you shall find God in it.

Secondly, there is the end of this light that God commands to shine in our hearts, not in our brains. God’s illumination goes through the whole soul, and alters the will and affection. Those who are not altered in the course of their hearts and souls, as well as in their understandings, are said in Scripture to know nothing at all. Whoever does not know Christ so as to put off the old man and put on the new, whoever does not have divine light passing through the understanding to the will, and through the whole man, knows nothing in religion but what may stand with damnation.

When the light presses on such a person in their ways, they are always reproving it, and therefore such people are never quiet. It is a vexing light, an unprofitable light, indeed a light by which damnation is increased, if it is not joined with sanctification and with illumination overspreading the whole soul.

And the end of it is to give the “light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

God’s children have light shining on them. No one has grace in themselves alone; and this is especially true of ministers, who besides personal graces have graces of office for others. And therefore “God shineth in their hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” He shines on them so that they may reflect their light on others, as the moon and stars have their light from the sun so that they may reflect it on the earth and on lower bodies.

1. The particulars are these: the knowledge of God is the end of all. Now God will be glorified, especially in his attributes of mercy and love, wisdom and justice, and holiness. All these are seen especially in the gospel, but most of all the sweet attributes of grace and mercy. The glory of God is his aim, and his glory shines in these attributes, and they shine in the face of Christ.

Now Christ must be made known, his face must be shown, and therefore there must be a light to make known the face of God in Jesus Christ. Religion is the way of God, with its end especially in these sweet attributes, and these must have a ministry. God has ability at his call to give the light of the knowledge of these excellencies in Christ.

Of the first we have spoken. There is one first cause of all things, and one last end, and that is God; all is for his glory. All things come from God, and all things must terminate and end in him. Now this glory is victorious, excellent, and manifested, and so manifested that it is grasped by others.

Now God’s glory is wisdom, mercy, holiness, goodness. They are excellent in God, and excellently victorious over their contraries; for he is so good that his goodness is above our evil. And it comes with a glorious revealing, and it is glorious that we do grasp it. For if we are Christians, our eyes are opened by the Spirit to grasp the glory that shines in the gospel. Therefore God sets down this excellency by way of glory. It is not ordinary grace, but glorious grace, glorious love, and glorious wisdom, to reconcile mercy and justice. It is glorious, and eminently victorious. And all Christians have eyes to see that it is no ordinary excellency, but glory in God.

When God will have it excellently set out by the word, he calls it “glory,” to satisfy an awakened conscience, which will not be satisfied except by glorious mercy and infinite mercy. We may be in health and strong to sin (as many, the Lord be merciful to them, use their wits and strength and cunning to offend, running on in a course of sin, and never think of these things). But Satan is a cunning rhetorician; he will amplify bitter things against us at the hour of death and in the time of temptation. And unless we have something that is above all his rhetoric, high mercies, victorious mercies, glorious mercies above all our sins and above Satan’s malice, the conscience will not be satisfied.

And let no one bring up their sins as an objection at such times, for God is glorified when his mercy is received and his goodness welcomed. “Where sin aboundeth, grace aboundeth much more” (Rom 5:20). Where sin abounds in the conscience that is guilty and groans under it, oh, grace abounds in such a person; grace is glorious grace to such a person. The greater your sin is, the greater is the glory of grace in pardoning it.

But how is this glorious mercy and goodness of God conveyed to us, since God is so pure and holy, and we so unholy?

Therefore in the next place, it is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God will not allow the glory of one of his attributes to devour and consume another, but he will have his justice fully satisfied. And therefore this glorious mercy is to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ, who was made a curse for us (Gal 3:13).

“In the face of Jesus Christ.” It is a figure of speech, and all one with what went before in this chapter, “Christ who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). He means the person of Christ, incarnate, and living, and dying, and being made a curse for us: Christ made man.

The face stands for the person described by that face; for the face is the best known part of a man. It is the mirror of the soul, in which we may see a man’s inside, his affections, love, hatred, and whatever is in the inward man. And so God reveals himself, and whatever is in him, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” We may see his hatred of sin, his love of the elect, and whatever is in God. Whatever we see in Christ is in God originally.

We will unfold the point in three particulars.

1. We will show that in the gospel we see the face of Christ, that is, more intimately than others did. It is an expression that belongs in some manner to the gospel.

2. We see the face of God in Christ.

3. This seeing of the face of God in Christ is a most comforting and excellent sight and knowledge.

First of all, in the gospel, we see the face of Christ. Moses, and all before Christ, saw Christ, but not the face of Christ. They did not see him as plainly, clearly, distinctly, and comfortingly as we do in the times of the gospel.

Now we see Christ incarnate, and Christ sacrificed for us; Christ dead, risen, ascended, and sitting at the right hand of God. They did not. And therefore St. Ambrose says well, “In the law he was a shadow, the image of God in the gospel, but in heaven he is the truth.” And there we shall see him most vividly of all.

Now there are five or six ways in which God manifests himself.

(1) One is more excellent than the others, that is, by speech, which is an excellent manifestation.

(2) And then by vision.

(3) And then by dreams, as in old times.

(4) And then by miracles, of which he worked many.

(5) And by sacrifices, as the Passover.

(6) And last of all, by types.

In all these ways God manifested himself before Christ. But, as Hebrews 1:2 says, God now speaks to us in his own Son, that is, more intimately, even by God in our nature; and therefore the manifestation by Christ is more excellent than all former manifestations.

Then his three offices were shadowed out by king, priest, and prophet. All the kings, priests, and prophets were shadows of this great prophet, priest, and king. And all the benefits of salvation were darkly shadowed: his election, by the singling of Abraham out of his father’s house (Gen 12:1), and of the Israelites out of the world; his calling, by the calling of Abraham and his people (Gen 17:5); his justification, by various sacrifices, which were types of Christ, by the Passover lamb (Exod 12:3 and following), by the brazen serpent (Num 21:9), by the propitiatory and the mercy seat (Exod 25:17).

The great work of redemption was shadowed out by their redemption out of Babylon and Egypt (Exod 12:31 and following); the great works of sanctification, by their washings and cleansings (Lev 14:8), which were the shadow of the inward purity of the soul; and glorification, the consummation of all blessings, by the land of Canaan (Josh 1:2 and following), and by the holy of holies, which was the type of heaven (Exod 26:33). So all the benefits we have of salvation were shadowed out then, but they are clear in the gospel; we see the face of Christ. In the gospel we hear Christ himself speaking. God in our nature reveals all these things to us.

Objection. But you will say, “We cannot see the face of Christ, for it is gone; we cannot see him now.”

Answer. No. But when we preach the gospel, receive the sacraments, and hear the word, we see Christ. We see Christ in the gospel; the word is the mirror of Christ, and so are the sacraments, in which you may see the face of Christ. Faith is a spiritual eye, and sees Christ.

But, you may say, Abraham saw Christ and was glad. True. But now faith sees Christ more clearly than ever before. Indeed, it is in some sort better for us to see Christ with the eye of faith in heaven than to see him on the earth walking up and down. Many reprobates saw him on earth, but now none can see him except with eyes of faith; none can speak to Christ but those who have learned his language.

And it is to our advantage that we do not see Christ now. He does more good in heaven than he could do on the earth. He is now at the right hand of God, and has all power in heaven and earth. The sun, if it were lower, would consume the world, but it is high, so that it may shine over more than half the world at once. So Christ, for the good of the church, has gone to heaven, and we have more good from him by the Spirit than if he were on earth.

Objection. But you will say, “We shall not see his face until we see him in heaven.”

Answer. True. Therefore notice, first, the diversity of the phrase in comparing it to former times.

We see his face in the gospel. But if we compare these times to the glorious times when he will come gloriously to judgment, we have seen him only in the mirror; then we shall see him face to face. So you see in what sense we see the face of Christ. What they expected and looked for, that we see.

Beloved, it is happiness for us to live in these times of the church. We see Christ clearly. All the happiness of the church depends on the Scripture and the knowledge of Christ; for he is the glory of the church and the happiness of the church. And those times that have most of Christ are the happiest times. Now, considering that we in the latter age of the world know Christ most, we are most happy. In what was the first temple more glorious than the second? The second temple did not have many things the other had. Yes, but Christ came into the second temple, and that made it glorious: “Blessed is the eye that seeth the things that you see, and the ears that hear what you hear” (Matt 13:16).

So it is our happiness that we live in a second spring of the gospel, and not when it was covered not only with Jewish ceremonies but with foolish superstitions of their own. But now we see Christ face to face. His excellency is unveiled. It is our happiness if we are the better for it, or else it will increase our damnation.

2. But it is not sufficient unless we see God in Christ, and the glory of God “in the face of Jesus Christ.” For the soul will not rest except in God. God is the last rest and support of the soul. As 1 Peter 1:21 says, Christ was raised again from the dead, “that your faith and hope might be in God.” God is the support, and rest, and subsistence of the soul; it cannot rest except in God. So we must see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, or else the soul will not be sufficiently supported. Therefore consider in what sense “the glory of God shineth in the face of Jesus Christ.” You must know first that Christ is the perfect image of his Father; his Father shines in him.

There are three or four things in the Scripture that set out this great mystery.

(1) Christ is called the character of the Father, the character of his subsistence (Heb 1:3). They differ in this, that they are not the same in personal subsistence. They are Father and Son, one in essence; in love to mankind all one; only in personal subsistence they differ: the Father is not the Son.

(2) Then he is the Wisdom of the Father.

(3) Then he is the Word, showing the likeness. The word is only the image of the soul. There is the inward word and the outward word; the inward is nothing but the expression of the soul, and when it is outwardly expressed, it is only the soul conveying itself outwardly. And therefore in the original tongue, as we have shown, one word means both reason and speech, because speech should be nothing but the issue of reason. And therefore Christ is called by that word.

It is not enough that the glory of God appears in the second person of the Trinity, that he is the character of God, and the image of God, and the Word; we must also see what he is to us, and how he reveals the word to us.

So he is the image of God in a double sense.

(1) As an invisible image of his invisible Father.

(2) Toward us, he shows us what the Father is; so he is the image of God in regard to God, and in regard to us.

We see by his revealing the wisdom of God in him, and so he is the hidden word, that is, the expression of the Father. But what is that to us, without expression to us? So he is made this to us. As a man knows what is hidden in another man’s mind by his words, so by Christ we know the hidden meaning and good will of the Father toward us, because Christ is the word in a double sense, as an expression of the Father’s image, and as his revealing to us the words of the Father.

So the glory of God, especially of God the Father, is now to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ, not only as Christ is the second person, God, but as Mediator, God-man. Now Christ is the image of God to us, the wisdom of God to us, and the character of the Father to us.

To come to it more particularly: In the glory of God to us, shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Everything in the Father is comforting to us as it shines in Christ. God as revealed in Scripture is not comforting to us except as he is revealed to us in Christ.

(1) As the sweet sovereignty of God over all in Christ. He is made King of kings, Lord of lords. So in the face of Christ we see God Lord over all, for our good, committing all to Jesus Christ: “All power is given me from my Father” (Matt 28:18).

(2) And all the graces that are in God. You may call them that, for indeed all the sweet excellencies in God are seen in Christ, such as the wisdom of God and the justice of God. All the sweet affections of God are seen in Christ. What are those that in a high sense may be attributed to God? They are his love and mercy. God is love, but he is so in Christ; he is “the Father of mercy,” but it is for Christ’s sake that he is so. His sweet love to mankind, see it in Christ.

(3) And then the relation he stands in. Take one, his being our Father. How is God our Father in a comforting sense? He is a Father to Christ; and what Christ is by nature, we are by adoption. “I go to my Father and your Father”; therefore to your Father, because my Father. “To your God and my God”; therefore to your God, because my God (John 20:17).

(4) Now, to go on further, take Christ in all his states and offices, take him in his whole dispensation of salvation, and you shall see something of the glory of the Father in all. The Father, by his Spirit, sanctified him in the womb, gave his only begotten Son to death for us, and made him a curse for us. “To us a Son is given” (Isa 9:6). The Father raised him up again. See the Father in his humiliation and exaltation; see him in all the sweet offices he has taken upon himself to accomplish our salvation. The Father has anointed him by the Spirit to be king, and priest, and prophet. Him the Father has sealed, setting his stamp on him to be our Savior. The Father has sent him; he has his warrant and commission from the Father. The Father has set him forth to be a propitiation (Rom 3:25). So all the authority he has in all his offices is from the Father.

(5) But more especially, we see the love of the Father in Christ crucified and made a curse for us. For there, as it were, the Father poured out his very heart. For how could the mercy and goodness of God appear more than by giving his own Son, equal with him, as it is set down at length in Philippians 2:6 and following? That God should give his Son, the greatest gift that could ever be thought of, a Son who could make ten thousand worlds out of nothing; that he should give him to us, and that the Son should take our nature into unity with his divine nature, so that he might suffer in it: how could the glory of mercy shine more than in giving him to be a curse for us, to satisfy his justice in that manner? It is a mystery that requires a long time, for in it shines the glorious mercy of God, but especially Christ’s love in giving himself, and the Father’s in giving him. So you see how the glory of God shines in Jesus Christ.

Question. But how does Christ reveal the Father to us?

Answer. (1) He reveals his Father to us in opening his Father’s meaning, as a prophet teaching us, coming to be a minister of the circumcision to teach in our nature, and to teach by his Spirit in his apostles and ministers to the end of the world. Therefore it is said that “the only begotten Son of God, that lieth in the bosom of the Father, hath revealed him to us” (John 1:18). Christ is the great expositor of the Father, the Word, for he lies in the bosom of his Father. This implies an intimate knowledge: because he lies in the bosom, he knows the secrets of God’s love to every particular believing soul. It likewise implies a high valuation of Christ, to show that the Father loves him and honors him.

Now “lying in the Father’s bosom,” that is, the Father being so intimate and familiar with his Son, there is a knowledge of union (different from our knowledge of faith) which the human nature has from the divine, by virtue of union. And he is fit to reveal it, because he is in the bosom of the Father, highly valued and prized by the Father.

(2) Again, Christ is revealed not only as lying in his bosom, as an expositor and prophet, but Christ reveals what his Father is by his whole life and conduct. For see Christ, and see the Father. See his meekness and humility in stooping low, his love, his fruitfulness, his goodness, as a man; for so he resembles God, as far as his human nature could, in every way showing forth the grace of God in his whole course, disposition, and conduct. He carries himself as the Son of God.

(3) But the main way by which Christ lays open God the Father to us was in his suffering. The Father was revealed in all that Christ did and suffered. For it was all done by the Father’s authority. Christ did not only speak by words showing what the Father was (as when a son resembles the disposition of his father, we say, “You may see his father in him”), but you may see the Father’s authority in everything. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). It pleased the Father to reconcile the world to himself.

So you see how the face of God is revealed in Christ, and how Christ reveals himself. John 1:18 is an excellent place: “No man hath seen the Father at any time, but the only begotten Son he hath revealed him”; and John 14:11: “Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” They both agree about the salvation of mankind. You see not only the love of the Son in our salvation, but the love of the Father in the Son. In Ephesians 1 and Galatians 1, these great mysteries are unfolded at length.

(4) But one other way, and the sweetest of all, by which Christ reveals his Father to us is by his Spirit, together with the means of salvation. For as it is excellently set down in Matthew 11:27, “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and him to whom the Son revealeth him,” that is, by the Spirit. No one knows the Father to be their Father except by the Son, who has begotten them by the Spirit. No one knows the Son except those who are begotten by the Spirit. We must have the Spirit both from the Father and the Son before we can have the Father and the Son. And therefore it is called communion of the Spirit, because the Spirit of the Father and Son reveals the Father to be our Father, and the Son to be our Savior.

So add this to all other revelations, and you have a full revelation of Christ, as the Father is laid open by Christ to every particular Christian. You see, then, that God the Father has shined in the face of Jesus Christ. God the Father lives in light that no soul can approach except only the Son. He has come out of his hidden light. Indeed, the Father has laid open the tender depths of his good will to mankind, and in his Son he reveals by his Spirit his particular good will to every particular Christian. So we may go to the Father with boldness in the name of Christ.

Three things beget boldness:

First, when the matter of disagreement is taken away.

Second, likeness of disposition.

Third, acquaintance and familiarity.

1. Now Christ, by his death and suffering, has taken away the disagreement, that is, our sins. He has borne our sins, and borne them away as the scapegoat did (Lev 16:8). When we believe in him, he takes our sins and carries them away: “Christ is then crucified to you, when you believe in Christ crucified.” So the sluice of mercy stands open, and mercy runs in full flood upon us.

2. There must be a likeness, because by Christ we have the Spirit to renew us, to make us savor the things of God, to love the things God loves, to hate the things God hates. Now, a sanctified soul delights in communion with God, while a carnal man hates it; the holier anything is, the more distasteful he finds it.

3. Again, from likeness of disposition comes familiarity and acquaintance with God, cherished by love, devotion, and piety; and all this we have in Christ. And therefore we go boldly, having God’s justice fully satisfied, and finding the Spirit renewing our natures, and we claim acquaintance with God, and pour out our souls to him as to a Father in Christ Jesus. Oh, the wonder of this privilege, that now in Christ we can call God Father, his Father and our Father; that we can pour out our complaints before him, as to a gracious Father, in all our necessities! The world is not worthy of this privilege that we enjoy, we who in all distresses and wants can go boldly to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and call him our Father.

Use 1. We should value these privileges more than we do, and put them to better use than we do. Are we in God or in Christ? Then glory in God (Rom 5:11), from which the apostle Paul makes a threefold glorying:

1. A glorying in affliction under the cross.

2. He glories in the hope of glory; and not only so, but

3. “We glory in God.” How is that? In this, that God the Father is ours. If Christ is in me, I have God with Christ: “God is with Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). “All things are yours; you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:21, 23). If we are Christ’s we have God, and all; and can we have more? “Show us the Father,” Philip says, “and it sufficeth us” (John 14:8); that is, show the Father to be our Father, bring us into acquaintance with him, and what more do we need? Let it be revealed to our souls that God is our Father, and that will suffice, or nothing will.

Use 2. So labor to rejoice in this prerogative; and when we think of God, let us not think of an absolute God, set apart from Christ. If ever we go to God in prayer, let us look up to him “in the face of Christ.” We must ascend to him as he descended to us. How is that? Does he not descend and convey all his favors in God incarnate, indeed, God in our flesh? He came down in our nature, and we must go back again to him in our nature, in Christ; and therefore it is not only fruitless, but dangerous presumption, to go directly to God without a mediator. In the Law nothing must be done without a priest, who must offer all our sacrifices, and so all that passes between God and us must be by the mediation of our high priest Jesus Christ.

And then let us present ourselves to God in his name: Lord, I offer your own Son to you, a Son of your own sending, sealed, appointed, elected, and predestined to be my Savior. You cannot refuse the righteousness of your own Son; you gave him to be my Savior. Therefore, taking Christ along with us, we may break through the very justice of God; for we may say: Lord, I bring one with me who has satisfied your justice; therefore I go through your justice to your mercy seat in Christ, in whom your mercy is glorified. I do not go with my own righteousness, but clothed with Christ.

Use 3. And will not this answer Satan’s temptations? Send your soul to God in Christ, the glory of God, and he will shine in Christ. Christ is ordained to be my Savior, and I cast myself into his arms, and put myself in the very heart of Christ.

So in all temptation, I beseech you, make use of this grand comfort, that the glory of God may shine in the face of Christ.

There are three of the sweetest sights that were ever thought of for poor Christians.

The first is God the Father’s sight of us in his Son Christ, as members of him whom he loves. Taken by ourselves, we are miserable.

Again, we see God “in the face of Christ,” and Christ sees us in his Father’s good pleasure, as given to him in charge by the Father: “Thine they were, thou gavest them me” (John 17:6). Christ sees us in God’s eternal purpose to save, for Christ saves none but those whom God gave. “All that thou gavest come to me, and thou castest them not away” (John 6:37). God’s choice and Christ’s salvation run parallel. So God’s choice saves none but such as Christ is anointed to save, and God sees us as those to be saved. As he gave us to Christ, and as Christ died for us, so we by spiritual faith see ourselves in Christ, as our Father does.

These sights so arm the soul against all discouragements that nothing can separate it, for God’s love to me is bound up in his love to Christ. God looks on me, but he looks on Christ first. Now God’s love is eternally founded on Christ, and therefore eternally founded on me as being one with Christ. It is excellently set down in Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?” for it is a love of God founded on Christ. God loves Christ, and so likewise he will love me. As Christ is his “Son in whom he is well pleased” (Matt 3:17), so he loves the whole mystical Christ, for he gave his Son for the body of Christ, the church. And therefore, whenever we hear of the love of Christ, let us go to the love of the Father. Has Christ loved me? Then see the Father’s love in that love. You may enlarge on these things in your own meditations, for they are wonderfully useful.

“The glory of God that shineth in the face of Jesus Christ.” Therefore, I beseech you, let us now value and esteem the great mystery of the incarnation and Christ crucified, because Christ is the common center of heaven and earth, in whom we all meet as in one center. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost meet in Christ the Mediator. The first person sees us in Christ, the second person took our nature into union with himself, and the Holy Ghost sanctifies it; so all meet together in Christ. He is the abridgment of all the elect in one, so that all three persons, as they appeared at his baptism, met together in him.

Let us chiefly labor to get into Christ, and then to grow up in Christ, in the knowledge of God the Father and the love of the Father, growing more and more acquainted with the secret will of the Father for our salvation. And therefore let us highly esteem all the blessed means sanctified to strengthen our faith, in the word and sacraments. In the sacrament see the Father. When the minister gives the bread and wine, think that God the Father gives his Son to every one of us in particular, and all to strengthen our faith; see God the Father together with God the Son. The Father was the person first offended, and therefore God the Father is reconciled by Christ. And it is the greater comfort that God the Father, the person offended, has the chief hand in the plan of salvation: he gave Christ’s body to be broken, and his blood to be shed for our sins (Rom 3:25).

I beseech you, therefore, to labor to be acquainted every day more and more with these mysteries. And do not take them as any encouragement to a sinful course, reasoning that because the glory of mercy shines in Jesus Christ, you may therefore turn grace into wantonness.

Mark this one thing. Among the other attributes that shine in God, there is especially his holiness and displeasure against sin, for God showed his displeasure against sin in turning his angels out of heaven. Heaven itself could not bear sin. Sin turned Adam out of paradise, and it is the chief procurer of God’s wrath; but all these are nothing to that hatred of sin that appeared in Christ. The purity of God appeared in him above all things in the world. It will appear more at the day of judgment, in sending the greatest part of the world to eternal destruction and torment, but even that is not so much as in making his Son a curse. In this we see the holiness of God, that, rather than let man’s sins go without satisfaction, he would set apart his own Son to satisfy for them. How great then is the holiness of Christ, who offered himself for sin! How great is the holiness of God, who gave his Son to take it away! Can anyone now believe in God as his Father first, and in Christ as his Savior, and live in sin?

We must look on sin as the Father did when he gave the Son, and on sin as the Son did when he gave himself. Therefore, if we do not look on sin as most opposite to holiness, and do not have an antipathy to it rooted in our hearts, how can we bear God’s image and the image of Christ, resembling him in all things? How can we think ourselves his members when we lack his Spirit? How can we say we are his, when he walks in light and we in darkness?

If that holiness is not rooted in us, so as to look on sin, in some measure, as God the Father and the Son do, we can as yet have no comfort; and therefore there is no reason to “turn the grace of God into wantonness” (Jude 4).

And then remember this one caveat more. Whatever I have spoken of the love of God the Father and of Christ the Son is nothing to us, unless every one of us labors in particular to have the Spirit of the Father and the Son revealing to us in particular this, that the Father is our Father, and the Son our Savior, for that is the outcome of our ministry. We must not rest in the ministerial disclosure of things. If we belong to God there is a work of the Spirit, and its chief work is to particularize, and to bring truths home to every man’s soul. And therefore Christ is nothing to us, unless the mind of God toward us in particular is revealed. The Spirit knows the “secrets of God,” and reveals to every particular person their particular share in God the Father and God the Son. This should be our desire and prayer every day, together with all knowledge, that God would give his Spirit to reveal to us his special love in Jesus Christ, and that Christ would by his Spirit reveal our share in him.

Ministerial light will not serve for comfort unless our spirits are sealed to be the sons of God. That is why the sacraments are given, to seal in particular a share in Jesus Christ. Therefore we should set our faith to work: God in particular died for me, as if for none but me, and God the Father gives me comfort in Christ. As I taste the outward element with outward sense, so with my inward taste of faith I taste of Christ. These are the things that will stand us in good stead against temptation. He is the Savior of the elect; but what of that? The Spirit of the Father and the Son must reveal the love of the Father to us in his Son.

These words contain the chief cause of all spiritual light, which is God, who by the same power by which he “commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts,” or rather by a greater power, because here there is more opposition, and no help at all from nature toward spiritual things, not so much as a seed of it.

“Hath shined into our hearts.” The end of spiritual knowledge in the ministry is especially “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

I propound these things.

First, that God is glorious in his mercy, wisdom, and other attributes, in his reconciling justice and mercy together. Second, that this glory of mercy is in Christ, and the satisfaction of his justice by him. Third, that the glory of God, and all his sweet attributes in the face of Christ, must be made known to others; and that this knowledge may be, there must be a calling. So God has shined into our hearts to give the light. The ministry is to give the light of the knowledge of God; knowledge leads us to Christ; Christ to God, in whom our faith comes to rest, as in its final object.

Several of these things we have unfolded.

As the first, that God’s mercy is a glorious mercy: therefore it is called the “glory of God in the face of Christ.” That his mercy, especially in Christ, is his triumphing attribute. The power of God shines in creation, the justice of God in damnation; but mercy triumphs in salvation by Christ. And it is not every mercy, but glorious mercy. Mercy sets all the others to work, and therefore I mean that excellent mercy that stirred up wisdom to devise a way by which justice might be satisfied, and so reconciled, that a way may be made for mercy. So there is a wonderful mystery in these things, which the very angels desire to behold. This glory “shineth in the face of Jesus Christ.”

“None knoweth the Father but the Son, none the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Father and the Son will reveal themselves by the Spirit” (Matt 11:27). If the Father reveals his Son by his Spirit, the Son reveals the Father by the Spirit. Then they are known, but not otherwise.

“The glory of God shineth in the face of Jesus Christ,” being incarnate, made God-man. I will proceed to bring this truth home, to make it more clear and comforting.

You see, then, the glory of God shine in Christ, and then it shines to us. So Christ is between God and us; the face of Christ is between God and our face.

What is the reason for this order? Because God and we are in such opposition that Christ must be between. God cannot love our nature except as it is pure, and clean, and undefiled; and it is so only in Christ. And therefore he loves our nature only in Christ, as being knit to Christ, and so purged by the Spirit of Christ. For there cannot be more opposite terms than God, “who is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), and sinners; therefore Christ comes between. That is, the middle person of the Trinity must be the middle person for reconciliation. He who is the Son is fit to make us sons. He who is the image of God is fit to restore us to God’s image. He who is beloved is fit to bring us into love with the Father, to give entrance and access to him. And therefore God shines first on the face of Christ before it comes to us. It comes to us at second hand, by reflection.

Then Christ is the first subject and seat of divine love, for he is the first begotten; and whatever God loves he loves in relation to his Son. If he loves us, it is in relation to him. If he loves any before they are in Christ, it is to give them to Christ. So all the love of God must be seated in the first subject and receptacle of his love, which is Christ. First God shines on Christ, and then on all those who are one with Christ. Therefore Christ is called “The beloved,” and the Son of God’s love, “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom” (Col 2:3); and therefore he is truly lovely.

Whatever good we have, it is in Christ. For the first degree of salvation, the first link of the chain, from election to glorification, all is in Christ, seated in free grace, of which Christ is the first-fruit. For so “God loved the world, that he gave his Son” (John 3:16). Christ himself, and all the benefits by him, are first-fruits of the free grace of God, which was a love of good will; but then there was a love of friendship, which is only in Christ; and the execution of all favors is in Christ. He calls, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies in Christ, because by our standing in Christ we have all benefits, even from election to glorification. The apostle runs in this stream: “Blessed be God, who hath blessed you with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:3). We are beloved in him, as the first love.

So in all things Christ is the first. He was the first Son of God, we sons in him. What he is by nature, we are by grace and adoption. He is first beloved, we beloved for his sake, as having communion and fellowship with him. He has justified us from our sins, and therefore we are justified in him. He is our surety. If he is not acquitted, we shall never be acquitted. He is risen, therefore we rise. He is the “first-fruits of those that sleep” (1 Cor 15:20). He is the “first-born of many brethren” (Rom 8:29), the “first begotten from the dead” (Col 1:18). He ascended, therefore we ascend. He sits in heavenly places, therefore we sit in heavenly places; for God has elected us to be conformed to him.

He is the first-fruits of God’s predestination, as Augustine observes. God first made choice of him as the head of all, and of us in him. We are elected to be conformed to him in grace and comfort, in the love of God here, and in glory and perfect happiness hereafter. He is our eldest brother. Now it is fitting, therefore, that he should have preeminence in all things. Christ in all things has preeminence, in love and grace, in every passage of glory, resurrection, ascension, sitting at the right hand of God; and in all things he has preeminence.

This is a very comforting and useful point in the great mystery of Christ and glorification, to know the foundation of God’s love to us. It is seated on Christ first, and then it comes to us; indeed, it comes through Christ, in Christ as a head, through Christ as mediator.

Use 1. Therefore let us make this use of it. Never think of God without Christ. And again, never think of any spiritual favor without thinking of it in Christ first. If we think of any promise, let us think of it as given to Christ first. For all promises are made over to him, and he makes them over to us. “All promises are in him yea and amen” (2 Cor 1:20). Promises come from love. Love is first in him, and therefore must come first from him; and therefore ask God to make them good for his sake.

If we think of the love of God, let us think of it in our flesh, in Christ first, as our head. If we think of freedom from sin, let us think of Christ our surety, who is first freed from it. If we think of resurrection and ascension, let us think of it in Christ our head. If we think of glory, let us think of it in Christ; we are glorious in our head. And we have it as a fruit of his prayer, that “we should be where he is” (John 17:24). Whenever we think of anything that is good, let us think of it first in Christ, that God may have his scope and end, which is that Christ the second person, who took our nature on him, may have his preeminence.

Use 2. And this should make us in our devotions bless God for being the Father of Jesus Christ, when we bless him for being our Father. O blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for if he had not been his Father, he would never have been our Father: “I go to my God and your God, my Father and your Father” (John 20:17). If he had not been his God and his Father, he would never have been our God and our Father. Therefore bless God for his love to Christ, and Christ for his love to us; for they both join in our salvation. As in Romans 8:39, “Nothing can separate from the love of God,” nor from the love of Christ. They are both together in the verse, because they are all one in Christ. See the love of the Father in Christ. See Christ’s own love in himself, together with his Father’s.

Therefore consider the sweet agreement of the Trinity toward the salvation of mankind: that we do not come to heaven, are not elect and saved, only by the counsel of the Father, or only by the love of the Son, or only by the operation of the Holy Ghost, but by all three joining together in our salvation. God looks on us “in the face of Jesus Christ.” God loves us, the Son loves us, the Holy Spirit seals the love of both to us. So then conclude that our salvation is strongly built. It is built on the love of the Father in Christ, and on the love of Christ, together with the Father, and on the assurance of the Holy Ghost, testifying both these to our souls.

God forever loves his Son, and God forever must love us, for he shines on us in the face of his Son. Now what is the love of God to his Son? Pure love, tender love, love from the very heart, an everlasting love, and a rich love. And is not his love to us the same? If he loves Christ, he loves the whole Christ; not only Christ personal, but mystical Christ, and all his members. He loves the whole body of Christ with a pure, tender, perfect, and everlasting love. And therefore, as God’s love can never be removed from his own Son who lies on his bosom, so God’s true love shall never be removed from any true Christian who lives in his Son.

It is a comfortless, foolish fancy to imagine any separation of that kind, because his love is founded not upon love to their persons, but on his Son. Now having an everlasting foundation, it must be an everlasting love; and this may comfort us in all conditions.

Use 3. To make another use, to direct our devotions aright, we must not go to an absolute God, for he is “a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), but must take Christ’s name along. We must take Christ along in all our prayers. It is an unworthy notion to think God will be pleased otherwise than in his Son. It is God who must satisfy God, and not we, who are stubble to go to the fire. It is presumption, and the end of it will be confusion. Therefore go to God in the sweet name of his Son Jesus Christ. Only so. We do not conceive worthily enough of God if we think he can have any communion with us unless his love is conceived in the person of Christ. Therefore if we want worthy thoughts of him, go to him, that is, to God made flesh in our nature, a Savior of his own appointing, a mediator of his own sending and sealing. And God will not refuse him, if you bring his Son before him. Therefore let it be our rule to offer up our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, our head.

Now our natures are lovely to God in Christ, because our flesh is in him pure, sanctified, and separate from all sin, so that he loves our natures. And the nature of God, once opposed to us, is now lovely to us, because God dwells in our nature, as the apostle says, bodily, that is, fully (Col 2:9). Now God in our nature is lovely. God out of our nature is not, because he is purity and holiness itself; but in our nature he is all love and mercy, for his justice is fully satisfied. God by his Spirit will never leave any particular Christian till he makes their nature in them like his own nature, which is divorced and separated wholly from sin, so that it may be a pure, glorious nature, fit for so glorious a head. Therefore go boldly to the throne of grace. There are good terms between God and us through Christ.

“We shall die, because we have seen God,” says Manoah (Judg 13:22). Now we shall live because we have seen God in Christ. Out of Christ we cannot see an angel and live; but seeing God in the face of Christ, a mediator not of our appointing, this is a sweet and comforting sight.

I beg you, let us make a comforting use of these things. God thinks of us in Christ. It was a good prayer of a holy martyr, “that God would shine on him in the face of Jesus Christ.” He was so conscious of guilt for his own sins and corruptions that he dared not look upon God, but desires God to look on his Son first, and then on him, in his Son. In Christ God can see us perfect, for Christ’s righteousness is our righteousness, and we have the same Spirit as Christ. Note that by the way.

As Christ, by taking our nature on him, testified by the Spirit that he was the Son of God in our nature, so, the same Spirit of Christ having knit us to Christ and sanctifying our nature, we become the sons of God and of Christ too. The same Spirit that sanctified the nature of Christ in the womb will sanctify every Christian. And as the grace of union was the cause of Christ’s anointing, so the grace of union with Christ is the ground of all communion with Christ. And therefore labor in the first place to be one with Christ by faith, the foundation of all the comfort that I have unfolded.

On our side, there is the union with Christ by faith, so that Christ and we are one; for if God looks on us in the face of his Son, then we must be one with his Son: bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, by his Spirit, as he is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, by our nature. He took our human nature that we might partake of his divine nature; and therefore labor for union, that we may have gracious communion with him. If we are one with Christ we are his friends, and he will be with us. “I and the Father will sup with him” (Rev 3:20). Rest specially in that. It was the substance of Christ’s prayer, “that we may be all one: I in them, and thou in me, and that thou mayest love them with the love thou lovest me” (John 17:22-23). So intimate was Christ’s love that he desires the same love to us, and in us, one with another. This is a blessed union of the Trinity in one, and of Christ with the Father, and of every Christian with Christ and the Father, one with another. This is the fruit of Christ’s offering himself a sacrifice to God, “that we may be one, as they are one: I in them, and thou in me.”

The reason for Christ’s prayer for that union is that all good is conveyed from the Father to us “in the face of Jesus Christ,” as we have our existence and being in Christ, and are one with Christ. And that makes the sacraments and all holy ordinances to be means to bring us into communion with Christ, and to seal it to us, and thereby our communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are ours, what can we lack? “Show us the Father and it will suffice,” says Philip (John 14:8). If we have God for our Father, we need no more. Therefore make much of the means by which our union and communion and fellowship with God in Christ is upheld and confirmed to us. To go on.

It is said here that there must be a “knowledge of this glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” And the ministry is the cause of that knowledge, for “God hath shined in our hearts to give the light...”

Doctrine. So we must know the face of God in Jesus Christ. Knowledge is the first thing in this new creation, as light was the first in the old creation. God by his word made light, and God by his word puts the Spirit of light in our hearts. All grace is conveyed by knowledge, grace being nothing but knowledge digested. And therefore the apostle makes it the “image of God” (Col 3:10), which in Ephesians he calls “holiness and righteousness” (Eph 4:24). But in Colossians he brings all under that one head, because all grace comes by knowledge, and all comfort is conveyed by knowledge. For even as together with light from heaven come influence and heat, so together with the divine light comes the divine influence and heat of the soul. Therefore the apostle joins together grace and knowledge: “Grow in grace, and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 3:18).

So you see the reason why the glory of God in Christ must be known. For it is an axiom in divinity that no spiritual blessing does a man good except by way of knowledge. And therefore out of the church there is no salvation, because, the church being like Goshen, there is no light of knowledge out of the church. Therefore it is a gross and fundamental error of those who would have men saved in any religion, for all salvation comes by knowledge, and that is only in the church.

Use 1. I beg you, therefore, labor for knowledge of God “in the face of Jesus Christ,” and to grow in it every day more and more. “Without knowledge the soul is not good” (Prov 19:2). The soul is dark, and therefore those who are enemies of knowledge are enemies to the salvation of God’s people. They are enemies of God’s glory, because God’s glory shines in the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But this is a clear truth.

Use 2. To make it more useful: every man thinks he knows Christ. But knowledge of God’s glory in Christ is another matter.

(1) It is a purifying knowledge, and it is a sanctifying knowledge.

(2) It is a knowledge that is both full and experiential. It is a knowledge with a taste. It is a knowledge that brings a man to salvation. Such a man relishes divine truths. Every divine truth has a sweetness and a savor in it, and our souls are to relish it. If there is no relish in the palate, the relish in the meat is to no purpose. And therefore God gives knowledge by way of taste. When things are to us as they are in themselves, then things have a sweet relish. God’s favor and sonship, and grace and peace, have a sweet relish in themselves. And as they are in themselves, so they are to every Christian. There is a harmony or suitableness to divine truths wrought in every Christian. If we have no relish of divine truths, undoubtedly we do not know them as we should.

Use 3. And it is a knowledge that applies these things to ourselves and claims our own share in them, when we know God to be our God, and Christ to be our Christ, heaven to be ours, and all the promises to be ours; for that is the nature of faith, to make its own whatever it lays hold on. What good do Christ and the glory of God in Christ do us, if we do not know Christ, and God in Christ, and make application so that God and Christ may be ours? Therefore the sacraments are ordained for the particular attaining of the knowledge of Christ, so that as we really have a share in what we receive, and turn it into ourselves, so by faith we have a share in Christ, and he is one with us, and we with him.

Use 4. And then this knowledge is a transforming knowledge, suited to the object. In nature, objects have an influence on the things that perceive them. If a man looks on a lovely object, it stirs up an affection of love; if on hateful objects, it stirs up an affection of hatred. But much more in divine things, for they have not only influences on the spirit, but a Spirit accompanying the influence to transform the soul. So by reason of the object and the Spirit, all divine truths have a transforming force.

Therefore he who knows God to be his God transforms himself to be his son. He who knows Christ as he should transforms himself to be like Christ, to labor for the gracious bountifulness, free obedience, and disposition of Christ. We cannot know Christ as we should, by a spiritual knowledge, without its transforming us into the likeness of the thing we know. The knowledge of the glory of God in Christ will make us glorious Christians. Apprehending glory we shall be glorious, as the apostle says: “Beholding the face of God in Christ, we are changed from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18), that is, from one degree of grace to another.

Wherein is our happiness? For what is the happiness of a Christian, but to be like Christ, and in Christ like God? The very heathen could say that likeness to God, and communion with God, is the foundation of all happiness. Therefore, this transforming happiness, by which we look to be saved, which makes us more like Christ, is what we must labor after. This may be sufficient to stir up our affections to labor to know God in Christ, it being that which is the most excellent knowledge.

The right knowledge of God in Christ is that which the very angels have a desire to look to (1 Pet 1:12). It is a knowledge we should desire more than angels do; for if we know God in Christ as we should, we are above angels. Did God take the nature of angels? Are they the mystical body of Christ? No. They are the acquaintance of Christ, but not the spouse of Christ. In both these respects we are above angels. And shall we not study that more than angels, we who have more interest in it than angels? Is not the knowledge of this glorious? And shall we not study to know that which raises our natures above the angels themselves? So we should do. And so we will do, if we have the Spirit of God, as Paul did: “I count all dung and dross” (Phil 3:7-8), not in comparison with Christ, but in comparison with the excellent knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

The right knowledge of God shining in the face of Christ, with a knowledge that claims its own share, of Christ to be my Savior, God my Father, myself to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of Christ, an heir of heaven, to know I am by grace what Christ is by nature: what is all the world to this, if we had hearts to consider it? And therefore labor to prize and value this knowledge every day more and more, and to beg the Spirit of revelation, that God would reveal himself to us in Christ more and more. Pray for the Spirit who knows the secrets of God and Christ, that we may know God to be our God, and Christ to be our Savior. And let it be the desire of our hearts that God would give us deep knowledge of him in particular: not only in general, but that he would reveal his fatherly love in Christ, and Christ’s sweet love to us.

Question. But how shall we come to this knowledge?

Answer. God shines not into the brain, but into the very heart of his ministers, that they may give the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Doctrine. So the end of God’s shining on his ministry is that they may shine on others.

So then, if you ask what is God’s sanctified means of coming to so excellent a knowledge of the face of God in Christ, it is specially to the ministry that you must come. God so shines in them that they may give the light of the knowledge they have to others.

And here I will unfold to you their excellency and ministerial authority, and the necessity of the calling, they being the light of the world, the sun of the world, of whom it is said, “As the Father sendeth me, so I send you” (John 20:21). But these things concern our calling more.

Only it concerns all to know this, that God has not set up an ordinance in his church in vain. As it is glorious to know “the glory of God in the face of Christ,” so if ever we will know it, we must come to the ministry, which God has set up as lights in his church; for they are appointed to give you “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” So the ordinance of God is joined with access to the ministers of God. If you regard God and Christ, regard the ministry, for the grace of God, and faith, and knowledge, and the ministry of faith are all linked together, and he who despises the ministers despises God, and grace, and heaven and all.

And therefore the word, as opened in the ministry, is called “the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19). No reconciliation without it. It is called “the word of life” (Phil 2:16); “the glorious gospel” (1 Tim 1:11); strong arm of God to salvation; “the power of God” (2 Cor 6:7); because God conveyed all these things by it. And those who despise it despise glorification, reconciliation, glory, and life, and all. It is the “word of the kingdom” (Matt 13:19), because we enter into the kingdom of grace here by his ordinance, and then into the kingdom of God. Therefore to despise God’s ordinance is to despise God; and the apostle says, “Seeing you account yourselves unworthy of the kingdom of heaven” (Acts 13:46). If they will not hear the gospel, it is as if they despised the kingdom of heaven.

Use. What I advise is that everyone labor for a right understanding of the ordinances of God. “Let a man esteem of us as the ministers of Christ” (1 Cor 4:1), neither more nor less, but just so; that is, not lords over our faith, but ministers who dispense the mystery of Christ.

I need not speak much of this, because God never worked good in anyone without their coming to have a due and right regard for the ministers and ordinances of God. And as for those who have base thoughts of it, it is a sign God never worked any good in them. And therefore I speak to those who have respect for the ordinances of God, that they may have more respect for it. Mark what the apostle says: God shines on the heart of the apostles to give light.

Objection. But it may be objected: God shines in the hearts of his ministers that they may shine on others. Can only good men convert?

Answer. I answer first that they have a great advantage above all others, because they have those affections and those desires to stir them up to pray to God heartily for their people. And then they have love for the people. It is love that begets grace, and so, having sanctified hearts, they do more good that way than others. But the effect of God’s ordinance is not tied to the dignity of any man’s person. Judas was a preacher, as bad as he was. Those who convert many shall shine in heaven (Dan 12:3), if they are good; if they are bad, they may convert others and never come there themselves. Therefore respect the ordinance of God for itself. But because a good expression of integrity and constant sufficiency in the teacher is a good help to attention and respect, we ought to be careful in the choice of these. For though God’s ordinances do not depend on the worthiness of the minister, yet there is much help this way.

Objection. But you will say: Can the ministry cause the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ? They are only men, and God shines in us that we may give knowledge of God.

Answer. I answer, man does it, whether they are good or otherwise, ministerially. God honors them so far as to give them his own title: Paul preached, God opens Lydia’s heart (Acts 16:14). There must be a concurring of God with the ministry: “Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase” (1 Cor 3:6). But if Paul plants and God does not give increase, all is to no purpose. “Be faithful in thy calling,” says Paul to Timothy, and so you shall save both yourself and your hearers (1 Tim 4:16). So God appoints calling, and gives gifts and callings for the good of his church. The sun shines on the moon and stars, to enlighten the world; and the light that ministers have is to shine upon others.

God teaches men by men, and it is most suitable and proportionable to our weakness. As it is a trial of our obedience to respect the word as it comes from one subject to the same infirmity as ourselves, so it is suitable to our weakness. We could not hear God, nor an angel; therefore God gives gifts to men for men. Beloved, it is a marvelous fruit of God’s love that he will establish such a calling, the end of which is to bring men to heaven. They are “sent of God” (Acts 13:26); they are the “salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13), and the world would rot without it; they are “the light” (Phil 2:15), and the world would be dark without it. If it were not for the gospel, what is England, which is now so glorious above other countries that sit in darkness? And therefore, seeing God conveys all good to us this way, let it be our prayer to God to send laborers into his vineyard, to set up light in dark places, and to teach his ministers, that they may teach us.

It is strange that Paul, so holy a man as he was, should desire the Romans to pray and strive with God in prayer for him (Rom 15:30). “I beseech you,” I conjure you, “by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of the Spirit, that you strive to God for me.”

Note. The devil sets himself against this ordinance of God especially, for it batters his kingdom, and is a means to draw men out of his darkness into the glorious light of the sons of God (Rom 8:21); as in the case of Paul, the Lord sent him to bring them from darkness to light (Acts 26:18). Therefore the devil stirs up “unreasonable men,” malicious men, who have hurtful and evil principles, to do hurt to those who seek their good, to repay good with ill. And therefore the apostle prays, “Lord let me be delivered from unreasonable men” (2 Thess 3:2), that is, absurd men, greedy, who are so far from faith that they do not have common reason.

Now considering that God conveys all good, specially saving knowledge, this way, ask God to preserve the ministers from unreasonable men; that God would let the gospel “run and be glorified” (2 Thess 3:1); and that the ministry may be glorious, that is, that the Spirit may accompany it to get a great deal of love and strength to bear afflictions. Where the ministry is rightly received it is a glorious thing. And therefore the apostle prays that the gospel may have a free passage, and be glorified by the Spirit accompanying it, in the hearts of the people. And those who will profit most by it must be so far from undermining it that they must ask God to assist the teacher, that he, being taught, may teach others. Thus far it concerns us all.

And this not only teaches the ministers to shine to others, but every Christian is a prophet. And those who have the light of God shining on them are to give the light to others. We are all anointed of God, and like good Christians we have all received the anointing of the Spirit, and in our sphere we ought to do all the good we can to everyone in his place. “You have all knowledge,” says the apostle, “that you may exhort and edify one another” (1 Thess 5:11). This must be done by the public ordinance, and by every particular Christian. And therefore every Christian may shine to others, and open to others the mystery of salvation, according to their calling, specially in their families. Our Savior says, “Admonish thy brother, and thou shalt save thy brother” (Matt 18:15). God makes common Christians saviors of others.

And therefore, as we believe the communion of saints in the creed, so we ought to labor for the grace of the communion of saints, that is, for ability and love, that we may be able to do good one to another. And no man is a Christian for himself alone. Every man has grace for the good of the body. There is no idle member of the church’s body. As soon as anyone is a Christian, he is a profitable member. Onesimus, as soon as he is converted, “he is profitable” (Phlm 11). By prayer, by advice, by comforting and counsel, he has ability to do something for the body of Christ. As he has good by the graces of the body, so by God’s grace he is able to do some good in the body: he is no dead member, but has some grace of communion.

And it is no vain glory, if it is not done for ostentation; if it is for Christ, not for his own advantage or ostentation. Breasts may be opened to give milk, which otherwise would be shut; gifts may be opened to do good. If they know anything that is good they ought to infuse it into those whom God has made near and dear to them, for grace is communicable.

The sun shines on the greater part of the world at once. The more communicable the better: the nearer to God and Christ.

And then we may think that we have all things, the benefit and comfort of any true gift, when we have spirits of love to share it with others. These, then, are two main graces of communion: humility and love. And when we can sweetly, humbly, and by the spirit of love share it with others, then we are masters of what we have; otherwise it is not given for our good. God will blast it if we do not share it. God will take away what the idle servant has, the servant who will not employ his talent. I would to God more conscience were made of this, that not only ministers but everyone would be first the cistern and then the conduit, first getting something in and then putting it out, when it is seasonable, and when we have a calling to do it.

How is it that a Christian has a calling to comfort others, to give timely reproofs, to give admonitions, to strengthen others, when no minister is by? He who is not able to do it in some measure, can he believe the communion of saints? Therefore labor for some spiritual ability, so that you may not be dead and idle members of the body, but may shine to others in giving an example to others in the way to heaven, that others may have cause to bless God, saying, “O blessed be God that I was ever acquainted with such a one! As David said of Abigail (1 Sam 25:32-33), so such a one gave me counsel, and it came from love, from a sweet spirit, and I shall have cause to remember it as long as I live.”

Consider that it is our calling. We are all prophets, all anointed. A Christian has a high calling; but especially consider what we believe by the “communion of saints,” and what we pray for when we say, “thy kingdom come,” that is, that faith may reign in our hearts and minds. Shall we say, “Let thy kingdom come,” when we are enemies of the ministry and of good communion? If we use this prayer in that way, we mock God. I desire God to make these things effectual.

The apostle in the former chapter, as we have heard, raises the soul up to the chief cause of all heavenly light in the soul, which is God, by his almighty power shining in our hearts, as he caused the light to shine at the first. By as much as that light is more excellent than the light of nature, by so much the greater power is put forth for the working of it, since it is so opposite to nature.

The end of this shining in the hearts of ministers especially is to “give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” God shines on ministers so that they may reflect that light on others. As John the Baptist says, they are friends of the bride, who learn from the bridegroom, Christ, what to do to help his spouse (John 3:29). They labor to know the meaning of Christ, what his good will is toward those who are his. They are friends on both sides, on Christ’s and on the spouse’s. They come between both, for the furthering of the blessed marriage between Christ and the soul.

I have spoken of the glory of God, which especially shines in his mercy and goodness. There is a greater luster of God’s attributes in the gospel than in the law.

Question. It may be asked, Are we not to preach the law as well as the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed in the gospel?

Answer. I grant that there must be special care of that, even now in the days of the gospel; for you know there are three degrees: the state of nature, the state under the law, and the state under grace. Before we can come from nature to grace, we must come under the law; we must know ourselves thoroughly, and be humbled in earnest. Many live under the gospel who were never yet under the law, who think themselves under Christ and under grace, and yet were never humbled.

Therefore, in love to the souls of men, let the law be made known. For God gave the law, not to damn men but in love to men, so that by it they might see the impurity of their natures and lives, and the curse due to it, and so follow him immediately to Christ, from Sinai to Zion, appealing from the throne of justice to the throne of grace and mercy, the Lord Christ. The Lord did not give the law purposely to damn men, but to drive them to a holy despair in themselves. Those who despair in themselves come to see that their whole hope of comfort is in the face of God in Christ.

Therefore, with a view to grace, we ought to press the law in these dull and drowsy times. For those who stick in the state of nature, such as profane, godless persons, swearers and loose persons, were never yet under the law. And what do they have to do with Christ, who were never humbled? If their eyes were open to see what they are by nature, and what they would be if God should cut the thread of their lives, they would look about them then. The kingdom of heaven would suffer violence, if men understood their states thoroughly, that there is but a step between them and hell, nothing but a life full of uncertainties, without serious repentance.

Moses brought none into Canaan. That was Joshua’s part. When Moses had brought them near, then he gave up his office to Joshua. The law must give up its office to Christ. When men are cast down with apprehensions of sin, they must run into the bosom of the gospel, and shelter themselves under the wings of Jesus Christ. Though such persons may in the error of their conscience think themselves farthest from grace, yet they are nearest. For “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3). “And come to me, all ye that be heavy laden, I will ease you” (Matt 11:28).

Question. Again, some will object, “We must teach moral duties, teach men not to be sottish and drunken and filthy in their lives.”

Answer. That is very good. I wish these abominations were reformed. But if there is not a better foundation laid for the knowledge of God in the face of Christ, by uncovering the hidden face of nature, we would make them nothing but hypocrites, and only civilize them. Therefore the right way to make them leave these abominations is, first, to bring them to the knowledge of themselves by nature, and of their original corruptions; and then, to lead them to the knowledge of God “in the face of Jesus Christ,” so that, seeing love, love may kindle love, and alter their course, and make them study to please God. If duties do not spring from love, they are dead duties, and nothing but carcasses of duties. But love constrains us to perform services by the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ.

Therefore if we want to make men leave sin on good grounds, teach the gospel. Otherwise we will bring them only within the compass of outward morality, which is good, and I wish there were more of it; but we should not rest there. Holy duties, and abstaining from gross sins, are a great deal more soundly enforced from the gospel than from the law. For the reasons drawn from the gospel are very conclusive, as in Paul: “The grace of God hath appeared, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; and to live soberly to ourselves, righteous to others, holily to God” (Titus 2:12).

And therefore the apostle’s method in all his epistles is first to lay the ground and foundation of Christian doctrine, and then to build Christian duties on it. So it is in Romans: after he has shown free justification by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and then the sanctification of our nature, he comes to the comforts of a Christian life in predestination and God’s free everlasting love. “Then I beseech you, by the mercies of God in Christ, give up your bodies as reasonable sacrifices to God” (Rom 12:1). His exhortation is to devote and consecrate ourselves to God, and its ground is the mercies of God. And so in all the rest of his epistles, he lays the foundation of a Christian life on Christian doctrine.

As Lactantius says well, “All morality without piety is a goodly statue without a head.” It is the head that gives life and influence to all the duties of a Christian, and that head is the knowledge of Christ. In a word, whatever we preach either is meant to drive men to Christ, or is Christ himself with his benefits unfolded, or is a holy life, with this in view, that we may live answerably to Christ and worthy of him; so that whatever we preach has respect to Christ.

And therefore the apostle, speaking of the main duty, says, “God hath shined in our hearts, to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Certainly all will follow where this is. “She loved much, because much was forgiven” (Luke 7:47). She had relished the sweet love of God in pardoning her, and therefore she loved much. For what is love but all duty in the root? It is one in the root, and all in the branches. All sin is one in original corruption, the root which branches itself many ways into particulars. So too love is one in the root; and when the heart is filled with that, you will not need to dictate to it, to do this or that. Love is an affection full of invention, to please, delight and gratify the person loved, and it sets the soul on fire for all duties whatsoever.

1. Again, the knowledge of God distinguishes God’s people from atheists, who know no God at all. So to know God in Christ distinguishes them from those outside the church, who know God, but not “in the face of Christ.” To know God in the face of Christ as he should be known distinguishes true Christians from popish and rotten professors of religion, and from a hypocrite within the church. The papists do not know God in the face of Jesus Christ; they only go to him by other mediators, and they will have crucifixes, and many gods, never desiring to uncover the face of Christ.

But the best discovery of God is to see him “in the face of Christ.” The best sight of Christ is not in a crucifix or the work of an idle painter, but to see him in the word and sacrament. You have seen Christ “crucified before your eyes,” says Paul to the Galatians (Gal 3:1). God works grace by his own means, and not by the bastardly means of man’s invention. The knowledge of God is conveyed by Christ, and by no other mediator. That knowledge which comes nearest the knowledge of God in Christ is not only a learned discipline, but a sound, saving knowledge, which sees things in their essential, proper, spiritual light, and not only in their shell.

2. This likewise distinguishes those under the law. They too see the face of God under the law, poor distressed sinners. Yes, but they see an angry face there. But if they will see God as they should, and as true Christians, they do not see his angry countenance in Moses under the law, threatening men with hell and damnation; they see him “in the face of Jesus Christ,” reconciling the world to himself.

In the next verse, verse 7, the apostle anticipates an objection, as he is very careful in anticipating objections; for he was full of love, and desired to make way for himself in the hearts of those whom he taught. When he saw anything between him and their hearts, he labored to remove it by all the wit and shrewdness he could. And therefore he now anticipates an objection from the lowliness of his person and condition.

“You speak much of preaching the gospel, but what does the world think of you? You are a poor, despised man.” “It is true,” the apostle answers, “but I carry the excellent treasures of the love of God in Christ. Yes, we carry it in earthen vessels; but it is a treasure, though in earthen vessels, though conveyed by despised persons. And God has a wise end in it. I look to God’s end, which is that, in the lowliness of my condition, the power and excellency of what I teach may come from him, and not from me. Therefore he uses lowly instruments in his great work.” So the words contain an anticipation of an objection.

And there is a double answer to the objection.

1. We are “earthen vessels,” but we carry a “treasure” in them.

2. Again, God does it “that the excellency of the power” of my preaching “may be of God, and not of us.”

To come to the particulars.

1. That the gospel, and the knowledge of God in the face of Christ, is a treasure.

2. And the way to come to it is by the ministry. Our ministerial dispensation of it is the way to convey it to others.

3. That ministers, as well as others, are but frail, empty vessels. Indeed, they have a treasure conveyed by the dispensation that God has set up in his church, but it is all only by earthen vessels. These are the three things.

Then the next part is, “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” So there is a power, and an excellent power, shown in the ministry to all those who shall be saved.

There is a power in those who are reprobate wretches, and they feel it at length, to harden them more and more, to make them more bitter and worse. But in those who are saved there is a power, and excellency of power, in the ordinances of God.

This power is of God, and not of men. It is conveyed by man, but the power originally, as from a fountain, comes from God. These are the parts.

1. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels”: the gospel, the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Christ, and of God in Christ, is a treasure.

What is a treasure? We all know. Experience shows that it implies plenty and variety of things of great price, and rare things, not common, and those of excellent and special use for the present time and for time to come: for ornament, or for security or defense, or for the discharge of debt and trouble, or for help and comfort. When any want lies on a man, he has recourse to his treasure.

The gospel is a treasure in these and in all other respects that may bring comfort.

For here is plenty, variety, rarity, price, usefulness in the highest degree; for in Christ, who is the chief thing in the gospel, we have all.

(1) There is plenty in Christ, treasures of wisdom and of all good hidden in him for our good. The apostle says, “In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3); and he is all in all, he is our riches. The particulars I have unfolded from a portion of Scripture before now. He is “wisdom,” he is “righteousness,” and “sanctification,” and “redemption” (1 Cor 1:30): wisdom to supply our ignorance, righteousness to supply the guilt with which we stand charged before God, and so he is righteousness to our consciences. He is sanctification to the defilement of our natures, our conditions and persons being miserable. He is redemption to us, partly of our souls in this life, and of soul and body in the life to come. He has all by the grace of union; for our natures being so near as to be hypostatically united, and taken into one person with God…

As there are three ways of conveying excellency (union, revelation and vision), so Christ has it by union, we by revelation in this world, and by vision in the world to come.

Now Christ has a fullness in him, partly by virtue of this union, and partly by reason of his office, as he is the head of the church; for where should we be but in the head? The head is wisdom for the body. All the senses are in the head. It sees, it hears, it understands for the body, it does all for the body; so the riches of a Christian are hidden in Christ, but for the good of the body. Whatever we stand in need of, God is all-sufficient, and Christ is God-man, and we are knit to Christ by faith, so that Christ and we are all one; and therefore a Christian has a rich treasure in Christ.

(2) And then he has price and excellency in the things we have in him. If any things are excellent, these things are. They raise our condition above the common condition of the world; yes, above angels in some sort, making us heirs and fellow-heirs with Christ. This makes us the sons of God, sets us at liberty from our cursed condition, and not only at liberty, but in a state of advancement as high as our natures can reach. “Deliverance from the supreme evil has the nature of the supreme good”: freedom from the greatest evil, which is damnation and destruction, has respect to the greatest good. But then, together with freedom from the greatest evil, we have advancement to the greatest good. Indeed, we can hardly conceive of the excellency of the things we have in Christ. Every grace is precious.

[1] How precious is faith, which lays hold of all the graces in Christ and makes them our own!

[2] What a precious grace is love, which makes us deny ourselves and give ourselves to the good of others! A world of good a loving soul can do.

[3] And so the hope of life: what an anchor it is to steady the soul in all conditions patiently and contentedly!

And every grace is precious, and every grace must needs be precious, considering the price they cost. Things dearly bought are precious, and every grace of the Spirit, and the Spirit itself, is purchased by the blood of Christ. For the Spirit has no communion with us until peace is made between God and us by Christ. But when God the Father is reconciled by Christ, then the Spirit, a friend of both, comes from both, and assures us of the love of both, revealing the secret love of God in Christ, and bestows all grace, to furnish and fit us for heaven. So the graces of the Spirit are precious, and to be accounted precious, because they cost so dear as the blood of Christ.

(3) And then for usefulness, what use have we of every grace? What would our lives be without grace? What do treasures serve for but to pay our debts? Christ paid all your debts to God the Father, to God’s justice. We are all discharged. One red line of his blood drawn over the debt-book crosses out all the debt. Satan has nothing to do with us. In him we have remission of sins, and he is now in heaven to make intercession for us, and to plead our cause as our friend. At God’s right hand we have a friend and brother in our nature, who maintains the love of God constantly toward us as his members and as his spouse.

Besides, we have comfort in all distresses, and we have strength in all our weaknesses, and light and direction in all our perplexities, by the Spirit and the grace of the Spirit. So in every respect Christ and the graces of the Spirit are satisfying treasures.

(4) The gospel which reveals this is a treasure especially for the time to come, for then a treasure is especially useful. Christ is a rich storehouse, and in him we have all. For the time to come we have more in Christ than here. When Christ shall be revealed, and we shall be revealed, then our treasure will appear. And before that, at the hour of death, when all comforts shall be taken from us, then the treasure of a Christian comes in. Then he has use of Christ, and of the Spirit of Christ, to support him, and of the spirit of faith and hope, to strengthen him with patience and willingness to go to Christ. Then all the riches he has laid up come in, all the spiritual graces, to help him at that hour. So it is especially then, in time of need, that these treasures come in, Christ with his grace and Spirit. The best use of religion is in time to come. Now, we can make do with riches, and friends, and strength; but when all is done, we must have a better treasure, that is, Christ and the graces of Christ.

We may refer all to these two heads, Christ partly imparted and partly imputed. That which is imputed is his righteousness, by which we have freedom from hell and advancement to heaven; and the imparted and bestowed favors are the graces of his Spirit for all times and services. We have remedies for all maladies. And they are of a higher nature than all other treasures whatsoever.

Therefore, to show the difference between this and other treasures, and to raise up the estimation of Christ and the good things in him, consider these treasures we have in Christ, imputed and imparted.

1. They are independent. The comfort of them does not depend on any inferior comfort, or on things in this world; but when all comforts are taken away, then they are of special use.

2. And as they are independent, so they are universal. Christ and the good things in him are universally good for all turns. There is no other treasure but is for particular ends, and cannot do all things. Riches can make a man as happy as riches can do; and dainties make a man as lively as such things can do; and friends can do what friends can do; but all is limited: they cannot do more than lies within the sphere of their activity. But what is said of money, that it is good for all things, I am sure is true of the grace of God in Christ. It is good for all things and all conditions: it is a universal good.

3. Then it is a treasure that is proportionable to the dignity of a man. It is proportionable to the soul, to satisfy its desires. A man’s desire is larger than any pleasure in the world. A man can use up all his contentment in an earthly thing. In his thoughts and affections he runs through the contentment of all earthly things at once. If a man had all earthly contentments, the soul would pass through them all and see beyond them; and when he has done so, he looks on them as soiled goods and cast-off things.

But the treasures of the gospel in Christ are proportionable to the soul. They are spiritual, as the soul is spiritual; indeed, they are also larger than the soul: the treasure is larger than the treasury. With other things, the treasure is only little and the treasury large; but here the treasure is larger than the treasury, for our soul is not capable of the fullness of Christ. There is more in Christ, and more in our state of happiness, than the soul can contain. The soul can never use up or run through all the good we have, for there is still more and more. Therefore the apostle calls it “the unsearchable riches of grace” (Eph 3:8). Search more and more, and still they are unsearchable. “Neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man” to conceive of the excellent things in Christ (1 Cor 2:9). They transcend the capacity of the soul, which no other treasure can do.

4. And then they have another excellency. They make the soul and the whole person a treasure, as God says, “I will make up my jewels” (Mal 3:17). The grace of God makes us gracious and turns us into jewels. No other treasure can change the cask in which it lies. But as for these blessed things of God and of Christ, wherever he dwells, he makes the soul like himself, stamping his own image and likeness upon it. For such is the change of nature into grace that it makes us treasures.

Other treasures perhaps make us worse, as indeed they do. Because of the proneness of our dispositions to earthly things, they soil and stain our natures. But these treasures of excellent things purify our natures, make us better, and change us into the nature of themselves. Nay more, grace changes the worst things to be good to us: that is the excellency of its virtue. They talk of the philosopher’s stone and strange things, but I am sure the grace of God is so excellent a treasure that it extracts good out of every evil, and, as grace, turns all to good. And so the sanctifying Spirit, working together with it, draws the greatest comforts out of the greatest crosses. And is not that a rich treasure, that turns the worst things to good? It will make everything guide us to the main thing.

5. That our affections may be raised higher: all other treasures, whatever they are, here we find them, and here we must leave them, whether we will or not, or they will leave us. As the wise man says of riches, they have eagles’ wings (Prov 23:5). We must leave perishing earthly things to perishing men. But is this treasure of that nature, or not? For it makes the soul eternal; it raises the soul to be spiritual, and the soul carries these treasures to heaven with it. The earthen vessel indeed is cracked to pieces, but the treasure remains. The soul goes out of this earthen vessel to heaven, and carries there all the love it had, and all the graces, and the image of Christ it had. All is there perfectly; nothing is taken away. As we say of an earnest payment, it is part of the bargain, and not taken away again.

It was said of Mary’s part that “her part shall never be taken from her” (Luke 10:42). All other things will be taken from us. We shall be stripped of all and turned naked into our graves, we know not how soon. As we came naked, so must we be turned out naked. But Mary’s part, the share in the treasure of the gospel and the good things of Christ, shall never be taken from us, but shall be perfected in heaven. When friends are taken away, and life taken away, and all comforts taken away, yet Mary’s part endures forever. When nothing will comfort and all our treasures fail, as at the hour of death, then this treasure comes in and comforts most. So herein it differs from all treasures: it is never taken from us, and it is of greatest use and service to us in our greatest necessity.

6. And what is of special use, other treasures we cannot carry about with us wherever we go. But this is like a pearl rather than a treasure. A Christian carries this treasure wherever he goes. Nay, he carries it in his heart; it is hidden there, and who can take it out from there? Can the devil? No. It is hidden in his affections. His love, and choice, and judgment have gotten it and mastered it. This I have, he says, and this I must stick to in life and death. For having gotten it in his heart, judgment, and affection, he carries it wherever he goes and makes use of it everywhere, in prison, at liberty, abroad or at home.

Let all the devils in hell conspire: they may take away his life, but not his treasure; they must leave him the gospel. Perhaps they may take it out of the book, but can they get it out of the soul? Indeed, unless divine truths are gotten into the heart, the devil will come between us and our souls and rob us of them. But if it is in the judgment and heart, we carry it with us, and that continually and in all places; otherwise it could not serve us at every turn. You see then in what respect this treasure is so excellent.

First, that we may believe these things we must believe God, and believe his saints, and believe Christ.

(1) God by his Spirit says it is so (Prov 3:14-15). As for the knowledge of Christ and the good things that come by him, nothing is to be compared to them. God’s judgment is the rule of the goodness of things. If he says it is so, it is so. Christ calls it a treasure, which a wise man who has God’s Spirit in him will sell all to obtain. “Lay up treasure in heaven” (Matt 6:20). Labor to be rich in God (Luke 12:21), for that is “true riches” (Luke 16:11).

(2) And for the servants of God, take Moses and St. Paul. What was the judgment of Moses? In comparison, the worst things that can be in Christ and religion are better than the best things that can be in the world. What are the worst things? Shame and reproach, together with poverty and the like. Yet take the “reproach of Christ,” which is most insufferable to the disposition of one who is a man: the rebukes of Christ are greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. Nay, Moses balances them. He lays the reproach of Christ in one scale and the treasures of Egypt in the other, and the reproaches of Christ are the heavier scale (Heb 11:26).

Take St. Paul (Phil 3:7-8). He puts into one scale all his excellencies, whatever he had. He was a Jew “of the tribe of Benjamin,” without reproof, “as to the law blameless”; after he was a Christian, he had excellent graces, abundance of the Spirit of God. No man, next to Christ, displayed a greater portion of the Spirit of Christ. And yet he says in effect: not only “I did” so account of my Pharisaism, and righteousness of the law, and civil life, before my being in Christ, but note, “I do.” When I am well advised what I say, I do “doubtless esteem all dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ.”

“For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”: that is the jewel of jewels, the treasure of treasures, for by it we come to have infused righteousness. Imputed righteousness is the most useful, and therefore the apostle so esteems it that, in regard of it, he esteemed the other as nothing. He thinks he has not done enough till he has set disgraceful terms upon it, calling it dung, offal, that which is cast to dogs. He will suffer the loss of all righteousness, reputation, and all, that he may gain Christ. Thus, if we believe the judgment of God, and of men led by the Spirit, and of Christ, we must judge this an excellent treasure.

Use. Therefore let us labor to have our parts and shares in this excellent treasure of Christ, and the good things of Christ, and give no rest to our souls till we have union and communion with him, in whom “all treasures are hid” (Col 2:3). Get the Spirit of Christ, from whom all graces and comforts are derived. What good will all other treasure do when we stand most in need? When we lie gasping for comfort, as we must before long, what good will friends and possessions do? How will these further you, when you go swelling and puffing against God’s ministers, and truth, and those who are better than yourselves? What good will they do you, these things that thus leave you? Alas, nothing at all. It will only fill your souls with despair and horror.

The knowledge of God in Christ, and the Spirit of God to seal it and to sanctify hard hearts, is the only thing that will comfort us. It will not comfort a man on his deathbed that he has worn fine clothes, or been acquainted with great persons, or held so high a place, or tasted so many delicacies. Alas, when he reflects on these things, what good will they do? This is what will do him good: I remember such promises, such comforts, such precious mercies, that have been unfolded to me; the work of God’s Spirit in me has led me to such and such holy actions, as the fruits of his Spirit. I remember that Christ has been unfolded to me, that I might cast myself on his mercy. These things may comfort. Other things may be objects of discomfort, but comfort they can yield none.

I beseech you, let us consider why we came into the world, and why God has given men great abilities. We are sent as agents into the world to trade, being all merchants. And what do we trade for? For this commodity, which we should carry to heaven with us, that we may go to heaven well stocked with these things. If a merchant sends an agent into a foreign country, and he brings back nothing but baubles and trifles, can he give a good account to the one who sent him?

Does God send us into the world to get a great deal of “hard clay” (Hab 2:6), and ill-gotten goods for pleasures, and to deify ourselves and others, to make ourselves much more the children of the devil than we are by nature? No. We are agents for great matters: to get the knowledge of God in Christ, to get near acquaintance with God, to get out of the state of nature, to get near to heaven. These are the ends for which we live in the world. This earth and this church of God is a fit place, a seedbed, a nursery, in which we grow and are fitted to be transplanted to the heavenly paradise.

Why do we live, and why does God give these excellent abilities by nature? Is our understanding to exercise itself in the dirt of the world? Are this heart, these wills and affections given to cleave to baser things than ourselves? Has he given love, so sweet, so large an affection, to cleave to things below, love which is capable of Christ, of heaven, of happiness? These excellent, capacious souls of ours, which the world cannot contain, are they for anything meaner than ourselves? Oh no. They serve for Christ, and for these excellent treasures.

Oh, that we should forget the end of our creation and redemption, live here, and not labor for the things which we live in the world only to attain, but let the devil abuse us! As they catch whales by casting empty barrels about them to play with, so while we are playing about this and that vanity, we are made a prey to Satan. How few live to the purpose for which they exist! Few fit themselves for their eternal condition by heaping up comforts from these things, which may be true comforts. Lay these things to heart, that we may be wise to good purpose, wise to salvation. This is our wisdom and our understanding.

Use 2. Question. But how shall we know whether we have a share and portion in these excellent treasures, or not?

Answer. [1] We may see our share in them, especially by our esteem of them. If they are presented to our souls indeed as God presents them, and as Christ and the word of Christ present them, then it is evidence that there is a tincture in our spirits by which they are made suitable to the Spirit of Christ. If they are presented as excellent things, and beyond all comparison (all the things you can think of are not to be compared with them), do we so present them to ourselves that we esteem them as Moses, and Paul, and God’s children do? Do we so esteem grace? If we were left to our wish, whether to have anything in the world, or a greater measure of grace, of the love of God, of union with God, what choice would we make? Our esteem and choice will reveal the frame of our hearts. As we esteem, so we are.

If it were left to our own opinion, and wish, and desire, would we make David’s choice? “When many said, Who will show us any good?” (Ps 4:6). That is the very temper of a worldling: “Who? it is no matter who”; let anyone “show me any good,” only show it, and I have ways enough to get it. But David says, “Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me.” Life is in the favor of God; nay, the favor of God is better than life itself. I would rather part with my life than the favor of God. Paul says, “My life is not dear to me, so I may finish my course with joy” (Acts 20:24). Now, do you esteem communion with God and peace of conscience higher than life? It is a good sign of a share in Christ when you have this esteem and choice of him.

Answer. [2] Again, a sign of a share in this treasure is when we have grace to make use of it on all occasions; for together with graces the Lord gives his Spirit to make use of them, in our afflictions, in our troubles. And therefore those who do not make use of the Scriptures, and of the promises of good things they have in Christ, have no part in this treasure. What is the use of a treasure if it is not applied to our needs, if we run to earthly contentments and never make use of our best grounds of comfort? Christ gives an excellent mark for discerning: “Where the treasure is, there the heart will be” (Matt 6:21).

Would you know whether your treasure is in earth or in heaven? Where is the heart? That is, where is your love, your joy, your delight? Ask your soul what you love most, what you most cleave to in affection, what you delight most in. There is your heart. And therefore, as for those who have few thoughts, and very shallow and weak thoughts, of the better state to come, and of the state they have here in Christ, and of the excellencies in Christ above the world, who do not think of these things with joy and love of God, their heart is not there; therefore their treasure is not there.

They have hearts eaten out with the world. If they were dissected, you would find nothing but projects for the world. Dissect their affections, and there is nothing but the love of the world, and vanity, and emptiness, and, what is worse than emptiness, much sin and evil that Satan has brought into the world. And if nothing is found in the soul but worldly vanities and profits, alas, where is our treasure? Our treasure certainly is here, and not in heaven; for where the heart is, there is our treasure.

Those who have treasures, oh, they mind them! Therefore we shall see that worldly men have nothing in them. You will not get a savory word of goodness from them. Their minds are like mines of gold and silver. They say of such mines that where they are the ground is always barren, because the metal sucks out the juice that should cherish it. And so it is with all the minds of earthly men. Enter into a heavenly conversation, and it is not for them. They have not a word to offer; they have no savor, no relish of it; they show a distaste. Yet if it is brought in on the occasion of mortality, a short word will serve, and they will quickly be back in the old track of the world. They are so unwilling to dwell in the meditation of these things that they are complete strangers to them.

Answer. [3] A man will think of his treasure and look on it, as a covetous man, though he does not use his gold, will yet open his chest to look on it: excellent is the color of it.

Note. Shall a worldling rejoice in refined earth, and shall not a Christian delight to reflect on Christianity, and his comforts in Christ, and his future estate, and what blessed conditions abide in him, and being forever with the Lord, and having such rivers of pleasure? The oldest man, the dullest wit, will never forget where he lays his treasure. And when we cannot call to mind this comfort and that comfort, and things useful for us, it is a sign they are not treasures to us, for if they were we would make more of them.

I beseech you, therefore, labor more and more that, as things are in themselves, and as God, who is the rule of all truth, judges of things, so let us judge of things. Let them be to us as they are to him, and as they are in themselves. If they are treasures, the blessings and comforts of God’s Spirit and the good things of Christ, let them be so to us. Never stop begging God that we may have a sanctified judgment, to have the same mind of them that he has.

And to this end balance them often with other things. As Moses did, and as Paul did, lay them in the scale, and consider the emptiness and vanity of all things besides grace and the Spirit and the good things of Christ, and what other comforts they will afford. God has given wit and reason; how shall we use them better than by comparing different things and, according to our comparing, making our choice? We should show ourselves wise men in our wise choice, and good men in our good choice. How else should we show ourselves to be what we would be thought to be?

There are treasures in these poor vessels of bread and wine. Now, what treasures are conveyed by them, if we look at them in themselves? Bread is an ordinary thing, but the good conveyed to us by God is conveyed by these common, easy things. Thus God delights to show himself to us in common, ordinary ways. Therefore raise your thoughts from the commonness of the things to the excellency of the things conveyed. What is conveyed by bread? The body of Christ crucified. And what is conveyed by that? God reconciled in Jesus Christ by the sufferings of Christ, the love of God, and the mercies of God, and pardon of sins. Great good is conveyed by the bread broken, for Christ is conveyed with satisfaction to divine justice, and from there favor and reconciliation with him.

And so when his comforts are represented by the refreshing of our bodies, Christ’s body “is meat indeed,” Christ’s blood “is drink indeed” (John 6:55). The benefit of Christ’s blood and satisfaction are great things that are conveyed by a reverent receiving of the sacrament. If we come prepared, we have communion with Christ, in whom are “hid all treasures” (Col 2:3).

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Cor 4:7).

We entered upon this verse the last day: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7). Here the apostle answers an objection, for the heart of man is full of objections against Scripture truths. God, in the manner of his dispensation, does not please the natural heart of man, especially when it thinks itself most wise. It pleases itself instead in caviling and expostulating against the word, or the dispensation of it. And therefore the apostle, desiring that those blessed things may come to the hearts of the people he dealt with, takes away all objections that may stand between them and the truth.

The chief objection is the baseness of Paul’s condition. He was scorned and persecuted in the world.

It is true, he answers, that we are “earthen vessels,” but we have a “treasure” in these vessels. And God is wise, and his end is good, “that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.”

And then there is the treasurer and the under-treasurers: Christ is the chief, and we are the under-treasurers. And then there are the vessels in which this treasure is contained. “Earthen vessels” are baser than the treasure itself. And then there is the reason for this seeming disproportion, that so excellent a treasure is in earthen vessels. These are the particulars that deserve to be unfolded. Some of them have been unfolded in part already.

I showed that the gospel was a treasure. Soul-saving truth is a treasure. It was compared to light, the most divine quality of all, the fittest to set out divine truths, which has influence conveyed from heaven with it, and which reveals both itself and all other excellencies in the world. And now it is set out by another borrowed figure, something we highly esteem in the world, that is, a treasure. Nothing is more prized than light and treasure. God speaks to us in our own language. It is not that heavenly things are not better than any earthly things, but that we cannot understand God if he speaks in any other language. And therefore he conveys the excellency of spiritual things under what we most prize in the world, under light and under treasure.

I came then to make a use of trial, whether we have this treasure or not.

Use 3. For further use, if Christ and the good things he has revealed are such a treasure, then we ought to be content with him, though God cut us short in regard of outward things. For we have a treasure, and this is one benefit we have by it: if we have Christ, we shall have all other things, as much as God shall see needful. They shall be cast into the bargain, and that is one comfort.

The little we have we shall have with a blessing. And then, though we are ever so poor in the world, we are rich in promises. We have rich faith to make use of these rich promises: precious faith and precious promises. We hold promissory notes, and God is a good paymaster, and is content to be sued on his own bond. We cannot have a better debtor than God himself. Now, since we have the Spirit of God to give us precious faith, to lay hold on the rich and precious promises we have in Jesus Christ, we should not be much discontented with whatever befalls us in this world, for we have a rich portion.

Let us labor to understand this, and consider not only that we are rich in promissory notes and promises, but also in reversion, in an inheritance still to come. The best riches are laid up in heaven for us. We have some pledge and other tastes of them here, some grapes of Canaan, but the best is to come; the true treasures are laid up in heaven. What we have here, alas, is nothing to what we shall have hereafter. Therefore we have a rich God and a rich Savior, God-man. God has enriched our natures, and is willing to enrich our persons, so far as concerns heaven. We have rich faith, and rich promises, and a rich inheritance in reversion. So for matters of this world, let God deal as he pleases.

God, who gave so rich a treasure as his own Son, cannot deny anything else, as the apostle reasons strongly: “If he hath not spared his own Son, but given him to death for us all, how shall not he with him give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). The apostle wonders that any man should call it into question, saying, “How can it be?”

God, who gives treasures, does not stand on petty commodities that we stand in need of. It is your Father’s pleasure to give you a kingdom (Luke 12:32). He will give you a kingdom, and will he not give you safe conduct and provision to bring you to heaven?

Consider this, and often examine your faith, whether you believe these things or not. If you believe them, why are you discontented with every petty loss and cross in the world, as if there were no better things to depend upon?

(1) Oh, labor to bring your hearts to a holy contentment, and labor for a Spirit of wisdom to put this treasure to use. What use is a treasure, if we do not employ it to supply our wants? And therefore make use of the riches we have in Jesus Christ. Are we sinful? He is gracious. Do we have much guilt lying on our consciences? Christ has a great deal of favor: he is the beloved Son of God (Matt 3:17). Set that against conscience. Do we have many enemies in the world? We have an intercessor in heaven. “Doth sin abound? Grace aboundeth much more” (Rom 5:20). Is there any want, either in grace or in comfort, in the things of this world? See a full and rich supply in Jesus Christ.

(2) And then get wisdom to make use of it. There is a special art to making use of the good things we have in Christ every day. For a man to famish at a feast, to starve and perish with thirst at the fountain’s head, is ignorance and want of wisdom. If we are in Christ, if we have a wellhead from which we may fetch whatever we stand in need of, if we have faith, then to this end beg of God a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know the excellent things we have in Christ.

(3) And likewise labor for a vessel of faith to contain this treasure, and get enlargement of faith. The larger the faith we bring, the larger the measure we carry from Christ. As with the poor woman who had vessels of oil: had she had more vessels, she would have had more oil (2 Kgs 4:6), for the oil increased as her vessels served. If we had more faith, we might have a larger oil of grace, and a larger oil of comfort from God’s word in Christ, and from God’s riches in Christ. And therefore beg with the holy apostles, “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:5), that as we have rich promises, and a rich Christ, and rich comforts, so we may have rich faith.

(4) And because Christ is rich, not to those who are outside him, but to those within him, as they have union with Christ, labor therefore to strengthen this union with Christ, that we may be nearer and nearer the fountain, nearer and nearer the wellhead, nearer and nearer the treasure of all. And therefore labor in the use of the word and sacraments to increase union, and so to increase communion with Jesus Christ.

(5) And for this purpose increase the sense of emptiness in ourselves, for as we grow empty in our opinion of ourselves, so we are fitted to be full of God’s goodness. He sends the rich empty away (Luke 1:53), those who are rich with the windy conceit of their own worthiness. Let us search deeply into our own hearts for what we lack and for what sin lies on us, that we may be pardoned. We should know what is wanting, that it may be supplied.

It should be our daily task to empty ourselves, by our daily consideration of our own wants and sinfulness, and then to fetch a fresh supply from the throne of grace. It is with a Christian’s heart as with a vessel that is full of something it should not be full of. So when people’s hearts are full of windiness and of what they should not have, the more we labor to empty ourselves, the more God infuses supernatural grace and knowledge into us. And therefore let these two go together. Know our riches in Christ, and know ourselves. Know God in Christ, and Christ, and then our own baseness, and that is the way to make use of the treasure we have.

(6) And likewise meditate and recollect our thoughts daily on the vanity of all things here, which our hearts run after so much. Alas, what is there here that we should make so much of it as to neglect our treasure! What is there here that will draw the close study of a wise man! What is there here worthy of our spirits, our souls, our labors!

Let us wisely consider, and see through these things, and see beyond all things here. See them, and then see as much as we can into these treasures, which we can never see through, for they are larger than the soul. All other treasures are contained in a place, and the place is larger than the treasure, but these riches are larger than the treasury. But see as far as we can into the dimension, and height, and depth, and breadth of these things. Seeing the vanity of all things below and the excellency of these things, and using our wits this way, will teach us how to put this treasure to use.

I know these things are uncouth and strange to a carnal, proud man: to exalt so highly things that they do not see, to set such a price on things they do not understand. But God is wiser than we are, and if we take his word for truth, we must judge them good, and conceive more than I relate to you. We must go to a skillful jeweler if we would know the price of a stone; and if we would know the price of a treasure, go to him who is able to judge. Do not consider what vain, foolish men think of God’s ways, but ask God and Christ. Foolish creatures prize a bastard coral more than a precious stone. So much for that doctrine.

To proceed to the next point. We are the treasurers. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” we apostles and ministers. So the riches of the gospel are conveyed by way of ministerial dispensation. And then there are the conditions of these ministers, namely, that they are “earthen vessels.”

God is so good that he not only conveys treasure to us and gives us rich promises, but he also gives us those who shall help us to come to the possession of them and an interest in them. All the riches we can desire are in Christ and from Christ, but then Christ must be acknowledged, and these treasures must be conveyed and brought in. And therefore God has ordained an ordinance for us, by way of entreaty, by way of persuasion, and by all the ways the Spirit of God uses in Scripture. And so the ministry of the word, because of its excellent use, is set out in many ways.

(1) It is like the lifting up of the brazen serpent (Num 21:9). If it had not been lifted up, they could not have seen it so as to be healed. The ministry of the word sets up Christ, that all may behold him for the healing of all their spiritual diseases.

(2) It is the lifting up of a banner, that all may come under it. The gospel is this banner, as in Song of Songs 2:4.

(3) However rich treasures may be, if they lie hidden in the earth, they are of no use. Now therefore a calling is appointed to dig out treasures, to spread them before God’s people, to lay before them “the unsearchable riches” of the gospel (Eph 3:8). The use of the ministry is to lay them open to the view of God’s people.

(4) Christ has a great love for his people, but we must have somebody to woo for him. The ministry is a wooing for Christ. It reveals the excellency of Christ, and our want, and our need to be enriched by Christ. Therefore ministers are called “friends of the bride,” to show the riches of Christ and the church’s beggary, and so to procure the happy marriage between Christ and the church. As John 3:29 has it, “the friend of the bridegroom.” That is the use of the ministry: to betroth Christ and the church together, to make up the marriage, that so the church may be presented “a chaste virgin to Christ,” so glorious a husband (2 Cor 11:2).

By them God sends his jewels and treasures to the church in this time of betrothal, for this world is but a time of betrothal between Christ and his church. Abraham sent his servant to procure a marriage between Isaac and Rebekah (Gen 24), and the faithful servant carried jewels to enrich her, and to make her more lovely in Isaac’s sight when she was brought to him. So ministers carry those treasures and open these jewels to overcome the church, that seeing the riches in Christ, she may be more in love with Christ, so rich a husband.

(5) The ministry is the salt of the world (Matt 5:13). Without salt, things putrefy. So salt preserves them and eats out the corruption. It has a cleansing, purifying power. What would the souls of God’s people be without it? Rotten and stinking in God’s nostrils, with pride and self-conceitedness.

(6) So we are called “the light of the world” (Matt 5:14). We are in darkness, and were God’s light not held out, what would the world be but an Egypt? Nothing but palpable darkness. It was so in times of popery, when there was no ministry, but instead of it the mass and other empty things.

(7) And therefore in Revelation and other places ministers are compared to “stars.” The church is as a firmament and heaven. And antichrist, in opposition, is compared to earth. And the stars in heaven are those who are set to shine in the darkness of the night of the world, to give direction to others which way to walk.

But I might say much on this. I speak of it only for a general use to us all, that we may better conceive of God’s love, not only in giving his church rich treasures, but also a calling by which these things may be unfolded to us, that our love and affection may be stirred up toward them. And therefore, when Christ ascended to heaven in triumph, intending to leave the richest things in the world (as emperors and kings in triumph scatter gold and silver), “he gave gifts to men” (Eph 4:8). What were these gifts? Petty, mean things? No. But some evangelists, some prophets, pastors and teachers (Eph 4:11). And for how long? To the end of the world (Eph 4:13). Not only for the laying of the foundation of religion (as some will have the word used only to lay the foundation, and then to leave people to I know not what), but to edify and build them up more and more.

Therefore the greatest gift Christ in triumph will scatter to his church is gifts, and men furnished with gifts for the service of the church. When God promises to bless his people, he says, “I will give you pastors according to mine own heart” (Jer 3:15), as if that were a blessing of blessings. And therefore let those who live under the ministry of the gospel know that not only are the good things of the gospel treasures, but the ordinances of God, in which that treasure is conveyed, are also a treasure. We ministers carry this treasure in earthen vessels.

The church where the means of grace are found is, as it were, Goshen, a place of light, and all other places are places of darkness (Exod 10:22-23). How pitiful it is for those who live in places where the means of salvation are not, who have no light shining in their hearts at all! I would press this point if I were speaking in another place and to another congregation; but I cannot unfold my text without opening it to some degree, and therefore we will hasten.

We have these treasures in earthen vessels.

The condition of all ministers is that they are men, and carry these treasures in earthen vessels. In earthen vessels: in what sense?

First, it is true fundamentally. As for the matter of which ministers and all other men consist, it is but earth.

Secondly, it is true of their condition. Earth is the basest of all elements, and carnal, foolish men count theirs the basest callings of all. They are poor and despised, and so they are “earthen vessels” in regard of the esteem of the world and their usage in the world. Earth in matter, earth in condition, earth in esteem, earth in usage suited to their esteem: earthen vessels every way.

[1] As for the matter of which we consist, the foundation of all the rest, it is the common condition of all. The rest are more peculiar to ministers. We are all but “earthen vessels.” You know the story of our creation (Gen 2:7). God made us of the earth. But if we had not sinned, though we had been made of the earth, we would never have been turned to the earth again, but our state would have been changed.

God’s gracious power would have suspended that mortality to which our nature of itself was subject; for man, being made of earth, was liable to turn to earth again, even if he had not sinned. But by the door and gate of sin, death entered into the world.

The angels were as liable to fall as the devils, for every created thing is changeable, and so are the angels. Only God suspends that possibility of sin and establishes them in grace, but he withdrew his support from the devils and allowed them to fall. So with man: if he had not sinned, God would have continued him in grace, so that, though mortal by nature, his mortality would have been so suspended that the subjection to mortality would never have come into act.

But since sin, the curse is on us: “Of earth thou art, and to earth thou shalt return; dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return” (Gen 3:19). We are all “earthen vessels” in our origin and in our end, “earth to earth, dust to dust,” as we say of ice, “water thou art, and to water thou shalt return,” because it arises from water and is dissolved into water again. So with a man who consists of earth: “dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” You will be resolved into the first principle of which you were made. So we are but “earthen vessels,” by reason of the curse inflicted on us since the fall.

[2] An earthen vessel is but a weak frame, a little dirt baked with fire. And we are a more exquisite frame, knit together by a more singular art of God, being made in a wonderful manner; and yet God compares his framing of us to our framing of earthen vessels, since the fall (Jer 18:4).

Beloved, this is a matter of experience that needs no proof. I wish we could make good use of it rather than stand proving it. Nothing is more apparent than the frailty of man, and yet nothing is less made use of. The Lord remembers we are but dust (Ps 103:14), but we forget it. If we could remember that we are dust, it would be well, to make us less proud and less presumptuous. The Lord knows we are but dust, so as to pity us, but we do not remember that we are dust, so as to humble us. And therefore, as God knows we are dust and earthen vessels, we should often think of it too, to make us humble and sober, and to take our high thoughts off any excellency here.

And take heed lest by intemperance we break ourselves sooner than we should. Many break themselves by intemperate courses, like candles that have thieves in them, as we say, which consume them before their ordinary time. So many, by intemperate lusts and courses, break the thread of their lives.

Indeed, let an earthen vessel be preserved ever so carefully, it will molder to pieces, though it may be kept a hundred years if preserved from knocks. So man will molder of himself to an end; all the art and skill in the world cannot prevent it.

Yet even so, there may be, and ought to be, care that we do not shorten our own days, as many intemperate persons do, and that in sinful courses, which is more to be lamented.

Therefore let us often think of our condition. God bids the prophet go to the potter’s house and see him making pots, and there he sees how he makes one for one use and another for another (Jer 18:2-4). And so we are but vessels of earth for various uses. And let us learn the lesson the prophet was taught there, to resign ourselves to God’s dispensation. If he will make us longer or shorter, of this use or that use, let God have his will, and let us not quarrel with God. The vessels never quarrel with the potter, who makes what vessels he pleases and for what end he pleases, as the apostle makes use of it in the great point of predestination (Rom 9:21).

Use 1. And since the best ministers, magistrates, and all are but earthen vessels, make what use we can of them while we have them. Let us not rely on them. They are but “earthen vessels.” But though we must not depend on them for our comfort, yet make use of them while we have them, for they may be knocked to pieces, we do not know how soon, and then all the use we might have had is gone.

Use 2. And to rise to a higher use, which concerns us all: ministers, kings, subjects, and all are but “earthen vessels” in regard of their manner of being, and yet they may be golden vessels in regard of grace and glory, as the apostle says, “in a great house are vessels of gold and silver” (2 Tim 2:20). Seeing this, let us labor to have another manner of being than this, labor to be born again of the immortal seed of the word (1 Pet 1:23). And then in death we shall live, and then these “earthen vessels” shall be made golden vessels forever, for God’s second work is a great deal better than his first.

Now we are, in the first creation, “earthen vessels,” but when God renews us out of dust again, if we get into Christ we shall be golden vessels in heaven forever, born and begotten of the seed of the word. As the apostle Peter says, “All flesh is grass.” He compares us not only to earthen vessels but to grass, of less substance than earthen vessels, “but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Pet 1:25).

Labor that we may be golden vessels under a golden head. If we are Christians we have a golden head, though we are earthen vessels; and since we have a golden head, he will make all conformable to him before long. We shall have bodies conformable to him, as in Philippians 3:21. He will make our earthen bodies, vile bodies, base bodies, like his glorious body, by the power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

And this comes by hearing the word of the Lord. That word is the seed of the new birth. “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (Jer 22:29), and consider that we are earth, earth, nothing but earth; for he repeats it three times together, “Hear the word of the Lord,” so that we who are earthen vessels may be made vessels of everlasting continuance.

Use 3. And then it is no harm to us that we are earthen vessels, but rather a comfort; for death, by which we shall be knocked to pieces, will be only the finishing of our grief and trouble here, and a beginning of the happiness in another world. In the grave, dust lies for a while, but we shall be made after another fashion, and receive another kind of stamp in the world to come.

Use 4. And, I beseech you, do not forget what is the proper use of this point, for humility. You may differ in outward relations, but you are all of one stuff. You are all earth. The judges of the earth judge the earth. They judge other men who are earth, and they are earth themselves, and sons of the earth, that is, base men. The sons of the earth and the men of the earth (that is, great men, who count everyone as grasshoppers compared with themselves), though they are men and giants, are still only earth.

We should all therefore labor to have low opinions of this life, and of all its comforts, as Augustine says well, “Look to the dust.” Go to the grave and say, “Here is the dust of the emperor, here is a rich man, here is a poor man”; see if you can find any difference between them. Alas, no difference at all. Therefore practice sobriety in your use of the things of this life, for we are all earthen vessels. And so much shall serve for this point.

But the apostle intends more than this, for he speaks of their esteem; earthen vessels are not only broken, but contemptible. Look into the element, and you will see that with every element and creature, the more light it has, the more excellent it is; and the more earthly it is, the more base it is, as the apostle said before. We see now that the water has more light in it than the earth, the air more than the water, the fire more light than the air, and the element above it is purer than the fire, until we come to God himself, who is pure light. So everything, the more light it has, the more excellent it is. What is the excellency of pearls? They have a sparkling light in them. But everything, the nearer it grows to the earth, the more base it is, for earth is the dregs of the world. Now ministers are more so than others, both in esteem and in treatment, which follows esteem. And what is the reason for it? Surely these.

Reason 1. Because the world is foolish and childish, and lives by sense and fancy; and the matters of the gospel and the divine truths we speak of are spiritual things, matters of faith, far removed from sense and fancy, by which the world lives.

When we preach spiritual things, what are these, to the world’s mind, compared with honors and riches and dependents and the fine things of this world? So the fools of the world undervalue the things of God, especially when they are among their showy trifles. Look at a foolish man when he has his riches and clothes and friends about him. His fancy is full of these things; tell him of spiritual things, and what a loathing there is in the heart of a man! This is the proud carnal heart of a man, which, the more carnal it is, the more it loathes things of a higher nature, being besotted and drunk with worldly excellencies, as men’s natures are.

Reason 2. Again, divine truth is a solid thing. Men naturally are given to superstitious notions in religion. They will have a religion, but it must come with this notion or that notion. Like the apes, they hug the brats of their own brains; they will have devices of their own. Religion is solid, and tells them, this is God’s way, and God’s course; but the foolish heart of man will not yield to it. And that is the reason they cry down the solid things of God’s word, which have realities in them, and things that matter.

And then the world loves its own courses, and is in love with its own way. Sin is a sweet morsel to them. Herodias is sweet to Herod. John the Baptist was a good man until then, but when he meddled with that sweet morsel, then his head must come off (Matt 14:2 and following; Mark 6:28). And so when Christ opposed the worldly courses of the scribes and Pharisees, he was counted a demoniac, a wine-bibber, an enemy to Caesar, and what not, when he took on himself the ministerial office.

When Paul calls himself an “earthen vessel,” how did they use Paul? Tertullus, a prating orator, counts him a pestilent fellow (Acts 24:5). And his treatment was base. They whipped him and put him into the dungeon. The Corinthians, who were begotten by him, counted him a mean person, because he did not have the eloquence and the showy gifts, fit for the stage, that their flaunting teachers had. The proud teachers turned the Corinthians against him, and therefore he is compelled to make an apology for himself. “He writes great letters indeed, but his presence is mean and base,” as in the tenth chapter of this epistle (2 Cor 10:10).

Many reasons may be given why this calling is subject to base treatment and low esteem in the world, from the dispositions of men that are contrary to it, but indeed there is no great need to follow the point. It is not so at all times, nor in all places. God at some times gives more liberty, and raises up a more excellent esteem of ministers than at other times; but ordinarily it is thus: the more faithful, the more despised by carnal people.

If you ask the reason what raised popery to be as gaudy as it is, they saw that the people of the world were fools, and knew that children must have baubles, and fools trifles, and empty men must have empty things. They saw what pleased them, and the cunning clergy thought, “We will have a religion fit for you.” And because they wanted to be somebody in the world, they devise a religion that is only outward, and such a one as dishonors God, by thinking him like themselves, delighting in incense and ornaments and pictures and the like. From this came all the outside of popery, by which they labor to ingratiate themselves with the world. They fool the world with all these toys in order to please themselves, and they had suitable clergies: like lips, like lettuce. They had a religion suitable to their life. And from this came all that trash in popery to please the foolish heart of man.

And because they will not be basely esteemed, they get into the consciences of people by raising up authority through false means and false notions: that a man can make his Maker, and turn bread into Christ’s body by five words; and that the pope cannot err, and whatever comes from him you must obey, even at the cost of denying obedience to your lawful prince. For they had seated themselves in the consciences of the people, and raised themselves by false means, to avoid what they saw would follow the gospel. They knew the cross would follow the doctrine of the cross, the preaching of Christ crucified, and mortification and self-denial. And therefore they thought to take another way, and from this comes all that forced respect they have in popery.

But it is quite the contrary with any who are won by God to the means: they at once hold them in high esteem. So the jailer who had whipped and abused the apostles treated them very respectfully and made them a feast (Acts 16:33-34). And so in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25, when the simple man hears the word lay open his sinful state, he at once falls down at the apostles’ feet and says, Certainly God is in you. No man is won by the blessed truth of God who does not have a high opinion of the pure ordinances of God; and the more pure and close and searching it is, the more he esteems it. And therefore we may take an estimate of ourselves by our esteem of it.

A sanctified ear shows a sanctified heart, and a sanctified esteem of God’s ordinance, as God’s ordinance. The power and virtue we find in it, working upon our souls, is an argument that we have been wrought upon by the ministry; for though we are counted “earthen vessels” by base, earthly-minded men, yet those who have been wrought upon have other estimations of us.

The calling of ministers is to bring men’s souls to heaven, to be saviors of the people, to bear God’s own name, to be fathers. It is a calling that the angels might stoop under. “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor 2:16), and yet the base slight it. But I say that respect must not be won by forced means, as in popery, but by opening the mysteries of God, with the Spirit accompanying the outward ministry. This will work so effectually in the heart as to raise the heart to a high esteem of these things, from the blessed experience people find of the Spirit of God working in them. But that will appear more in the next part, where he says that God’s end in conveying heavenly things by earthen vessels is that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man.

We have unfolded the first part of the verse, and have shown:

1. That the gospel is “a treasure.”

2. The “treasurers”: they are the apostles and ministers.

3. And then the “vessels.” We carry it in “earthen vessels,” earthly vessels both for their matter and for the esteem they have.

Of this I will say only what concerns every man.

1. It is not a separate condition; it is the condition of all. To be earth is in itself no such base condition. That it is a word of disgrace and frailty comes from sin. For though we are earthy, and made of nothing, and so might fall to nothing, yet God would have suspended the inclination of the creature, which is prone to turn back to its origin, which is nothing, if Adam had not sinned. The heavens are made of nothing, and yet still continue in their condition, because God preserves them. And the angels are made of nothing, and are subject to fall to nothing; like the angels that fell, they might have fallen. And they do not stand by any strength of their own, but God’s grace suspends that possibility of falling to nothing, and confirms them in that blessed condition. And so the baseness of the earthen vessels comes from sin.

2. And add this by the way: see the marvelous power of God. At first, all things were nothing at all; then they were a chaos, a confused mass; and out of a confused mass come a heaven and earth, and all the creatures. Man himself falls, and becomes worse than nothing, having sinned; and to be delivered out of that miserable condition he must be a new creature. Of an earthen vessel God makes him a vessel of glory, and never leaves him until he is settled in a blessed, everlasting condition. So God brings man from nothing, and worse than nothing, to a blessed and glorious condition.

Let us often think of this, that we are earthen vessels. It is a strange thing that God has joined body and soul together, which are so wonderfully different, the soul being spiritual, the body earthly. But that he has joined his Spirit with a sinful, polluted soul, that is more wonderful. But to join the Godhead with earth, that the Virgin Mary, being an “earthen vessel,” should have Christ made of her substance, that he should set his own stamp and image in a piece of earth, and take a piece of earth into union with his person, that earth should be joined with God: here is a wonder of wonders.

3. Therefore let it tend to our humbling that we are only earthen vessels, and let it keep us in terms of subjection, so that we do not dash against God, being only earthen vessels; for he has iron scepters for proud earth, to dash them all to pieces (Ps 2:9).

4. Let us be thankful for our protection and preservation, being earthly vessels. In the last visitation, the last great plague, in the year of our Lord 1624, how many of these earthen vessels were dashed to pieces in one day? Beyond the seas, in the wars, how many were dashed together in a moment? We are so frail that if the like judgment should fall on us, we turn to nothing. We are proud, womanish, and wicked, and have high thoughts, as if we were not “earthen vessels”; and therefore it is a great mercy that we have been preserved this long.

As ministers are earthen vessels, so are magistrates and great men. Their souls are knit to their bodies by no sounder bonds than the meanest man’s. There is as little binding together, and as weak, between the strongest and greatest men in the world as between the poorest.

5. But as this concerns ministers especially, let me make one further use of it to the people who stand in any relation to the ministry or magistracy: that we do not refuse the treasure because of the weakness or infirmity of the vessel. Elijah had food brought to him by a raven; did he refuse it because so poor a creature brought him his food (1 Kgs 17:6)? No. He took it as a special blessing of God that he had food at all, sent from God to refresh him in his weariness; and therefore he does not stand upon the vessel, but marks the treasure from which it came.

Who would refuse a pardon because the one who brings it may be lower in rank than himself? Look to the prince’s hand and seal. Is it a sealed truth? Does conscience bear witness to it, being God’s privy seal? It does not matter who brings it. Magnify God’s ordinances: he not only gives pardon, but likewise gives a messenger to bring it. Therefore bless God for his ordinances, rather than stumble at the weakness of his ministers.

It does not matter what the hand is, if it gives a treasure. We are wise in the things of this life, and so we should be in heavenly things, considering that God does this in a wise and gracious dispensation, condescending to our weakness. We bear no proportion to messengers of a higher nature. If we cannot endure the sight of an angel, we cannot endure God himself. You know the history of Moses. And therefore, seeing that God has so stooped to us, yield thankfully to this weak dispensation, that God conveys spiritual things to man by man.

Now what is the end of all this? “That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor 4:7). In this these things are to be observed.

First, that there is a power in the ministry and dispensation of the gospel, and an excellent power. The apostle cannot enlarge himself enough here, when he enters upon the argument of commending the gospel.

Secondly, this power, and excellency of power, is of God, and not of man.

Thirdly, so that this may appear to be so, he uses the ministry of weak men and earthen vessels, that by the disproportion between the excellency of the things and earthen vessels, they may know that if any good is done, it comes from him who is the highest cause of all conversion of the soul. To bring the soul out of Satan’s kingdom to the liberty of God’s children, to be heirs of heaven, is so far above “earthen vessels” that it must needs appear to be God’s work.

Doctrine. For the former, we shall put them both together: that there is an excellent power in the ordinances of God, as it is dispensed under the gospel.

The Word itself, what power it has! Are not all things by the Word in creation? No, more: is not the vigor and strength that every creature has from the same Word? Is not the being and efficacy of all things, and the continuance of things, from the Word? As Hebrews 1:3 says, he upholds all things by his mighty power and word. From where comes the support and continuance of the vigor of every creature, but from God? Who causes the sun to shine, and to give light to inferior things, so that they may bring forth fruit for the use of every creature?

And why is the sea, that vast and unruly creature, kept within its bounds so that it cannot go an inch farther? Is it not God’s commanding words? At first God created it, and God made bounds so that it cannot go beyond its due compass. Is not an eternal law set upon every creature by the word? This you are, this is your virtue, this is the extent of it, thus far you shall go, and no farther. God sent forth his word, says the psalmist, and they were created (Ps 148:5). I speak of it only by way of illustration of the point in hand. And so the excellency of the power in the great work of the redemption and salvation of man is from the word, as will appear in particulars.

(1) What a large power is put forth in the conversion of a man. For is it not the bringing of a man out of Satan’s kingdom into the kingdom of Christ (Col 1:13)? And will Satan let a man go willingly? Is not conversion a world of miracles? How many miracles there are in that one work of conversion! It was a miracle when the blind man saw, and the deaf man had his hearing restored, when the mute man began to speak, and the man whose feet were held together, so that he could not stretch himself, was able to run. But to give life to a dead man is a miracle indeed.

Now in the conversion of a sinner, by the ordinance of God and the Spirit accompanying it, all these are in one. For what is conversion but the opening of the sight of the soul to see its misery by nature, and a better condition in Christ than ever, and the opening of the ear to hear and to taste heavenly discourse in another manner than before? What is it but restoring feet to run in God’s commandments, to delight in the ways that were tedious before, and that the mouth that was used to swearing and cursing, in the language of hell, should now set forth the praises of God? Is there not a world of wonders in one work? Therefore there is a power, and an excellent power, put forth in conversion. Whatever Christ did in the gospel to the body, he does to the soul in conversion, and greater power is put forth in the work on the soul than in the work on the body.

Think what it is to enter into the heart of man, which fences itself against all goodness, to pull down strongholds, high imaginations (2 Cor 10:4), and rebellious oppositions against God and goodness. Do you not see such spirits daily under the gospel? Only guess, then, what is in the whole of mankind. What was it when Christ sent his apostles into the world? He sent his word accompanied with his Spirit, and that word was to enter into the hearts of men, and cast down all the proud, high, lofty imaginations, and lay all flat before Christ. They cry out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). “We have been vile wretches, and now we are convinced of it.” Is not the word powerful to turn a man out of himself, to dash him clean to pieces, and then to make him up new again, better than he ever was? This is power indeed.

There is an excellent power in the word: first, in the ministers themselves; and secondly, by them to the people.

[1] There is an excellency of power to make them fit for the work, and then to go along with them in working the conversion of others. A great power wrought on Paul and Peter and the rest, and a great power wrought by them on all the rest. But because I do not speak to ministers, except as it concerns all, we will speak of the power in general.

[2] I might speak at great length in showing the power of the ministry from its success. Look into the history of the church. Mark Christ’s time and the apostles’ time, how strange it was that fishermen and men of low conditions were furnished with commissions from heaven, and carried these treasures in earthen vessels. See what wonders they wrought in the world by spreading the sweet savor of the gospel. The fishermen cast their great nets into the great world, as Augustine says, and got in whole nations. And therefore Saint Paul speaks magnificently for himself and the rest of the apostles: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom 1:16). As Isaiah 53:1 says, “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed and made bare?” as the word signifies. That is, to whom is the power of the word in the ministry made bare? The ministry is the arm of God, by which he pulls man out of Satan’s kingdom.

Now God the Father draws them to Christ, in spite of corruption, in spite of sin and Satan, into his own kingdom. The cross was then set above princes’ crowns; the greatest emperors that ever were submitted themselves to the scepter of Jesus Christ, and laid down their crowns at his feet. In the ten persecutions, was there not a mighty power of the gospel? When it had caught the hearts of women, young men, old men, or children, of all conditions, all the fire and all the torments that tyrants could devise could not get Christ out of their hearts. They were willing to sacrifice their lives, and found more comfort in the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ, so that all the discouragements in the world could not make them forsake him. Such a fire was rooted in their hearts by the fire of God’s word, that it made them not care for any other fires whatsoever. Where this excellency of the power of the word appears in any, it arms them against all oppositions whatsoever.

3. We will show the powerful work of the word in some branches of it.

(1) There is an excellency of power that enables a man against his own corruptions, against temptations from Satan, from the world, and sometimes from God himself by way of trial. This ordinance, having God’s Spirit accompanying it, enables a man against corruption, even the most bosom corruptions, and against all temptations whatsoever. It makes a man do what is quite contrary to his nature. It will turn Jordan back, to make of Mary, a loose woman, a blessed woman; to make of Paul the persecutor, Paul the preacher; to be able to subdue corruptions when they rise, corruptions that great persons lie under; to subdue their carnal wills. We see that great persons are led by their wills, and encouraged by him who rules their wills, the evil spirit, and so they run rushing on to destruction, the devil joining with them. The Christian, having the power of the word and Spirit crossing his will, is able to deny himself; and what an excellent power that is! Is it not an excellent power?

Now the word gives us strength and comfort against temptations to sin and for sin, whether they come from Satan or from God, showing himself an enemy. The word teaches us how to oppose God himself when he plays the part of an enemy, as he sometimes does. A poor Christian can then say, “Lord, remember your promise. You seem to be my enemy, and ‘writest bitter things against me’ (Job 13:26); but I do not believe that you are an enemy. You have made rich promises; remember them, Lord, the promises in which you have caused me to trust” (Ps 119:49). God is content to be bound by his word; and is not that powerful which can bind God himself, when we can sue him on his bond? “You seem to be my enemy, but I will not go away. I will lie at your feet until I hear comforting news from heaven.”

As for temptations on the right hand, allurements and promises, and on the left, threats and afflictions and the like, the word sets other matters before us than these. And the word enables us for every kind of duty. A man who is tongue-tied, it enables to call on God; and a man who naturally has nothing good to speak, it enables to speak a word of comfort to others. It enables him for every duty that God calls him to, to trust him, and to love him above all. It enables him to live well and to die well, and to perform all the duties God requires. The word with the Spirit enables us to manage all in a spiritual manner.

(2) And so for bearing afflictions, how does the psalmist speak in the Old Testament? The word will direct and comfort us for the carrying on of our souls in troubles of all sorts; as David says, “I had perished in mine affliction, if it had not been for thy word” (Ps 119:92). No affliction can befall us but we have grand comforts to support us in it, since God has promised his gracious assistance, that he will not fail us nor forsake us; since the sting is taken out by him who has sanctified all afflictions in his own person; and since, as our crosses increase, so our comforts and consolation shall increase. And the afflictions of this world are not worthy of the excellency that shall be revealed.

Then it is no wonder that there is such strength in the word that it enables us for the duties of our calling, public and private, and enables us to bear afflictions. And therefore the apostle may well say, “That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

(3) And so it enables us to enjoy all things that God gives in a right manner. The word with the Spirit teaches us how to use the world as if we did not, to enjoy its things as helps in our pilgrimage and way to heaven, so that they are not snares to us, as they are to carnal men, who perish in these things, like wasps on jars of sweets.

They are drowned in riches and drowned in pleasures, but the word and the Spirit direct the children of God to use these things in a holy and sanctified manner, and to taste them as they ought, which no one can do but those who have the word engrafted by the Spirit in their hearts.

And there is great reason for this; for what does this word oppose? Does it not oppose greater things than the world has? What is all advancement here compared to heaven? And what is all the discouragement of tyrants compared to hell? If anyone saw the joys of heaven, would he not forsake ten thousand worlds rather than lose them? If a man saw with his eyes hell opened to swallow him up if he did not alter his courses, would he not leave his courses? Now, the Lord says it is true that these things shall be. Let a power go with the word, and is it a wonder that a man will leave his sinful courses rather than have a curse? It is no wonder that Moses should leave the pleasures of a court, when he “saw him that was invisible” (Heb 11:27). It is no wonder that Paul, who was lifted up to the “third heaven,” and saw things that could not be uttered (2 Cor 12:4), did not regard the threats of all tyrants, for he saw the right difference of things; he saw things in their right colors. So if the Lord lets us see spiritual things and earthly things in their colors, the one will appear to be realities indeed, and the other to be nothing but vanity. It is for lack of faith, and of power accompanying the ordinance of God, to persuade us that these things are as they are, and as we shall undoubtedly find them another day. And therefore it is no wonder that the gospel finds such power where it is received and obeyed, because of the vast difference of conditions.

I beg you, let us consider these things, and not be led away with a spirit of vanity and folly and error. So there is a power, and an excellency of power, in the ministry; and you whose understandings are open in the history of the church know how powerfully it has worked in all times.

Question. How do you know the word to be the word?

Answer. It carries proof and evidence in itself. It is evidence that the fire is hot to him who feels it, and that the sun shines to him who looks on it. How much more does the word, which carries its own character and stamp with it, give evidence of itself to those who are God’s people! For it not only gives light, but gives what is more than the sun can do. The sun gives light, but no eyes. The word gives understanding to the simple and opens their eyes (Ps 119:130); and a Christian can say, “God has not only shined upon me by the word, but has worked in my heart by it, so that in it I will live, and in it I will die.” So such people need not seek arguments, for the word itself is stronger than all framed arguments. It has a character of divine truth stamped upon it, in the heart of every believer who mingles it with faith, that it is the word, though all the world should preach the contrary, and the ministers who teach it should apostatize from it. “I am sure I felt it; it warmed my heart, and converted me.” And that is the best test of the word to be the word, because of the efficacy felt in the heart.

That Spirit who makes the word effectual does by that efficacy convince the soul that the word is the word. For the soul reasons like this: “I have found this word casting me down, I have found this word lifting me up; I have found this word warming my heart when it was cold and dead. I found it enlarging my heart in loving God and praising God. I have found the Spirit of God in the word casting down strongholds, and casting Satan out of me, and setting up his kingdom in me, and ruling me by his Spirit, so that I cannot but do what was irksome to me before, and can abstain from what was sweet to me before; and all because I am convinced of another course than before.” The soul that can say this, if objections come, defies the suggestion. “My soul has felt the strength of the word taking root downwards, bringing forth fruit upwards (2 Kgs 19:30), and shall I doubt it to be the word?” But to leave this.

Application. I beg you, if there is such efficacy in the word, make a use of instruction from it, that we regard it more than we have done.

Use 1. And first of all, that we may make way for instruction, let us only examine ourselves whether it is a word of power to us, or to any who have lived so long under the gospel. The test is very easy.

(1) If it is a word of power to us, certainly it will enable us to defend it, and maintain it in the worst times. Saint Paul says, “You received the word in much affliction” (1 Thess 1:6). We may live in places where holy things are disclaimed and abandoned with Ishmael’s persecutions, that is, the persecutions of these times, scoffings and scornings. If even so, hearing divine things unfolded, we receive them, and entertain them, and do so with joy and comfort, in opposition to the poison of the times, it is a good sign that the power of the word has caught every one of our hearts. But if every taunt of Ishmael and of poisonous spirits is regarded, when in times of poverty a little thing will discourage us and make us flinch, where is the power? Alas! Whatever profession we make, we deny the power of it; for if it did work upon us, we would receive it, in the midst of opposition, with joy and comfort.

(2) The apostle says in another place, Receive the word, as the word of God (1 Thess 2:13). Now if a man receives divine truths, he will acknowledge that it is a word of power, and excellent power. What is it, then, to receive the word as the word? It is to receive divine truths with a great deal of reverence, as blessed truths that come from the bosom of God, and likewise with a great deal of subjection, submitting the soul to them. “It is God’s truth delivered by Jesus Christ in the ministers, and therefore I receive it as God’s truth, and submit my conscience to it.” Though some rebellion may be discovered, yet if I allow no risings against the power of the word, it is a sign we have felt the power of the word, when we regard it as the word.

You see, then, some particular evidence by which we may know if the word has worked upon us.

Add the particulars named before, by way of test.

(3) What power do you have to help you against temptations? What power do you have against temptations from the word and divine truth? What power do you have to bear crosses and afflictions, to comfort you in sickness, losses, and crosses in the world? Can you fetch comfort from truths heard and read out of this book of God’s word? Then it is a sign that the Spirit of God, with the word, has worked a blessed change in your hearts. Can you use the world moderately? Can you perform duties in a spiritual manner? Undoubtedly, you may comfort yourselves, though with many conflicts and oppositions, both without and within.

If on testing we find these things are not so, I beg you, do not own yourselves as Christians for one minute of an hour, for that minute may be the minute of our destruction, and may cut off the thread of our lives. Do not rest one minute. We may bless ourselves as we will, as all proud hearts do against God, and the ordinances of God, and godly ways, in scorn, as if they had a heart separate from God and the word, and did not need to be indebted to God for direction. They can go home, and there they have means and friends, and they can do well enough. But God sets himself to laugh at the destruction of such people; and that word which they cast behind them, and would have nothing to do with, will now stick by them to the hour of death. They will carry it with them in their own consciences to hell, and their consciences will say, “God told these truths to you, and I told them to you; I heard this from God’s word, and you did not regard me.”

And therefore, when your consciences are awakened with divine truths, know that conscience shall one day be revived, and you shall hear it. What you now slight, you shall regard. You now regard no command, no duty, but you shall think of them when it is too late. Therefore, seeing this is the time, labor to find the power of God in the heart; do not rest.

But how shall we conduct ourselves, so that the word may be effectual to us?

[1] Labor to have humble, teachable souls, attending meekly on God’s divine dispensation in his ordinances. You know what David says: “The humble he will teach” (Ps 25:9). Come with teachable hearts, and God will reveal mysteries to us. He will teach secrets, so that we shall say, “I never thought there had been such light, such sweetness in the word.” Come with humble souls, and you shall find him opening the secrets of heaven, especially if you desire the Lord to give the Spirit of revelation, and to take off this veil of darkness and corruption; desire that he would back with his Spirit his own ordinance and make it effectual, so that as things are in themselves holy, and heavenly, and excellent, and as they are to God’s children, so they may be to us. God’s word is a word of power to all elect children. Oh, that I might find it a word of power to me! That I might get myself to be God’s elected child!

[2] Join with the means a spirit of prayer, as God shall enable you, and “to him that hath shall be given” (Matt 13:12). Labor to wait for this. If God does not speak at first, the good hour has not yet come; wait until the waters are stirred, as it was in the pool of Bethesda (John 5:3). Wait until he gives the Spirit of revelation, and at length we shall find such a change as Isaiah speaks of: The lion and the lamb shall dwell together, and the leopard and the kid, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord (Isa 11:6-9). The knowledge of the Lord makes lions lambs, and leopards kids, and makes them fit to live together, however contrary their dispositions may be. If we have grace to wait God’s leisure, we shall find a transforming, changing power in the word to alter us thoroughly, and to mold us to a holy frame of spirit.

The apostle, as we have heard before, labors in the former chapter, as likewise in this one, to set out the dignity of the ministry of the gospel above the ministry of the law, and answers, as we have heard, all objections. And lest he should seem to savor of too high a spirit, for Saint Paul to attribute so much to his ministry, in 2 Corinthians 4:6 he gives all to God: “God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.” So whatever light is conveyed by the ministry is conveyed by God, and by an almighty power in God, even by the same power that was used in the creation, and in some sort above it. Now the end of the knowledge kindled in the heart, especially of the ministers, is “that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God may be seen in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). God shines on the ministers, not only upon their understandings, but upon their hearts; and to what end? Not to shine in ourselves only, but to reflect to others the light with which God shines upon us. Then he shows that the end of the ministry is especially to set out God in Christ, and the glorious mercy and goodness and bounty of God in Christ Jesus.

And what is the end of this? That God will have such an excellent treasure, as is in the dispensing of the mysteries of Christ, come out of earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

Here we should consider, first of all, that there is a power, and an excellency of the power, in the sweet truths of God revealed in the gospel, especially in the dispensing of it by weak vessels. It is so powerful, so excellently powerful, that it may be known that it is of God. It is of God, but the aim is that it may appear to be of God, for things are said to be when they appear, in regard of men. Now, so that it may appear to all that the power and efficacy of the ministry of the gospel is of God, and not of man, God would have such a disproportion between the vessels and the treasure. The treasure shall be rich and heavenly, the vessels shall be earthly, so that whatever is good, it may appear that it comes not from the vessels, but from the treasure itself.

That there is a power, and excellent power, in the truths of God, especially as dispensed by the ministry, we have in part shown before, but we will follow the point. God has furnished everything in the world with power. Every creature has power, together with being. The heavens have a power of influence; the dull earth has a power to put forth what it receives from the influence of heaven into this and that creature, being the common mother of many excellent things; but all the power is from God. God has put a power into the creatures, which we call an eternal law. Besides the law made for man, there is a statute given to the creature. Heaven shall move, and by moving set the limits of time, and heaven shall bestow influence upon lower bodies. There is a law for the sea that it shall ebb and flow, and not pass the bounds God has set for it; and by the law of God there is an immovable center on which the earth shall stand. These keep the statutes and the laws that God has given them eternally. God, to show a miracle, can make the sun stand still, or the earth move, or the sea overflow. But the power we are to speak of is another kind of power, a spiritual power, and excellency of power.

There is a power, then, in the ordinance of God, and a spiritual power. There is in every ordinance of God something that has a heavenly relish. There is in the word, and in the sacraments, that which makes a heavenly relish. And God, by the word and the ministry, creates spiritual sense suited to the relish that is in spiritual things. If we did not have spiritual sense created in us by the word, to relish those heavenly things in the ordinances, they would be to no purpose; God would lose his glory, and man would lose his benefit from them. God creates spiritual eyes to see, and a spiritual taste that is natural to spiritual things and of one kind with them.

As there is a sweet taste in the word, so God alters the taste of the soul, so that the word is found better than the appointed food, sweeter than the honeycomb. Nothing is so sweet as divine promises to a sanctified soul, because God, who has put a sweet taste into the ordinances, alters the relish of the soul, its taste, and sight, and spiritual feeling of all divine truths. The spiritual heart feels the comforts of the sacrament in strengthening faith, and tastes the goodness of God in Christ in giving his body and shedding his blood. So there is a relish and virtue in the things themselves, and by them the soul is fitted to take the benefit that is hidden in the things.

There is in divine ordinances not only a light to convince, but likewise a power, together with the light, to open the eyes. There is light and power to open the eyes of the soul together. What if all were light? If there were no eye to see, the light would be of no use at all. There is power in the ordinances not only to offer light, but they have a spirit accompanying them to open the eyes of the soul to see that light; so there is extraordinary power in God’s ordinances. What light can give sight, and what meat can give relish to him who lacks it? There is therefore an excellent power in the ordinances.

Now, there is a power of a thing in nature, and there is a power by institution. And the power of the ordinances and the ministry is drawn from God’s institution, who has appointed it and sanctified it to have such power, where he will accompany them with his Holy Spirit.

Now this power that is in the ordinances of God is set out and illustrated by many sayings and comparisons that are very clear and excellent for that purpose.

(1) The word and ministry is called “the salt” (Luke 14:34). Now the power of salt is to season, to make sweet, to give relish, to consume the superfluous humors, to preserve, and to keep long. So the word has the power of salt to eat out the corruptions, and to preserve the soul and make it relish God. The souls of men, without divine truths accompanying them, are, to speak with reverence, nothing but carrion souls and dead souls, always stinking in the nostrils of God. However they may carry it off in the world as godly persons, yet if they do not have souls sanctified by divine truths, they have nothing but rotten hearts, and are good for nothing.

(2) The dispensing of it is compared to “the arm of God.” “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” (Isa 53:1). Now a man’s power is in his arm. The ordinance is not only “the finger of God,” but “the arm of God,” to pull men out of Satan’s kingdom and their wicked courses, by showing them the vengeance of God, and better things than the world can, or Satan can. The word, with the power of the Spirit accompanying it, is the arm of God “made bare,” as the word signifies in the original, which comes from a verb meaning to be made manifest, and is properly used of the revealing of hidden things (Amos 3:7). God reveals and makes bare his arm in the ministry when he pulls men out of Satan’s kingdom and their wicked courses.

(3) And so likewise the truth of God, in the dispensing of it, is the “sword of the Spirit” (Eph 6:17), and cuts on both sides. It is no leaden dagger, as the papists blasphemously call it. It has a force in it to cut as it goes, and those who will not feel it now shall feel it one day. And therefore it is compared, together with the Spirit, “to wind,” which has a mighty power to carry and transport things (John 3:8).

(4) And the ministers of God’s holy truths, in regard of the efficacy of the ministry, are given excellent titles. They are:

[1] “Stars,” because they give light (Rev 1:16).

[2] They are “ambassadors,” as they have commission from God (Luke 9:2).

[3] They are, in regard of the excellency of the truth, “angels” (Rev 2:1).

[4] They are, in respect of the necessity of God’s people, “saviors.” So were Moses and Joshua.

God ordinarily saves by the ministry those whom he does save; so there is a power and efficacy of power in the ministry, as appears by the titles by which it is set out.

(5) Again, God is able to give efficacy to whatever he will. As he gives power to every creature according to its own natural working, so he gives power to those things that have their institution from him. He is able to do it, to make them effectual for the end for which he has appointed them, for he is the supreme power himself. All power resides in him as the head; and therefore he furnishes and clothes this ordinance of his with a power.

(6) The word is compared to “seed” (Matt 13:3 and following). Now in seed there is a power to put itself forth, to grow and breed seed like itself, and it will break through clods until it comes to its ripeness and maturity. So there is a power in the word. When it is in the believer’s heart, it will bring forth a disposition like itself, as seed does. As it is a holy word and a pure word, it will make the heart that receives it suitable. Therefore James calls it the “engrafted word” (Jas 1:21), comparing divine truths to a graft set into a plant, which turns the sap of the plant into its own nature. So when the word is engrafted, it alters the heart, so that the inward man relishes divine things, thinks in the power of what he hears, speaks in the power of what he hears and understands, and works and acts in the power of what he knows. So divine truth is like a graft set into the heart.

Therefore there is a power, and an excellency of power, in it, not only in the truth itself, but in the dispensing of it. God does not set up an ordinance without giving a blessing upon it. There is an excellency of power, as well as a power. Is there not a power and excellency of power to level mountains and to fill up valleys? It fills the valleys. Poor dejected souls are filled with comfort. Is there not power and excellency of power to make a camel go through a needle’s eye? That is, to strip a man of self-conceit about his own worth, so far that he who was a camel, a swelling person before, shall now be humble and low in his own sight. It is difficult as for a camel, so for a cable too. It takes much thinning to make a cable go through a needle’s eye, and much to humble a Christian; and is this not an excellent power? Surely it is. Therefore there is a power, and an excellency of power.

I will show you this in particular.

1. The power of the ordinance of God is first seen in that it reveals to men their natural condition, and shows what they are by nature. For this end it uses the law, to show that we are dead men, carnal men, under a fearful bondage; and the Spirit, going along with it, convinces the soul that we are dead, and thereupon the soul is stunned and cast down with fear and terror.

2. And then the word has a power likewise to show and reveal the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, to pull us out of Satan’s kingdom, to drive the strong man out of our hearts (Matt 12:29) by higher reasons, by higher comforts.

3. And then the word, together with the ministry of the Spirit, has a converting power, a changing power, to alter the very frame of the soul. All the words in the world, all philosophy, all education, all the best helps that can be given, cannot stamp the image of God upon the soul, or frame holiness in the soul; only the blessed truth of God can do it, especially in the dispensing of it. So the image of Christ, the second Adam, is stamped upon the soul by the Spirit accompanying the ordinance.

And when the Spirit of God in the ordinance has set a stamp of holiness in the soul, and made it like Christ, it works in the soul, and by the soul. When the soul is altered and changed, it is a fit instrument of the Spirit, together with the ordinance, to pray, to do any service, to trust in God, to love God.

4. And to show more particularly wherein the power of God’s word is seen after conversion, I will show it in four or five particulars.

(1) First of all, when it has altered and changed men’s frame and pulled them out of Satan’s kingdom, it is seen in enabling them to perform duty in a right manner, which a natural man cannot reach. The soul altered by the power of the word and Spirit can love God, can deny itself, can hate what it formerly loved, can pray (which no carnal man can do), can have communion with God, can perform spiritual duties and actions above the rank of nature. This the Spirit of God, together with the ordinance, raises the soul to do.

A man may do many things that a Christian man does, and a common Christian may do many things that a sincere Christian does, but self-regard enters into all he does. He does it either from slavish fear and terror, or to be thought well of, or to redeem some inward quiet for his tormented conscience. But he does not have the Spirit of God altering the relish of his soul to love divine truths, and to do what he does out of love and obedience.

A holy man, even if there were no enforcement out of God’s word, loves the truth because it is truth and has a suitableness to his sense. If there were no hell, no torment at all, there is still such excellency in divine truths, his soul being altered and changed to suit them, that he obeys heavenly truths out of love to heavenly truths, and obeys God out of love to God. He does so because it is best in his judgment to do so, and not only out of fear, though that is a useful way too.

(2) Again, as there is a power enabling a man to do, so there is a power in the word enabling a man to resist temptation. For the word breeds faith, and faith knits the soul to Christ and draws power from him to resist Satan. By faith we overcome the world, temptations of honors, pleasures, temptations from within and from without. The Spirit of God, working faith to lay hold on better things, enables us to resist all temptations on the right hand and on the left. “This is your victory, even your faith” (1 John 5:4). “Faith cometh by hearing” (Rom 10:17).

Faith presents to the soul such excellent good things and such terrible evil things that it overpowers the soul to embrace the better good and to avoid the greater evil, notwithstanding all temptations from the world. The good the world affords is nothing so good, and as for the evil, there is nothing in it so evil. Now faith, apprehending this by divine light, overcomes the world.

(3) And as the power is seen in enabling us to do duties above other men, and in enabling us to resist temptations, so likewise it is seen in showing our corruptions that we are naturally prone to. A man by the power of grace is so altered that he falls out with his most beloved sins, and labors to get strength against that sin above all others. The word makes division between his spirit and sin. Jordan is driven back with him. That stream of nature that was carried at full force one way is now carried another way.

Though he has corruptions which sometimes foil him, yet faith gets spiritual strength, by which at last he not only subdues them but at last expels them. And therefore the Scripture calls it self-denial. He has a self that denies itself; he has a self wrought by the Spirit and word, by which he denies himself, that is, his carnal self (Titus 2:12). When his corruptions would have such a thing, his other self says no, it shall not be. When they stir him up to revenge, no, it shall not be. I owe no service to my flesh. And he has a principle in him by which he subdues what before was wonderfully powerful in him, and this sets him above himself.

(4) There is a power, and an excellency of power, in the word to comfort us, to raise the soul in all dejections, in all discomforts. Therefore it is called “the word of faith” (1 Tim 4:6), an instrument to beget faith in the promises. Faith relies upon better things, and sets the soul above all inferior things. And so for comfort, it sets the soul upon a rock higher than all trouble. It sets the soul upon God’s infinite goodness and power and truth and promises. It sets the soul upon the things promised, heaven and happiness to come. What are these things to the glory to come?

So faith carries the soul to heaven, to God, to Christ, to the promises. It pitches the soul upon such a foundation as no discomforts here below can shake; it is above the reach of any trouble. A soul that pitches itself on the word and Spirit of God, and so upon God himself (for God and his word are one), is above the reach of all discomforts whatsoever, so far as it believes. And therefore it comforts a man. The comforts of God’s word, having the Spirit of God with them, are called “the consolations of the Almighty.” “Despisest thou the consolations of the Almighty?” (Job 15:11).

We will give a few promises as instances. Let the soul be in want: it pitches itself on the promises in the word. God has promised “he will not leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb 13:5). Let a man be in some weakness and disability, so that he cannot perform his duty: God has promised his “Holy Spirit to them that beg it” (Luke 11:13). We are in many miseries and crosses: “all things shall work together for the best to them that love God” (Rom 8:28).

God is working my good by this cross, and shall I be angry with God for working my good? No. Let me by faith see the outcome of things in this promise. God will turn all to the best, and how this will stay the soul! God shows himself as a Father, and it is for my good, and I shall receive “the quiet fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). And so you may see how the soul is stayed in all afflictions whatsoever. “I had perished,” says the psalmist, “in mine afflictions, but that thy statutes were my comforts” (Ps 119:92). They were my support. Thus you see in some particular things how there is a power in the word, and an excellent power in many ways, enabling us to duty, sustaining us in all crosses whatsoever.

(5) Again, there is a power, an excellency of power, in the ordinance by which we are above all good things that the world affords us. By the word we know we have lawful use of the blessings, prosperity, peace, and plenty God gives us. We may use them as God’s creatures, being in covenant with God. And by the word we come to manage them, and not to be slaves to them, making them our masters that are our servants. By the word, and by the Spirit accompanying it, we have a sanctified use of all. All conditions are sanctified to us, and we are sanctified to all conditions, not only to afflictions, but to prosperity and everything. By the Spirit of God we are raised above prosperity, which subdues more than adversity does.

There is an excellent place in Philippians 4:12-13, where St. Paul says, “I have learned” (in Christ’s school, not at the feet of Gamaliel) “to want and to abound; I can do all things in Christ that strengthens me.” But a carnal man, who has not let the word into his heart by the Spirit of God, can neither want without murmuring nor abound without pride and licentiousness. Everything turns to his bane, because he gives no way to the Spirit. But where the Spirit gets place in the heart, it advances the heart above all conditions. Thus you see, in particular, wherein the excellency of the power in the ordinance of God appears.

Now all this is from God, not from us. And therefore the apostle says excellently in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to beat down strongholds” of corruptions, and to beat back temptations. So the weapons of the ministry of the word are “mighty,” but “through God,” being “strong in the Lord, and by the power of his might” (Eph 6:10). “I have learned,” says Paul, “to want and to abound,” but it is through Christ.

The gospel is a dead letter, the word is dead letters, without the Spirit, which is the infusion. Take water without infusion, and it is dead; but a drop of distilled liquor, which has such spirits in it, is more than a pint without spirits, which is flat and dead. So take the Spirit from God’s ordinances, and they are the massy substance, but they lack the infusion. There is the bread, but the staff of bread is gone. The staff of all the infusion is from God, and not from us.

You may see this in the Acts (Acts 1-2). When the Spirit of God fell down upon the apostles, what extraordinary men they were! It carried them through all oppositions, through all abasements, whips, scourges, imprisonments. It worked mightily; indeed, by the help of the Spirit it did greater things than Christ did. We may speak it with reverence, for Christ says, “You shall do greater things than these” (John 14:12), speaking of the mighty power of the Spirit that should fall on them after his ascension. Christ never converted so many at once as Peter, who converted three thousand; and yet Peter might have preached three thousand sermons and not have converted one man, if his preaching had not had the Spirit to accompany it. He cast the net and caught three thousand souls (Acts 2:41), and all because the Spirit was mighty in the ordinance.

What makes the age of the church bad or good, but that there is more or less of the Spirit? Why were the eight hundred, nine hundred, and thousand years so dead? Because Christ was not known as he should be; or, to put it another way, the Spirit was not given in that measure, and therefore they were dead and dull times. So it is the Spirit of Christ accompanying the ordinance that makes it effectual.

“I, even I, am thy comforter,” says the prophet (Isa 51:12). Men must speak comfort, but God must comfort the heart. “I create the fruit of the lips, peace, peace” (Isa 57:19). The fruit of the lips comes by the ordinance; but, says God, I will create it, and make it to be so. What is the fruit of the lips, if God does not create it? “Paul may plant, and Apollos may water” (1 Cor 3:6), and if men had the tongues of men and angels, if the Spirit did not accompany them, all would be nothing.

Indeed, miracles are nothing without Christ. Israel saw the wonders of God in Egypt, yet because God did not give them a heart, those wonders were not effectual. Indeed, the miracles of Christ did no good. Indeed, the doctrines of Christ did no good, without the Spirit. The Jews were not converted, because the Holy Ghost was not so abundantly given as afterwards.

Afflictions and crosses will not work without the Spirit. As it is said of Ahaz, “This is Ahaz” (2 Chr 28:22). The more God humbled him, the worse he was. And Pharaoh, after ten plagues, was ten times worse than before. Nothing will humble, neither word nor work, but by the power of the Spirit.

Therefore, as there is power and excellency of God in God’s ordinance, so it is all from God, for all operation is from the Holy Ghost. God the Father and the Son work by the Spirit. Power is originally in the Father, and it is conveyed to Christ, God-man, mediator, to be the treasure and fountain of all power and riches and goodness. But the Holy Spirit takes it from the Father and the Son, as the third person, being near to us and working in us. And so by the Spirit is meant the Holy Ghost, who comes from the Father and the Son.

Use 1. Is there such a power, and an excellent power, in the ordinance of God, when the Spirit of God accompanies it? Then make this use of it: depend on the ordinance of God with meekness and humility, and take heed of Naaman’s pride. Naaman was self-conceited. When he was reminded to wash himself in Jordan, what did he say? What reason is there in this? Are there not as good rivers in our country as the river Jordan? (2 Kgs 5:1 and following). But if Naaman had not listened to his servant’s counsel, he would have gone home as leprous as he came. His servant says, The prophet bids you do this, and therefore do it, or else return a leper as you came. And then he listened to him.

So many are of Naaman’s conceitedness. They say, Can I not read a good book in my chamber? Can I not have good lessons out of philosophy and morality? It is true; this is Naaman’s mind: are not other rivers as good as Jordan? But God has sanctified his word, and the dispensation of his word too. His word is holy, and the ordinance is holy, and that holiness, in our consideration of it, is distinct from the word. The very unfolding of the word has a Spirit with it. God will not set up an ordinance in his church to no end. Therefore, if we will not stoop to it, as we are lepers by nature, so we may die as we were born, for anything I know.

Therefore humbly depend on God’s ordinances, and be thankful that God vouchsafes to teach men by men. It is the most suitable teaching. We cannot endure the presence of an angel, nor an angel the presence of God. Therefore this is proportionable teaching, when God will teach man by man. If an angel were to administer it, the word would not be entertained for its own sake, but for the messenger’s sake. But now God would have it regarded not for the vessel’s sake, but for the treasure’s sake. Whatever the vessel may be, therefore, God will teach man by man. Therefore depend upon it.

But if God has not wrought this power and efficacy in our hearts, yet wait at the posts of wisdom, wait at the pool of Bethesda till the good hour comes. Perhaps the good hour has not yet come, for the ordinance is the grand conduit that conveys all Spirit, and all grace, and all comfort in life and in death. And therefore, unless we will quarrel with our own comforts and salvation, and the kingdom of heaven, and life, do not despise “the word of life,” “the word of the kingdom,” “the word of salvation,” “the word of faith,” “the word of reconciliation.”

Despise that, and you despise all these, because God is pleased to convey these things in no other way ordinarily, where he has established a church. Ordinarily, I say; extraordinary things we leave aside. And therefore God styles his word with these titles, the gospel of reconciliation and peace and the “word of the kingdom,” to show there is no way to come to grace, peace, and life but by the word of grace, the word of peace, the word of reconciliation. And therefore be stirred up to attend upon it, to make the best use of it, even as we desire the good that is conveyed by it.

Use 2. Again, if the ordinance of God, in unfolding the truths of God, has such a savor and power and relish in it, then let us examine ourselves whether we have found such power and efficacy or not. If not, then search out what the cause is, what stands between our souls and divine truth. And finding out the cause, let us not be more in love with our corruptions than with our souls. This word is able to save our souls, and therefore let us see whether there is stubbornness in our wills, resisting the truth of God, withstanding it, rebelling against it.

For the chief hindrance of divine truths, in the glorious times of the gospel, is not so much the veil of ignorance as a kind of willful stubbornness and pride. Men will not stoop to God’s ordinances, and when truths are revealed, men shake them off. As Stephen tells them, “You resisted the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51). As Christ tells them, “You would not come to me that you might have life” (John 5:40). And as he says, “I would have gathered you, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not” (Matt 23:37). We are in love with our corruptions more than with our souls, and therefore the word does not have that power, that efficacy, that excellency of power, that we should otherwise have experience of.

And it is a pitiful thing indeed that it does not. We may justly take up lamentations over the times. What power has the word, when it has no power to make men leave fruitless sins? What fruit is there in swearing, which declares only frothy hearts and rebellious dispositions, so that we get nothing, no other good by it, but only the publishing of our shame? God says, “the plague shall not depart from the house of swearers, and for oaths the land mourneth” (Zech 5:3-4; Jer 23:10). There is no good in the world by it. Every sin has its wages, but this has no end at all in it. The word has no power to make men leave superfluity, to leave an ugly fashion that does not become them but disgraces them, serving only to reveal that they desire to fashion themselves after the worst debauched persons.

Use 3. If this power does not have efficacy one way, it will have efficacy another; if it does not draw and quicken, it will have efficacy to confound. The threatenings of God against sins that they are willing to live in were made good, as Zechariah 1:5-6 says: “Where be your fathers and the prophets?” They are dead and gone, “but their words catch hold” of your fathers. They are gone; they threatened for these and these sins, and their threats remain. Moses is dead, but the threats extend to the people of the Jews, and stick upon them. The prophets and apostles are dead, but the threatenings against the sins of the times light upon the people, and they feel them now in hell.

So it is said in Revelation 6:2 that Christ, who rides on the white horse of the gospel, goes to conquer and to conquering; he goes with his bow and wounds as he goes, either to conversion, to alter their wicked course of life, or to confusion. There is an arrow shot in every man that hears, and that either makes him better or worse.

Objection. But you will say, What efficacy is there in the word, when men do not leave off their swearing and debauched courses of life?

Answer. I answer, there is an efficacy on these very persons even before they come to hell, which as it were gapes for them unless they alter their ways. There is an efficacy in hardening their hearts for the present, for every sermon makes them worse and worse; and is it not a terrible judgment to be hard-hearted? Son of man, harden this man’s heart (Isa 6:10). What! With preaching? That is the way to soften them; but if they do not stoop to it, it shall harden them. Every sermon they hear strikes them more and more with hardness, till they have filled up the measure of their sins, and then God repays them in full with confusion in hell forever. Is it not a judgment of God to sink deeper and deeper in sin?

If you ask who is the most wretched man of all that live in the church, surely it is those who will hear many things and yet will go against them; who will set their wills against God’s will, and set their authority against God’s authority; who will live as they like and live as they please. For every sin they commit is a step deeper into hell, and the more they have their wills, the more they shall be tormented against their wills.

No man is so deeply tormented as they who will have their lusts most freely, for God will have his will first or last. And the deeper they fall into sin here, the deeper they shall be in hell hereafter. What is the punishment in hell? To suffer what they would not. Now, your willful persons, of whatever rank, who despise the law of God and reason, though never so free and never so great: a willful person is in the most dangerous condition, because he sinks deeper and deeper in rebellious courses, and therefore his account will be heavier. And when conscience is awakened, it will charge sin on them with more terror than on other men. Because he would have his will, God will repay him in full with suffering what shall be clean contrary to his will. And therefore learn to stoop to God, submit to the ordinances of God, and labor that the word may be effectual, and that we may find it effectual, since all is of God.

Use 4. For the power, and the efficacy, and the excellency of it, I join prayer together with the ordinance. Lift up the heart to God, that God would accompany what we hear with his own Spirit, and accompany the receiving of the sacrament and every ordinance with his own Spirit, to make it effectual, for they are dead ordinances without it. Like food to a dead man, or cordials poured into a dead man’s mouth, they have no efficacy. And therefore desire God to afford his Spirit, to quicken us by the ordinance. And if we have spiritual life, desire that he would more and more increase it by his ordinance. And make our studies places of prayer as well as studies, because the efficacy of all is of God.

And do not think to break through things with your own wit, which is what has made all the heretics in the world. They will break through things with their own wit and not submit to God’s truth. And this makes profane men: they will not submit their profane wills to God’s rule. Therefore know that you cannot do it without the Spirit of God, joining prayer with the ordinance for the Spirit.

I beseech you, take these things to heart. I cannot enlarge on them. What has been spoken may be sufficient to stir us up to a care of the ordinances. Let me say this and no more at this time: it will bring an ill report upon all God’s ordinances if we are not careful to get good by them. We bring reproach upon them. How? God says his word is mighty to salvation, and it is his strong word to salvation, and his arm; but we, by hearing and growing no better, show there is no such thing. Our lives deny it, and therefore the world will conclude it. Look upon many a Christian, they will say: he hears the word and converses about it, but what power has it in him? Surely, if there were any such power, it would appear in those who attend upon it. If there is such power in the ministry, why are their lives no better? And so the word is reproached as a dead word, and the sacrament as a dead ordinance.

And therefore, in honor of God and the blessed things of God, I beseech you, labor to go to God by prayer, and attend on the means, and to find more efficacy and power, and never give over till we find something in ourselves above the nature and course of other men. And then we shall honor the ordinances of God, and shall witness that they are powerful, that we have felt their power casting us down in ourselves and lifting us up in God, resisting temptations, subduing our corruptions, enabling us to go through adversity and all conditions. And then we credit and adorn our profession, and grace religion, when we find the Spirit of God making these things effectual to us; otherwise we bring reproach upon them, and bring discredit to them in the hearts of carnal men.

The holy apostle, as we have heard, after he had set out the divine mysteries of the gospel gloriously, out of the fullness of his apprehension of them, comes to avoid any imputation of arrogance, lest he should seem to advance his calling too far. The gospel is indeed a treasure, and the preaching of it is a treasure; the dispensation of it, being God’s ordinance, is a treasure, because it has a special and distinct virtue. But for all that, we are only “earthen vessels.” The end for which God would convey such excellent things as are in the gospel by such poor means is that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

We have spoken at large of the first part of the verse, in which we showed, first of all, that the gospel is a treasure in the dispensation of it, and so largely that I will not now stop to repeat anything delivered then. The ministers are “vessels,” and “earthen vessels.”

Now the end is, “that the excellency of power may be of God, and not of us,” and here we proposed to speak of these particulars.

1. That there is a power, and an excellency of power, in the gospel and in the dispensation of it. In divine truths dispensed, there is a power, and an excellency of power. This power has its place even from God. It is not of the instrument that conveys truths to us; this is set down with an exclusion, “and not of us.” He strikes us off, because proud men would be ready to encroach upon God’s prerogative if he had not put an exclusion with it. And therefore he says, “it is of God, and not of us.”

Now, the end of all is that it may appear to be of God, and not of us. It is so; but it does not appear to be so unless there is such a disproportion between the vessels and the treasure. And therefore God would have the vessels that carry it to be earthly and the treasure to be excellent, so that, as there is a great difference in the reality of the things themselves, it may also appear to be so in regard of man. Not to be, and not to appear: it is all one; for if it does not appear to be so, man will not believe it is so. And yet because God will have it appear to be so, therefore there is that disproportion between the vessel and the treasure.

Because the point is not perfected, we must add a little.

Now, the power is wrought by degrees, as in Revelation 14:2, where St. John “heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters.” There heaven is taken for the church, because the church is from heaven, and begotten to heaven. Now, he heard a voice from heaven, “as the voice of many waters, as the voice of great thunder; and I heard a voice of harpers, harping with their harps.”

1. The word in the dispensation of it is like “the voice of many waters”; that is, it is confused, and raises a kind of wonder and astonishment, but the people do not know why. Take an ignorant man who comes to hear and read the word and divine things: he is astonished at it, and filled with a kind of wonderment, so that it is as the noise of many waters to him. You have the description of such persons: “when they heard these words they marveled, and left him, and went their ways” (Matt 22:22). Some will hear the word, and if there are any extraordinary gifts or extraordinary actions in a preacher, perhaps they will come and hear, and marvel, and leave him, and go their way. Many come to sermons, and hear, and marvel, and so away.

But the second effect that the word has is that “it is as the voice of great thunder”; that is, where the word prevails a little more, it is as the voice of thunder. Now thunder astonishes, and breeds fear and terror. So those who wonder confusedly at first hearing, after a while hear as if they heard it thunder. And therefore the thunder is called the Lord’s voice (Job 37:4-5), because it breeds fear and terror. So before the great work of conversion, the word, like thunder, terrifies and frightens and casts down.

But the word does not leave the soul there. Therefore he says, “I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps”; that is, the sweet tune of the gospel. As the sound of the harp is delightful to the ear, so the sweet tune of the gospel breeds joy and peace in the soul. After thunder comes the voice of harpers harping with their harps. So the power of divine truths is first a kind of marvel, a confused wonderment; then it has the power of thunder and astonishment; then it ends in the sweet voice of harping, in peace and joy and comfort.

Hebrews 4:12 gives an excellent description of the power of the word: “The word is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing and dividing asunder the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow, a discerner of the thoughts of the heart.” When the word is let into the soul, it is a discerner. It has power to discern what is flesh in the word, and what is spirit. And likewise, of all actions that proceed from contrary principles, it has power to tell when we do well and when ill; what will hold water and what will not; what we may stand to and what we may not. And it does this not only in actions, but in afflictions also. And therefore it is the “discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb 4:12), and so it rips up and anatomizes the whole inward man when the Spirit of God accompanies it.

Objection. Now, we will answer some cases and objections that may be made, and so proceed. “Why is it not so powerful in some,” many say, “as in others?” The apostle Paul tells them (Heb 4:2).

Answer 1. They do not mingle the word with faith. You know medicine must have nature to work with it. Medicine will do no good to a dead man. No. They do not mingle the word with faith, and therefore they do not feel the virtue of it. They lift up their own notions against the word, and they hear it and know it, but they do not yield their hearts to believe it and assent to it with certainty, and therefore it does not work.

Answer 2. And then, they do not let it into the heart and affections. They give it room in the mouth to talk of it, but the word is never powerful until it has its own seat and throne, until it gets into the heart and affections and alters the frame of the inward man. When it is not engrafted into the heart, it does not yield its virtue and power.

Answer 3. Again, there is a great deal of opposition. What is the hindrance of the power of the word? A foolish conceitedness and presumption. People think they have enough already, and think they have a point of divinity when they can talk about it. But, beloved, we know no more of religion than we love, and we love no more than we do. He who does not do knows nothing as he ought to know. He may prate and talk for ostentation’s sake, and to satisfy conscience. But this conceit, that people have divinity when they can talk about it, is a very destructive conceit that hinders all the working of the word. Religion does not stand upon words; it is a matter of power. Religion is not a matter of fancy and imagination; faith is another thing.

You have many, especially great scholars, who think they have all they know, but they have nothing except what they love, and obey, and subject their hearts to. Whatever more they have tends to damnation. “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou faithless servant” (Luke 19:22). You know this, and your courses are contrary to it. Therefore, take heed of this conceitedness, I beseech you, for it overthrows all.

But I would not have such people absent from the word, for the word is able to remove all the obstacles and hindrances between the heart and itself. Medicine will not do a dead man good, but this medicine will give life to dead men; for the power of the word is such that it has a quickening power, and a raising power, and a directing power. And therefore, though there be ever such mountains of opposition between the heart and divine truths (as indeed, in those given to a profane course of life, there is much opposition between their hearts and divine truths) …

Those who are practitioners of any profession, called to great employments, should be so far from absenting themselves from the means of salvation that they should offer themselves the more carefully and diligently, so that, whatever lies between their hearts and divine truths, these may do them good. When all other things fail, this may be removed, and therefore so may the main thing that hinders these means from doing them good. The word is able to make way for itself, removing the hindrances to the word, through a careful and continual attendance upon it.

There is an excellent place in this epistle, 2 Corinthians 10:4-5: “The weapons of our warfare are not weak, but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds, and every thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” It is an excellent portion of Scripture. There are three things in a man which greatly hinder and indispose him from receiving good.

(1) There are reasonings of flesh, such as, “Is not reading as good as preaching?” Men who have much wisdom in them think this way.

(2) Then there are exaltations of the heart. Such a heart says, “What! Shall I stoop? Shall I be so base-minded as to regard what common persons do? I have always judged it more to my credit and reputation not to stoop than to yield myself up to be obedient to what they say.” And divine truths are propounded which seem to be contrary to reason, though no truth is contrary to reason, but above it, as with the great matters of predestination, and election, and free will. When this happens, the pride of man’s heart, seeing no great reason for this because it is above reason, rises up and will not yield. But divine truths beat down these exaltations and reasonings.

(3) There is also a word that means actions of the flesh against divine truths. When a man is exhorted to be generous, for example, the flesh suggests, “I shall be in want myself, and it is good for a man to look to himself.” And as for suffering, it suggests, “It is good to sleep in a whole skin.” Whatever disputes or reasonings of flesh and blood there may be, let a man attend upon the word, and it will subject and subdue them all in time, if he belongs to God. Therefore it is powerfully said to make way for itself. For God will let himself and his Spirit into the heart in spite of corruption, and in spite of Satan. Never despair of a man who has care of God’s ordinances.

Objection 2. But you will say, “How, or by what means, does God make this word effectual?”

Answer. I answer that this excellency of power in the word and his truth works in the heart by the Spirit.

(1) By way of revelation. It reveals to us excellent things above nature, and better things than corrupt nature can apprehend in the world: Christ, and all the good we have by him. And that is the first thing, a revelation of divine truths.

(2) Then again, it works by the Spirit as all this is offered to a soul that will receive it. There is not only a discovery, but an offer.

(3) There are not only these discoveries and offers, but divine truth is the instrument that works faith to apprehend and lay hold upon this. And therefore it is called the “word of faith.” And when faith is wrought by the Spirit, after revelation and after the offer of divine truths, then that faith draws out of Christ. Faith has a drawing and sucking power, out of the word and out of Christ revealed in the word, of whatever is necessary for grace and comfort, whatever may be needful to bring us to heaven. For the Spirit of God works faith, and by faith brings in all other graces and makes them effectual in the soul. Faith is the grace of union, which knits us to the principle of life, Christ.

And therefore God, upon revelation and offer of divine truths, first works faith, and by faith knits us to the fountain of life, Christ. And it is a wise grace, teaching the soul to fetch sovereign advantages from Christ, as in nature there is an instinct in every creature to fetch nourishment from its mother. So when God has wrought faith in the soul, he puts this supernatural divine instinct into the soul, to fetch whatever is needful, all comfortable graces, out of Christ. And thus it becomes an effectual word, an excellency in a believing soul. “It is the power of God to salvation to all them that believe” (Rom 1:16).

When we believe, God shows his power in the soul. God, by his almighty power, first works faith, and then faith lays hold on that mighty power again. When God has by the word wrought faith, we apprehend the almighty power of God in Christ, and make use of it on all occasions. And therefore it is called “The faith of the operation of God” (Col 2:12).

Objection 3. And by resolving this question we may answer another.

Question. That is, what degree of power is meant here, when he speaks of the excellent power that is of God? Is it only a revealing of divine truths, or is it likewise a working upon the soul effectually? For you know that, to distinguish them, there is a moral kind of working, which is by persuasion and entreaty, and there is an efficacious working, which is more than entreaty. This second works as the sun works upon lower things; it is called a working by virtue, and it makes an impression in them. Now, does the word by the Spirit only reveal and offer divine truths, or does it sometimes have a work in the soul?

It is not so fine or difficult a question as it is made out to be. And I will give you the truth of it.

Answer. The excellency of the power is not only in revealing, but in working. The word and the Spirit not only reveal, but work something in the soul, and in every part of the soul.

(1) In the understanding there is not only a revealing of truth, but a light. In the understanding he gives not only life but sense.

(2) So the will not only apprehends what is good, and excellently good, but God’s power goes, together with the revealing of things, to the will, and puts a relish into the will to relish that good. Otherwise natural corruption will set its will above what is good, unless power is wrought in the will to clear itself, and bend itself, and weigh itself toward the best things.

(3) And so for the affections: good things are not only revealed to love and joy, but the affections themselves are altered and changed. The corrupt natural affections have no proportion to supernatural objects without an inward work wrought in the heart, in the will and affections. So the power and efficacy of the word and Spirit is not only in presentation and offer, but in powerful working upon the soul, because there is no natural fitness, no proportion, between a soul unturned, unchanged, and objects of a higher nature. Can an eye see things invisible? Can a natural soul apprehend and love things supernatural, above nature, before it is altered? It cannot.

A diseased humor overspreads the soul, and therefore alters its taste, so that we cannot naturally like or approve the best things. And therefore the taste must first be altered. Take a sick man: though he has ever so much skill, his palate is spoiled, and he cannot relish the most wholesome thing in the world except in keeping with the corruption of his palate. So let a man have ever so much knowledge; if the power of the soul is not altered, he relishes divine truths only according to his corrupt fancy. And therefore there must be wise and powerful workings upon the soul, so that, as divine truths are savory in themselves, they may also be savory to us.

Therefore they speak very shallowly of the work of grace who take it to be only a matter of entreaty, and leave the soul to its own liberty. “I will not have this grace,” says one of the ancients, “that leaves the will to be flexible, and at liberty.” It is a dangerous thing when a man has no more grace than what is left to himself. One mischief would necessarily follow: God would not have so much power as the devil has. If the devil propounds any motion, we have a corrupt heart that yields to the temptation and betrays itself. But if God’s persuasions were only moral, and did not alter the frame of the heart, he would find nothing of his own goodness in us; he would find in us only what is contrary to God’s Spirit. And therefore the devil would have the advantage of God, if God should not work in us powerfully.

For supernatural things have no friends at all in us, but opposition and enmity. Propound the sweet truths of the gospel to a proud natural man, and he has no more relish in them than in the white of an egg (Job 6:6), until his heart is humbled and subdued, for we have no friends within us to hold correspondence with such truths. But let the devil offer a temptation to any natural man, and he is iron to God and wax to the devil. And therefore of necessity there must be more than a moral work, by effectual persuasion.

I speak this to advance the power of the word, so that we may know what degree of grace to beg. Our prayers will be suited to the way we apprehend these things. If we conceive grace to be only a motion and persuasion, and no powerful work upon the heart, we will beg no more. No man was ever brought to heaven with such a grace; it is an altering, changing, converting grace that brings us to heaven.

I will name one reason out of the text. It is more than revealing, offering, and persuading by reason, because that is not the excellent manner of work. God in the gospel works in the most excellent manner, but working by persuasion is not the most excellent manner of working; working powerfully and really and effectually is. Now the most excellent manner of working belongs to the most excellent worker, who works powerfully in the heart, which is the most excellent manner of working.

Now, how do you prove that?

Answer. Is not the one who is able to do a thing stronger than the one who persuades to do it?

Therefore the most excellent manner of work is to work inwardly and effectually, not only by entreaty and persuasion, which is a weak and shallow kind of work in comparison with an efficacious work in the soul. Now God, the most excellent worker, works in the most excellent manner, and therefore works not only by persuasion, but works powerfully in the inward man. God made the soul and framed the soul, and he knows how to work upon the soul, and how to work upon it while preserving its liberty and power untouched. And therefore, as they say very well, he works sweetly and strongly: sweetly, by entreaty, agreeable to the nature of man; and strongly, that is, powerfully.

There are two things that are the principles of action in men: working by reason and working by strength. When there is power to do a thing and reason why to do it, they work like men. If a man had ever so much reason, and not strength, he does not work. If he has strength, and not reason and grace to guide the action, the action is common, and there is no religion in it. But when a man works by power from reason, it is like a man.

So there are excellent and strong reasons in the word to dissuade us from sin and to make us in love with heaven and happiness, if we were believers; and unless a power accompanies the reason secretly and sweetly, and alters the soul powerfully, all of it will do the soul no good. And therefore together with reason goes a divine power to the soul. So God at the same time works powerfully, and sweetly by entreaty. He works suitably to the nature of man, and powerfully to overcome that nature.

Objection 4. I come now to answer this: How shall we know whether this virtue, and excellency of virtue, has wrought on the soul by God and the Spirit of faith?

To give you some evidences: first, you may easily know that it has wrought, but we cannot tell the manner of its working. I say this because we will answer a secret objection.

Question. “I do not feel how God works upon my spirit by his Spirit.”

Answer. It is true, for the present you do not. For instance, grace is wrought in the heart as the sun works on lower bodies. Influence comes from heaven to the body, but who can tell you how influence entered into his body? Who can see in springtime the manner in which he is cheered? He sees that he is cheered, but to say exactly the time and measure, that is unknown. It is a sweet and strong influence. We see there is a sweet influence in the working of things, but the very working is imperceptible. So the power of God’s ordinances in the working is concealed, but soon after there is an alteration, as we know the spring has come when we see nature altered, and things flourishing and green, and a new face on things beyond what there was in winter.

So we know the Sun of righteousness has shined on our souls in the ordinances and means of salvation when there is a flourishing and fruitfulness in our conduct. When our speeches and actions savor of the word and Spirit, we may know that the Sun of righteousness has shined upon our souls. The church is compared to dew that falls in the morning: “The birth of thy womb is as the dew of the morning” (Ps 110:3). So the best translators have it. “In the day of thy power”; that is, in the powerful work of your ordinances, the word and sacraments. The birth of Christ, which is the church begotten by the Spirit, is as the womb of the morning; that is, the dew of the morning, which falls from heaven, but insensibly and imperceptibly.

It has a high cause to draw it up, and let it fall, and put virtue into it to make things fruitful, but no one perceives the falling of it. So grace is wrought in the heart as dew falls from heaven; that is, we feel the power and virtue of it, but the manner in which grace is wrought, and the church is begotten of God and Christ, is imperceptible. And therefore go to the fruits, where there is a power and excellency of power wrought, and a change is seen in life and conduct. For you who were a lion before are now a lamb; there is a triumphing and prevailing power over corruptions that they were enthralled to before; they themselves are not themselves. And therefore judge by obedience.

Then there is a power and excellency of power in the soul, when we have turned by a natural power the nourishment into our constitutions. Then we are strong, like Elijah, who by the strength of the nourishment sent from heaven walked forty days (1 Kgs 19:8). So when we have received the sacraments, and heard as we should, we shall find more ability for duty, more fitness to die, more communion with God, more strength of faith against all temptations. And therefore, if you would know what power and excellency of power is wrought in your soul, examine it by the strength you derive from it. If you do not find strength to overcome temptations and resist corruptions, then you have not yet been good hearers, nor good readers, nor good receivers of the sacraments, as you should be. We know that sheep and such creatures are judged not by what they chew, but by their flesh and fleece, and so a Christian should be judged by his life, his strength, what he is able to do.

And here we may take up a just complaint, that many who have great knowledge of the gospel, and have long professed the truth, nevertheless fall before their spiritual enemies; as when Israel, falling before their enemies, complained, Lord what is it? (Josh 7:8). What is the reason that we fall before the enemy? So a man may complain, What is the reason a Christian should fall before his spiritual enemies? That every temptation should overturn him, every corruption and passion enslave him, why is he so enthralled to temptation? Certainly there has not been that power and excellency of power in the soul that should be.

By these and the like circumstances, we may know whether we have felt this power and excellency of power or not.

There is, as we said before, a power in religion, if it is mingled with a believing heart; and until we find that power, all will do us no good. Profession of religion and knowledge will remain in the brain; therefore labor not to know but to feel divine truths. And when are they felt? When the virtue is felt. It is not enough to know, but to feel. And when do we feel? When we find the virtue of the word in comforting, in raising and directing, in changing, in transforming.

We think we believe all things necessary when we can say them and speak of them, but there is not one article of our creed but, being apprehended by faith, works mightily upon the soul in an excellent manner. For example, “I believe in God the Father Almighty”: how shall I know I believe? If the Spirit of God witnesses to my spirit that God is my Father, and teaches me to go to him as a Father in all my necessities, I know he is Almighty. When I am under the strength of temptation and oppositions of any kind, he is able to raise my soul, and after death to give it a better being than in this world; and I believe in him as the Father Almighty when I will not distrust him. He is my Father, and will do me good. He is Almighty, and can do all for my good. So “I believe in Christ, born of the Virgin Mary.” A man does not believe this until Christ is born in the heart and the image is stamped upon his soul, and a disposition suitable to Christ; and so with “for the death of Christ.” The cross of Christ is a crucifying knowledge. I know Christ died for my sins. Faith in this crucifies the very corruption for which Christ was crucified, when I look upon my corrupt nature with that loathing and detestation that Christ had when he suffered for our sins. So I do not feel things with power and efficacy until something is worked by them. So too I do not believe Christ “is risen again” unless I find that power that raised him quickening my heart and raising me to heavenly-mindedness, to ascend with Christ and sit in heaven with Christ. A man does not believe that Christ is in heaven unless he has glorious thoughts. He only talks of them. He who believes that Christ his head is in heaven, Christ and he being all one, can he be much cast down with any trouble here, or be abased here, when he believes this? No.

And therefore the apostle says, “If you be risen with Christ,” as you are, if you belong to Christ and have the same Spirit that raised his body raising you, then “seek the things above, and not the things beneath” (Col 3:1), and savor the things that are spiritual and suitable to your condition. So a man cannot believe his “sins be forgiven” without also loving, without also having joy and peace: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God” (Rom 5:1). He who does not find peace in his conscience, how does he know that his sins are forgiven? “Be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven” (Matt 9:2). A man who knows his sins are forgiven is comforted, for his debt is paid and all is discharged.

And so “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting”: what is the power of it? It makes a man as willing to die as he is to go to sleep. For when he goes to bed he knows he will rise again, and rise better and more refreshed. So a man who is about to die resolves, “I lay down my body, and shall rise again, as sure as I shall rise out of my bed, and more sure, for many die in their sleep.”

So if we believe “the coming of Christ to judgment,” the virtue of it will show itself in walking fruitfully and carefully. Christ must come again, and I must give an account of all. And so “life everlasting.” If a man believes that, what courage it will infuse! There is not one article that, if it is believed, does not have a spiritual infusion in it. Let a man believe life everlasting, and he will not care about venturing his life for religion and his country. Why should he care about hazarding a life that is nothing but vanity?

I only touch on these things to show that, out of the grounds of religion, there is a power in them if they are apprehended and believed; and if they do not have this power, we do not believe them. We talk of them, but are not molded to them; as the apostle’s phrase is, We are not fashioned to them (2 Cor 3:18). So we may test whether the word has worked mightily on us by the power we find in us altering our natures.

Question 5. Well, what course shall we take, that we may find this power of the ordinances and word, and an excellent power?

Answer. (1) Remember that all is of God, from God’s Spirit. The third person in the Trinity is next to us, and next in working. God the Father and Son work by the Spirit. For as it is in the body, there are the veins and arteries put together. The veins carry the blood, the arteries carry the spirits; the blood in the veins nourishes the spirits in the arteries, and the spirits in the arteries quicken and enliven the blood. So the word is as blood in the veins. For as blood spreads itself over all the body by the veins, and feeds the several parts, so the word spreads itself over the whole man, over all the powers of man, over his understanding, will and affection. It spreads itself over all the actions of man, for all must be done in virtue of some word.

It spreads itself as blood spreads over the body, but together with the blood there must be spirits to quicken the blood; so there must be the Spirit with the word. The word is the chariot that carries the Spirit. And therefore consider the concurrence of these two when you come to God. They are coupled together as the veins and arteries; and when we have to do with divine truths, remember to beg for the Spirit. And so the psalmist prays, “Open mine eyes, Lord, open mine eyes” (Ps 119:18). His eyes were opened, and yet, “Lord, reveal the wonders of thy law more.”

So we must pray for a fresh, new revelation of truths to us. And are we quicker and better-sighted than he or Paul, who prayed so often for the Spirit of revelation, and that God would take the veil of ignorance and unbelief off the heart? There is a natural veil upon divine things, so that we cannot see them in their truths and excellency. Therefore pray to God by the Spirit to take away this veil.

Answer. (2) And if we would feel the power, and the excellency of the power, of the word, let us enter into our own hearts, and see our own necessity every day, and see our own needs of God, who shows his power in weakness. Labor to see a necessity of divine power and divine truths, a necessity in order to do anything well. See that our callings are not sanctified unless we sanctify them each morning by prayer, and direct them to ends above nature and above the world, and make them serviceable for the soul. See a necessity of grace and of the efficacy and power of the word, and necessity will force us out of ourselves to him in whom is the fountain of all strength, that we may be “strong in the power of his might” (Eph 6:10; 2 Tim 2:1).

Beloved, times are coming to every one of us that will force us to seek for strength and for power. Can we undergo afflictions when they come without spiritual strength? We may carry them as moral men, but great crosses may come that are above all morality and civility. Ahithophel had brains enough, but having no grace he sank. Judas had much knowledge, but sank under it. So though we have strong brains and great abilities, we shall sink under them if we do not have grace. A Christian must be more than a man, as grace raises a man above a man and makes him spiritual. By virtue of this power we must be more than men, or else we shall meet with things that are above a man, fiery temptations and Satan’s darts; and if we are not more than a man, woe to us.

Therefore labor to feel and see our own needs; set before us and consider beforehand all possibilities. What if our lives should be called into question? Sickness will come, death will come. What strength do I have? What faith do I have? What have I lived upon before, and what do I know? Do I believe all I know? As Joseph provided against hard times (Gen 41:48), so times of spending will come; therefore lay up knowledge, and often examine whether things are to us as they are in themselves. Divine truth is holy, full of majesty and power in itself. What is that to me if it is not so to me? It will do me no good, but help to damn me. Do I find that power and efficacy that is said to be in them? If not, never give up waiting on the means God has appointed for that purpose.

Beloved, it concerns us nearly and very much, for if we do find the power of divine truths in our hearts, oh, happy men! If we find it has worked a change and alteration, it will make the weakest Christian stronger than all the gates of hell. Take a weak Christian who has digested the word and mingled it with faith: a few divine truths digested and mingled with faith will stand out against the devil and all temptations, even at the hour of death, because they are divine truths and God goes with them. The truths are divine in themselves, and divine power likewise goes with them, having the strength of God for every word.

As a man is, so is the word of a man. It is as powerful as he is; the word of a noble man, the word of an honest man, is as the man is. Now consider what word this is, and what power is annexed to it. Labor to feel the power of these divine truths, and all hell let loose cannot overcome the weakest Christian, not a fool, not a novice, not a child in religion, much less a strong Christian. But the tongue of men and angels, if men will be drowsy and lazy and dead, will not make them affected with these things; but those who belong to God understand what these things mean.

We are speaking of the end of this dispensation of God, that he would have this blessed treasure of divine truths carried in “earthen vessels,” that “the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.” Now in this end three things are to be considered.

1. That there is a “power” in the ordinances of God, and an “excellency of power.”

2. That this excellent power of the ordinances of God “is of God.” It is not of the “earthen vessel.” No. It is not in the treasure itself. It is not in the gospel, distinct and abstracted from divine power accompanying it, but it is of God, exclusively set down, and not of us.

3. The intention why God would have this power, and excellent power, to be in earthen vessels and not of us. See how he demonstrates it, that it may appear that the power is of God and not of us. There is excellent power, and it is of God. How does it appear? Compare the lowliness of the vessel with the excellency of the treasure, and it will appear that all the good done by the ordinance is not by the vessel but from the treasure, or rather from God himself, whose treasure it is.

That there is a power, and an excellent power, of God’s ordinance, we have shown at large.

We have shown in what this power consists, and how it is of God. All the power is of God, or else the ordinance is dead; and indeed, unless God’s virtue goes along with it, what can do the soul good? Afflictions make men worse. The law has only a power to harden us. The law by the power of God kills, but it does not quicken. If the power of God does not go with the ministry of Christ, it does no good.

How many sermons did Christ preach that did no good? “He piped and they would not dance.” They would not “mourn” when he preached matter of humiliation; when he preached matter of comfort “they would not dance” (Matt 11:17). Like peevish children, they were unmanageable, and nothing would work upon them. And therefore without God and the work of the Spirit, not man, not an angel, not Christ himself, can work upon an obstinate, stubborn soul.

I showed that the excellency of this power must be of God and not of us. I set forth various cases and questions, and answered some. I will briefly answer some now, as follows.

Question. First, not to speak of what I then delivered, if there is no power in the ordinances, why do we exhort people and stir them up to believe and to repent, if all power is conveyed from God, as we proved the last day at large, and they have no power at all in themselves?

Answer. I answer that God’s word in the ordinance is an operating word, a working word, as in the creation, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen 1:3). So in miracles, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). There went an almighty power with the word of Christ, and Lazarus comes out. “Believe and repent.” There goes out an almighty power with the ministerial word, and gives power to believers. Where God commands, he helps. His word is clothed with an almighty power. And therefore, though we exhort men to do this and that, we do not say they can do it themselves; but together with the speech there goes a commanding power. The Spirit of God clothes the word.

God speaks according to our measure, and works according to his own. We are men, and are to do things by reason and understanding. God speaks to us by way of open reason, and by showing grounds of reason, because he speaks according to our measure. But when he comes to give strength and power to reason, all moral power or reason will do no good without inward strength. And therefore he works according to his own measure, mightily, powerfully, and by way of persuasion and reason, and all to condescend to our manner, yet still all the while as a God.

And therefore it is a childish thing for them to infer that there is power in man because God persuades and exhorts. With these God infuses his power; he conveys power into the will and affection this way. He works powerfully at the very time he seems to condescend this far. And this exhortation serves only to drive us out of ourselves to the rock of our strength and to the spring of all comfort. It serves only to drive us to Christ; and therefore wherever you have a commandment in one place, you have a promise in another. If you are commanded to turn to God, to mortify lusts, we have a promise of assistance that we shall do these things. The commandments may make us go out of ourselves with humility; the promise makes us go to God with confidence in him. And therefore it is ignorance of God’s divine dispensations to infer any power and strength in us from those sweet exhortations that are commended to us in Scripture.

Question 2. If there is such power and efficacy in God’s ordinances accompanied with the Spirit, as indeed there is, where then does the resisting in men come from? It shows, you will say, that there is more in man’s malice than in God’s ordinance. I answer thus.

Answer. God intends to convert, and to put forth his strength that way. For those for whom God intends to put forth his strength, it tends to conversion. He joins such a strength with the ordinances as overcomes all rebellion and resistance in those he converts. As Augustine says well, when God will save a man, no stubbornness of his will shall withstand it; otherwise the will of man would be stronger than God’s. And it is a high point of comfort that the goodness of God is above the malice of man, that there is a greater power and efficacy in the ordinances than there can be indisposition in man, whatever it is in the person. For all things in the world, even in the soul of man, which is the most rebellious, refractory and stubborn thing, all things in the world are in obedience to the first worker.

There is an aptness that is to the purpose for this matter we are speaking of. There is an active power in the creature, by which it is ready to work, and of this active power to do good we have none at all. There is a passive power, as in wax to receive an impression. This we do not have. We cannot so much as receive goodness. The reason is that good things, so long as we are corrupted, are presented to us as folly. A wise man will never take what he apprehends to be folly. To a carnally wise man the most excellent things in the world are presented as folly, and he will not submit to the impression of divine truths when they are presented. And therefore there is neither active nor mere passive power.

But there is an obediential power. That is, in plain terms, there is such a subjection of the soul of man to God the first cause that it yields to him when he works. He knows all the windings and turnings of it. He can deal with it as he pleases, preserving the liberty of it, without prejudice to its liberty. For both things, and the manner of working things, are of God and preserved by God. God so carries things that he preserves the manner of working peculiar to things, so that all things are obedient to God’s manner of working. For they cannot resist him: there is no question of that.

Objection. But we say that, as the Scripture speaks, there is resistance in things. Resistance is in those who do not belong to God, or in those who belong to God until he puts forth an invisible strength to convert them. But if they resist, they may resist the work of God’s Spirit. Then there is some excuse for them.

Answer. I answer, No. They may pretend the word is not powerful enough, that the ordinance is not able enough; but let them leave secret things to God. There is no man converted but his heart will tell him that God was beforehand with him. God presses goodness on men; they willingly resist it. God is then beforehand with them, and there is no man who withstands God’s workings but his heart will tell him that the fault is altogether in himself. For God is willing to yield more power to him than he is willing to receive, and that makes him afraid of the means of salvation. “If I go to such people, and keep company with such people, they will advise me to alter my course. They will put notions in me, disquiet my mind, vex me and torment me. I shall hear what crosses my old ways, and I am resolved still to walk in my old courses.” And so their hearts tell them that they willingly betray their own souls. So they cannot plead the weakness of the understanding, but only the strength of corruption, which turns away from the ordinance.

The two witnesses “tormented the world” (Rev 11:10); and so the ordinances, the truths of God, torment some kinds of men. But to let such go, I speak to those who belong to God. Here is our comfort, that the ordinances of God are powerful, “and mighty, but through God, to beat down all strongholds” (2 Cor 10:4). And therefore come and attend upon the means of salvation. Come! Though you are lions, you may go out lambs! Come! Though you are wolves, you may go out sheep! For the knowledge of God, accompanied with the Spirit of God, as in Isaiah 11:6, may alter and change your natures, transforming you to be like Christ, whose word it is. It is a transforming, converting word.

Where it does not convert the heart and conscience of men, or tell them that God was more willing to convert them than they were willing to be converted, the fault is in themselves; but I will always hope well of those who carefully and diligently come within God’s reach. The ministry of the gospel is said to be the power of God, and “the arm of God” (Isa 53:1). “To whom is the arm of God revealed?” that is, the power of God in the ordinance. Those who will come within the power and reach of God, never despair of them.

Those who will meekly submit to God’s dispensation, and not proudly despise the powerful working of God, who attend “at the posts of wisdom” (Prov 8:34), if not at one time, yet at another, there is a blessed hour to come for the angel to stir their waters; for the Holy Spirit to stir the waters to heal their souls. Therefore I speak to all those who love their own souls: never grow weary of God’s ordinances. Though the means are weak, yet the glory of God and the power of his Spirit will be more eminently apparent in the weakness of the means, as the apostle says here, “The excellency of the power is of God, and not of man.”

Now, to make some further use of this: Is all the power of God?

1. Therefore observe another thing: we must not depend on the power of the ministry, and the excellency of the minister, his abilities and gifts. Why? The power and excellency are of God. And we may say by experience that men who think themselves converted by some excellent abilities of a rare man usually have but a shallow repentance. And those who are hung by the ears upon men of good abilities seldom hold out. But where the soul is worked upon by grounds from the word, and evidence from the Spirit in the teacher … But as for conversion worked only by admiration of the abilities of the teacher, it is with such people as with those in the gospel: “They marvelled at him, and stood astonished, but they left him, and went their ways” (Matt 22:22).

And therefore take heed of depending on men for the efficacy of the sacraments. Some are to blame that way. Unless they have such and such a preacher they will not receive it, as if the doing and efficacy of the sacrament depended on that, so long as the men are placed in the office of the ministry and have a calling. Now look to the power of God, and the excellency of that power, in his own ordinance, by whomever it comes. We will receive gold out of any hand; we will receive a pearl from a lowly person. Do we regard the pardon itself, or the person who brings the pardon? No, we look to the pardon. If that is right, it does not matter who brings the pardon, who offers this treasure of life.

Look to the excellency of the things themselves, and to God; though in the course of means (we must add that) God ordinarily converts by the best men, who can speak from the heart to the heart. He can best kindle others who is kindled in his own heart, for begetting comes from a love in the teacher. Those who are truly moved, in a sanctified way, can beget others sooner than others can. And therefore in the course and ways of means, God for the most part uses blessed and holy means for working the great work of conversion, for the most part.

Yet God does not tie himself to the excellency of means. Oftentimes God humbles the greatest men of all in their doing others good. As we see Isaiah, that great kingly prophet, who says, “We have laboured in vain” (Isa 49:4 and following). I have labored to subdue the people to God, but to no purpose. Son of man, go, harden the people’s hearts. So excellent a power, instead of converting, makes them worse. And so it is that the most excellent preacher, both for abilities and likewise for graces, oftentimes hardens them and makes them worse. God will have it so; it will be the savor of death to some presumptuous, proud persons, and not a savor of life (2 Cor 2:16). And therefore we must not look altogether to the excellency of the persons who preach, nor to their lowliness, but to the ordinance of God.

2. Give me leave to add this further thing: God shows his power, and his excellent power, by his own ordinance; and therefore other courses are not sanctified for conversion, nor for spiritual good to the soul. Observe this. There is a conceited, superstitious generation of men, ill-bred for the most part, not for want of abilities but by superstitious breeding. They have great admiration for a bastard means of good, what shall I call them? Means they set up themselves, which God never sanctified. Oh, they will have crucifixes, and such and such helps. Who ever sanctified this? Every workman will work with his own tools and instruments. Did God ever sanctify crucifixes and the like to stir up devotion? What kind of devotion is likely to come from that which God never blessed to that end? A bastard devotion from a bastard means. And usually people give to such things a higher measure of admiration than to good and sanctified means.

I never knew, nor ever shall know, a superstitious person to like things unsanctified of God, but in that proportion he grew bitter against what is indeed sound. See what religion popery is, their study being to weaken that powerful instrument God has sanctified to convey all saving power by. How do they weaken it? By all the means they can. They labor to take away its strength. They lock it up in an unknown tongue, in Latin; and not only so, but in a corrupt, vicious translation. And lest it should do much good, they add Apocryphal writings to it, many of which indeed are holy books, but yet they make their authority equal with the Scriptures. Indeed, that they may weaken the strength and efficacy of the blessed word by which whatever is savingly good is worked, they make traditions of equal authority with the word.

They make the present determination of the present pope of equal power with the word, indeed above it; for the life and soul of words is their sense and meaning. The meaning is the form and being and life of speech; the words are only husks. The kernel and life of words is their meaning. Now they take it upon themselves to give the sense and meaning of the Scriptures. But they go about to judge that which will one day judge them; to keep under the word, which will keep them under, and blast them, and consume them, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, Antichrist must be consumed with the breath of his mouth, that is, with the ordinance of God. It is such a wind as he cannot endure; it will consume him.

There is no means sanctified of God to consume antichrist but the ordinance. There are other civil and apparent ways to weaken him, but what will “consume” him indeed, as he is antichrist, is the powerful ordinance of God. And therefore do not blame them for being such enemies to that which is such an enemy to them, that is, the powerful preaching of the word. But we must not dwell upon these things; only I thought it necessary to put you in mind of it, that our hearts may be brought to think highly of that which God so esteems, even as we love our own souls.

Other truths may civilize, and other helps may be profitable; other books besides God’s book may do us a great deal of good, and there are many holy treatises in which the word is unfolded and made familiar to us. The water in the spring and water brought in a pipe is the same water. So the word in Scripture, and the word brought in preaching and holy treatises, is the same. But I speak of other truths we read of in human writers. God gives a power to every truth, and there are inferior works of the Spirit. But this work of conversion, of setting the image of God upon us, is reserved especially for the ordinances of God. All the learning in the world will not set the image of God upon the soul, will not bring the soul out of darkness into the kingdom of Christ, but only the powerful ordinance of God, and the powerful work of the Spirit accompanying it. It is not every work of the Spirit, but an almighty work.

By embalming, a dead body may be preserved from putrefaction and offensiveness a long time, but all the spices and embalmments in the world will not put life into a dead body. So the inferior works of the Spirit, by inferior means, may embalm the soul, that is, may make it civil, and it is very good to keep company with civil men. You will find them fair-conditioned men, and excellent things will break from them, but this is only embalming; the quickening of a dead soul, the putting of life into it, is reserved for the ordinance of God and the power of the Spirit accompanying it. This is what the apostle speaks of, “the excellency of the power of God.”

3. Let me add one thing more: that as God works powerfully by his ordinance in us and in the church, so he works powerfully by his ordinance on others, by the church on others. To make it plain: there is an excellency of power in the word, in faith, in prayer, in fasting, in the sentence of the church. There is an excellent power in all these, not only on the soul in which they work, but likewise on others. There is a power in the church and in the minister to threaten; and God, to make good those threats to others, works on others. And there is a power in prayer, not only of grace to make us fit to pray, but a power by prayer, for God by it to confound the enemies of the church.

Therefore the language in the Psalms is, “God send thee help out of Sion” (Ps 20:2), that is, out of the church, by church means; and “God is terrible in his holy place” (Ps 68:35). What is the meaning of that? The meaning is this: in the church, where God is truly worshiped, where the ordinances are in purity and power, there God is terrible out of his holy place. If prayers come forth against the enemies of the church, God says Amen to them. Woe to the enemies of the church when the church falls to praying and fasting. Woe to Haman when Esther, Mordecai, and the rest fall to this duty. And woe to popery! If all Christians had joined in prayer and fasting, antichrist would have been brought to his knees, and to nothing, before this time.

There is a power in God’s ordinances. Let them be used as they should be, with faith and with the persuasion that God will say Amen to them all, and they will work. What! Let a man pray with confidence that God will bless it, though not in the particular thing he desires, and you will see what wonders God will work by it.

There is no question that the humbling of God’s people has brought antichrist as far down upon his knees as he has been brought in Germany. If God’s people humble themselves, and believe the threatenings against antichrist, and believe the promises to the church, and labor to have faith suitable to God’s promises and suitable to God’s threatenings, and in that faith, as an exercise of it, pray to God, we shall see God make good all his ordinances. God will be terrible out of his holy place, and he will send help out of Sion. Pray therefore for the church and against the enemies, and we shall quickly see an end of them.

And therefore, speaking of the power of the ordinances of God, the apostle says, “God is in readiness to revenge all disobedience” (2 Cor 10:6). There is a power in the ordinances of God to kill men, to send men to hell. You think the words of the ordinances are wind, but they are not; for as it is in Zechariah 1:5-6, the prophets are gone, and are dead, but their words are made good. Whom we bind, God binds from heaven; whom we loose, God looses from heaven.

If we threaten the judgments of God, and punishment upon swearers, or profane persons, or despisers of the ordinances, do you think it does them no harm? Beloved, they are struck; they are men under the sentence of damnation. They are not yet in hell, but the word has damned them, the ordinance has damned them; they are struck men. There is a power in God’s ordinances to be revenged on the disobedience of men, when men will live in sins threatened and condemned by the ministers. They go about like glorious men, but they are condemned and under sentence. There is only a step between them and hell.

And they will know one day that God will make good every one of his threats in his ministry against their profane courses, though they make light of it. No! It will not be made light of when God comes to execute it, when God comes directly from heaven to execute the word he has spoken through the minister, as one day he will. What we speak through means, he will come directly from heaven to execute. How will they shake off that, “Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matt 25:41)? You who have lived in sins against conscience, can you shake that off?

God is patient with them now, if his patience can win them, but can they shake off God’s direct and final sentence from heaven? Oh no! And therefore I beseech you, labor to bring your souls to obedience of the ordinances of God, for the ordinance is mighty to take vengeance on all obstinate sinners. Therefore take heed of living in sin, condemned by the ordinance; for God will make good every word he has spoken.

The last thing I proposed to show you from the words is that God shows his power, and excellent power, by weak means, so that it may appear by the disproportion that it is of God.

Doctrine. The point from here is this: that God is wonderfully careful, as we may say with reverence; he is wonderfully exact in this, that his glory may be advanced in all. And therefore he would have things carried on in this way, that heavenly treasures should be carried in earthen vessels; not gold, not silver, but earth, so that the good done may not be attributed to the vessels, being so base, but to him.

God’s aims and our aims must concur. God aims at his own glory, and it is no pride in him, because there is none above him whose glory he should seek. And therefore it is natural for God to do all for his own glory, as it is natural for him to be holy, because he is the first cause and the last end of all things. It is fitting that the first cause and last end of all things should have all the glory: “Of him, and through him, are all things: therefore to him be all the glory” (Rom 11:36). It is God’s prerogative. The grace is ours. He gives grace to us, but the glory is his own, and his glory he will not part with.

To make this clear: God takes every course he takes in the government of the world, in the ministry and the church, so that it may appear that the glory is his in all things. Look at his providence in governing the world. Does he not do great things sometimes without means, and sometimes with poor weak means? What is the blowing of rams’ horns to the fall of “the walls of Jericho” (Josh 6:20)? Was it not so that it might appear that the falling of the walls was from God? What were Gideon’s “pitchers with lamps” for the confounding of the Midianites (Judg 7:19)? What was a victory to an earthen pitcher? So what is the light of the gospel to an “earthen vessel”? Does the power come from these? No. God appoints these means for us so that the glory and excellency of power may appear to be of him. The ministers are only Gideon’s pitchers, with the light of the gospel in them.

What was Shamgar’s “ox-goad” to the slaying of so many (Judg 3:31)? What was Samson’s “jaw-bone of an ass” to the slaying of so many Philistines (Judg 15:15)? It was to show that the glory was God’s. What is the converting of so many souls by such lowly fishermen, when ignorance overcame knowledge, folly overcame wisdom, weakness overcame strength? Fishermen and their companions made the crown of the Roman empire stoop to them. The poor preachers of the gospel brought it to pass at length that the great empire of Rome should submit to the gospel; and why is all this but that the power may appear to be of God?

I might go with this truth through all ages, from the beginning of the world to the end, and show how God has done great things, sometimes by no means, sometimes by weak means, sometimes when means have been armed against him, in opposition to means. When others oppose him, then he has gotten the greatest glory. But it is so plain a truth that I will not spend time to no purpose declaring the point; and therefore I will come closer, and bring the truth home to ourselves.

Now, because we are naturally forgetful of this, and so rob God of his glory, I will show you several courses God takes with his children to train them to learn this hard lesson: to give all the glory to God, which by nature they love to get their own fingers on. For man is naturally a proud creature, and would have all things to himself. Therefore observe in five or six particulars what course God takes to teach men this lesson, “that the excellency of power may be of God, and not of us.”

Reason 1. First of all, what is the reason why God deserts men, his dearest children, so often, leaves them to terrible plunges, makes them believe he is their enemy and that they are none of God’s, leaving them in a state of darkness, so that they see no light? This is the state of God’s dear children. The end of this is that they may know they must go out of themselves if they will have any comfort: “They are in darkness, and have no light; therefore let them trust in the name of God” (Isa 50:10). If it were not for these desertions, in which they see nothing but darkness in themselves, they would not fly to the rock of strength, they would not retire to their rock of defense, they would not trust God.

Why do men suffer the sentence of death, and get brought to death’s door, where no help, no medicine will do them good? Saint Paul gives the reason: that they may learn to trust in the living God (2 Cor 1:9). What! Paul, to learn this lesson? Yes, Paul needed to learn this lesson, to go out of himself, and give all the glory of all things to God. And therefore Saint Paul received sentence of death, that he might trust in the living God, and go perfectly out of himself.

Reason 2. Again, what is the reason that sometimes the child of God is badly beaten in little temptations, and stands in great ones? It is because in these little temptations he goes on in his own strength, and in greater temptations he goes out of himself and flies to God. And therefore a good Christian is sometimes basely beaten in a little temptation, and stands his ground like a man in a great one, because in the one he is confident of his own strength, while in the other he is forced to go to God for help. That is the reason for it: to learn this doctrine, to give God the glory in all things.

Reason 3. Again, what is the reason that men are better after a defeat, after some base fall, than they ever were before (as God often allows them to fall into foul faults)? What is the reason for this strange dispensation of God? It is to show that they stood too much on their own footing. And why are they better after these falls? Because, seeing their own weakness and willfulness, they are driven out of themselves. The sink of corruption was opened to them. They saw they had rebellious hearts. There was a depth of corruption they did not discern before; and now after a fall, seeing the depth of corruption more than before, they grow more humble, more wary in time to come, having more experience of God’s infinite mercy in pardoning, of his infinite power in raising. And so in some measure they learn that lesson, to give all the glory to God. God sometimes sanctifies a gross fall to make them strong. Peter learned to stand by his fall; and Christians who once fell by presuming too much upon their own strength are made to stand stronger for the time to come.

Reason 4. Again, what is the reason that sometimes the church is defeated by weak enemies, and sometimes, when the church is very weak itself, it overcomes strong enemies, as you have instances of both? It is so that men may learn to know that God must be sought in all things. When there are strong means, they place too much confidence in that strength; and when they offend God, however strong the means may be, God curses and blasts all helps, as the prophet tells them: You shall fight against the Chaldeans, but God will curse you (Jer 37:9). You who think you are strong men, you will fight against them, but they will prevail. You have not made your peace with God; and if that is so, let all the best means be gathered together, God will blast them all. This is to teach us that whatever means we have, we must seek to God.

There is an excellent passage for this in Jeremiah 37:9 and the verses following. The Jews thought they were stout men, but they had offended God. Therefore in the ninth verse God says to them, “Thus saith the Lord, Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall depart from us, we shall do well enough.” He says, “Though you had smitten the whole number of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remain but wounded men amongst them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.” Though you had struck them down like that, yet God is your enemy. It makes no difference what weak men they are, what strong means you have. You have broken peace with God. God has decreed and determined your ruin, and therefore your city must be burned with fire.

Never, therefore, trust in any means if you have offended God, for God can do great things with small means if we please him. Gideon’s three hundred can overcome the Midianites (Judg 7:6), though they cover the earth like grasshoppers. And if God is offended, though the enemies are all wounded men, yet they will rise and burn the city. And therefore if God is our enemy, let us not trust in our walls, nor in the sea, nor in our strength and courage of men. All is nothing if we do not have God as our friend. And therefore it is true, as is commonly said, that where God will defend a city and country, a cobweb may be its walls; but where God will not defend a city or country, a wall is only a cobweb.

Why is all this but that all power may be known to be of God, so that we may resign ourselves to him and make our peace with him? If he is our friend, it does not matter who is our enemy; if he is our enemy, it does not matter who is our friend. “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Rom 8:31). It is sin within the city, and sin within the land, that does more harm than all enemies outside it, because it estranges God and stirs him up against the place and country.

Reason 5. And likewise, to add one more instance, what is the reason that he helps most in extremity, that he delays help until that time, so that on the mount he is seen, and not until he is on the mount, as the proverb is (Gen 22:14)? The reason is that by this means he may mortify and subdue all confidence in the means, so that there may be no spiritual adultery with the means. Then faith is stirred up, then prayer is set about, then there is more communion with God, the fountain of strength; and the more communion with God, the fountain of strength, the more strength; and the more communion with God, the fountain of power, the more power. In extremity we have more communion with God’s strength and power. Therefore God often withdraws help, to wean us from the creature and to train us up to trust in him.

Use 1. Now to make use of what I have spoken. Does God take this course, doing great things by weak means, so that we should acknowledge the power of all to be from him? I beseech you, then, to learn this lesson. Notice in the Scriptures how scrupulously careful holy men have been not to lay a finger on anything of God’s. They feared sacrilege, spiritual theft, and lies; that is, attributing to themselves what does not belong to them.

And therefore Saint Paul says, “I have labored more than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God within me” (1 Cor 15:10). He means: not the grace of God and I together, as two horses draw a coach, but grace with me did all. I was subordinate, not coordinate, with grace; I was under grace. We only act as we are acted upon, and move as we are moved. And therefore you see how careful he is, and you see the language of Scripture, of holy men. “I am not worthy to loose his shoe latchet,” says John the Baptist (John 1:27). “I am not worthy to be called an apostle,” says Saint Paul (1 Cor 15:9). “I am not worthy thou shouldst enter into my house” (Matt 8:8). Papists insist on merit of congruity, but the language of Scripture says, “I am unworthy”; “Not unto us, not unto us be the praise, but unto thy name” (Ps 115:1).

And therefore give God all the glory of anything that is done. If any good thing is accomplished, if any good news is heard from beyond the seas, be sure to advance the instrument in such a way that we do not rob God of his glory. And when God works in us anything gracious and beneficial, let God have all the glory. All comes from him, therefore let all go to him again. You see in the Lord’s Prayer the connection of these two together: “Thine is the power,” therefore “thine is the glory” (Matt 6:13). The excellency of power is of God, both in governing the world and in governing the church, in subduing corruptions. If power is his, then let glory be his too; let them not be severed.

Use 2. Again, let this teach us to resign ourselves up to God in the use of all good means, and give ourselves to him, for he does all. Do not trust in the means, do not rest in confidence of wisdom and abilities, but depend upon him. It is a lesson easily understood, but not so easily practiced. Therefore look to God. All things belong to God. Are you of God? Ministerial teaching is not enough. Two teachers concur to save souls: ministers and God. There are two to be preached to, the outward man and the inward. We speak to the outward man, God to the inward. Paul speaks to Lydia’s ear, but God opens the heart (Acts 16:14). And we baptize with water, but Christ baptizes “with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 3:16).

And therefore in all the ordinances of God, you see them administered by the outward man, but there is power from Christ and from God. He must baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He must open the heart, unlock it, and teach it. If this were known by experience and practiced, we would have greater exercise of grace than there is in people’s hearts, but it is known as a notion, not as a matter of obedience and practice.

The last thing we will speak of from the words is this.

Use 3. That seeing all power and excellency is from God, we should take heed to keep God our friend. Take heed that we do not offend this God, in whom is all power, our life, our strength. “In him we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Take heed that we do not offend him. You know what the apostle says, “Make an end of your salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Why? “It is God that giveth the will and the deed, and according to his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). That is, God works all in matters of salvation. He does not give a power to act if you will; he gives the will, he saves us and converts us, and makes our will answerable to his will. He gives the very power to will, and according to his good pleasure. As long as we submit to him he will work powerfully in us, and therefore “make an end of your salvation with fear and trembling.”

If we leave his Spirit, we are as air without light, immediately dark, and as the earth without the sun. All things will decay and become dead if the light and influence of heaven is withdrawn. Let God withdraw the influence of grace, and we will grow barren, and dead, and cold; and therefore fear him. No man is wise beyond what God makes him wise upon every occasion, and no man is stronger than God on every occasion strengthens him.

And therefore, if at any time you have a distrusting heart that looks to the creature, he withdraws his strength, and then we are at a loss, and fall, and die, because we do not work our own salvation. We are given to self-sufficiency and self-dependency, and therefore God often blasts our endeavors. “Blessed is the man that feareth always” (Prov 28:14), not with a fear of distrust, but with a jealous, watchful fear. Oh, this jealous fear! We have false hearts, ready to trust in the creature, in our wits, in friends. But all who are God’s children must have this jealous fear, to carry salvation through to its end with fear and trembling, for God works both the will and the deed. He gives a power according to his good pleasure, and can suspend it when he chooses.

So much will serve for the unfolding of this verse, which I especially intended; the other verses are only an application of this, “We are troubled on every side, but not distressed…”

“That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:7-9).

I have spoken at length on the verse before, in which, you may remember, the apostle says, “We carry treasures but in earthen vessels,” so that he might take away all suspicion of arrogance in taking too much upon himself. The purpose of this dispensation of God is “that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man.” There we showed that there is a “power,” and an “excellent power,” in the ordinance of God, and that this is of God, and exclusively so, not of us. All this we have set out at large.

We showed that there is a blessed presence of God, and of his power, and sweetness, and goodness, in all his ordinances. He distills and conveys to us by his ordinance whatever is in his Father’s breast. He does us good by men like ourselves. As the devil conveys all his mischief by men to men, so God conveys all his good by men to men. But they are only the conduits, for the virtue and excellency of the power is of God.

Things that otherwise seem alike differ in regard of virtue, as cold water differs from hot water. They do not differ in color, but in virtue. It is the Spirit of God accompanying his ordinance that gives it power, and virtue, and efficacy. For the ministers of the gospel are ministers, no more and no less, to be regarded as ministers and no further. To regard them more is to make idols of them; to regard them less is to deny them their due right. This should stir up in us a wonderful care and diligence in all the ways and courses that God has sanctified to convey grace by. Those who are God’s children love God’s presence wherever they find it; and because God grants his presence in his ordinance, they therefore regard it, and remember always to give the glory of all to God. For the power and excellency is of God, and not of us. “Why gaze ye on us, as if we by our own power had cured the man?” (Acts 3:12). It is not from man, but from God.

Now to come to the eighth verse, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed …” (2 Cor 4:8).

The apostle’s words contain an elegant antithesis of things that seem contrary: “We are perplexed, not in despair; persecuted, not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” There is a kind of elegance in the dispensation of God. And this serves the former argument, to show that we carry these treasures in “earthen vessels.” So that we should not despise the earthen vessels because they are weak, he sets down what befalls them in the world, and how God supports them and gives a supply of comforts suited to the distress.

He grants that “we be troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair.” Those who have to deal with enemies, and who mean to head off objections, must grant the worst that can be granted, so that they may make their defense the better. St. Paul freely grants all that can be objected by anyone who looks on the outside of those who profess and minister the gospel. I grant that these things fall out, and yet it must be granted that God has a special care as well, as you will see in the unfolding of the words. We will go over them one by one, and then jointly raise some observations out of them.

“We are troubled on every side.” The word means pressed, but yet not oppressed. God allows his children to be pressed. Afflictions are the winepress of God, to press out of them all that is good, for the view and taste of others. They have liquor in them, but it is not tasted except by pressure. For the most part spices have no relish and no savor unless they are beaten. So it is with grapes unless they are pressed.

The work the enemies of the church do to the children of God is to press the ill that is in them, and to press out the ill that is in themselves. For at the same time that they press out, by trouble and disgraceful usage, better men than themselves, they press out and make apparent their own malice and poison. So afflictions are discoveries of their evil, and of good men’s good. And it is helpful for the church that there should be both, that all men may be known, and the thoughts of men discovered, and that the graces of the good may also be manifested. And therefore he says, “We be troubled or pressed on every side.”

Indeed, the phrase in the original means “in every place,” in every time, as here “on every side,” for the children of God are pressed on every side. Sometimes it is from above, when God seems to be their enemy; and sometimes from within, by the terror of conscience. Sometimes on the right hand they are vexed by their friends, and sometimes on the left hand vexed by their enemies. Sometimes it is all around them, with the states and conditions of the times; sometimes from beneath, with Satan’s molestations and vexations. There is something before them, the fear of hell, damnation, and trouble to come; and something behind them, the remembrance of former sins.

So they are pressed on every side, “yet not distressed,” or oppressed, or altogether distressed, as the word means; not altogether in desperate straits, as when the body is in straits and so pinched that it cannot tell which way to turn, and the mind in its strait does not know where to retire. But God’s children are not in such straits. For though they are “troubled on every side,” yet they are not straitened in spirit. They have large hearts. As David says, “Thou hast set my feet at large” (Ps 118:5; Ps 18:19); and in Psalm 119:32 he declares how God had enlarged his heart.

And so God enlarges the paths of his children. Though they are afflicted, yet they are not so straitened that they do not find inward enlargements: enlargement of prayer to God, so that they can pour out their desires to God at large, and boldness before men to maintain God’s cause. They find a large heart in regard of inward peace and comfort. And indeed there is never a child of God who does not have an incomparably larger heart than wicked men. All wicked men are vain-hearted, base-spirited persons, but the child of God has a large heart; for the grace of God and the sense of heavenly comforts enlarge the heart, and so he has a more heroic spirit than any worldling has. So though they are under pressure, yet they are not overpressed.

Wicked men have a prison in their own breasts. Take a wicked man who is not besotted. When he understands himself, though he is ever so free, though he is above all men, though he is a commander of the world, yet he is imprisoned and straitened in his own heart. His conscience upbraids him with his sins, and commands him to come before the tribunal seat of God. In his greatest liberty he is often in straits for abusing that liberty. But a child of God can in all afflictions lay open his soul before God. So much for that particular.

“Perplexed, yet not in despair.” The word is elegant in the original: we are perplexed, but not in extremity. The word in the original means a lack of counsel about what course to take, when a man is in such difficulty for want; as Erasmus explains it on this passage, “to be at a loss and destitute of counsel.” A lack of things necessary, and then a lack of counsel to get them supplied, breeds perplexity. Now, says Paul, we lack many things. And therefore among other troubles the apostle reckons hunger, thirst, and fasting (2 Cor 11:27). God’s children are often in want, not only of outward things, but seemingly also in want of counsel about what course to take for a time.

In regard of danger, what a difficulty Abraham was in when he was to offer his son Isaac, his eldest son, his only son, the son of the promise (Gen 22:1-8)! And Jacob, when he parted with Benjamin, and thought he had lost Joseph (Gen 43:13-14). And Moses at the Red Sea (Exod 14:10-12 and following): picture to yourselves what straits he was in. The mountains were on either side, the Red Sea before them, the Egyptians behind them. In what a strait was David when they were ready to stone him (1 Sam 30:6)? Certainly an exceedingly great one. In what a strait was Jonah in the belly of hell, the whale in the depth of the sea (Jonah 1:17)? And so God’s children are often in want not only of help, but of counsel. So they are almost at their wits’ ends, not knowing what course to take.

“Yet we are not in despair.” For God comes at the pinch of time, and, as it was in Abraham’s case, appeared on the mount. When the knife was ready to cut the throat of Isaac, then God shows himself. So Moses at the Red Sea was perplexed, in wonderful straits, and he cries to God. “Why dost thou cry to me?” says God, though Moses said nothing (Exod 14:15). God made a way for him through the Red Sea. God makes his way where he finds none. He can divide the Red Sea, and cause Jordan to fly back. When the ways are desperate, and the straits extreme, then God makes a way for his children.

God is wonderfully near to them in their extremities. He was nearer to Daniel than the teeth of the lion (Dan 6:16 and following), and nearer to Moses than the water was, when he was floating in his basket (Exod 2:3). God is nearest in danger when it is nearest of all. When Jonah was in the whale’s belly, he was in wonderful perplexity (Jonah 2:1). It could not be otherwise; and yet at the same time God enlarged his heart, so that he did not despair.

So you see the words are true. Though God’s children are perplexed, yet they are not in “despair.” They have a God to go to at all times. At the worst they can send forth their sighs and groans, though they cannot speak; and those sighs and groans are great cries in God’s ear. God knows the desires of their souls. God has an ear in their very hearts, and knows the meaning of his own Spirit joining with their spirits. No one is in a desperate condition who can pray; and though he cannot pray in words, yet prayer is a matter of affection and desires toward God, and anyone in such extremity may do that. There is no prayer that does not fetch help from heaven. There is not a groan lost that is sent to heaven, and therefore “though they be perplexed, yet not in despair.”

The church seemed to be in a perishing condition, and David says, “I am cast out of thy sight, yet thou heardest the voice of my prayer” (Ps 31:22). Yes, it was a prayer joined with such expressions that he says, “God hath forsaken me.” The spirit sighs and groans, and God regards such a prayer. And so, however desperate our conditions may be in regard of the flesh, yet the Spirit has an eye to God, and moves a sigh and a tear to him, and at the same time fetches help from heaven. You see, then, that the point is clear.

“We are persecuted, but not forsaken” (2 Cor 4:9). The Greek word means to pursue. God sometimes plays the part of an enemy, and seems to be against us, and that is a heavy case. It was Job’s case: “Thou writest bitter things against me” (Job 13:26). In divine temptations God seems to be our enemy. We are persecuted and pursued, sometimes by the arm of the Almighty, sometimes again by Satan and by his instruments.

When by conversion to God we have made our escape from the world, the world sends out a hue and cry after the saints, pursuing them and laboring to bring them back to their old conditions and labors, and to trip them in their ways. The children of God have been so pursued from the beginning of the world, that their pursuers never stop pursuing them until they have driven them to death, and even to hell itself. And this is the state of all God’s children, if once any of them will be righteous. “Whosoever will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12). A man may be outwardly moral, and no one will find any fault with him; but if he has the power of religion, and labors to express it in his conduct, he will have persecution of the tongue or of the hand.

St. Augustine says well, “Though we live well in times of peace, yet, listen, listen, my brother, begin to live as a Christian should live, and see if you are pursued; you will find a Babylon in Jerusalem.” And truly in times of peace a man will find enemies enough at home. For it is almost equally difficult to be truly righteous at all times. In the primitive church what was opposed was the doctrine of religion, in the applying of the truth of doctrine. Now what is opposed is the power of those who practice it. At all times religion has been persecuted as far as it may stand with salvation. The devil is content with profession. That may stand with lust and sin; but as much of religion as is necessary to bring a person to heaven has always been under persecution of one kind or another.

“Though persecuted, yet not forsaken,” namely, of God. No, so far from being forsaken of God that God is never nearer them than when trouble is nearest of all. “Be not far off,” says the psalmist, “for trouble is nigh” (Ps 22:11). Then there is the most use for God’s presence and comfort. In persecution the souls of God’s people usually fly under the shadow of his wings, and being driven to him they find more support and succor than at other times.

It was a good speech that the Landgrave of Hesse, Philip the First, a man of fame and note, made to Charles the Fifth, when not only the Duke of Saxony but he also was taken prisoner, and remained so a great while. Asked, “How did you conduct yourselves all that time?” he said, “I found those divine comforts that I never felt before.” So there is certain evidence of God’s presence in persecution and in standing out in a good cause, which God’s children never felt before as they do afterward. There is a hidden manna conveyed to them, which is reserved for those times. So Paul says, “We be persecuted, but not forsaken”; indeed, God is never nearer than at that time.

When there is a new moon, the space between the old and the new is the interlunar time, when the moon is as good as lost; yet it has more light in itself than it ever had, for it is nearer the sun than ever, though it does not appear to the world. And though the comforts of the soul do not appear in afflictions, yet then God shines more upon them than at any other time.

“Cast down, but not destroyed.” Cast down, by persecution prevailing. Persecution prevailing does cast men down, and gives them the worst of it in the eye of the world, but yet we are not destroyed. The children of God go masked, many thousands of them, to the sight of flesh and blood, and in the appearance of the flesh they are destroyed. But they are anything but destroyed. For to take it at the worst, though their food is taken from them, yet they are not distressed.

(1) For what is the worst the world can do? It takes away their lives, which they must leave before long, and by this they are made partakers of their wish, which every child of God has, “to depart and to be with Christ” (Phil 1:23). Now when their enemies drive them out of the world, they make them partakers of what they most desire, for they have more communion with God in heaven than they ever had before; they are in their seats and proper place.

(2) Again, though in regard of some particulars the church may seem to be destroyed, and some boughs are cut, yet the body remains; so in regard of the whole body they are not destroyed.

(3) In regard of the “inward man,” they are not destroyed. They take courage still, and comfort still, while they are in the world. When they go out of the world they have the accomplishment of all their desires. Suppose God does not deliver them, but gives them up to death: he delivers them in not delivering them. For what is death but delivering them from all trouble? When he does not deliver them in a particular danger, he gives them a general deliverance by death from all trouble whatsoever.

(4) Again, there is a double deliverance. There is an inward secret deliverance, and an apparent open deliverance. Suppose they are cast down, and not openly delivered; yet secretly they are delivered, that is, from fear and despair. The soul is set at liberty within. So though they are cast down, yet they are not destroyed.

(5) If they are destroyed in the appearance of the world, it is only seed sown. Saints are the seeds out of which many others grow. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. “As often as we are mowed and cast down,” says Tertullian, “by your cruelty, it is but an allurement to our profession.” So when they seem to be destroyed, they are only seed sown, and out of their ashes many rise. How much we are beholden to the bloody times in this kingdom for this glorious church that came after!

(6) They are “not destroyed” in this world while they have any work to do. You may imprison them and fetter them, but God will work a miracle rather than let his children be taken out of the world before they have done their work. With the three young men in the furnace, the fire will cease to burn rather than they will burn before their hour comes (Dan 3:27). In the gospel Christ was not hurt by his enemies, for his hour was not yet come; they cannot hurt one hair of the head. They are afflicted, but not oppressed; they are persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

From all this we may raise some general truths, and make use of all that has been spoken.

Doctrine 1. First of all we may observe from this that the troubles and afflictions of God’s people in this world are many, and they are great and growing. They grow greater and greater until God’s appointed time. Here is distress, persecution, perplexity, casting down; they are many and manifoldly different in their kind. And then they are great, for here he reckons the greatest troubles that can befall, except death itself, which is usually included. And then there are degrees of them. To be afflicted is less than to be perplexed, and persecution is added to perplexity. Then to persecution without is added the trouble following. And they are not only afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, but cast down.

That is no matter: if there are a thousand ways of trouble, there will be a thousand ways of deliverance. God is never at a loss to help his children. Therefore, grant that we are so. So we are, but we are not in distress, we do not despair, we are not forsaken, we are not destroyed.

“We,” that is, Paul, and not only we as men and we as Christians, but we as eminent men. For the troubles of God’s children happen to them as men: sometimes sickness, death, losses, crosses. They happen sometimes as Christians, as they are maligned and opposed by the wicked world. They happen sometimes in an eminent calling, as with Pharaoh, who desired to slay especially the male children, who were strong and able to do service; they were objects of malice (Exod 1:16). Now we are used in this way not only as men and Christians, but as eminent men. So it is the condition of the most eminent of all to be used in this way. It pleases God to let his children endure many and manifold and great troubles.

Now what is the reason for this? I could speak at length, but I will give a few.

Reason 1. Of necessity there must be a conformity between the members and the head. It behooved Christ to suffer, that he might enter into glory. And all of us in our time must suffer, and so enter into glory. We are predestinate to conformity to our head (Rom 8:29). We are not only predestined to salvation, but to all that lies between us and salvation. We are ordained to pass through such and such good actions, such and such turnings. There is no one who does not have so many actions to perform, so many sufferings to endure, to which they are ordained by God.

Reason 2. And again, the best of God’s children have something to be wrought out of them by a spirit of burning and affliction; the best need refining.

Reason 3. And again, grace needs trials and exercise and increase. Now God sanctifies all these, passing us from “vessel to vessel” (Jer 48:11). These transfusions are to work out what is evil, and to try, exercise, and increase what is good.

Reason 4. And if there were nothing more than the malice of Satan and his cursed seed, the seed of the serpent, it would not be possible to avoid the cross. And God, so that his children may not love the world, has made the world hate them. And it is safe for God’s people to have the hatred of the worst people. Their hatred will do them more good than their love. Their hatred breeds a separation, and commands a separation in the end. For what should we do with familiarity and acquaintance with those whose company we cannot enjoy in heaven?

And therefore God will have his children exercised with the worst men; and then he desires to take them out of the world, and to set God up in his due place. God is God, and the Creator, when we are stripped of all worldly comforts. Then vanity is vanity. God will not have us idolize anything below, and therefore he allows us to fall into extreme wants and dangers. There are many other reasons, of which I give you only a taste.

You see, then, the state of God’s children in regard of the world. But what is it in regard of him? They are not forsaken, they are not utterly cast off. So they are patient in both: patient in regard of the trouble they meet with in the world, patient in regard of God’s dealing with them. God does not forsake them so as to destroy them. He does not leave them in a desperate condition, as he does the wicked.

Doctrine 2. Again, observe this, that the life of God’s children in this world is a mixed life, woven of afflictions and of comforts, intermixed of both. It tastes both the malice of the world and the goodness of God.

They often undergo sickness. They are sometimes in the dumps and in sadness. Their life is woven of comfort and discomfort, and it is good for them in this world to be so, until they are in their proper place in heaven. And this is our comfort always: though troubles are many, and manifold, and great, and growing, and the last day the worst, yet as the waters of afflictions grow, so do their comforts and the graces of the Spirit grow like the waters of the sanctuary. As troubles increase, so the waters of consolation increase. And it is better to be in trouble than to be kept from the trouble without the comfort. There is more sweetness in affliction than in freedom from it without the sweetness. If we look to the world, you see what we may look for. If we look to heaven, you may see what to expect from there.

Use. If this is so, that their condition is mixed in this way, it is good in our prayers to plead before God our ill condition, to argue from our extremity. “Help, Lord: for vain is the help of man” (Ps 60:11). “Save, Lord: the water is entered into my soul” (Ps 69:1). Help, Lord! If you will not, no one will; if you cannot, none can. God will be bound with these arguments. It was the saying of Philo, “A man’s help fails where God’s begins.”

And it is a good argument to plead with God in matters of sin, “Lord, pardon. Lord, forgive, for my sins are many and great” (Ps 25:11). This is a good argument with God, for he is infinite in mercy; therefore plead it as a binding argument.

But if God himself seems to be our enemy, what course shall we take then? Sometimes God plays a part that is not his own, so that he may show a greater mercy afterward. In such times we must get the eye of faith, break through the clouds between the soul and God’s face, and see his fatherly countenance in Jesus Christ. Faith has piercing eyes. It breaks through the clouds between God and us, and binds him with his own nature and promise, whatever part he plays. “Lord, however you deal with me, your nature in Christ is gracious, merciful.” “You have made rich promises that you will not fall from.” “Do not forsake me.” Bind him with his word, with his nature; he cannot deny his word, his nature, himself. Plead them to him in Christ, and plead his own promise, and they will be effectual.

Use. Again, we see here that it is a good art, and needful in times of trouble, to look to the good as well as to the ill. The apostle does not only frankly confess all the ill that the enemies might raise to weaken the reputation of the gospel, that they are people cast down and despised. He also answers: all this is true, but we are not forsaken, we are not in despair, not destroyed. This is a good art in every affliction. It is better to have our eyes on the good than to have our eyes altogether on the ill. God has taken away one child; he might have taken many. God has afflicted us with sickness, but he might have taken away our wits. Therefore do not have both eyes fixed on the grief, for that is Satan’s policy, to rob God of his glory and our souls of comfort.

Use. Therefore learn a blessed skill from this. When Satan raises any objection to disgrace the gospel or discourage it, throw Satan’s objections back with better ones. Say, “It is so, I confess. But while God seems to be displeased and I am afflicted, God is still a gracious God. He has left many comforts, his word and promises, and in them I will trust. He has given me his Spirit to support me.” In this way send back all the temptations of Satan. Learn to be as wise and ingenious in arguing, for the strengthening of our faith, whatever may drive us to acknowledge God’s goodness and mercy, as Satan is in doing the contrary. “God be with thee, thou valiant man”; but if God is with us, “why is it thus with us?” (Judg 6:12-13). And so God’s people look entirely to the grievance. Why are we persecuted, and in distress and want, and at our wits’ end? Now consider the comfort as well as the discomfort; learn that heavenly wisdom from St. Paul.

Let no man be discouraged if he finds himself feeling the grief he lies under. We are flesh, not spirit. God knows what we are made of, and therefore he does not lay whole loads upon us, but in anger he remembers mercy. You see how he deals with the apostle Paul, and with others in his case. Therefore, if we feel trouble, God can help. No one ever felt grief more than Christ; the sorrow of Christ was the greatest sorrow. For he had perfect wisdom to apprehend it, and a sound body. St. Paul speaks of these things as one who felt them wonderfully. But here is true patience: when we feel the grievance to the uttermost, and yet for all that only feel the grievance. God says to the prophet, “Why should I smite them any more?” (Isa 1:5). It is not only sin, but judgment, to be given up to hard hearts, not to feel our condition. Well, St. Paul felt his condition.

Objection. You will object, “What is this to us? We live in calm times, we enjoy health and prosperity, and we do not know what these things mean that Paul speaks of.”

Answer. Beloved, then we are all the more indebted to God. But do we know to what times the Lord may call the best of us all? Therefore we must be prepared beforehand. Comforts are not found in adversity that were not sought for in prosperity, as Augustine says. In times of peace, people should provide for war and defense; and so in times of peace let us think of these things. Our conditions may alter. However the state may continue, yet we who live under our vines and fig trees, do we know how the Lord may exercise us? May he not exercise us with afflictions of mind and persecutions of body? May he not exercise us with trouble of conscience, and bring us into straits, which is a spiritual martyrdom too? In times of prosperity, God’s children know better what to do and whom to depend on, because then he keeps them from inward troubles. And therefore, seeing that we do not know how long we may remain as we are in our personal condition, it is not amiss to think on these things.

And now, to direct us a little in what to do in times of peace and quietness:

(1) Labor to preserve our peace with God by all means, so that when changes come, as changes may come, and will come one way or another, we may say with the apostle, “I am afflicted, but not forsaken.” If we do not make God our friend now, if we now multiply sin and guilt and run deeper and deeper into debt in God’s books, it will be a hell when trouble and sickness and persecution come. And therefore, as we would have God for our friend when we stand most in need of him, so let us labor to keep God our friend now, at this time.

See the desperate course that many loose persons take. They run into an old course, they let the reins loose to licentiousness, they let their tongues lie and swear, and they deny themselves nothing they desire. Are there not times and months for these wild asses to be taken in? In their months you may take them. There are months of trouble and months of sickness; and when their former courses have been nothing but a perpetual provoking of God, what comfort can these persons have? And therefore, as we desire to have God stand by us and help at every pinch, labor for peace with him now, in the time of prosperity.

(2) Let us be constant in his cause, in his religion, since he is so constant to us. And this constancy of the Spirit and in the best things will be evidence to us that we have found him constant in his love to us.

(3) And so that we may quiet ourselves the better if such times come, be careful, and treasure up promises for the time to come, so that we may plead them to God. Let us get good liquor into our hearts, so that when times of pressing come, there may be good wine. If good knowledge is not gotten beforehand, what will afflictions press out but murmurings and despair, and something that was there before? Therefore treasure up now all we can; a time of spending will come. Joseph’s hard years may overtake us; we do not know into what distress we may be brought. And because God is the best friend in extremity, be sure that we do not offend him for the sake of any creature, because, let the creature do its worst, God will always be sure to be our friend. And if God is our friend, it does not matter who is our enemy. I cannot press all that may be pressed out of this point.

(4) Labor at all times to maintain a good opinion of God and his goodness. If Satan suggests that God will cast us off, and that there is no hope for us in our God, answer back, “It is not so.” Labor to have a spirit of faith to beat back all such temptations. You shall see strange temptations, and yet excellently answered: “Yet God is good to Israel” (Ps 73:1). When the child of God is low, he still keeps good thoughts of God, though things go strangely. He says, “I do not know what to make of my condition and of the church’s, ‘yet God is good.’”

The reason is that when we are at our worst, God can help us. And therefore come those comfortable exceptions in the Psalms: “Great are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of all” (Ps 34:19). “They were afflicted sore, but not delivered to death” (Ps 118:18). So here, mark the exceptions: we are in straits, persecuted and cast down, but yet delivered.

So labor for a good opinion of God. You may observe similar things from these words of the apostle; and I beseech you, let us make use of them for the right knowledge of these things. Hence it is said, “That in all these we are more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37). A strange speech: in affliction, pressures, casting down, “we are more than conquerors.” And how does this come about? “We are more than conquerors in him that loved us, in Jesus Christ”; more than conquerors, because we overcome when we seem to be overcome, because religion has grown even by blood and suffering. St. Augustine says that by straits and afflictions the church has been delivered and spread abroad to the uttermost parts of the world.

“We are more than conquerors” in all these in a threefold regard.

[1] Especially in regard to ourselves; for the devil aims at separation between God and us. “Now, what shall separate us?” says the apostle (Rom 8:35).

The devil intends a divorce; but when by a spirit of faith we draw near to God and cleave fast to God, then the devil’s policy is overthrown. The more the world drives us from God, the faster we cleave to God; and then we are more than conquerors.

[2] In regard to spiritual courage. The more God’s Spirit is pressed down, the higher it rises. The enemy labors to quail the spirits of those who are good, but they cannot do it, for the Spirit of God is invincible. And the spirit of a Christian is supported by a higher Spirit than its own: “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). Therefore they are more than conquerors by the invincible Spirit of Christ.

[3] And then they are more than conquerors in regard to the cause. The devil labors to drive people to dislike the cause and religion by the disgrace they suffer, but he cannot.

Use. Firstly, and therefore, I beseech you, let me conclude with a point of encouragement, considering that it is spoken with a great deal of courage. “We are afflicted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” Let it encourage us to take the cause of God in hand, and go through with it in spite of Satan and his instruments, and fear nothing that shall befall us. Why should we fear the devil? Let no one think of what the devil threatens, but of what God promises. Therefore fear nothing, for God will make it good; he will never be nearer than when we stand most in need of help. And therefore set upon God’s cause with courage, and not only on the cause of religion, but on the cause of honesty and justice. The truth of God in any kind is dearer than our lives. The worst that can befall us is to be persecuted and distressed. You shall have more comfort from heaven than discomfort from the world; and what do you lose then?

Therefore let us all support ourselves with this. There is more force in God’s help from heaven to secure and support us by an inward, invincible strength than there is in the world, or in Satan the prince of the world, to cast us down; we have more for us than against us. When we are stripped of all, know even then that God is the God of all; when he has taken all, he still leaves himself. We have all at the fountain, all at the spring. Therefore let that be the ground of our resolution. “If I perish, I perish,” says the good woman (Esth 4:16). But never depart from God, from religion, from justice, from the cause of the church; for each of us may say, “I know that God will be like himself. He cannot deny himself, but deals constantly with his church and children, as in former times. It cannot be otherwise with me than with Paul, the great apostle of the church. If what befell Paul befalls me, then as I am in Paul’s distress, so I may look for Paul’s support and comfort.”

The apostle, to avoid the objection of the scandal of the cross, by which they were the less accepted in the hearts of many, sets down the state of the people of God in this world, taking them at their worst. He speaks of himself here not only as a man (since the fall, our weak nature is subject to many calamities), but he speaks of himself as a Christian, opposing the sins of the world. And he grants what they may object: “We are troubled on every side, but not in distress.” The apostles take advantage of the troubles they were in to advance the love and mercy of God in those troubles. We lose nothing by them, for what is gained in any trouble is better than what can be lost.

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed,” that is, not so that we do not know what to do when we are in such straits. Take a Christian at the worst, and he still has freedom to the throne of grace by the spirit of prayer; and God looks upon him in the worst condition. The more strait his condition is, the larger his supply of the Spirit is; therefore though troubles increase, his comforts increase too.

Secondly, we are persecuted with wants, and by reason of wants we do not know what course to take, so that we are oftentimes “perplexed, but yet not in despair,” for God supplies. This I unfolded before.

A Christian man has some bottom to uphold him in his worst condition. But take a man out of the state of grace, and he has no bottom to stand on; he sinks at once to hell in any trouble of mind or conscience, however strong he is in wit and abilities. He cannot encounter a divine temptation; he has no power with him above himself. We see Ahithophel, that wise politician. He was a bad man; and what became of him? He hanged himself. So with Cain, Judas, and Saul. What does Saul say in his perplexity? “The Philistines are upon me, trouble is upon me, and God hath forsaken me” (1 Sam 28:15). A pitiful complaint; and this may be the complaint of all carnal men: “The Philistines are upon me, trouble is upon me, and God hath forsaken me.”

But the children of God, when they are perplexed, do not despair. It is a pitiful case with those who shall desire the mountains to cover them (Rev 6:15-16). As for those wicked persons who now stare anybody down, who despise everyone but themselves, the time shall come when they shall desire the mountains to cover them, a pitiful strait, when they cannot tell where to betake themselves, as Christ says in Matthew 24. Oh, but the child of God at his worst has something to stay himself on. Though he is in deep troubles, there is a help above him, a power of God to support him on the left hand and on the right. If there is a height and depth of troubles, there is a height and depth of mercy to support them.

Thirdly, “Persecuted, but not forsaken.” Grant what is to be granted: “We are persecuted.” How far? They will never leave us until they have taken us out of the world; and what hurt do they then? They drive us nearer to God. God owns his children most when the world owns them least, and there is a blessing pronounced on all those who suffer for good causes: “Blessed are you when men persecute you, for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt 5:11-12). As one said, “It is a kingly thing to suffer evil ...” I am sure it is a Christian’s condition to do good and suffer evil.

In sufferings let us look to three things.

(1) To the cause, making sure that it is free from sin.

(2) To our conduct in the cause, that we do not carry ourselves tempestuously.

(3) To those who persecute. Let them persecute; and though they do, you shall not be forsaken. Though a man may desert the one who stands up for him and his cause, yet when the children of God stand for God, he will not desert them in his cause: “though persecuted, yet not forsaken.”

Fourthly, “cast down, but not destroyed.” Persecution sometimes prevails to the point of casting down, but “yet we are not destroyed.” We are cast down, trodden down, insulted over, but not “destroyed.” Beloved, you see the great persecution of the church. What a pitiful condition the church has been brought to within these late years: trodden down, “yet not destroyed.” For they are partakers with Christ, who is now in heaven, and they are assured of a blessed resurrection; and therefore they are not destroyed when they seem to be destroyed in the eyes of the world. As the apostle said before, they “are earthen vessels.” So every man is but an “earthen vessel,” but it is much that an earthen vessel should be cast down and yet not broken; they may be cast down, but not destroyed. For when the enemies have done the worst they can to destroy them, that destruction is no destruction, but salvation.

Again, “We are cast down, but not destroyed.” We see here a kind of eloquence of things as well as of words. Here is a sweet harmony of things: they are afflicted, but not in despair; perplexed, but not distressed; persecuted, but not forsaken. Every one of these is greater than the former. I showed you that God’s children are troubled in this world, and that their troubles grow more and more until they are scarcely able to bear them, and then God gives a gracious promise, that he will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength (1 Cor 10:13). For God limits the time and the measure of all troubles in this world. He stands by and turns the hourglass, and limits the measure. “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther” (Job 38:11), as we may see in Job’s case; and his promise is “that the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the back of the righteous” (Ps 125:3).

This is one comfort, that a Christian’s times are not in the enemies’ hands, but “our times,” as David says, “are in thy hands” (Ps 31:15). Our times of coming into trouble and our times of going out of trouble are in the hands of God. As he made all things in the first creation in number, weight, and measure, so he rules and governs all things in number, weight, and measure, especially his church. He will not put in a dram too much; he weighs their strength, and weighs their crosses, and exactly observes what their strength is able to bear. For he is a most wise father, and that is our comfort, whatever falls upon us. If troubles grow upon us, comforts shall grow; if they grow great in number and measure, comforts shall grow great in number and measure too, for he is a God of comfort. He comforts in every trouble, as we see here: “perplexed, cast down, persecuted,” yet God has comfort for every one of these.

Last Observation. Again, here see the comfortable condition of God’s children in this world. Not all their happiness is reserved for heaven; they are happy in affliction itself. In afflictions there is comfort. There is support not only in heaven, but in the very time of affliction, as we may see in Psalm 94:19: “According to the multitude of my thoughts, thy comforts delighted my soul.” That is, according to my distracted thoughts, your comforts have refreshed my soul. There are present comforts in troubles that keep God’s children from despair. St. Paul names the lowest comforts that God’s children have here. Though they are “persecuted, yet they are not forsaken”; though they are “cast down, yet they perish not.” He shows here that even if we leave out of account the great things we shall have in heaven, God still dispenses his comforts here, now, in the time of troubles.

Here is matter of comfort, and not of despair. Miserable heathens, who did not have the knowledge of God in Christ, what condition were they in? As one says, “I would pray, but my prayers are in vain.” They were in great misery. Lacking the knowledge of God in Christ, they fell into despair. So in the church: those who are not acquainted with God fall into despair in great troubles. But you see the comfortable condition of a Christian, take him at the worst.

It follows: “Always bearing in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies” (2 Cor 4:10). Here he adds a comfort to those who suffered before, showing the end of all that God intends. “We bear in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus.” He calls all troubles by the name of dying. This is the first thing.

All the troubles God’s children are exercised with here are named with the name of dying.

(1) Because troubles are little deaths. Death is not only the last parting of soul and body; every separation from comfort is a kind of death. Therefore he calls afflictions dyings, because they make way for greater deaths. He also calls afflictions dyings from the intent and purpose of the persecutors, for their intent is to kill, if it were in their power.

(2) Likewise it is called a dying because this is in the preparation of spirit, that they are ready to die. For no man is a true Christian unless he labors to deny father and mother and all comforts, and resigns himself to Christ: if I can serve him with my honor, yes, with my life, he shall have it. So I am ready to die on all occasions, as you may see in the next verse: “We are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:11). That is, the enemies expose us to death, and if it were in their power they would kill us.

Question. But why does he call his troubles a dying “of the Lord Jesus”?

Answer. [1] There are some troubles that Christ suffered which we cannot suffer, such as the curse of the law and the wrath of God due to our sins. These Christ suffered alone. He trod the winepress of God’s wrath alone (Isa 63:3). In these there is no partaking.

Answer. [2] There is another dying, a dying in his mystical body, his church. He suffers affliction in every Christian. He was stoned when Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:59). Christ was beheaded when John the Baptist was beheaded, and in prison when Paul was in prison. Christ suffered in all the martyrs, by reason of that union between him and his church. So then, besides those sufferings that were his alone, he suffers in every Christian, and this is called “the dying of the Lord Jesus.”

Answer. [3] Because he measures out to everyone their cup. Afflictions are called a cup, and they are his because they are measured out by him.

Answer. [4] And then they are his dyings because by them Christians are made like him. He suffered first, and then every Christian must express that suffering. As he suffered and entered into glory, so we must suffer with him, if we mean to reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).

Answer. [5] And then again, they are called the dying of the Lord Jesus because Christ has fellowship and communion with them in all their dyings. As a Christian has communion with Christ when he dies, and we are “crucified with him,” so Christ suffers with us. He is afflicted with us, reproached with us, as Moses counted “the rebukes of Christ” greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt (Heb 11:26). Christ enters into prison with us: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). Christ takes on himself all the wrongs done to his children as done to himself. As this shows the madness of those who persecute, so it is a sweet comfort to those who suffer, that they have Christ to suffer with them.

The presence of Christ so sweetens everything, as one said, “The presence of Christ made the gridiron sweet unto Lawrence.” A beam of the presence of Christ, who is now in heaven, scatters all troubles. The presence of Christ made Paul sing in prison (Acts 16:25). The presence of Christ sweetens all conditions and all places whatsoever, because our dyings are the dyings of Christ; Christ has fellowship and communion with us in them.

Answer. [6] Then again, they are the dyings of Christ because they divorce and wean us from the world. Being separated from worldly comforts, we are fitter for further fellowship and communion with Christ, as you shall see afterward.

Thus we see some reasons why all the miseries of a Christian are called “the dyings of our Lord Jesus.”

We see then that there must be a dying of the outward man. First there must be little dyings, and then a consummation of all. And why? Because sin is so wrapped into and so sunk into our natures that without death it cannot be divorced from them. Afflictions are meant to make a divorce between sin and our nature, for no unclean thing can enter into heaven (Rev 21:27). As the Spirit separated sin in the nature of Christ, so the Spirit of God purifies the nature of every man by afflictions. Because grace needs help, afflictions join as fire with grace, to make a more perfect separation between the soul and sin. Together with the sanctified spirit there is a spirit of burning. When rust has seized deeply on metals, they must pass through the fire before they can be purged; so the nature of corruption has so eaten into our natures that we need fire to purge it out.

Flesh and blood, says the apostle, shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor 15:50). What is the meaning of that? It means that there are some remainders of corruption in it. Until this body is returned to dust, until the Lord makes this body of ours new again, which is now so stained with sin, it shall never enter into heaven. The body of our blessed Savior rose again the third day, before he saw corruption, because there was no sin in him, and therefore it was not necessary that he should see corruption. Now there were various reasons why he should not see corruption. But all our bodies must be turned to dust, or changed, which shall have the force of a death (1 Cor 15:52). And therefore “we bear in our bodies the dyings of the Lord Jesus.”

Use. This should sweeten all our afflictions, that we are dying with Christ, by which Christ has communion with us, and by which we are fitted for communion with Christ; suppose, for example, that we have sickness or trouble, and the like. Christ took on himself flesh, but what flesh? Flesh incapable of suffering, as it was in Adam? Christ took on himself our nature capable of suffering, subject to cold and hunger and pain and weariness. And it is fitting that our bodies should be conformable to the body of Christ, for we are predestinate to be conformed to Christ (Rom 8:29). Therefore when we are put to pain in our callings, or troubled for keeping good consciences, and so wear out our bodies, it is only as Christ’s body was used. He took a body so that he might suffer, and go about doing good, and be put to hardship. Therefore, if we are put to hardship, it is no more than our Lord Jesus Christ went through.

And therefore those who are so delicate that they will take no pains and endure no sickness, on whom the wind must not blow and the sun must not shine, love no saving goodness, nothing of the Spirit of Christ, who out of love took our nature on himself, liable to all pain and labor; not to the infirmities of our particular persons, yet to those of our nature. He took on himself our nature open to misery, our nature capable of suffering, and after that he has our nature in heaven. If we ever want to be glorified with him in heaven, we must be content to take on ourselves here his nature open to misery, so that our flesh may be used as his was, even to death if there should be occasion. If we are humbled to death, happy is that mortification that brings us to conform to Christ, whatever it is. And therefore do not be discouraged; let what will come, come on this body of ours.

Now if you ask me who are the happy people in the world, truly they are those who are most active in good and suffer most for good, for they are the flesh of Christ. What did the flesh and nature of Christ do? He did all the good he could, and suffered all the evil that the pride and malice of man’s nature could possibly lay on him. He therefore who does the most good and suffers the most ill comes nearest to Christ, and carries about with him the “marks of the Lord Jesus” (Gal 6:17).

To pass on in the words.

To what end is all this? “That the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.” What is the life of Jesus? You all know what life is. I will speak of it especially as a theologian.

(1) You know that the life of Jesus is either the life secret in himself, and therefore he is called “our life”: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6); when “Christ our life shall appear” (Col 3:4). Christ is life, as having life in himself as God.

(2) Or else it is the life of Jesus as mediator, and as God and man; and so it is meant here. Life is first founded in the Godhead. He is the living God, and therefore wise and powerful, and all because he is living. But life as it is in God does not comfort us a whit, but is rather a matter of terror, because we have no communion with God, considered absolutely, without a mediator. And therefore we must consider life as passed on to a middle person, a mediator, God-man. So life is passed on to us by Christ our brother, who has taken our nature. Our Christ comes to us in our nature.

God alone does not comfort us; mere man alone does no good (John 6:32 and following). The argument is profoundly followed by our Savior. “The flesh profiteth nothing.” The human nature without the divine profits nothing. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth” (John 6:63). Look to the death of Christ. Consider Christ dying as man: he would do us no good at all if he had not been God. As God he could not have died, but the person of God dying in our nature makes his flesh bread indeed and his blood drink indeed. That is, the soul may feed on the satisfaction, the sacrifice of God-man, as full satisfaction to God’s divine justice. So the Spirit and the flesh, the divine and human nature, are the ground of all life.

[1] First, of the life of sentence, by which we are freely acquitted from sin; for there is a life of sentence when a criminal waiting for death is given a life of sentence. So Christ is the fountain and author of this life of sentence, in that God in our nature died to satisfy God, and therefore we are acquitted. The guilt of our soul is taken away, and a life of sentence is conveyed to us.

[2] The life of Jesus is as the life of a head. We have not only life through Christ, but life in Christ; and not only life through Christ as mediator, but life in Christ as a head, conveying the same Spirit that is in himself to every member. So if you want the fountain of life, here it is. God is the first living; he is life itself. God conveys life to the mediator, God-man. He restores life to us, the life of sentence, and has likewise conveyed the life of sanctification to us. Sometimes you read of both, of God and of Christ the mediator: “The Father liveth, and I live; and because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). But to come nearer to ourselves.

(3) The life that comes from Jesus comes first on his own person, then in the second place on us. Christ exercised this life first on himself, in raising himself from the grave. Christ as God raised himself as man from the grave, and so he is called the Lord of life. He has the key of hell and of the grave; he is Lord of life and Lord of death, because being dead he as Lord of life raised himself again.

Now after he had exercised this power in giving his body life again, by the same power by which he raised his own dead body he raises every Christian’s. So every Christian is raised and given life by the life of Jesus; that is, by the power by which Jesus gave life to himself when he was dead in the grave. And that is St. Paul’s meaning: That we might find the power of his death, and the virtue of his resurrection (Phil 3:10). There is virtue in Christ’s resurrection. What is that? It is nothing but the life-giving power by which the body of Christ was raised out of the grave; and Paul desires to feel the power and virtue of that resurrection from the life of Jesus.

And therefore, in particular, what is the virtue of Christ’s resurrection, by which Christ raises himself?

The virtue of it in us is, first of all, that the same Spirit that raised his body out of the grave raises us out of any affliction, or gives us life and strengthens us in it.

The argument is from the greater to the lesser. If Christ has such almighty power to give life to his own body when it is dead, does he not have power to give life to and strengthen a man in any poor and miserable condition in this world? Doubtless he has; and therefore Paul desires the virtue of this in all his troubles and dying. And so the life of Jesus is manifested to a man in trouble when he finds divine power supporting him above nature in any trouble, or else bringing him out of that condition to a glorious one. Take a man in any uncomfortable condition of soul, perplexed, deserted, cast down by a sense of sin: he may be raised by the divine power of Christ to comfort, and to stand stronger by his falls, and to grow better by his sins.

And because death is the consummation of all trouble, the life of Jesus is manifested there, when our bodies are in the grave. If the Spirit, that raised Jesus from the grave, be in us (Rom 8:11), the same Spirit shall raise up our bodies when they are turned to dust and rottenness.

So then, in a word, the life of Jesus is made manifest in us when we find this life powerful in the midst of all our worst conditions, supporting us in our falls and making us better and more comforted afterward; and at length the spiritual life that raised him from the grave shall raise up our bodies to be conformable to his glorious body now in heaven. St. Paul was content to suffer the dyings of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in him; that is, the power of Jesus. To add another thing:

(4) It is not only a manifestation of the divine power in our falls and in raising us from the grave by the life of Jesus, but besides this he infuses a life into everyone. He sanctifies the soul and body, and works in others the same impression that is in him; that is, his life. As he is meek, we are framed to be meek; as he is obedient, we are framed to be obedient; as he is humbled, we are framed to be humbled; as he is good and holy, we are framed to correspond. This is the life of Jesus. And the more we bear in our bodies the life of the Lord Jesus, the more we are like Jesus and fashioned to him.

Therefore it may well be called his “power” and his “inward grace,” because it comes from him, and it makes us like him altogether, and it tends to Jesus. It is from Christ, and maintained by Christ, and it carries the soul to Christ and makes us like Christ; therefore it is called the life of Jesus.

We all know life is a sweet thing. We desire it above all, and fear the contrary, death, above all. Now blessed is that mortification, that dying, that makes us partakers of the life of Jesus. If life is sweet, what is this life of Jesus? Alas! What is any life compared to the life of Jesus; that is, to the divine power shown in us, which was shown in him?

Use 1. You see then that dying to Jesus Christ makes way for the life of Christ. If we want to live with Christ, we must die first. You know all life springs from death, so the life of Christ springs from death. His own life that he lives, any spiritual life, came after his death. And so spiritual life in us comes after dying. The papists will have a life of their own; others will have power in corrupt nature; but there is no resurrection without death before it. There must be dying before there is living.

If we want to feel the life of Christ, we must be content to carry bodies dying to Christ. If we want strength and power and joy and the presence of Christ, then endure the dying of the Lord Jesus. Endure whatever he is pleased to exercise us with. And if we carry his dyings, we shall be sure to be partakers of his life.

Use 2. I beseech you, consider whether we are partakers of this life, strength, and power, and grace, and comfort. And let us be content, then, with any condition in the world in which we may have communion with Christ by anything, so that we may be subject to Christ; to be poor that we may be rich with Christ; to die to all, so that we may live to Christ; to be nothing to all others, so that we may be all in all to Christ.

By dying to Christ we perhaps lose health, but we gain it in strength; we may lose favor and friends, but we gain them in spiritual things. God takes nothing from his children without giving better in a better kind. And happy is that parting that is repaid in a higher kind; happy is that death that is made good by a better life; happy is that self-denial that is made up in Christ; happy is that discomfort that is made up with comfort in Christ. Therefore let us not be against any suffering, and let us fear nothing that God may call us to in this world; no, not even death itself. Life with Christ is incomparably better than anything we lose.

Our life is only a dying life, take it at its best; die we must. Now if we die suffering afflictions, which are the passage to life, why then a benefit is made of necessity. We owe God a death by nature, and now we get an advantage by anything we suffer for Christ’s sake. For we have a hundredfold for anything we suffer in this world.

It is hard to persuade flesh and blood of this reason, but those who once find experience in it, as Christians do in sufferings, find peace and comfort from the presence of Christ’s Spirit in their souls. They know what a benefit it is to suffer for Christ’s sake, though with the loss of anything in this world. Would St. Paul have gone without those whippings and imprisonments, or gone without his comforts of Christ’s presence? Would the martyrs have gone without that sweet comfort they had, in exchange for present life? Surely they had that life offered to them; they might have accepted it if they would, but they would not.

And if glimpses of glory, the little life passed on to us now, support us under the troubles of the world, what is the “exceeding weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17) reserved for us in another world? We can soon fathom and compass the things we suffer. We know what contempt means, and what poverty means, but this life, even in this world, passes understanding. “The peace of God passeth understanding” (Phil 4:7), and “is joy unspeakable and glorious” (1 Pet 1:8). Therefore if there is a measure, and a narrow measure, of trouble in this world, and there is inward peace and glory beyond measure, then we are gainers here, setting aside any consideration of heaven.

Therefore, I beseech you, let us be willing to undergo anything God shall call us to; for:

(1) We shall find a divine energy of God’s Spirit, which we perhaps never had before, nor ever shall have hereafter. Therefore fear nothing God shall call us to. The comforts of God’s Spirit, from the life of Christ manifested in the hearts of his children, are above the course of nature, for it is a high life. The life of Christ is above the life of reason or sense. Therefore, suppose troubles lie in sense: the large peace and enlargement of spirit is above them all.

Now as the life of reason is above the life of sense, so the life of grace is above all conditions whatsoever. No inferior, subordinate condition can prejudice the life of grace and comfort. Therefore if all the tyrants in the world conspire to make a man miserable, they vex his outward life, but there is a life of Jesus, and they cannot hinder the influence of grace and comfort to the soul. They cannot hinder the inward peace or inward joy; these are comforts of a higher rank. And therefore if ever God calls us to stand in a good cause, for justice, for religion, never back away: we shall have comforts of a higher rank.

(2) Consider that the worst they can do is to take this life of ours, which we cannot keep long. These things are easy to know, as a matter of understanding, but hard to practice when the occasion comes. Therefore we ought to think of them beforehand, and to labor more and more to be persuaded of the love of God in Christ. And to see the life of Christ giving us life for all holy actions and duty, this is a spiritual life.

As Christ, when he rose, never dies again, so he who has this spiritual life has an eternal life; he never dies again. When Christ begins to give life to our souls by joining our spirits with his Spirit, that union is everlasting. And it is nearer after death than before; when death separates the soul from the body, then comes the union of the soul to Christ. Therefore labor after the spiritual life that makes us happier and happier still. The longer we live the nearer we are to Christ, and when we die, nearest of all. Labor to feel the power of Christ’s Spirit giving life to our spirits, putting life into them, vigor into them, beauty on them, strength into them by his Holy Spirit.

(3) Again, when the body is severed from the life of the soul, we see how deformed it is, how stiff and inactive it is; we cannot endure the sight of our dearest friend if life is gone. If the life of Christ is severed from our souls, what carrion souls we have before God! There is no beauty on the soul, no strength for duty. But now if we enter on the first degree of life here, and find the beginning of it in altering and changing our natures, we are sure to have further degrees of it in our death, and the consummation of it at our resurrection; then body and soul shall enjoy the same life that Jesus does now. But the scope of the apostle, which I desire you mainly to remember, is this: that you should fear nothing, nothing that can befall us, however grievous to the outward man.

(4) I add, because we shall feel by experience the life of Christ manifested to us. It is that which makes a Christian. Experience is the life of a Christian. What is all knowledge of Christ without experience but a bare knowledge, if the power that raised Christ’s body does not raise our souls? This is to know Christ to real purpose, to know the virtue of Christ. We hear that Christ is powerful to give life to his own body. You hear that Christ is gracious and good and full of comfort; but what is this unless we feel it in ourselves? It is the experiential knowledge of Christ, and of the life of Christ, that does us good and makes us abound in all things.

I suffer bonds, says the apostle, for the gospel, but I am not ashamed. Why? “I know whom I have believed” (2 Tim 1:12). He felt the power of Christ in all his tribulations and afflictions. When we find by experience that Christ is a life-giving Spirit, and has given life to our souls for grace, comforts, peace, and joy in our worst condition, then we know Christ to real purpose. Then we are fit to be carried through all the afflictions of the world, and beyond all, and above all, to bear us through all the things we meet with in the world between us and heaven. The life of Christ being a divine life, without a little experience of it, all is to no purpose. And a little of this bears down all that stands between us and glory.

Always bearing about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies (2 Cor 4:10).

The apostle, as we have heard before, labors to vindicate the credit of the gospel and of its ministry, anticipating all the objections that carnal men might make from the trouble that usually accompanies both the preaching and the profession of the blessed truths of God. And he sets it down by way of opposition and contrariety. He grants all that the adversary can say, and then shows on the contrary how God is graciously present in the midst of the troubles of his children. And this he does in five particulars.

1. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed” (2 Cor 4:8).

2. “Perplexed, yet not in despair” (2 Cor 4:8).

3. “Persecuted, yet not forsaken” (2 Cor 4:9).

4. “We are cast down, yet not destroyed altogether” (2 Cor 4:9).

Every one of these is worse than the other. The waters of trouble do arise, but as the waters of trouble arise, so comforts arise in every one, especially in the fifth, which is the worst of all.

5. “Always bearing about in our bodies the dying of our Lord Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10). It is true, yet for all that, “the life of Jesus is made manifest in our bodies.” Besides those unspeakable comforts that are preserved for religion in the world to come, God does not desert his children or his cause even in this world. Their condition is a happy one even when they are at their worst.

So the blessed apostle, though he had something in the flesh that would have discouraged him if he had nothing better in him than nature, yet notwithstanding had something by which he was encouraged, by which he would be able to turn everything back upon anyone who should object anything in religion to discourage him. This is a blessed art and skill that we should all learn: not to look altogether at the grievances, but to consider likewise what there is in our condition by which we may be comforted. Indeed, if we have spiritual eyes, there is more comfort in it than there are grounds of discouragement. God is gracious; he never takes anything from his children without making it up in a better kind.

We came last time to the beginning of the tenth verse: “We bear about in our bodies the dyings of the Lord Jesus”; the end of it is, “that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.”

God does not afflict any one of his children without making it up by a gracious and blessed recompense. What he takes away he makes up; and in whatever measure the outward man decays by mortification, in that measure, in a more excellent kind, he makes it up in the life of Jesus. And what is the decay of the life of nature, or of the life of condition that stands in riches and pleasures and honors, compared with the growth in a life of a higher kind, the life of Jesus?

“We always bear in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus.”

The words are a yielding to the objection that might be made concerning the affliction of the outward man. It is true, “we bear in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus.” We spoke of that first part last time.

That is, it means such afflictions as conform us to Christ: not only those that Christ permits and suffers, and that are like the dyings of Christ and conformable to him, which is called the mortification of Christ and the dying of the Lord Jesus, but also such a dying as has the Lord Jesus for a partner with us, which is for his sake, and by which we are framed to be like him and conformed to his image.

Observation. Whatever we suffer for Christ’s sake, we have Christ as a partner with us in it. Even as by virtue of communion with him we die with him and rise with him, so by virtue of communion with us he suffers with us and dies with us. He was stoned in Stephen, he was beheaded in Paul, he was reproached in Moses. Christ suffers in all those who suffer for him. There is that near a communion between Christ and his church. And therefore it is the mortification of Christ, because he bears a part in it with his children, and likewise because we are framed by it to be like him.

For, beloved, not to say any more in this argument, there must be a great deal of alteration in the outward man before it will be like Christ. Our flesh and outward man are so tainted with original corruption that there must be a great deal of change to fashion them to be like the pure nature of Christ. You know the nature that Christ took upon him. It was an afflicted nature, but a human nature, before it was a glorious nature in heaven. And so likewise this nature of ours, this outward man, before it can be a glorious nature, must be a human nature; it must be an afflicted nature. For sin has eaten so deeply into our natures that there is need, as it were, of a spirit of burning to consume and waste the corruption that is in us. And therefore it is called the mortification of Jesus, because by it we are made conformable to Jesus in our natures and dispositions, little by little, till at length our bodies and souls are forever conformable to him in the heavens, death being the accomplishing of mortification.

And then again, the mortification of Jesus is such a mortification by which we are content that our bodies should be like the body of Christ on earth, which was in all hardship, labor, affliction, and weariness. All God’s people have such a spirit; all who come to heaven have such a spirit. They are not so dainty as to want their bodies better used than the body of Christ.

Christ took upon him our flesh and our miserable condition; he took a nature subject to pain and labor. He did not take our nature as it was in Adam, impassible, a nature that could not suffer. He took the weakness of our nature, and in our nature went about doing good, hungry and thirsty and weary, and taking a great deal of pains. And shall any man who is a member of Christ be so dainty and delicate as not to be content to have his body be as Christ’s body was? And therefore, the more any man by Christ’s Spirit is content that his body should take pains in any calling to do good, and the more he is content to suffer ill in doing good, the more he carries the mortification and dying of the Lord Jesus in him.

And, beloved, as soon as ever a man has become a Christian, his life is no longer his own; his health and his liberty are Christ’s, not his own. Self-denial is the first lesson. There is a hatred, a not loving of anything in comparison with Christ, even of life itself and whatever stands in the way. And therefore we must be content to be partakers of Christ’s sufferings, content that our bodies should be used as Christ’s was. We must give up life and liberty and all to Christ; and that is “the dying of the Lord Jesus.” This we showed more largely last time, but I will now specially insist on the end and use of all this: “that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor 4:11).

You see that nothing is lost by the dying of the Lord Jesus. It is made up in a better kind, since it is for this end, “that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.” This is God’s end, and this is Christ’s end, and this is Paul’s end. It is both the effect and issue that comes of the dying of our bodies, and it is the end intended by Christ, who will use our bodies in his service so that his life may be made manifest in us.

St. Paul’s end in bearing the afflictions of the outward man is suited to Christ’s: that the life of Christ may be made manifest in him. For once we are in Christ, Christ’s aims and ends are our aims and ends. And therefore, says Paul, we are content to “bear in our bodies the dyings of the Lord Jesus,” so long as this is the issue of it, “that the life of Jesus may be made manifest.” Christ will have this end, and it is his end. He takes away nothing without making it up in a better kind to the better man. It shall be supplied by a life of the Spirit, which shall be perfected in a life of glory in heaven.

Now what is this life of Jesus?

There is a life of Jesus by which he lives himself, as God, and as mediator, God-man. There is a life of Jesus by which Christ was upheld while he lived upon the earth; for that Spirit who quickened the dead body of Jesus in the grave carried Christ along all his lifetime, and freed him from all dangers till he had done his work. There was a Spirit of life in Jesus that upheld him and strengthened him to do the great work he took in hand, till at length he did a greater work than all before, that is, raised up his dead body. So besides the life of Jesus enjoyed in heaven, a glorious life, there was a life that Jesus led on earth, which was carried by the Spirit, and moved by the Spirit of God in all things he did as mediator, God-man.

And there is a life that he has now in heaven. This is either the life that he enjoys himself and as our head, which we shall be conformed to when we die, for we shall enjoy the same life in our proportion and measure that he does in heaven, the glorious life which is the life of Christ our head. That is, it is that life of Christ which is now hid, as the apostle says, “our life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Or else the life of Jesus is that quickening power which comes from Christ to us.

Not to speak of higher matters, how God is life, which are speculations and not to the present purpose, the life of Jesus here is not the life of Jesus as it is and was in himself, but the life of Jesus as it is conveyed to us. The life of Jesus is conveyed to every Christian.

Nor do I speak of the life of justification, which is a life of sentence and not principally intended here, though it is the spring of all the rest. For we are dead in law, and we must be quickened by sentence. We are dead in our sins. Guilt is upon us, and the guilt must be removed in justification. We must live in law, and in sentence, and in absolution. God must forgive our sins for Christ’s sake, and remove the guilt of all death, before we can have inward grace, which is the life of sanctification. Though that life of justification is not meant here, it is presupposed, as that which leads to all the rest.

But what is meant here is the life of grace in us, which comes from the work and function of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of every Christian. As there is one soul in the head and all the members, so there is one Spirit in Christ and all the members, and one spiritual life in Christ and all the members. Now this Spirit of Christ conveys to us the Spirit of life, and Christ is the life of our life, the soul of our soul, the union with our spirits. For even as the body lives by fellowship and communion with the soul (for what is life but the vigor of the soul in the body by reason of union?), so our souls and bodies live a spiritual life by union and fellowship with Christ, which is the vigor of the Spirit in our souls by virtue of Christ. And therefore that spiritual life by which we live here is the life of Christ, not only as an example, because it is like Christ’s life, but by way of effectual working. Christ is the head of it, and conveys it to us.

There is no better comparison to express it than the life of the body, which has communion from the soul. The soul has a distinct life of its own. It has a life when it is out of the body. It has reason, it has discourse, it wills, it understands, it rejoices, it delights, yet all this distinct from the body. That severed life is not a life that it lives in the body. The body’s life is that which is communicated by conjunction and communion. So the life of Jesus is not the life that he lives in himself, but in this place specially, the life that we have by communion and friendship with him.

And this life that we have, the life of Jesus, admits of a double consideration.

First of all, it is that habitual life, as we may call it, that inward frame of divine nature which is in us Christians, which raises us above other men, as other men by a rational life are raised above other creatures. It is that temper and composure of soul by which they mind heavenly things and have a supernatural end and aim in all things, and have enlargements of understanding, enlargements of will and affections, larger souls than others. Narrow-spirited men are those who are carried only to the things of this life. And this is a constant life, by reason of the constant dwelling of the Spirit in us, as there is constant life in the body by the constant dwelling of the soul in it.

And besides that, it is a perpetual influence of life from Christ, especially in dangerous and difficult times, such as St. Paul speaks of here. It is a power above nature, conveyed to uphold us and carry us along through all dangers till we come to heaven. So it is a life first in us, and then the life of Christ drawing out the life in us to all kinds of grace and adding a divine strength.

For, beloved, it is not that life which is in us that does all the great matters, but the life of Christ as it joins with the life of grace, supports it, strengthens it, draws it forth, and increases it. For the life that is in us is a created thing; it is a new creature, but a creature. But the life that maintains a Christian, that upholds him specially in the dangerous matter, yes, in the “dyings of the Lord Jesus,” in great difficulty, is not a thing created in us. It is the life of Jesus as it has influence from him and is conveyed from him by a perpetual kind of derivation. For if troubles grow, then the quickening power must increase with them, and habitual grace in us must be raised and strengthened and quickened. And besides the graces formerly in us, there must be an addition of strength from the spring, still more and more.

In natural life we do not only live in God, but move in God: “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). So in regard of spiritual life, we not only live by Christ, but our motion, and the prompting of our power when it is sanctified to any particular action, comes from the quickening power of Christ, who is a quickening Spirit quickening us.

Sometimes this quickening power must be shown by way of strength, when the trouble is great, that the strength may be suited to it; sometimes by way of comfort, when the discouragement is great; sometimes by way of joy and peace, when the discouragement comes to assault us with the contrary. So there must perpetually be quickening power in our lives from Christ our quickening head, besides the habitual, constant grace we carry about with us always.

We know that in the body, if there are obstructions that hinder the spirits from the brain, from which motions come, there is an apoplexy or lethargy, causing a cessation of motion. So if the quickening powers continually derived from Christ our head were to cease, there would be an apoplexy or lethargy in our spiritual life, and a kind of death.

Therefore when we speak of the life of Christ, we must not understand the life that he lived; “because I live, therefore you shall live also” (John 14:19). We must rather think of the habitual grace wrought in ourselves, by which we are conformed to Christ, and think of a quickening power that Christ shows continually, he being the Sun of this world. Though the things of this world, such as plants and the like, grow, yet let the sun withdraw its vigor and efficacy, and they seem to die immediately. The light of the air ceases when the sun ceases to shine. So besides what is in us habitually and continually, there must be an influence of Christ into us answering to the needs and occasions a Christian has, whether of peace, or joy, or comfort of some portion of spiritual life or other.

Now this is called the life of Jesus because it is rooted in him originally, as the “second Adam.” We all derive it from him. The grace and quickening power we continually have is from him; the glory we look for is from him. He is the “first-born” to whom we are predestined to be conformed in every way, in grace here and glory hereafter. And therefore it is called the life of Jesus.

That is specially what is meant here: both these lives, the inward frame of spiritual life and grace in us, and likewise a perpetual influence, specially revealed and manifested when there is most need of it, in times of trouble, with the accomplishment of it in heaven. The life of Christ is manifested in his children here when they stand in most need of grace and comfort, and it is manifested continually up to the day of judgment, when the life of Jesus shall indeed be manifested to the full, as it is manifested in him in heaven. For as Christ is glorious himself in heaven, so his mystical body shall be like him too.

I need speak no more for the unfolding of the meaning of the words. The points to be considered are these.

Observation 1. That Christ is the foundation of all spiritual life that is in us. He is the “second Adam” who conveys all that is spiritually good. As the first Adam conveys all that is spiritually ill, so it was Christ’s office to convey life. “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19); and he says in John 10:10, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have life abundant.” Christ came that we might have life, and that we might have abundance of life at the last. We have it by degrees here, but there is abundance of life preserved for us, such abundance as he enjoys himself in the heavens.

So Christ as the “second Adam” conveys spiritual life to us as the common root of all believers, as the “first Adam” was the common root of all mankind, but more peculiarly by virtue of his office as a head. As the head conveys spirit and life to all parts of the body, so Christ conveys spiritual life to all his.

It is the end of his coming and incarnation to procure the life of sentence and reconciliation, which is the life of justification and freedom from condemnation, and the life of acceptance to life everlasting. He died that he might pacify God by sacrifice, and gain the lives of men by getting them acquitted from sin and entitled to heaven. And thereupon he came to convey (as head to all his members) a life like his own, that the Spirit who is in him may quicken all his members. Therefore he has taken upon him the sweet relation of a head, of a root, the Sun of righteousness, to show that he is a powerful head, a powerful root, a powerful husband, who can alter and change, by virtue of the Spirit of God whom he has in abundance, all who belong to him and are knit to him. And therefore our spiritual life is in Christ.

He first exercised this life on his own body by quickening it. As he was mightily declared to be the Son of God by raising his own body (Eph 1:19-20), so he will be mightily declared to be the head of all his by raising the bodies of his children out of the grave, and by raising them out of troubles, which are partial deaths, little deaths. So all spiritual life comes from Christ, from union and communion with Christ.

Use. Therefore we must labor to have union and communion with Christ strengthened by all means, by hearing, and by the sacraments, and by all means. For all our life is derived and fetched from Christ, as a “second Adam,” who by virtue of his office conveys life to all who are his. The more we know of Christ, the more we feel the power of Christ by experience, the more we live.

Observation 2. For the second point: As all life is from Christ, so (and this is the main point of the text) this life is most revealed in afflictions and evil times, in the dying of the outward man.

Beloved, both the spiritual lives I speak of are made more manifest then, both the inward frame of grace and likewise the power of Christ in upholding a weak creature in such a condition. For all grace shines most and appears most in trouble: obedience, courage, faith, love to God, love to others, love of the truth. I need not stop to particularize. And therefore the life of Christ is manifested in the decays of the outward man, whether by outward persecutions or by sicknesses and the like. That is the time when grace is revealed. And likewise it is the time when the power is revealed that Christ exercised and showed, the divine power that God declared in raising his body; that is, it is the time in which he shows that power in all his.

Reason 1. The reason is, things are best known by opposition. The decay of the outward man is a foil, as it were, to grace, to make it appear more clear and glorious, and the weakness of the outward man is a means to reveal more the power of God’s Spirit and the power of the life of Christ in such a weak body. For when a weak man, or a weak woman, or a weak child is able to stand up for the truth, here is divine power shown, as the martyrs did not only show but declare it gloriously. And for a sick body to believe makes the soul glorious and comfortable. Here is divine power shown more gloriously by reason of the opposition of the outward man.

Reason 2. And then again, at this time the soul itself unites itself more to God and to divine things; and therefore the life of Christ is more manifested, because there is a near union between Christ and the soul. For the soul gathers itself in from the sphere in which it goes down to worldly things, as it does in times of prosperity, ease, and plenty, when the soul scatters and loses itself in the creature. Now there is a sweetening power in what is inflicted, to make the soul gather itself to God, to the fountain of life. And so it is a means sanctified by the Spirit of God to procure union with the Spirit of Christ; and therefore the life of Christ is then more manifested in the flesh.

Reason 3. And then these things that befall the outward man are, as it were, removers of what obstructs: they remove the hindrances of the life of Christians. For what hinders the life of Christ from appearing in us, but that our affections are eaten up with the world and vanity, one way or other? For naturally we are not so vigorous in spirit when we have vigor in the outward man; and what furthers the life and strength and comfort of the outward man will diminish the strength of the inward. It should not be so. It should be that the more vigorous we are in the outward man, the more vigorous we should be in the inward; but it is not so.

Now suffering takes that away, when these things are embittered by the cross, by some suffering that is against the feeling and sense of the outward man. From this comes a better relish of divine things, other things being embittered to the soul. And from this the soul, in times of any great pressure, hears heavenly things with other ears, and sees them with other eyes, and feels and judges after another manner than it did before.

Take a man when he is under anything that afflicts the outward man, whether in his body or his condition, which are both called life, the life of body and the life of condition. We shall fasten a few good things on him sooner than at another time. Speak ten times as much at another time, and it shall have no passage, no entrance. But when the state of all things outside him has been made less delightful, his soul recovers a spiritual taste, and relishes heavenly company and heavenly truths, as they are suggested by others or by us. Experience shows this in David and other saints, and in every Christian. And therefore the blessed life of Christ, such a spiritual life as is in Christ, is most of all glorious and conspicuous, specially in times of afflictions and crosses.

Reason 4. And then another reason may be given, that the point may be clear. God delights, and Christ delights, to show himself most glorious at such times, not only because his virtue and strength and power are most manifest then, but likewise out of tenderness to the condition of his children; for he sees that they have more need of his presence and more need of his immediate comforts. Then immediate comforts are specially desired by the soul. When outward comforts are taken away, there is a sweeter communion with Christ in any trouble than at other times. For the most part, no communion in prosperity is so sweet to a Christian as at that time, for the soul knows that it is then most acceptable to the soul. The soul stands in need of it.

Therefore comforts are immediate to the soul at this time, and immediate comforts that come from the fountain are pure. When the comforts derived from friends and outward helps are all taken away, there must be immediate comforts, or else the soul will sink. And now Christ, out of love to his children, comes forth to them and joins with their spirits more than at other times, so that the sweetest communion any man has with Christ is at the worst times. The martyrs verified it abundantly, for they never had such comforts before as they had then. For Christ came into the dungeon and supported them with strength above nature; and all this is from the sweet love and mercy of Christ, who applied himself to the necessity of his children. These and similar reasons show that the life of grace, the life of comfort, and the life derived immediately from Christ is most apparent in afflictions.

I will not press the point any further.

Use of trial. To make use of what has been spoken: if it is true that there is a spiritual life, another life, and that this is most manifested in affliction, how then shall we know whether we have this life of Christ or not? For Christ conveys a spiritual life to all his.

We will speak of the evidence of them both, whether there is a gracious frame of life in us from Christ or not.

If the life of Christ is not in us, beloved, we are stark dead in regard of a better life; and it is woeful to be in a dead condition. And therefore it behooves us to take some care that we have the life of Christ, and if we have it, we may know it familiarly. I do but name the heads. Because it is a word borrowed from the life of nature, you may know it from its proportion to the life of nature. Where spiritual life is, there it is. As in the outward life you know there is sense and motion, appetite, and the like, so where the life of Jesus is, there are spiritual senses, eyes that see spiritual things, a taste that relishes spiritual things, a taste that can relish them above all other things, that can set the highest price upon the best things, that judges things as they are. There is a spiritual taste and judgment suitable to the judgment of Christ. And so I might run through all the senses, if I wanted to press the correspondence in this way.

And as there is spiritual sense, so there is sensitivity. A natural life makes us feel any injury, any comfort. So where there is the life of Jesus, it makes us sensitive to anything that is suitable to nature, or contrary to it. Where there is life there is sympathy and antipathy: sympathy, agreement with what is suitable to nature; and antipathy to what is contrary. So where there is the life of Jesus, there is a sympathy with all things that have Jesus’ stamp upon them, with spiritual things and spiritual persons, and an antipathy to the contrary.

And here is the ground why a godly man may be known by his hatred of sin, because it shows an antipathy; and antipathy shows the kinds of life. Sin is contrary to union and communion with Christ, for it is of a dissolving and divorcing nature.

Now the soul that lives by Christ knows sin to be of a divorcing and separating nature, severing his soul from his head and life, and so causing strokes and death itself, if it is not looked to in time. Hence that soul comes to hate sin to the death, and to seek the death of sin by all means, because sin seeks the death of the soul; for what is sin but a separation of the soul from Christ, and a joining to the creature? Therefore wherever there is grace, there is antipathy to sin, not only as bringing damnation with it, but as contrary to the life of Christ.

Every creature has an antipathy to its enemy, as we see in doves and eagles; the dove is the prey. The tamer and the wild creatures have an antipathy in them by nature. So the soul that has the life of Christ has an antipathy to sin. So far as the life of Christ prevails in him it must be so, for every life labors to preserve its being. We are told to be wise as serpents (Matt 10:16), which wind and turn themselves about, which cover their heads and will suffer any mangling so long as the head is safe, because the life is in the head. So the Christian who has the life of grace will endure anything, so long as the life of grace is not hurt.

There are sympathies and antipathies, an inward joining to what preserves, and an inward hatred of what destroys. And therefore those who live in sin against conscience, sin that divides between God and them, I cannot see how they can think of spiritual life; for the soul lives and is swallowed up in base pleasures and in the creature. Now if they had spiritual life, it would preserve itself from breaches and all dangers.

Let us not deceive ourselves. Christ came not to free us from damnation only, but as a head, to infuse spiritual life into us, and to live in us by his Spirit. He came not only to purchase a life of glory for us, but likewise to live in us by his Spirit; and if he overcomes for us, he will overcome in us; if he has a life for us, he will have a life in us. The life of Jesus must be manifested in us. And therefore take heed of joining, in affliction, to any sin; for it divorces the soul from God, and joins it to the creature. And so the soul becomes fading like the creature, and comes to nothing; and indeed it is worse than nothing, to be forever in hell. It comes to the same degree in misery that it would otherwise have had in happiness.

Creatures have their instincts. There is a natural instinct in every creature to run to what feeds it, as lambs and other creatures, as soon as ever they are born, run; they know where to go to suck, because that is ordained by nature for their preservation. So there is an instinct in the soul to carry it to what feeds and maintains it. Bees go naturally to the flowers by an instinct; so the spiritual soul that has the life of Christ runs to whatever may feed and maintain that life.

I beseech you, therefore, do not talk of the outward actions that are charged against hypocrites. Look rather to the sympathy and antipathy of your souls and to your instincts. Where does the bent of the soul lead you? With what do you preserve the inward man? How is the soul taken up? This will reveal the frame of the soul more than anything else.

Every creature that has life has an element in which it is preserved above any other place, as the fish in the sea, the birds in the air. So the element of a Christian is holy; he is a fish on dry land when he is in other courses and company. He walks by the Spirit, he lives by the Spirit, and he walks in the Spirit. He lives in the Spirit as in his element. So spiritual things and good company are his element.

Indeed, he is never at his center, never in his proper place, until he is in heaven. But in the meantime his element here is heaven on earth; that is, spiritual actions in which he walks and takes his comfort, as a fish in the sea, and in which he draws in the breath that suits his disposition. Bad company or evil hearts will not suit that spiritual life; and by these ordinary resemblances we may judge a little of the frame of our spirits, whether they are living souls or not.

But to go a little higher.

The life of Jesus, as it rises from Jesus, from as high as heaven, so it leads to Jesus. It makes the soul look to Jesus, look to Christ. It subordinates all things to Christ. It takes all things along the way as furtherances for Christ, and considers its hindrances as they hinder the main thing, and its furtherances as they further the main thing. It looks on all things below as they further or hinder the main thing. It is a life bred from heaven, and it aims at heaven, and cares for no more of these things than can stand with a spiritual and eternal state. It considers things and reasons about things: how does this help or hinder the main thing? And when it does anything, it fetches its reasons from Christ, and from heaven, and from the main end.

A man who has the life of reason, adorned with policy and wisdom, considers things as they help his estate; or if he is a man of narrow understanding, like the sot, he considers them as they serve his own particular good, and goes no higher. So a man who has the life of Christ has a larger soul than any of these, for he has a larger end, and a higher end, because he has a higher light to discover that end. Light is the first thing in life, and that light discovers greater things than any other man can grasp. The other man’s spirit is too narrow for them.

And when by a supernatural light he grasps a glorious condition in heaven, he makes that his aim. And as he has large aims, so he has large affections, and nothing below can satisfy him, because his soul is enlarged by the life of grace, and by the life of the Spirit, to see better into things, and to have better aims. Therefore let every man look to what his ordinary aims are, whether he rests in anything below, or whether he makes things below serviceable to greater things. If he delights in inferior things, he has only a common life.

Many think their condition good because they attend to religion, but there is falsehood in that. For a man who does not have the life of grace, who makes the practice of religion serviceable to his base ends, makes heavenly things serviceable to his ends; that is, out of self-love, because he does not want to be damned, or because he wants to be reputed religious. But he does not have the aim of spiritual actions. He does not do spiritual things from a spiritual life, but from self-love, from a false principle within. Now where the life of Jesus is, it rests in nothing but in Jesus, and makes all things serviceable to that. The skill of referring things to the main end is one chief property of spiritual life.

1. For a man may do the same thing, and yet from different principles: one from flesh and blood, and vainglory, and base ends, and the other from higher considerations, as with men and beasts. A man has a higher life than the other creature has. Both may refresh themselves, but a man does it as a man, and directs that strength of his to human actions. If he is a Christian, he not only directs human actions, but refers human actions and everything else to serving God in his place. So he works like a man, though as far as the actions go they are the same. And so the shallow creatures work in their way, being determined to one thing, and not having the latitude of reason to look to many things. Thus you see there is a great difference between men and men.

2. Men may do the same things, come to church, receive the sacrament. The one may have base, low ends, the other higher ends; indeed, one may have higher ends in civil actions than another in spiritual actions. For the one does holy actions with a carnal end; and the other, having spiritual life, by virtue of that life carries on his calling, in its duties, in a spiritual manner. I beseech you, therefore, let us examine our life of Jesus by the bearing of our souls toward Jesus; he never allows us to rest in subordinate things. I might be very lengthy on this point, but I will name no more.

Consider what sets you to work in all the things you do. There are things we call automata, “things that are moved by art.” One would think they moved themselves; but they are moved by a weight that is not seen at once, as in clocks and the like. In all contrivances of art that move, one would think the motion is from themselves, but there is no principle of life in them; an external thing, a weight outside, sets all the wheels going. But in living creatures that have principles of life within them, something within them guides their life and sets them going.

So it is with a Christian and another man. He who has the life of Christ is set to work in his actions from the life within him. The other man moves to the same thing, but he moves from an extraneous principle. There is something or other that sways his course and gives a bias to his actions, which is outward and not spiritual: either freedom from outward troubles, or keeping in step with others. I beseech you, look to our motives and to our aims in all our actions, for these will best tell the difference.

But that is not the life mainly intended by the apostle, but the life that is with him, flowing and having influence from Jesus, especially in hard conditions. The life of Jesus is manifested then. That is, both the inward frame shows itself then, and likewise the power that comes from Christ.

Now, how does it appear that a man is upheld in every condition by a divine power, besides his inward frame of soul?

Beloved, when the state of spirit he is in is contrary to the outward condition and above it. When by the ordinary course of things such a man should sink, and he does not, and that from supernatural principles and strength, that argues there is a power in him above nature and above his own. For a man in restraint to have his soul at liberty; for a man disgraced in the world to have a bold spirit toward God; for a man weak in outward appearance to have strong courage, forcible courage, that all the enemies of truth cannot daunt; when a man is pining away, and is nothing but skin and bones, yet to have a heavenly soul that is in heaven before its time, and altogether in a heavenly way of life.

When the outward man is in great pain, and all confidence must be cast away as far as outward hopes go, yet he is strong, and assures himself of a better condition afterward. His very faith and hope cast anchor in heaven; and though they are not seen or felt, yet there is such power in spiritual things, laid hold on by faith and waited on by hope, that it supports a soul in such a condition. So if it were not for these heavenly supports, by the Spirit of God, it would sink.

If you would have the life of Jesus manifested, compare your condition and your strength. When a man can master all conditions, when a man can master imprisonment, disgrace, restraint, weakness, anything, from considerations above nature, and strength together with consideration (for the Spirit works not only by reason, but by an inward strength), it shows there is something in a man above nature, that there is in him a life of Jesus. When nothing shall stand between a man and heaven, neither fears of great ones, nor frowns, nor hopes of promotion; when nothing below can stand in a man’s way to heaven, but he will break through it all by an invincible courage, it argues he has a frame of spirit above his own. There is not only a frame of grace, but a spirit of strength, to carry him through all conditions whatever.

As St. Paul says, “I am able to do all things through Christ that strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). “I have learned to want and to abound” (Phil 4:12), to do all things through Christ that strengthens me, that supplies me with perpetual strength from above.

Beloved, in a Christian, especially in evil times, there is more than a man, there is more than a holy man; there is something that flows from this head, Christ, that administers supplies of comfort, and of peace, and of joy, and of friends, by which he is carried through all. By these and similar particulars, we may discern whether the life of Jesus is manifested in us or not.

Use 2. Of exhortation. Beloved, let us labor by all means, therefore, to have this spiritual life: to have a frame, to have the divine nature stamped upon our nature, the frame of grace. And let us not rest on that, but labor for a perpetual and continual stream of life from Christ, the fountain and the spring.

I speak of this all the more because there is a chief defect in this, and it is the cause of many falls. But our hearts are good, we say, and we trust to the frame of life and grace that is in us, without looking to the supernatural spring and fountain of all grace outside ourselves. And we think tomorrow shall be as today, and that by the same strength we use today, we shall stand against temptations tomorrow. Beloved, it will not be. There must be supplies not only of new strength, but also of greater strength, for new conflicts, for new oppositions, and for new temptations. For as the strength that carries a little will not carry a great burden, and those who carry burdens put forth greater strength to carry more than others, so it is in Christianity. When we meet with a strong temptation, we must not think to overcome it without setting upon it with spiritual strength.

“Lord, I need divine strength, or I shall sink under this temptation; this cross is too heavy for me.” And so we must not go about to oppose any extraordinary thing with the strength of nature, for nature will do nothing in great matters. It will make us do things comely to the outward eye. Nor will common grace make us able to set upon great matters; we must have a supply from grace, from heaven.

And therefore a Christian is a depending creature. None is so dependent, or so independent. Certainly none is so independent of the creature as a Christian, especially when he carries Christ in his heart by faith; but then he is continually depending upon Christ the head, who is the treasure and spring of all spiritual life, to convey it to us on all occasions. “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), much less suffer without me.

And therefore, I beseech you, let it be a rule for us in our ordinary course, when we set upon any duty, withstand any temptation, or conflict with any corruption, and when we are to enjoy any prosperity above the common model of grace, to enjoy it without surfeiting on pride, carnal complacency, or the sins that accompany prosperity. Let us consider with ourselves: “Have I a frame of grace enough to set upon this? No, I have not. Surely this is what must be: there must be a power from Christ, a perpetual drawing of strength from Christ, to master this, to meet with this, to bring it under.”

A Christian is lord of all conditions, of prosperity and adversity, but not by an ordinary frame of grace. It is by that together with a divine strength and power, which is here called the life of Jesus, especially manifested by dependency. So let the life of a Christian be continually dependent. Peter by his ordinary graces could say, “Though all forsake thee, yet will not I” (Mark 14:29). But so that he may see he is standing by his own strength, he falls foully. And why do so many fall foully, but because they undertake things with their own strength, with former strength, and not with dependency, or with a supply suitable to present necessity, and thereby they learn to stand by falling? God sanctifies their slips and falls, to teach them better dependency for the time to come.

I beseech you, therefore, let this be a direction for how to guide our lives. And that we may depend on Christ for strength in all courses, take heed of offending him and grieving his Spirit; take heed that he does not suspend his divine power, that strength, obstructing this life, calling it home to himself, and leaving us to our own principles. Then we fall immediately. The life of a Christian is perpetually watchful, “to work out salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). How? Not doubting your salvation, but fearing to offend Christ, “for he giveth the will and the deed”; he gives the will to supply, and the deed to perform. And it is “according to his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). You are on your good behavior. If you do not work out your salvation with a holy jealousy over your corruptions, and with a holy trembling, he may allow you to fall. Therefore consider that our dependency is not in ourselves.

Now, since the fall, God will not trust us with our own strength, but will lay up everything in Christ. Therefore take occasion to go to Christ. And so that he may be our friend, and we may have his Spirit (for he does everything by his Spirit, as the sun does everything by its beams), take heed of grieving the Spirit, and of giving it occasion to suspend its influence of grace and influence of comfort. For to be lively Christians is another thing than people take it to be. We should labor not only to have lives, but to be lively, to have the life of Christ manifested in us, and not only for crosses; in that time God preserves great comforts. But labor in time of prosperity for the life of Jesus. There is little life of Jesus in times of peace. Carnal complacency deadens the life of Jesus. Sins of plenty, and sins of long peace, stick to us, so that there is not that vigor, that liveliness of Jesus in us, that there ought to be.

Now our endeavor should be to labor after an increase of this inward frame, and together with the increase of grace in us, an increase of continual dependency by faith, which fetches everything from Christ. And why should we labor for it? For the credit of the Christian profession. What a glory it is to have a company of lively professing Christians, in whom the life of Jesus is manifested, who are above all conditions, who are enslaved to no condition, who can bring all things under, and master their desires! “The spiritual man judgeth all things” (1 Cor 2:15), subdues all things. He orders them so that he makes them serviceable to his own ends.

And what a glorious thing it is to be like a lion, bold in all conditions, afraid of nothing but of offending God! And then fear and tremble, because God may suspend his Spirit. A wicked man may fear everything, but he does not fear God, who is to be feared above all. But a true Christian is a lord, a master above all other things; only he fears to offend God, by which this spiritual life may be obstructed.

Now since it is such an excellent thing to be not only a living Christian but a lively Christian, and since it is for the honor of religion to be so, let us labor more and more for it, especially considering that we do not know what dangers we may encounter, what temptations and corruptions. When we have the life of Jesus now, it will be manifested more and more until it ends in glory. Is it not an excellent thing to have that in us, to have such a conquering principle in us, to have the Spirit of Christ in us, not only a frame of grace, but a Spirit enabling us, and moving us, and carrying us through all conditions?

Then this life of Jesus is a life that sets us in an order above all other lives. There is a great range of life, from the plant, that powerful life, to God, who is life itself. What a gradation of life there is! There is the life of sense, and the life of reason, and the life of the spirit. Now for a Christian who has the life of Jesus, which is a spiritual life here and will end in a glorious life in heaven, it sets him in a glorious rank above all the lives under him; for it makes him one with Jesus. The Spirit of Christ acts in him, loves in him, rejoices in him, delights in him, carries him through actions, bears him through crosses. Even as the soul moves his body, so the life of Jesus moves him, and sets him in a higher rank. Indeed, a spiritual man is as much above another man as another man is above another creature.

What excellence is there, you will say, in a man who has the life of Jesus in him? What excellence! Beloved, this life makes him eternal. All other excellences are but “grass, and the flower of grass,” as the apostle speaks, but the life begotten by the word endures for ever (1 Pet 1:25). Spiritual life endures forever. He who believes in Christ endures forever; for it is an everlasting life. All other things perish and fall. Suppose they are the flower of grass. The flower perishes before the grass. They are of shorter continuance. Wit, and greatness, and honor, and the like, are of shorter continuance than life. Life is only grass, and all the ornaments of life are only flowers of the grass. These are fading things, and they must all end in death. All honors are ended in death. All excellences lie in the dust. And we must rise up equally, all kings and subjects, great and small.

But this life is a life that endures forever, and is therefore called an everlasting life. Then we live to purpose, and never until then, when we live the life of Jesus, when that is manifested in our souls. That is the life that is truly living; the other is a life not worthy of the name of life. The conditions of life, riches and nobility (which is a condition of life), all have their end; but this life of Jesus is begun in Christ, and ends in glory. And therefore it is worth laboring to grow in it more and more, to have it more and more manifested in us above all conditions and life whatever.

I beseech you, let us not pass the time as careless people, but labor to have something in us above nature, to have the life of Jesus to quicken our rational life, to sanctify everything. The life of Jesus does not deprive us of anything, but ennobles all other excellences. A man who has the life of Jesus may be as wise as he will, as learned as he will; he may be noble, and this makes him more noble; it dignifies everything. It is a diamond set in gold; it adds excellence to all other excellences. A Christian is truly noble. A man who has the life of Jesus is truly rich, truly great, truly beautiful; he has the image of Christ stamped upon the soul, and has excellences added to all other excellences.

It is an unworthy thing that we should pass through this life, whose whole business is to get into Christ, and die before we begin to live. How many live a natural, rational life, and live in an outward condition perhaps great in the world, and then everything ends in death; and they are out of the world before they come in. Here they come, here they live, and hence they go, and they never do the work for which they came, which is to get out of nature and to grow in grace; to get into the spirit of the life of Christ, who is the life of a Christian, the sun that quickens all. Instead of this, they go on from day to day, from year to year, and so die before they begin to live. And thousands do this in the bosom of the church.

This is a fearful condition. Therefore let this be the conclusion of this point.

Let us never rest until we find ourselves in a condition above nature, until we find ourselves in such a state as none can come to but a child of God. Let us enter into eternal life while we live. For none shall be transported into heaven who is not engrafted into Christ here. This is the entrance of heaven. Therefore begin the life here, get into the church here, or else it shall never be obtained hereafter. Labor for more and more experience that Christ is in us, so that on the day of judgment Christ may know us by his own stamp and by his own life, and so that the life that raised him up out of the grave may raise our bodies out of the dust.

For this is the comfort we may have from the life of Jesus: power to quicken us to duty. We shall find the life of Jesus quickening us from troubles, and at the consummation of all, we shall find the Spirit that comes from him powerfully able to raise our dead bodies. If the Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead is in us, it will raise up our bodies likewise. Indeed, I could almost never satisfy myself on this subject, except that the time is past, and you may in your own meditations work better upon what I have said than I can by any strength of mine press it at present.

“For we which live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor 4:11).

The holy apostle, by more than ordinary wisdom, by a spirit enlightened from heaven, not only takes benefit from the weak estate he and his fellows were in, but also makes use of such objections as were made against the profession of religion by those who looked only at the outside. He grants all that might be objected, tending to the outward disparagement of religion, but then he turns it all back upon them, and makes a gracious and comforting use of it. As you may see in these two verses: “We bear in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, but the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal bodies” (2 Cor 4:10-11). We spoke at some length last time of the tenth verse: “Always bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus, that …”

We will now proceed to the next verse, which is only an illustration and exposition of the former. For what he said before, “we bear in our bodies the dying of Christ,” here he says, “we are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.” And where he says there, “that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies,” here, by way of exposition and illustration, he says, “that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” So it is only an illustration and exposition of the former verse.

“For we which live,” he says: we apostles and ministers, and it is true of all Christians, we who live, while we live, are in some sense always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.

Here is the circumstance of time, added to the condition they were in, and the heightening of what they were delivered to. “We are always delivered to death,” “we are delivered to death, and always,” and “for Jesus’ sake.” These three things deserve a little consideration before we go further.

The condition is “deliverance to death,” the circumstance “always,” and “for Jesus’ sake.”

Objection. How could they die, being alive?

Answer. I answer that we are delivered to death because God, by his permission, gave them over to Satan, who rules in the children of disobedience, to molest and threaten them and deliver them to death. This is with regard to cruel men’s designing them for death, on every advantage they could take against them. They were likewise delivered to death in their continual preparation for death, for every day they rose they could make no other account but that they might die before they slept again. And in this respect they and every Christian ought to be a dying man, to be delivered to death.

God is ready to permit them to die when they may honor him. God is not prodigal of our lives. When our lives may save his truth, he will permit our lives to fall into the mercy of merciless men, and they have bloody minds. Their malice is more than their power; their cruelty is often more than their ability, but their hearts are altogether bloody. And so a Christian is always prepared for the worst, as the apostle says.

For, beloved, as soon as ever a Christian becomes a Christian, the first lesson in religion is self-denial. And in what respect must he deny himself? In regard to goods or honor? Not only so, but in the grand matter of life itself. He must hate, that is, not love, father and mother, not even life itself, if the question concerns God’s glory and the good of the church, if they come into competition with the divine truths of the gospel.

We must give up our lives for Christ and his church; we must have resigned minds. This we must do in preparation of spirit. God indeed does not always call for it. Some times are more difficult than others, and the times of the gospel are sweet times of rest, for in Acts it is said that the churches had rest (Acts 9:31); but we must be prepared for it. St. Paul says to the Corinthians that when they gave themselves to Christ, they gave their goods to Christ (2 Cor 8:5). And when a Christian gives himself to Christ, he gives his goods and himself to Christ.

It is no hard matter, when a man has given himself to Christ, to part with anything else that serves only for necessary comforts and provision, and then he takes it all back again when he has his life. “Lord, it is your life. You have bought me and my life; I am yours. You have paid a dear price for me, and yours it shall be when you call for it. If you will have my credit, my estate, my liberty, you shall have it; if my life itself, you shall have it. From you I have it, to you I return it again, if it may be for your glory and your church’s good.” And this should be the disposition of every Christian: to count nothing so much his own that he is not ready to part with it when Christ calls for it.

Beloved, a Christian is a sacrifice, and the end of all the favors of Christ is that from a free, willing spirit he should offer himself a free willing sacrifice to God, as the apostle speaks excellently (Rom 12:1). When he had spoken of all the favors of God in Christ, election, justification, sanctification, the comforts of his children in trouble, the end of all is that we should offer ourselves as a willing, reasonable sacrifice to God as the end of all.

And therefore a reservation in our spirits of anything in which we will have limitations cannot stand with the truth of Christianity: when we profess religion, but with a reservation of our liberty, so as not to offend so and so, and not to endanger our skin, or reputation, and life. No man is a true Christian who has such a reservation. He never knew what faith and implantation into Christ meant. He has not entered the first grade of religion. He has not learned to deny himself. “Whoever will be a disciple of me, let him take up his cross” (Matt 16:24).

There are two hindrances of religion, one within, another without. Within us is ourselves, and that we must deny; without us is the cross, and that we must take up. And he who does both of these is fit to follow Christ, and none but those.

And therefore you must be content, as the apostle says, to be “always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.” So it is with Christ himself, our head. He was delivered to death, as I mentioned before. God permitted his enemies by little deaths to afflict him and misuse him; at length God gave him up to death itself. They thought to have swallowed him up continually, and to have made an end of him; at length God gave him up indeed. And he was himself a willing sacrifice, ready to die.

So we must be as Christ was, ready to part with this life, as Christ parted with all for us; otherwise we are not suitable members of so glorious and gracious a head. He gave himself for us, and shall we not give ourselves back again to him, especially when it is the only way to save ourselves? “He that loseth life, shall get his life; and he that will spare his life, shall lose his life” (Matt 10:39). It will prove so in the end.

You will say, “These are good things and true matters, but they are not for us in these times.” All the more are we to bless God for that, beloved. And yet we are delivered to death, if we regard that sympathy that should exist between us and the mystical body of Christ. In France now, and in Spain, and in many places of Germany and Italy, Christ has a church. And are not the poor souls there continually, as it were, delivered to death? Are they not always between the block and the hatchet, either killed or ready for death, continually as sheep to the slaughter? The persecutor makes no more bones about killing them than a butcher has scruples about killing a sheep, or a man about eating bread when he is hungry.

“They eat up my people, as they eat bread” (Ps 14:4), and “they think they do God good service” (John 16:2). This is the state of all countries beyond the seas, except ours; and shall we not have actions of sympathy? The member that does not sympathize with the body is a dead member. And therefore we cannot make it good to ourselves that we are living members of a living and glorious head unless we sympathize with them. So in regard to the body of Christ now in Europe, under the cross a long time, and under a tyranny of crosses, we may say we are delivered to death continually. And it may be our portion and lot before we go out of the world, for anything we know and for anything we discern. That is the truth of it.

But why do I speak of delivering to death, when some delicate Christians will not endure a scorn, a frown, a reproach for Christ? They will not part with anything for Christ; how then will they part with their blood? Are those who will not yield up anything they have likely men to be “delivered to death for Christ’s sake,” if such times should come?

Now, that we may be enabled to do it, I will not trouble you with many directions. I will give only one. When a Christian comes to be a Christian, let him think he is not a man for this life, further than God will allow him to live for the good of others, and to get assurance of his interest in another world. He has his estate in heaven; therefore let him be settled and resolved regarding this present life. And now that he has given himself to Christ, his life is Christ’s, and let him think his life is not his own. “If I live, I live to Christ; if I die, I die to Christ” (Rom 14:8). And let him be content that Christ should have what he has bought so dearly, whenever he will call for it.

Be content with the partial, little deaths that fall short of it, for many of us die such partial deaths in times of peace, as sickness and infirmities. This life goes out in many ways: sometimes by infirmities of body, sometimes by violence, at length by age. All these partial deaths we must learn to make use of every day as we should, and in every one of them some little part and glimpse of the light of Christ is manifested. And therefore labor every day to bear every day’s cross in a becoming way, and as Christians should; and the bearing of partial crosses will enable us to bear the grand crosses. The undergoing of little deaths will make us able to undergo the grand death, when the time comes.

To go on: “For we which live are always delivered to death for Christ’s sake.” “Always,” for anything we know. “We die daily,” says the apostle (1 Cor 15:31), in our expectation and in our resignation of spirit; we die daily in the designs of malicious spirits. God and Christ may lay claim to our right in our life whenever he will, in regard to that disposition of soul answering to Christ’s dispensation, of which we are ignorant, and answering to the malice of wicked men, which we do not know. When our humanity will give vent to itself, we are always “delivered to death for Christ’s sake.” It is not this life that we are to make account of, not this that we are to reckon on. We are dead men, as the apostle says (Rom 8:10-11). We are dead in sin, not only dead to sin, but in regard to the sentence of mortality pronounced on us, which I shall have occasion to touch on when I come to “mortal bodies.”

“Delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.” Jesus’ sake! What, will the enemies say so? No! They say, “It is for your heresy, schism, faction, unquiet spirit. It is because you are troublers of the state, but by no means for Jesus’ sake.” But the course of the enemy is first of all to be liars, and then to be slanderers, to take away the good name of God’s people, and then to take away their lives. They are serpents and dragons for cunning, and then they are lions to devour. That is their method, and the devil’s method, when they cannot carry out their cruelty with any good pretext except under lies and slanders.

Therefore the course of the wicked is to devour them in their names, to devour them first in their civil standing; and then afterward they have a better pretext to show all the malice they can. And all who are led by cursed spirits at all times make it their fashion to disgrace them, so that by it they may blemish them all they can, and then they themselves shall be counted excellent men for pursuing such men for such sins. They blast them, but especially in their reputation. Those who will take any leisure to examine things may plainly see their malice against the life of Christ. And then they have glorious pretenses to carry out their malice, and whatever cruelty they please.

But does God interpret it so? No! He interprets it as for Christ’s sake; Christ interprets it as for his own sake. They do it for such and such ends, but Christ takes it as done for himself, for his religion, his profession, for the cause of religion and a good conscience. Whoever therefore suffers for the discovery of a good conscience, even if only in a civil matter, as John the Baptist did (it was not for a matter of religion), it is for God’s sake, for the truth of God and the justice of God. And we may suffer in the way of justice, rather than not stand out in a civil matter for Christ’s sake. Therefore we count John among the martyrs.

For religion, in the profession of it in word, or the profession of it in life, or in the discharge of a good conscience, in any way, that is for Christ’s sake. Christ will take it so, and that is our comfort. And if he takes it so, surely he will be a partner with us, he will suffer with us; and if he suffers with us, surely we shall be well borne out, and he will glorify us hereafter. “Blessed are ye when men persecute and revile you for my name’s sake” (Matt 5:11); so their fathers did to the prophets before you. Whatever the world pretends to, their wisdom, their folly, thinking to plaster things over as well as they can with the world, yet God will take it otherwise. It is for his sake. He will avenge it, as done against his children, and afterward crown them.

Those who are enemies to God’s people for religion, either in the profession or the practice of it, since it upbraids those enemies with their loose practice and their false opinion, are not so much enemies of men as of Christ. And if Christ were on the earth, those who persecute anything for Christ’s sake would persecute him more. If Christ were on the earth he would find the same reception as among the Jews, for the wicked would devise this and that pretext to put him to death.

This is a terrible consideration for wicked men. He who hates good in any degree, because it is good, hates the best good most of all. And he who hates good men as good men will hate him who is the head of all good men, Christ himself. And those who are malicious against good men, and carry matters cunningly, would do the same to Christ, and much more. He who hates anything as being such a thing hates it most of all; and he who hates goodness as goodness hates it most of all where it is to be had in the fountain.

What therefore can such people look for, who are enemies to God’s people, and cause, and religion, as far as they dare, when they would use him as badly if he were upon the face of the earth? For if they malign and hate them for Christ’s sake, surely they would malign and hate Christ more if he were here. But I do not have much occasion to press this point. I only open it, hoping there will not be much need of pressing it in this place; but you may use it to help your judgments, how dangerous malice is, and how it is interpreted by Christ himself, whatever color the world puts on it.

Now what is the outcome of this delivery to death? What is its issue and fruit in God’s intention? What is the outcome? Now God’s intention is “that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

I spoke of the life of Jesus in the former verse, and said some things about it lately. I will add some things, and so go on.

“The life of Jesus is manifested to our mortal flesh.” The life of Jesus is not only his glorious life, which he lives in heaven himself, and which he lives here on earth with a gracious person. The life of Jesus is also that quickening power that comes from Christ our head, by which he enlivens and quickens all his members, and that with a double life.

First, a habitual and constant life, by reason of the constant dwelling of the Spirit in us.

And besides this, there is a quickening power, continually to act and draw forth this life of grace upon all occasions. But of this I have spoken at length before.

I am willing to add something to clear this point further, that you may better understand what the life of Jesus is.

Now, beloved, if we would know whether the life of Jesus is in us or not, I give you some evidences. And what I especially want you to take notice of at this time is this: Observe the beating of the pulse; that is, holy desires toward heavenly things. Where this life is, the lowest thing in this life of Jesus is that there are holy desires, which are the pulse. For the beating of the pulse is life at its liveliest; where pulses beat there is hope of life. And then there is breath, to take in fresh air and to send out what has been taken in. So where there is grace there is breathing, a receiving of new air, of new strength from Christ, and a sending out, by contempt, of all that is worthless. There is some small correspondence between the life of nature and the life of Jesus.

And then there is spiritual sense, by which we are able to feel, and taste, and see, and discern spiritual things in another manner than before. And answering to spiritual sense there are spiritual motions toward the things we are sensible of, and motion is always where senses are. For we have sense only to discover what is good or evil, and upon discovering good or evil, we have power to move from what is evil to what is good. Otherwise senses would be fit for little else than to torment us. Therefore there is likewise a power to move in natural life. So it is in spiritual life, by which we are enabled to taste and relish heavenly things: there is a power to move toward them, and to carry the soul to them, and to remove from what is spiritually evil.

And therefore, together with the pulse, and breathing, and sense, and motion, there are usually sympathies and antipathies toward what is suitable or contrary to their being. So spiritual life has an antipathy to sin, as its bane and its poison, and works it out little by little. It is as it is with poison in nature: when poison enters, nature works against the poison as much as it can, to cast it up. So where there is spiritual life, it works against the sinfulness of corrupt nature, and against whatever is opposed to it, and works it out little by little, as a counter-poison to it. For this spiritual life is opposed and contrary in every way to sin. And therefore those who cherish corruption by occasions, company, and objects, when they should mortify it, alas! where is the life of grace in them?

But to leave these things, though they help our understanding in the mystery I am speaking of, the thing I would especially have you discern in the spiritual life of Jesus is that it leads a man higher than all other lives. It sets a man in a higher rank of creatures. It makes a man a spiritual man, and it guides his life by reason above nature, by reason above the common course. For it is called “the life of Jesus” because it comes from Jesus, and as it comes from Jesus it leads to Jesus.

Now, therefore, a man may know he lives the life of Jesus, which comes from Christ, if he has such a spirit as leads him to Christ, as leads him to honor Christ. Though he cannot do this immediately in Christ’s person, yet Christ has in the world his religion, his children, his ordinances, and by these a man is carried to Christ, and finds Christ. So he who has the life of Christ in him will relish Christ in all these, and in all these will be carried to Christ, and will honor Christ in all these. He will be a friend of the church, a friend of religion, a friend of all God’s ordinances, not only as finding a relish in them, but because he has a life from Christ that teaches us to refer everything to him.

And he will venture his natural life to save his spiritual life, because it is his best life. There is no man who is a sound Christian, and in a right frame as a Christian, who will not risk anything of his inferior life to maintain his head. As it is one point of the wisdom of the serpent to maintain his head, so he will maintain his union and communion with Christ, religion, and the ordinances, by which he preserves his life, though it be with some harm to the outward life.

Life is often taken to mean not only the life that comes from the union of soul and body, but also the condition that goes together with that, such as being rich, or poor, or in good credit. So many, not only to maintain their natural life but their life of condition (that is, to maintain an honorable condition in the world, to be held in high esteem), make the life of Jesus serve only their own turns. If they can keep their natural state continually, and grow in favor with men, they think the life of Jesus is a hidden and secret thing, as indeed it is, and they will not trouble themselves much about it.

Oh, this is far from the disposition of a lively Christian who has the life of Jesus! For he is ready to suffer in his natural life, in his condition of life whatever it may be, rather than harm his best life. And he will consider and value things not so much as they further his natural condition in the world, or his natural life, but by how they stand with his spiritual life. Nothing against religion, nothing against grace, nothing against the Spirit. This matters so much for his head, his religion, that he will consider things as they tend to that, though it be to the discredit of his person, though with loss of liberty, with peril of the decay of natural life, though with harm in worldly things whatever they may be, rather than endanger his best life, the life of Jesus.

And he will value things as they are suitable to that. That shall be his glory, the life of Jesus. But whatever stands between him and Jesus shall be lightly esteemed. Those who are in a true Christian frame of soul are thus disposed toward God. And there is good reason for it, for it is the best life of all, and it is that for which we have natural lives.

Beloved, if we do not have the life of Jesus, we had better have no life at all. As it was said of Judas, better we had never been born (Matt 26:24), so if we do not have a new life besides what we have by nature, we had better not be born at all. Therefore let us not deceive ourselves, but labor to have something above nature.

I will not trouble you with further evidence on this point, because I desire that what I have spoken may sink into your souls.

And to stir you up after this life of Jesus, this frame of grace, this quickening from our head Christ: it is that for which we live, it is that to which our life is decreed. You know there are three degrees of life: a life in the womb, a life in this world, and a life in heaven; the first for the second, the second for the third. The life in the womb is for civil life among men. The child does not have eyes and ears for the place where it is, for in that narrow place it has no use for eyes, or ears, or tongue, or anything. All the sense it has there is not for that life, but for a civil life among men, where there is use for eyes, and sense, and tongue, and all the members it has.

So high are a man’s designs, and such large, vast things, that nothing will satisfy. When a man understands, he desires more. His affection is large; nothing will satisfy desire. There is such large expectation and love that nothing here will satisfy, but still something fresh, fresh, for desire. Has God given them vast understanding, and this vast will, and vast affections, for that which will not remain with them? They are for another life. The very frame of our soul shows it. As the frame of the infant in the womb shows that that frame is for the life in the world, so the life we live, in regard of the large capacity of our souls, is for another life in heaven.

Therefore, if we do not labor for the life of Jesus to be begun here, which is called the life of grace, the beginning and infant of glory, we miss our end. This life is for that life; we are not for this life. God did not ordain us for this life. Therefore he will take this life away, to advance it to a spiritual life. He takes the liberty to take away our health and natural life, that he may advance our spiritual life. For he knows that what is in this life is well lost, if it is gained in a better life, and it is for a better life. I beg you, let us think seriously of these things.

What should I say about the life of condition, that you may be moved to the excellent life of Jesus? There is a better condition together with it than any other condition. For take a natural life with the condition of a king. A Christian is a king, and a king over what is terrible, a king over death, and hell, and the world, and above all. Take our natural life with the condition of a rich man; there are better riches in the life of Jesus. The riches of heaven are his. Take the natural life with any outward condition, and there is better in grace, better in religion. The life of Jesus has better endowments accompanying it. Is it not better to have the image of God stamped upon the soul? What better honor is there? Name what you will, is there not a better condition in the life of Jesus?

So, as the life itself is a spiritual and divine thing, for the divine nature is most excellent, so the endowments and appurtenances that accompany the life of grace are incomparably above all the endowments and appurtenances of natural life. Take it in the life of kings, emperors, or what you will, they are nothing to the life of Jesus.

Now this life of Jesus is manifested most when we are delivered to death. Both the frame of grace and the quickening power of grace are more manifest when we are delivered to death. That is, in trouble, sickness, or any cross whatever, there is more discovery of the life of Jesus than at other times. I have touched on some reasons for this before. I shall give some now, because the apostle repeats the thing, and we will not pass it over, because the apostle doubles back on it a little.

Reason 1. Beloved, if we speak of the inward frame of grace, is that not most manifested when our outward man decays and is afflicted? It is. For everything is increased by its exercise. “When we are delivered to death,” that is, when we are prepared for sufferings, or actually suffer, there is opportunity of exercising all the branches of spiritual life. We put forth the exercise of spiritual life. Then we pray more than at ordinary times. Then we exercise our faith and dependence upon God. Then we exercise our hope of life everlasting. Then we exercise our love to God, his church and people. Then we are advanced to the exercise of all the functions of spiritual life. Therefore the life of Jesus is most manifested in the dyings of Jesus.

Reason 2. Beloved, it is a clear point, if we take the life of Jesus for the quickening power of Christ, together with the inward frame, that it is most found in the dyings of Jesus. When we suffer anything for God, it is his honor to be most present with us, and graciously present with us, when we stand most in need of his presence. But we stand most in need of his gracious presence at these times. Therefore he, out of the depths of pity and compassion, is nearest to us. “I will be with thee” in fire and water (Isa 43:2). The Spirit of God enters into all conditions, into prisons, into dungeons, into every condition whatever. The quickening power of Christ is as much manifested in the outward condition as in any kind of way.

So now, for Christ to make strong a weak man, a weak woman, or a weak child, or an old man, one being weak, another by sex, a third by age: when these three are able to stand firm for God, for Christ, in times of persecution, when these in times of peace and prosperity hold fast the profession of religion, there must be a manifestation of a power above nature. By nature children are tender, by nature women are fearful, by nature old men are timorous, and fearful too. I say, the disproportion of the condition to the grace and power that is shown reveals the manifestation, that there is a quickening power more than ordinary.

For the martyrs, when they were to seal the truth with their blood, to have a fire of love kindled in them above the flames of fire, and the spiritual comforts kindled in them: here was a manifestation of the life of Jesus, when they were delivered to death. Indeed, a sick, worn body; take it in times of peace, a good Christian who has given himself to the study of mortification, and has supplied the wants of affliction by mortification…

As it is a gracious use of afflictions to supply the want of them by mortification, you shall see the life of Jesus in afflictions. A great deal of patience in a body tormented with sickness, a great deal of heavenly-mindedness when he is ready to go out of the world, a great deal of comfort in the midst of disgrace in a stout Christian: when the condition is one thing, and the strength another thing above it, to master it, here is a manifestation of power. Are the conditions such, then, that the manifestation of the life and quickening power of Jesus is most of all in such times when we stand most in need of it, times of suffering, times of sickness, the hour of death?

Reason 3. Another main reason that the life of Jesus is more manifested then is because Christ reserves his comforts for the fittest times. That is the fittest time for Christ to join himself closely to the soul, for then the soul stands most in need of grace. He is a head, and therefore wise, because he is a head. As all wisdom rests in the head to guide the body, so all wisdom is in Christ to guide his church. And he knows the fittest opportunity for the measure of grace and comfort.

There is no comfort comparable to the comfort God’s children find in the greatest abasement, for then they empty themselves, and therefore are most fit to be filled with the Spirit. Then God delights to have communion with them at all times. God draws them into the wilderness, and then speaks to their hearts, as the prophet says (Hos 2:14). God will let the world know that he has hidden manna for his children, which the world does not know and does not feel. And so God has his hidden manna, which he allows them to taste more especially when they are distressed in the outward man, and then the life of Jesus is most manifested to them.

Use. And therefore, beloved, I beg you, do not fear anything in the world that may happen to us; fear nothing that may happen to us in our own cause. Shall we fear our advancement in a better kind? What we lose in nature, we gain in grace; what we lose in outward comforts, we gain in spiritual. It is made up in a better kind, and shall we be discouraged by anything that happens to us in this world? Shall we not give Christ liberty to take what he will, so long as he makes it up in a better kind? Shall we not allow him to take our credit, our liberty, our life, so long as he makes it up in the life of Jesus? What damage is it if we are delivered to little deaths, to partial deaths, that is, to vexation, to restraint of liberty, to falling into disgrace with the world, if we gain as much in spiritual life?

That is well parted with, and well lost in this world, which is made up in spiritual things, for spiritual things are eternal. They make us good, they commend us to God, they are proportioned to us, they add a worth and value in themselves to us. Whatever, therefore, we part with for God’s cause, if we find an addition and increase of inward grace, and peace, and comfort, are we losers by it? Does not God make sweet recompense to his children, according to that general rule, “All things work together for the best to them that love God” (Rom 8:28)? Let us remember this, and lay it up against times of trial.

And when we are sick, shall we fear sickness? Oh, if we had the Spirit of faith then, to say: “Lord, now I am being delivered up to death, and cease to live. Oh, as the life of nature decays, let me find the life of Jesus; let me find some drop of that life which Jesus lived.” For the life of Jesus makes us like Christ in some measure, that is, full of grace, full of peace, full of glory. The life of Jesus in heaven is a glorious, a gracious life.

Now when drops of it are dropped into a man in times of sickness or persecution, it will make him forget all troubles whatever. As it says in the Song of Solomon, “Thy love,” says the spouse, “is better than wine” (Song 1:2). Now what is wine? It will make a man forget his trouble. And so the love of Jesus, which is a principle of the life of Jesus, a distillation of the love of Jesus, is better than wine. It will make a man forget his disgrace, forget his afflictions, forget everything, because it is a beam of such a sun, a drop of such an ocean.

It is a supernatural, a commanding life, a life of a higher nature, above all things below, an independent life, which will be sufficient in heaven when we have neither food, nor drink, nor company, nor converse with men. And if we have a little of this communicated to us in any troubles, it will carry us through everything. Therefore labor to think of these things.

You see what need we have to be one with Jesus, who is the spring and Lord of life, who has received life to convey it to us, as the second Adam. Therefore we need sacraments, to confirm and strengthen our union with this head, from whom we have spiritual life. Therefore come with joy, and comfort, and courage to the sacrament. Its end is to increase union and communion with the fountain of life, Jesus, who gave his body to be broken and his blood to be shed, that he might give life to us, that he might by satisfaction in his death give us life of sentence, that we might be acquitted at the bar of God’s justice. He died, and is risen again; who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s people? (Rom 8:33).

Therefore come to the sacrament, that we may grow in assurance of the life of sentence, in removing the guilt of sin, because Christ died for us. And we shall likewise have great increase of the inward frame of life and grace. For the more we are assured of forgiveness of sins, and acceptance to life everlasting, the more we live; as, where many things are forgiven, there is much love (Luke 7:47). And the more we love, the more willing and cheerful we shall be, for all obedience springs from love. When we love we are ready for all duties. And therefore come with encouragement to increase our union and communion with Jesus Christ, now at this time.

“So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, therefore have I spoken. We all believe, and therefore we speak” (2 Cor 4:12-13).

So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, therefore have I spoken. We also believe, and therefore we speak (2 Cor 4:12-13).

In the former part of the chapter we have heard how the apostle freely grants what might be objected to the disparagement of the ministry of the gospel, in regard to many particulars, and then he turns it back on the objectors and makes use of all of it, as you may see in the several particulars.

We spoke last time of the eleventh verse, which is but the same as the tenth, only a fuller expression and exposition of it, by some addition.

I observed several things from it: that God’s children must count on the worst in the world, “that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” Here is the outcome of the troubles God’s children meet with in this world, and God’s intention in them.

“Made manifest in our mortal flesh.” I did not speak of that at all, so I will add something.

“The life of Jesus is made manifest in our flesh,” though it is mortal and subject to death; and mortal not only because it is subject to death, but also because it is subject to miseries, which are little deaths. For, beloved, we do not die only when our lives are ended, when the last day of our life is cut off; all that makes way for that is death. All the petty miseries that little by little loosen the affections from earthly things, that loosen the soul from the body, all those partial things are little degrees of that separation which is in death. So “in our mortal body” means our body that is subject to death, and to whatever makes way for death.

“Our mortal flesh.” Flesh is a diminishing word in Scripture, implying a mortal and frail nature. This is a matter to be used rather than unfolded; the best of us all carry only mortal flesh. We carry our deaths and our hearse about with us; our life is dying and mortal.

It is a matter to be thought of, rather, to make us wise indeed, as in the psalm: “I will speak of wisdom” (Ps 49:3). What wisdom is it that he speaks of? He speaks of mortality and of death common to all; that is wisdom indeed. And therefore the holy man, in good order, teaches us “to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” (Ps 90:12). There are no wiser thoughts in this world than to judge rightly of the condition of earthly things, and of our estate hereafter; for wisdom lies in the judgment of things. When do we rightly judge of ourselves? When we judge this life to be a dying kind of life, and our estate to be a fading kind of condition. Mortal flesh it is; we are but “earthen vessels.” Dust we are, and to dust we shall return again (Gen 3:19).

Beloved, think of this. It is only mortal flesh we carry; and therefore do not make too much of adorning it, of feeding it, of providing for its lusts. How many betray their souls, their better part, by studying to give contentment to their mortal flesh! This is not the life for mortal flesh. The time for that is the life to come, at the resurrection. Then, when we shall have other flesh, we shall be all spiritual, even our bodies spiritual, not maintained with food and drink as they are now. That is the life of the body, a glorious life. Now it is a mortal life, which must end in dust and rottenness.

It is the vanity especially of the younger sort, as if all their commendation lay in setting out their bodies in clothing and such things. It is a poor thing for a man who has a rational soul to draw his commendation from his flesh, from what is food for worms. Has he nothing else to draw his commendation from but what covers his body? What is the flesh but the garment of the soul, and a rotten one? And what are other garments but a covering of that? And for a man to seek commendation, which should arise from abilities and worth within, by studying to provide for this mortal flesh, is a course unworthy of those who prove themselves to be Christians.

And therefore we must labor not to value ourselves by the body, nor by any worth we have in the outward man either. If we have diseased bodies or weak bodies, more mortal than others, we are not to be cast down; even the best are but mortal flesh. Let us value ourselves by what lasts to eternity, by the life of Jesus. Learn humility from this, not to be proud of mortal flesh, and learn sobriety. Many wise observations arise from this, but they are so easy that the simplest of them, with the Spirit accompanying them, may be sufficient for you who have understanding. Therefore I will not speak of it now, since it is spoken of more largely in the latter part of the chapter.

“So death works in us, but life in you.” That is the conclusion of the former comparison of Paul’s suffering with the presence of God supporting him in his sufferings; he concludes them all with this, “So then death works in us, but life in you.”

Some take this for an irony, or a sarcasm, as we call it, a bitter kind of speech, as if Paul meant: You are free from the cross, and from death. But I do not take that to be the meaning of the place. Rather it is this: We die daily, we carry the death of Jesus about us, but life works in you. You have the good of all our deaths. It is not only we ourselves who are apostles, but you have life by our death, glory by our shame, happiness by our misery; you are gainers by it. And indeed so it is. Those who are the leaders of the church, when they die, others live by them, as you shall see.

“So that death works in us.” How does death work in us? Death works two ways at once. It works a decay in the outward man. And then, by a command of a higher power, by God’s Spirit, death works life, its contrary, in us.

Death works in us; that is, we are subject to death, and dying. It works in us a further and further disposition to death. And life is taken away continually by partial deaths, which fit us for the last death; death, like a canker, eats out our life and natures. As he said before, death is not only the conclusion of our life, but it eats into it continually. Every day it takes away a piece of it; especially in those who are under crosses, death little by little works a separation of soul from the body.

And then death works in us the life of Jesus. That is, it does not do so in itself (for it works nothing but dissolution, and turns us to our dust out of which we were taken), but death works in us by the command of God, who can raise light out of darkness, and life out of death, and happiness out of misery. God, who has all things in obedience to him, can raise contrary out of contrary. And therefore death works in us the life spoken of before, not of itself, but by the command of God himself, who draws out of death, and mortality, and the misery we suffer, a further degree of spiritual life.

Beloved, it is a strange thing that death should work; but consider all things under heaven. Even they work not in themselves, but under command and in obedience to the Supreme Worker, who is so excellent and powerful a worker that he can raise contraries out of contrary. He can not only raise from death, and make happy after misery, but make happy in misery, in life, in death, he is so powerful a worker.

Use 1. And make this use of it. We are in covenant with a powerful God, who can make any condition work to our good. He has command over life, death, imprisonment, abasement, whatever it may be. He can raise out of them whatever is contrary to them, so that no state shall be too troublesome for us, and we shall not dislike any condition. Shall we dislike any condition, when God can make that condition serve for our best good? Oh no.

Use 2. Comfort. And let this comfort us in the greatest misery. God works life in death. He gives spiritual life, and makes it appear that we are upheld by a divine power, another power than our own; therefore do not be discouraged, and never despair.

But what benefit do they have by it? Life works in you by our death; life works in Paul too. And the life of Jesus is manifested not only in him but in them too. God brings his own children into great troubles for the good of others. They are the standard-bearers of the church, but he commands their lives to be manifested in their dyings, in two or three ways.

(1) The more he dies, the more death is wrought in him, the more the Spirit lives in him, the more spiritual life is in him; that is, a divine power and strength of grace to enable him in the inward man. And was this not for the church’s good, since he was a public man? And therefore the church loses nothing by the afflictions of its godly pastors. As for your Christians, oh, the more they are afflicted, the more free they are to comfort and instruct! Of all physicians the experienced physician is the best. And they are the best teachers, and do the most good, who can speak from experience of the life of Christ manifested in them. In that regard life was theirs, by death working in him.

(2) Then again, as death worked in him, so life worked in them, that they might have good by his sufferings, and by the presence of God’s Spirit in his sufferings, and be less troubled with the cross. We see that St. Paul nevertheless has his partial death, his abasement in the world, as an “earthen vessel” despised by all. Yet how straight he walks, and how comfortably he walks! How God is present with his Spirit! And surely if we suffer for a righteous cause, the same Spirit that was present with Paul shall be present with us. And thus by way of example life works in them, but death in him.

(3) Life worked in them, by death in him, that they might be more in love with religion, which is such as brings comfort and strength from heaven in the greatest sufferings for it. And it worked that they might love the cause the better: God is present with the cause. If it were not God’s cause, he would not accompany it with such increase of grace and comfort. Therefore, as death in Paul, so life in them; for they are more and more in love with religion. And so it was with the martyrs: when they saw it was such a cause, then they went cheerfully to suffer. They knew that God was not so present with just any persons or any cause; and therefore they were encouraged themselves, because they saw others suffer victoriously and triumphantly.

So we see that we ought not to take offense at the sufferings of any for a good cause. Their death is our life. If we are of the same body, we may take good by it. We should be so far from taking offense at those who suffer for justice or religion that we should honor them the more. “I Paul, a prisoner” (Eph 3:1). Is that a weakening of himself? No. As a prevailing argument, he here mentions his bonds and sufferings. So it is far from being a matter of offense that should make us ready to taunt them, as proud flesh is ready to do, and as such people have counted crosses and suffering a contemptible thing. We should honor it the more. And therefore take no offense at those who suffer in the cause of religion; their sufferings are for the good of others. For this we have a clearer place in the latter part of this chapter.

Objection. But do not all of God’s children have their death, without dying for you? Are not all of God’s children partakers of the cross?

Answer. Beloved, sometimes it is this way with God’s church and children: to favor them, God gives them an exemption from any great cross until they are trained up and gain fortitude and strength. It is not that God loves them more than he loves others whom he exercises by trial. It is clean contrary, for where he causes anyone to suffer for a good cause, it is a privilege. “To you it is given, not only to believe, but also to suffer” (Phil 1:29). He favors those he exercises more, and treats them more tenderly. The rest do not have that strength of grace, and therefore God cherishes them. When plants are young, we set bushes about them against the inroads of outward causes; but when they have taken root, those are taken away. So God surrounds his children with props and comforts until they have taken root, but afterward exposes them to storms and wind, that they may take root deeper. Therefore let none think they are better because they are free. God is preparing and fitting them for what is prepared for them.

“We having the Spirit, as it is written, I believe, therefore have I spoken; we also believe, therefore we speak” (2 Cor 4:13).

The holy apostle here, as an entrance into this discourse, fully sets forth his condition under the cross, and his sufferings as a believer; that is, he was bold and confident, notwithstanding all sufferings, in hope of the resurrection and the glory to come. And he sets out his faith by comparing it with that of those in former times. “We having the same Spirit of faith” that they had before, such as Abraham, and David, and others, we are not alone, either in sufferings or in our comforts. We have the same combats and the same comforts, the same Spirit of comfort and grace, according “as it is written, I believe, therefore I have spoken; we also believe, therefore do we speak.”

He made David’s case (Ps 116:10) parallel to his own. They were both in trouble and affliction; both confess to God in the midst of his congregation. St. Paul had the same Spirit: “we believe and speak,” as they believed and spoke. His meaning is this: I shall have the present life of Christ manifested in me. I know by experience that I shall be carried along by the life, and power, and Spirit of Christ, and afterward I look for a glorious resurrection, as is specified in the next verse.

“We having the same Spirit of faith.” Not the same as you and the rest of the members who now live; that, I conceive, is not so much his meaning as this: we have the same Spirit of faith with David and those before Christ died, with all who have professed religion from the beginning of the world to the end, the same Spirit as you. Now, the same Spirit as the church in former times: one Spirit runs through the veins of the church in all ages. Having the same spirit of faith, he has the same commanding act of faith.

For there are two acts of faith. One we call the elicited act, which is the inward, proper act of faith; and there is the act of command, by which faith commands the exercises of other graces. So I believe, in the proper exercise of that grace in itself; and I not only believe, but courageously confess. Confession is not so much the proper act of faith as something faith commands to be exercised. Here is first the life of faith, and then the act and expression of faith, with a parallel, David: as David believes and speaks, so I believe and speak.

“We have the spirit of faith.” Faith is here the fundamental grace, the root grace of all. We have faith, and a spirit of faith, and the same spirit of faith. So faith is the root grace, since it is the grace that exercises all the rest. It is the grace of the new covenant, by which we are knit to Christ: “Whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:15). It is the grace of union that knits us to the root, the foundation of lively Christianity. And therefore he mentions faith in the first place.

Think of faith as the first grace of the Spirit, which acts and stirs up all other graces. It is the first because it is the grace of union that knits us to Christ. It is the grace required in the covenant of grace. It is the grace that gives God all the glory, and is therefore fit to be the grace of the covenant. And it takes all from man, empties a man of all, and gives all the glory to God and Christ, whose righteousness we lay hold of by faith. It is therefore the grace of the covenant, the grace of union, the grace of abasing man and glorifying God above all other graces, and the grace that acts and stirs up all other graces; and all other graces increase or decrease as faith increases or decreases. Therefore “having received the spirit of faith, we also believe …” Therefore above all other graces labor for faith.

But now we have not only faith, but “the same Spirit of faith,” which shows the source from which faith comes. The spirit of faith is an excellent attribute of faith, showing that faith, like all other graces, comes from the Spirit; and if all other graces come from the Spirit, then the grace of graces, faith, especially.

The Spirit is either the Holy Ghost himself, called the Spirit, partly passively, because the Holy Ghost is breathed from the Father and Son, and partly actively, because the Spirit breathes into us. All the life and comforts we have are from the Spirit. The Holy Ghost comes by breathing, not by begetting. He breathes all grace and comfort into God’s children, and is therefore called the Spirit.

Now as the Holy Ghost infuses all grace and comfort, he works first a gracious disposition in God’s children, which is called the Spirit. Not only is the Holy Ghost called the Spirit, but also a gracious disposition and temper of our soul, by which our spirits are made suitable to the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Ghost puts an impression upon every soul that comes to heaven, like himself, and sets a stamp of holiness upon it, and renews the image of Christ. Again, the Spirit is also called spirit, as to walk by the Spirit, and live by the Spirit; that is, to live in a holy and gracious disposition wrought in us by the Holy Ghost.

Now as in general a gracious frame of soul is called spirit, so every grace is called the grace of the Spirit, as the “spirit of faith,” and the “spirit of love,” and the “spirit of a sound mind,” and the spirit of the “fear of the Lord,” and the “spirit of counsel,” because they issue immediately from the Spirit, and from the sanctification wrought in us by the Spirit of God. For the Spirit of God will infuse a divine nature into us, which we call the Spirit, being the seed of all grace. And then comes the spirit of all other graces. As in original sin there is the seed of all corruption, so in the Spirit the seed of regeneration is the seed of all grace, hope, and faith, and love, and whatever else there is.

Now, as we say, though there is one general ocean, yet it has several names according to the several coasts it washes, and is therefore called the British seas, the Irish seas, the Mediterranean seas, the French seas. There is but one sea, yet it has its terms according to the several coasts. So the Spirit is one Spirit, but as it begets several graces, so it has several names. As it gives faith, it is called the spirit of faith; as it enables us to suffer, the spirit of assistance, or support. There are also animal spirits in the veins, and vital spirits in the liver and heart. So it is with the Spirit of God. It is the spirit of such a grace and such a grace, as there is occasion to use it.

So the apostle terms the work of God’s grace in the hearts of his children a spirit of faith; faith therefore is wrought by the Spirit of God, and that is the doctrine. The excellent grace of faith is from the Spirit. For it is called, from the work of it, “a spirit of faith.”

What need have I to prove it? For all things of faith are above nature. The objects of faith are above nature, being altogether mysteries. There is no seed of faith in us at all. It is harder to believe than to fulfill the law; for there are seeds of all the commandments of the moral law, some impressions of it yet left in our natures, to serve God in some measure, to do justice. So moral men and pagans have been excellent in that kind. But to believe requires the revelation of the objects, which are supernatural things, above nature, contrary to carnal reason.

Faith has no friend at all in us. There is a cursed enmity of nature against every article of faith, calling the foundation itself into question; and we are prone to believe our own lying hearts and Satan in time of temptation, rather than divine truths. As for believing the favor of God to a sinner, the heart will not conceive of it unless the Spirit of God sets it down to the soul that it is so. As for believing life everlasting and glory, they are things above nature. Unless they were revealed by the Spirit, who would have believed these things?

And therefore it must be divine power that raises the heart above itself. Nothing can work above its own sphere. Nature cannot rise higher than nature; a river cannot rise higher than the spring from which it rises; nothing can act above its own power. Natural things cannot apprehend spiritual things.

The acts of faith are above nature. For a soul, a guilty soul, a soul under the guilt of sin, to apprehend the favor and mercy of a just and holy God, there must be a Spirit to raise the soul above all guilt, and to see more mercy in God than sin in itself. It must be a supernatural act to do this. To overcome the world, all temptations on the right hand of pleasure and profit, and on the left hand of fear and danger, is above nature. But faith enables a man to overcome the world. Therefore it must be the spirit of faith that enables him to overcome himself, the world, and the prince of the world and his temptations, where the object and the act are supernatural.

Therefore surely we must have a spirit above our own. A man must be more than a man, he must be a spiritual man, who does the things that faith enables him to do. Therefore faith is wrought by the Spirit; for a man to be able to conquer God himself, by his word and promise, it must be by God. And this must be by a spirit of faith.

So it was when our Savior Christ was overcome by the woman of Canaan: “O woman, great is thy faith” (Matt 15:28). And then Satan especially sets himself against this grace of faith, because it most opposes him in all his temptations and methods. Moreover, we must have a Spirit of faith not only to work faith in us, but likewise in every act and exercise of faith. For though we have the grace of faith, we cannot act and raise ourselves when the occasion comes, as the object is present and duties are to be done by the Spirit. He gives both the will and the deed (Phil 2:13). And for all these reasons there is a necessity of the Spirit to work faith.

Therefore faith is a gift of the Spirit. “To you it is given to believe” (Phil 1:29). Faith is not of ourselves, but the gift of God (Eph 2:8), and a rare, excellent, and peculiar gift it is. The point is plain, that this excellent grace of faith, by which we go out of ourselves and fetch everything from outside ourselves, is from the Spirit of God, who indeed is first a Spirit of faith before he is a Spirit of love and patience. This is the first work of the Spirit. The first work of the Spirit is a spirit of faith, and then of love, and patience, and contentment with our condition, but first the spirit of faith.

Use 1. And if it is so that faith comes from the Spirit of God, and does not grow in ourselves, then we must learn where to go for it: to pray, “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). If we lack it, we must expect it in the use of sanctified means, and even look for it from above. “Every good and perfect gift cometh from the Father of lights” (Jas 1:17), and therefore this excellent gift of all gifts. And account it an excellent grace, and that will make us plead for it the more.

We must have a Spirit of faith, or else all things are nothing, for that is a fundamental grace. Therefore look to the power of the Spirit of God for it, the Spirit being the agent of the Father and the Son here below. As he proceeds from the Father and the Son, so he works from the Father and the Son, and by faith assures us of the love of the Father and the Son, for he knows what is in the breast of the Father and the Son.

Use 2. And then if God gives this act of faith, this supernatural eye of faith, this supernatural hand of faith to lay hold, eyes to see, and stomach of faith to digest, then it is not everyone who has it; not all have faith. And therefore if we have faith, if we can go out of ourselves and rely on the promise, thank God for it. Thank God for it more than for any grace or gift in the world. For, beloved, we are stubborn, alike dead, dark, rebellious alike by nature. And for us, who are all of the same condition by nature, to be raised to a supernatural condition, to have an eye and a hand to see and reach things above nature, and to make them our own, this is a peculiar grace. And therefore not unto us, but unto the Spirit of God, be all the glory and praise.

Use 3. And then let us take heed that we do not rashly or hastily attempt any suffering or doing without looking to the Spirit of God for a new exercise of faith, so that, now that we are about to use faith, we may have the Spirit to raise up the habit, which otherwise will be a dormant and sleepy habit; so that as occasion is offered, we may have fresh strength suitable to the fresh occasions. The same faith we had before will not serve for the present time, especially if there is an increase of trouble. And if the actions to be performed are more difficult, then according to the increase of trouble and the hardness of the business we are about, we must beg a greater measure of faith.

So indeed the life of a Christian since the fall, under the covenant of grace, is nothing but a dependency. We are under the guidance of the Spirit, not only to prop and strengthen us with habits, as we call them, but likewise on every occasion to raise and stir up our graces, and to persuade the soul to receive them. It is faith that stirs up all grace, and directs all grace, and holds every grace to its work, and, so long as it continues, keeps all other graces in exercise.

But more particularly, by the spirit of faith he means the receipt of a powerful faith, because it is a spirit of faith; and a constant faith, because it is a spirit of faith; for “spirit” is applied to things that are strong and constant. And the Spirit is a strong worker, and it is the spirit of faith; and a free worker, because it is a spirit of faith that works more or less according as it sees need. It is a holy grace, because it comes from the Holy Spirit; and therefore it is a grace indeed that makes us holy.

First, it is a spirit of faith, that is, a powerful work of faith. Now a spirit of faith overcomes our unbelieving natures; a spirit works strongly and takes away actual resistance. Faith does not come by persuasion, but by a powerful, awakening strength. For if it came by persuasion, the devil would persuade to unbelief sooner than the Spirit would persuade to faith, for he has more help for unbelief than there is for faith. We have in us more arguments against truth and against goodness than for them. And therefore if it were only a mere persuasion, and the soul were not overpowered by the Holy Ghost to believe, it would never believe. So it is not left indifferent to us to believe or not believe when God’s Spirit comes.

But the Spirit, as wind, is a powerful worker. It takes away all prevailing resistances from the soul and makes way for itself, bringing a heavenly light into the understanding, and a spiritual kind of reasoning, and a heavenly obedience into the will, bowing it to obedience of divine truths so that it yields to them. By little and little it consumes corruption, it takes away prevailing corruption, and it makes the soul believe, though there are roots of infidelity remaining.

The Spirit takes down the rebellion of nature so far that it will not prevail. They never have the spirit of faith who think they can resist. When the Spirit comes, it subjects all to its work. But I will not make a point of controversy of it. But, indeed, the spirit of faith takes away all resistances. This is to be observed not only against various heresies in this time, or opinions at least that tend that way, for they end in little better than heresy; but likewise so that we may think what an excellent grace it is, how much we are beholden to God for it, and how we should importune God for it, considering that it is such a supernatural, holy, and powerful grace of the Spirit.

And then it is a constant work. God’s children do not only believe now and then, but they have a spirit of faith. Now “spirit” implies a constant inclination, in the Scripture phrase, as a spirit of lying, of falsity, of envy, is an inclination that way. And a spirit of faith is a constant inclination wrought in the spirit to live by faith constantly, to depend upon God for all things: pardon of sins, life everlasting, provision and protection in this world.

Again, because it is called the “spirit of faith,” it shows that it is a free grace, and it shows the grounds why some have more faith or less; it is free for measure and free for time. Those who have faith have the spirit of faith. They do not have faith at command. No. The Spirit blows where it pleases, more or less. If you ask why some have great faith and some less, it is because God sees it needful for them in afflictions to have a great measure of faith. For those who are wretched in the world, who have already encountered great dangers and afflictions, it is necessary to have a great measure of faith, and God gives it. For the Spirit is a wise Spirit, and gives faith according to the exigencies of particular persons, more or less, for it is a Spirit.

The things God works by his Spirit, in regard of their freeness, are called graces; as they are wrought by the Spirit, they are called the graces of the Spirit. The graces of the Scriptures are not like the graces of the heathens in their ethics and morals, who call them habits. They have their names from what works them: the spirit of love, as they come from God’s freeness. They are called the spirit of faith, as referring all to the work of God’s Spirit, because as we are saved by grace, so we must be ready to give all glory to the work of the Spirit.

And therefore we should not be much discontented if we do not have so great a measure as others have, but thankful for the least properties of faith, for the measure of it comes from the Holy Ghost, who is a free worker. The Holy Ghost is not a natural worker, as fire burns to the utmost of its strength because it is a natural agent. The Holy Ghost, being a wise and free agent, works according to his good will and pleasure. And therefore take heed how we grieve the Spirit of God, who is a Spirit of faith; but as the apostle gives wise counsel, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12), because it is God who gives the will and the deed of his good pleasure. If we do not esteem the Spirit as we should, the Spirit may withdraw and suspend the sweet exercise of faith, though not wholly take it away, because it is a grace that proceeds from a free agent, the Holy Ghost.

And it is said likewise that we have the same spirit of faith, because the same Spirit of God works the same faith from Adam, the first believer, to the end of the world. Beloved, those before Christ were saved by Christ, as we read: When our hearts are purified, we are saved by faith as they were (Acts 15:9-11). There is one Spirit breathed into all the children of God to the end of the world; the same Spirit is in the hidden members. What shall I say? The same Spirit with them, the same Spirit with Christ their head; one self-same Spirit is in Christ our head, and in all the members of Christ from the beginning to the end of the world. And as there is one Spirit, so there is one spirit of faith in regard of the object, the same things believed. For though faith is diverse, according to the diversity of belief, yet in regard of the things believed, and of the cause of faith, the Spirit, they are all one: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” (Heb 13:8).

There is nothing we believe in the gospel but they believed it before Christ. Our faith is Abraham’s faith and David’s faith. I will give an instance before Christ. Abraham believed in Christ, “and saw his day and rejoiced” (John 8:56). And the sacrament of circumcision was “a seal of the righteousness of faith” (Rom 4:11), as our sacraments are seals of our faith. And likewise they ascribed all to the Spirit of God: “Breathe thy law into our hearts.” And Moses gives the reason why they heard and saw in the wilderness, and did not profit: God did not give them a heart. All was ascribed to the Spirit, as it is now, and life everlasting too.

They believed as well as we do now. “At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps 16:11). Christ was believed as well as now. He was Immanuel then, and with them as well as with us, though we have a further measure of revelation. Christ is laid, Christ is a corner stone, “and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (1 Pet 2:6). There was the same covenant of grace: “Whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:15), as now. And therefore believers are called “the children of Abraham” (Gal 3:7), and heaven “the bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16:23). Women believers are called “the daughters of Abraham” (Luke 13:16), because there is one spirit of faith in believers from the beginning of the world to the end of it.

Now the particulars are revealed more clearly, the canon is enlarged, the gospel is added to the precepts of the law, but notwithstanding, for fundamental points, they are the same from the beginning to the end of the church. The difference between them and us was in outward garments, in outward attributes. As a man differs from a child in garments and outward dress, and yet is the same man, so the church of the Jews and our church are all one church, differing only in ceremonies and outward concerns, and yet still the same church. The difference is accidental and outward; the essential main points are always the same.

And therefore the grand point of faith that we believe is not yesterday’s faith, as the papists would make it. They are like the Gibeonites, who, when they came from only close by, came with moldy bread and shoes, counterfeiting that they came from a far country. So you will have it in every papist’s mouth: “Ours is the ancient religion, the fathers’ religion,” when it was only of yesterday, and of all things the newest. But we are true catholics, because we believe a universal truth, the same spirit of faith that they had in ages of the church before. We believe nothing but what Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets believed. We are the catholics. We are not upstarts, and I prove it by this reason. There is nothing we believe but they believed; whatever we believe, all the ancient fathers and patriarchs believed.

Now that faith is most catholic which all the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles believed, and which the papists themselves believe. They only add patchwork of their own, and therefore they have a new faith, but we have the same. They believe the two sacraments, but they add their own. They believe the Scriptures, but they add traditions. They believe salvation from Christ, but they add works. They believe we must call upon God, but they add saints to Christ in invocation and mediation. They have destructive additions of their own, which spoil everything in the conclusion. What they have, we have; but their patchwork neither the patriarchs and prophets nor we have. And therefore is not our faith, which holds the same things with the patriarchs and prophets, more catholic than theirs, who have only mere additions of their own?

That in which they differ from us is not catholic by their own confession, for they do not have it out of Scripture, nor is it catholic with us, in regard of the divided church that they had. It was neither the faith of the ancients, patriarchs, or prophets before Christ, nor of the ancient fathers since Christ. And therefore they are forced to fly to traditions and their own devices, and to make articles of their own, as Pius IV, not many years since, made as many articles of his own as there are articles in the creed. For they say the present church is led by the Spirit of God infallibly, and that things must be expounded according to the present state of the church.

Therefore they are true catholics who hold with the ancient church, and with them too, in such things as are true. And therefore we deserve the name of catholics, and they of neutralists. For is not that more catholic which is the same with the ancient patriarchs, with the ancient fathers since Christ, and the same with them, than that in which they differ from us? Indeed, that in which they differ from us is merely the act of a private spirit of the one party. It is not as if they only added and still retained truth, but they defile whatever passes from them. For they change some things, add some things, take away some things. They change the government of Christ into a tyranny, making the pope head; they change the sacrament of the Lord’s supper into a sacrifice, and transgress every article of religion. They take away the cup in the sacrament, and then their additions are destructive additions. If they add, they overthrow all.

As Paul says to the Galatians, “If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing” (Gal 5:2); and if you look to be saved by the law, you will miss salvation; and “whosoever teacheth another doctrine different, is anathema, is accursed” (Gal 1:8-9). Their additions are destructive additions. If they perfected the faith, it would be another matter, but they add something to faith which overthrows faith, and something to Christ which takes away Christ. They do not hold to the head, but have another head than Christ, other mediators, and other rules of faith. They do not agree in the principles of faith. They agree that the word is the word; but then, to take away the edge of it, they add something to weaken it: their own expositions, traditions, and applications. So they have what we have, yet they change all points of religion; and the additions are against the foundation, and destructive.

I do not mean that none of them go to heaven; several do, but it is not by their tenets. But they hold contradictions, and in the hour of death they cling to the one and forsake the other. However much, for the sake of quibbling, they hold merits and righteousness along with the obedience of Christ, yet those among them who belong to God, at the time of death renounce that religion, and cling only to Christ and the obedience of Christ, by justification through faith.

But my meaning is not to take up time in these things, but only to breed a love of the religion we have, which has a justification, in the main tenets we hold, from the enemy, from the ancient church, from the Christian church, having one spirit of faith. And to say the truth, they have the old spirit, as in Revelation: the spirit of Egypt, for so Rome is called, and the spirit of Sodom, and, as it is for the most part called, the spirit of Babylon. For they have a cruel and bloody spirit, and the filthy spirit of the Sodomites, and the idolatrous spirit of Egypt, and that of the tyrannical city of Babylon; for they have the same spirit with them. But as for ancient tenets of religion, we may safely say that in the main points of religion we have the same spirit of faithful Abraham, the patriarchs, David, the prophets, apostles, and ancient fathers. Therefore we may be bold.

There is one faith from the beginning of the world to the end of the world, the faith of the elect: “faith once given,” as Jude calls it (Jude 3).

I cannot press this point, but I make this further use of it. We have the Spirit of faith, and the same Spirit of faith with those who were before. Therefore let this comfort us, that if we truly believe, we are brought into communion and fellowship with the church that has been and will be to the end of the world, and that is now in heaven; for we all have one Spirit. Though instead of faith they have vision, yet we all have one Spirit. Is it not a sweet thing to have communion with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets and apostles? And so we have, if we are true believers, by the same Spirit of faith.

Perhaps we differ in the measure and degree, because the necessities of one are more than the necessities of another. As in organ pipes the same breath is in all the pipes, but some sound little and some have a greater sound, answerable to the making of them, yet one breath makes them all sound; so there is the same Spirit in all the church, but some have little, some a great measure, according as their necessities and places in the church are. And therefore it is of great comfort, and it may teach us, as a comfort, that we have communion of saints in this church, that the Spirit is in all, and so teach us to love the communion of saints. We have “one faith, one spirit, one baptism” (Eph 4:4-5).

That in which Christians agree is of more advantage to enforce unity and peace than anything in which they disagree is to make a rupture and fraction. Perhaps they may disagree in ceremonies, in opinion on this or that; but if there is one faith, one baptism, if there is unity in the main, will other things of less concern have force to make a fraction in the church? Oh beloved, no!

The church before Christ and the church after Christ did differ in garments, in outward appurtenances. A child and a man are the same person, yet he has one kind of clothing when young and another when a man. So the church when young had one kind of ceremony, when old another, yet at all times one Spirit. So one church may differ from another in this or that particular outward appendage, but what is that to the spirit of faith? There is one Spirit of Christ in all; and is not that of greater force to knit together than other lesser matters are to make a division? This should teach us more and more to study the unity of the Spirit.

Would it not be an excellent thing if all Christians in the world had the spirits to agree in the same things, and to love the same things that will be our life in heaven? And it would not be heaven on earth if there were no agreement in the judgment and affections of Christians. Therefore study peace; and as for other matters, they will follow. Let them not be of such concern as to make any separation: If any consolation, if any peace, if any love … be of like mind one toward another (Phil 2:1-2).

Why, what is the cause that they press union so much? Because our happiness is in it; and Christ in his excellency prayed that Christ and all may be one (John 17:11); because the same Spirit that knits us to Christ knits us to one another by love, and all grace and comforts are derived to Christians as knit to Christ by faith, and to others by love. If we are not knit to Christ, there is no derivation of grace from the head; where there is no derivation, there is a corresponding decay of grace. Therefore as we would grow in grace and comfort, there is more force in union than is thought of; and if it were seriously thought of, in regard of our own benefit, we would labor to maintain it.

We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak (2 Cor 4:13).

You have heard at length already how the apostle answers all discouragements, from God’s gracious dealing with them.

Now St. Paul goes forward, in the words I have read through to the end of the chapter, by setting down various encouragements to help him go on in his Christian course. One is in the verse I have read to you: “We have the same spirit of faith, as it is written …”

We must go through many afflictions, inward and outward, before we come to heaven. And therefore the apostle multiplies grounds of comfort, by which he may be carried through everything to the end of his race.

The first ground of comfort in these words is this: “We have the same spirit of faith” that David and others had before, “and therefore we speak”; therefore we are bold in our profession.

In these words we have already considered several things. Of faith we shall have occasion to speak afterward.

Now, when he comforts himself from the example of David: David believed and spoke, and therefore I believe and speak, we have a sweet pattern of how to make use of the Scriptures: in reading them, read ourselves in the Scriptures. The Scriptures are written not only for us, but also for those who lived in those times. God, in his infinite wisdom and foresight, knew that whatever is in Scripture should be applicable to all times and states of the church. For though it was written at various times, yet nothing shall happen to the end of the world but there is something in Scripture to rule it. Otherwise there would need to be a multiplication of Scriptures to the end of the world. And therefore the Scriptures contain necessary truths, both for the times in which they were written and for all times to the end of the world.

As the apostle argues, David believed, and spoke, therefore we may, because the case is alike. In regard to the prerogatives of salvation, and in regard to many duties and promises, the church has had the same command and the same interest from the beginning of the world. As we say of a homogeneous body, every part of a homogeneous body has respect to the whole. Every drop of water is water; every spark of fire is fire. But not every piece of an arm is an arm, because it is heterogeneous. I mention this because in many prerogatives and promises the same reason holds for every member, and for one member as for another. As David speaks and believes, therefore we speak.

“Abraham believed, and it was imputed for righteousness” (Rom 4:22); let us believe, and it shall be imputed for righteousness. I believed, and found mercy; if we believe, we shall have mercy. Peter, after he denied his Master, found mercy; if we do the same, we shall find the same, because there is the same reason for the whole church and for every particular member.

And therefore, when we read the Scripture, we should read to take something out of it for ourselves. When we read any promise, we should say, “This is mine”; when we read of any privileges, “These belong to me”; when we read a good example, “This concerns me.” As I said before, “Whatsoever was before written was written for our learning, that through patience and learning of the Scripture we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).

There is nothing that befalls a Christian in his life but there is a rule or pattern for it in Scripture. If we were skillful in bringing the passages and rules together, we should see a ground in Scripture for everything, both for all duties and for all things to be believed. And there are not only rules in Scripture, but also rules quickened by example. For divinity is a practical knowledge, and therefore it is enlivened and interlaced with examples, as here the apostle makes use of the example of David. God does not write us laws and leave them barely in our possession as commands; God quickens and enlivens all the rules and promises with the practice of some of the blessed saints.

No one can read David’s psalms without reading himself in them. He cannot undergo a trouble but he shall find David under the same trouble. He shall not need a comfort but he shall see David comforted with the same comfort. So David is a pattern for them.

It is a comforting thing to read the Scriptures, because there we shall find whatever is useful for us. Those who go into a garden planted all around with flowers cannot help but receive a sweet spirit and breath from the flowers in the very walks. And so there is such a spirit in Scripture that we cannot read the Scriptures with reverence without a sweet fragrance springing from them, which both delights and strengthens at once. No walk is so comforting as the walk of Scripture. Therefore let us take our solace there, and we shall see the promises, and those enlivened with examples and patterns, and the Spirit of God bringing the same sweetness and the same strength into ourselves.

Oh, that we would be more in love with reading Scripture! We see the apostle Paul, as great a man as he was, encouraging himself and strengthening himself with the pattern of holy David: David believes and speaks, and I believe and speak. So you see how you may make benefit of the Scripture.

From this you have a rule of enlargement of the Scripture to you, and likewise a rule of application: when we read the Scriptures we may enlarge them, and apply them to ourselves in particular. And so much for that point, that we have faith, the spirit of faith: “And the same spirit of faith, according as it is written.”

The next thing to observe is this, that after the spirit of faith he names belief; and after belief, he names speaking. From this, observe the connection and knitting together of these things by God, the coherence that God has made between them. First, there is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the agent who works everything in the church, for he is Christ’s vicar on earth, and that Spirit works a spirit of grace in us, in particular a spirit of faith. When the Holy Spirit has framed our hearts to believe, then we believe; and when we believe, then we speak. So these go together: the Spirit of God, begetting in us a spirit of faith; and an act of believing, answerable to that frame and proceeding from a spirit of faith; and then, because faith is the spring and foundation of all other graces, “we believe, therefore we speak.”

First of all, the Spirit of God works a blessed frame in our hearts, here called the “spirit of faith.” The Holy Spirit does not only work by a Christian as an instrument, but works in him as a subject. Our soul is altogether out of frame. The Holy Spirit, therefore, puts us in frame by a spirit of faith, infusing a spirit of knowledge into the understanding and a spirit of obedience into the will. He draws the will and enlightens the understanding, and then we believe.

All actions come from a fountain, and spring, and life, and frame within. The Holy Spirit works a holy frame, and then we act. We must not think of believing without a spirit of faith first, for that is to conceive of a river without a spring, or a beam without a sun, or a branch without a root. And therefore, as faith cannot be without the Holy Spirit, so belief cannot be without the spirit of faith. I say this only so that the point may be clearly conceived. We shall make use of it afterward.

First a spirit of faith, and then we believe. So the grace of faith comes from the Spirit, but the act is ours, and comes immediately from us. This serves to answer an idle objection brought against those who are all for grace: “If we do everything by the help of the Spirit, and we have no liberty, then the Holy Spirit believes, and the Holy Spirit speaks, and the Holy Spirit loves, and not we.” The objection is idle against those who are all for free grace.

It is true that the grace is from the Spirit, but when the grace is received, the act is from ourselves; not only from ourselves, but immediately from ourselves. We cannot help but confess it is so.

For instance, a wind instrument is fit to sound, but it does not actually sound until it is blown. So other instruments, played by hand, are fit for music, but such an instrument makes no music until it is struck by the hand. So we do not actually believe except by an act of the Spirit, and yet the act of believing is our own. The wind in the one instrument and the hand on the other must make the sounds, and yet the instruments sound. And so, though we have the grace of faith, and faith is ours in believing, yet the very act of believing comes from the Holy Spirit, though not immediately.

We speak, but the Spirit opens our mouth; we believe, but the Holy Spirit inspires a spirit of faith; and we act, but only as we are enabled to act. Being acted upon, we act; we move, but being moved, we move. So in all the graces and exercises we perform there is both an acting and a being acted upon. We are first acted upon, and then we act: first the Spirit of God works on us, and then we work; not the Spirit immediately, but we by the Spirit.

So we see how these two are reconciled. We believe, we speak, we do good, and yet the Holy Spirit does it all. How? In this way: the Holy Spirit sets us in a holy frame, and then, when we are in that frame, the Holy Spirit fits us to speak, to do, to work, to suffer, to do all that is to be done. We are the agents, and yet we go no further than we are acted upon by a superior agent. As with the orbs, the lower orbs move only as they are moved by a higher, except the highest of all, so all the subordinate agents under God are moved by God. For if the will were moved and were not moved by God, then there would be as many gods as there are wills, for there is nothing independent but God.

But to speak of the positive truth: all the frame of grace comes from the Spirit. We work, but by the Holy Spirit, as in Psalm 51:15: “Open my lips, my mouth shall show forth thy praise.” Now David says here, “We believe, therefore speak”; we speak, but it is God who opens our mouth.

But I intend points of practice rather than these. For besides that proper act of faith, which is to believe, there is a commanding act of faith, which stirs up the soul to act, for faith stirs up all other graces. The proper act is to believe, but by believing it stirs up and quickens all the other graces of the soul. Therefore in Hebrews 11 you see that all other graces are attributed to faith. By faith Enoch walked with God, and by faith Noah prepared an ark, and by faith Moses was courageous and bold. And so you see that all their excellent graces have their spring and stirring up from faith. So, having the same Spirit, we not only believe but speak.

The next point to observe here is that a Christian knows he does believe. “I believe, therefore I speak.” A Christian knows his own faith, and by consequence he may know certainly his state in grace. It is not an idle, dormant, sleepy faith, but “I believe, therefore I speak.” Yet something may cause some to fix the eyes of their souls so much on their deserts and guilt that they look only to that until they are surprised with horror, until God has humbled them, though there is a striving of soul against despair and a striving for favor and mercy.

In these particular cases there may be faith without the knowledge of the act. But ordinarily the frame of a Christian is such that he knows what he knows, and he does know that he believes when he believes; and from that he knows his state in grace. How else should he be thankful to God? How should he be compassionate? How should he be content and quiet in his condition? How should he be fruitful in his way of life?

Beloved, the knowledge that we are in a good condition is a most fruitful knowledge. It is the best frame of the soul when it has grace and knows it has grace, and it never has a good frame until then. When we are in God’s favor, and we know that we are in God’s favor, it puts us in a holy disposition toward God, to love him and to be thankful to him, and in a gracious disposition toward him, to be abundant in the work of the Lord. It works a sweet disposition in ourselves, begetting in us much patience, when we know that we believe, and believing, that we shall be saved; for salvation is the end of faith. Faith never ends but in salvation.

And therefore it should be our main endeavor to believe, and then to labor to know that we do believe, so that Satan may not hide our evidences from us and make us bear false witness against ourselves. For when he cannot hinder our salvation, he hinders our comforts on the way to heaven, as is his way, by casting a mist and cloud between our souls and God’s favors. “Therefore give all diligence to make our calling and election sure” (2 Pet 1:10). The more we grow in assurance that we believe, and by believing, in assurance of our interest in Christ, the more we grow in grace and in all comforts whatever.

Some claim that this is a way to bring people into careless complacency. Indeed, it is a way to security, of the heavenly kind. But who fears most to displease God? And who takes most care to please him? Is it not those who have sweet contentment in his favors? Those who are loath to displease him? And is it not their whole care to please him, and to continue sweet communion with God? Such people speak against the nature of the things, and against experience.

But how shall a Christian know that he does believe? Will he think he does not believe when he cannot conclude outright, “I do believe”? Though he cannot reflect upon himself strongly, yet he may reflect upon himself, especially by talking with those who can discern that he has desires. There comes afterward in a Christian a Christian mourning, sighing, and groaning, and he will not deny that he desires to have faith; he mourns that he does not have it. Let such people reflect on that, and bring the Scripture to that case. The Scripture speaks comfortingly of desires, of parts, of gracious desires. He who desires faith has a measure of faith, if he desires it truly.

And so you say you have no faith. Your desires show that you have. You can reflect, and know that you desire, mourn, hunger, and thirst, and would have grace. Now, are the promises made to this desire? “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt 5:3-6).

Then again, there is a combat in them. Those who have the main act of faith have strife between flesh and Spirit, between unbelief and faith. None of them will deny that he strives against unbelief and endeavors against it. That very strife is an argument that there is a spirit of faith, an act of faith; and they may know that act of faith, if they will consider seriously. The very strife is a greater argument of comfort that they have faith than the confidence of many carnal people that they have faith. For the confidence of those people is a false argument, whereas the doubting of the others, and their striving against doubts and remainders of unbelief, is an argument of their having faith.

Again, those who have the least degree of faith look up to God. They never forsake God. They will die at his feet, and they will cast themselves down before his footstool, before his mercy. “Let him deal with me as he will”: they have resolved on that. And where this is, it shows a spiritual act of faith. So in some cases a person may have an act of faith and yet not know it. And in some cases there may be a confidence that faith is present, when in fact they do not have it.

How shall I know false confidence? It is a large point, and I will name only two or three things.

(1) False confidence is groundless, taken up voluntarily by people of their own accord, without the Scriptures, because they wish themselves well; and out of self-love they think they have whatever they lack. If they go to the grounds of Scripture, they would rather despair, because there are many blasphemous, loose lives careless of goodness. Faith affirms that he who does not believe is not worthy to live. If they did believe, they would believe their own damnation. They should believe that there is nothing between them and hell but a little uncertain life, for they live under the curse of God, and live in sin, damned by Scripture. And therefore their faith is not only a barren faith, but a presumptuous faith, and groundless.

(2) And again, you may know false confidence because, as it is groundless, so it is careless in the use of good means. A confident spirit, out of self-love, will persuade itself that all is well, and yet be cold in the use of means. And so it is fearless until trouble comes; and when trouble comes, then they sink. Such a person is confident before trouble of conscience or outward troubles seize upon him. But when any trouble comes, then they see that all was only a spirit of presumption and carnal confidence; then they see that there was never sound peace between God and them, never sound union between Christ and them. For it is the nature of false confidence to be confident beforehand and to sink into despair in times of trouble.

(3) And again, false confidence, as it is careless in the use of means and spiritless in danger, so it is fruitless. It does not bring forth the fruit of faith; it is barren. And therefore, let people who are careless of the exercise of love and other graces in their way of life boast of faith all they will, it is only a confidence. They think they believe when they do not believe.

(4) In the next place, faith is an exercising grace wherever it is. “I believe, therefore I speak.” It is a working grace wherever it is. The believer shows his faith by obedience and practice, so that true faith is an active and working grace. And in this it differs from the confidence spoken of before.

It works in heaven. It works with God: it lays hold upon him, wrestles with him for a blessing, and overcomes him. It works on earth, and overcomes everything on the right hand and the left. It overcomes all temptations of prosperity, presenting better things than the world can. It overcomes all temptations on the left hand, all fears and threats, and presents to the soul worse dangers than anything here. What can be threatened comparable to hell? And what can be promised comparable to a good conscience and heaven hereafter? It works more strongly than hell and temptations.

And it must be so, because it is a grace of union that knits us to Christ. It is the fountain of life. We cannot touch Christ without life; power comes from him upon every touch: his grace, his union, and being. So faith draws power from Christ. The spirit of faith is a spirit of power, a spirit of vigor. Faith infuses vigor into the whole soul, silencing all objections that the heart can make, answering all temptations that the devil can make, triumphing over all that can be presented to it, and drawing this vigor from God. It is powerful with God himself. I will not enter into commonplaces about faith, but only, as it comes in my way, show that where belief is, it will work, and that the particular work of it is to “speak.”

(5) As it is a working grace, so it is a bold grace. “I believe, therefore I speak.” If there is faith in the heart, it will express itself in the tongue. If the heart is a good treasure, it will give out that treasure. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak” (Matt 12:34). And therefore, as there will be encouragement and strength and vigor, so there will be boldness in speaking to God. Faith is a grace that has liberty with it. Where the Spirit is there is liberty, especially where the spirit of faith is, because faith sets the soul at liberty from fear of guilt and damnation, and persuades the soul of contentment with God in Jesus Christ.

(6) Where the spirit of faith is, there is boldness to the throne of grace; and therefore, because we believe, we speak. We speak to God in prayer because we believe we are reconciled to God in Jesus Christ. Wherever faith is, there is prayer. Speaking to God in prayer is the prime expression of faith, as faith is the birth of a Christian, for it knits him to Christ the fountain of life. A child, as soon as it is born, cries; and a newborn child of God, as soon as he is born, cries to God. He has a familiar kind of boldness to go with reverence to God and say, “Abba, Father.” As soon as ever Paul was converted, “behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). He might speak prayers before, but he never prayed until then. A man never prays until he believes; and when he believes, he prays at once with the spirit of faith. Therefore it is a spirit of supplication; the two always go together.

And the reason is that as soon as ever a Christian is newly born, he is sensible of the root and spring from which he has all his strength and all he hopes for. It is in Christ. And therefore, as by faith he is knit to Christ, so by faith he makes use of Christ. Faith is a grace that empties itself, and, emptying the soul, it sends out its ambassador, prayer, to fetch all help from heaven. Prayer is the messenger, the ambassador of faith, the flame of faith. Where faith is kindled within, it flames out in prayer. Prayer, you know, shows that there is nothing at home, for if there were, we would not go abroad.

Faith is a grace that goes out of itself. It has the greatest humility that can be, and is always seated in a humble soul, one that despairs of itself and is emptied of itself. And therefore the first expression of faith out of itself must be to the fountain of help, the fountain of strength and comfort together, and therefore it sends out prayer. Prayer and faith are all one, prayer being nothing but faith digested into words and conceptions. As faith prevails, so prayer prevails; and according to the measure of faith, so are the degrees of the spirit of prayer.

And then again, our tongue being our “glory” (Ps 16:9), it has a desire to glorify God, and that is in speaking, in praising God and praying to God. And therefore those who do not pray have no faith. Little faith, little prayer; and great faith, a great measure of prayer. And as faith grows, so the spirit of prayer and supplication grows. They increase and decrease in proportion.

And therefore let us examine ourselves, whether, believing, we pray; whether, believing, we speak. A Christian is no stillborn creature. He that is newborn is not stillborn. He cries to his Father for strength of grace. There is a spirit of boldness together with the spirit of faith, by which we can look God in the face, reconciled in Jesus Christ. Now, looking upon God as a Father, we cannot help but go to him as to a Father in all our necessities. So you see the connection of these two, “I believe, therefore I speak.”

And as this is true of prayer, so it is of praise, for that also is the language of the Spirit of God. God will have occasion for it, for our tongue is our glory; we glorify him with our whole man. The heart gives him the glory of all his attributes; the speech gives the glory of it to him. And therefore in Psalm 63:5 we read, “When I am filled with marrow and fatness” (the inward comforts of grace), “then shall I praise thee with joyful lips”; that is, then he will sound forth the praises of God in his speech.

He praises God not only for what is past, but he praises him for what is to come. “I believe, therefore I speak.” For if a man by the spirit of faith apprehends the resurrection of the body and glory in the world to come, that Spirit, apprehending the excellency to come, will stir him up to praise God beforehand. For by a spirit of faith we take things on trust, as if present; we see heaven and the glory to come as if present: “For faith is the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). So it stirs up the affections as if these things were present. In heaven we shall praise God forever, and therefore faith makes heaven and happiness as if present to the soul. It enlarges the soul with thanks beforehand.

Therefore when the apostles speak of the glorious condition to come, they at once break out into praises. As they believe, so they speak, as Peter prays, “Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath begotten us again to an inheritance immortal, undefiled, reserved for us in the heavens” (1 Pet 1:3-4). He believes heaven is kept for him, and he for heaven, and therefore he praises God for it. If we believe the blessed state to come, we will speak the praises of God beforehand. And therefore the state of God’s children in the time to come is revealed now, so that God may have present praise. Faith sets the soul in heaven in some sort, and as it sets us in heaven, where Christ is our head, so it sets us into the employment of heaven. And what is that? To have a heart enlarged to praise God.

Likewise, if we believe we will speak to men, not only to God in prayer, but of God to men, “in the great congregation,” as the prophet speaks (Ps 22:25). We will not be ashamed of God, but will speak to him by prayer in all things, and of his truth; and we will speak for him too when religion is opposed and his children are disgraced. He that has not a word to speak of God for the benefit of others by way of edification, that has not the spirit of prudence to speak a word in season, nor a spirit of courage to speak for God, I will never believe he will speak to God as he should; I will never believe he does believe. For he that believes will speak to God in prayer and praises, and of God, and for God.

Beloved, in this world God puts his cause and his truth, and the state of God’s people, into our hands, and counts himself indebted to us if we will stand for him. He tries what we will do for him, whether we will help him in his church and people or not. He cries, Who will be on his side, who? as Jehu said (2 Kgs 9:32). Especially in times of opposition and in lukewarm times, when there is a clouding of religion, men will be of all sides and of no side, to serve their turn. Therefore “Curse ye Meroz, for he helped not the Lord” (Judg 5:23). God counts himself helped by us when we speak for a good cause, for a good person, for justice, for truth; and if we will not own the cause of God in doubtful times, God will never own us.

Does God honor us so far as to put his cause into our hands, making himself indebted to us for his word? And shall we not speak a word for his church, his children, but rather join with backbiters, and slanderers, and secret papists? All of them slander the church’s religion, her faith. What does our Savior Christ say? That is not an idle thing. “He that is ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of him before my Father which is in heaven” (Matt 10:32-33).

Those who are his have the name of God on their foreheads. As the limbs of antichrist carry his mark, so those who belong to Christ carry his mark; that is, they are bold for the Lord, known by their Master, ready to speak as to him, so for him, when occasion is offered. “Wisdom will be justified of her children” (Matt 11:19), and therefore those who believe will justify wisdom, will justify the cause of religion. And those who do not do it do not believe, for he that believes will speak.

Christ is called the speech, the word, because as a word expresses the mind, so Christ expresses what is in the bosom and heart of God toward us. And as he has truly expressed from God to us what is the Father’s good pleasure toward us, being the word, so every Christian must be the word to express what Christ has done for him and for the church. And we must do this personally, sincerely, freely, and plainly, without evasion, equivocation, or deceit; we must be bold for a better Master. It is true that, out of the very nature of the thing, we cannot help but speak. A convinced understanding and a sanctified heart cannot help but speak when an opportunity is offered. I wonder that any should ever think to look the blessed Savior in the face with comfort, and yet for all that betray his cause, betray religion here. And therefore, I beseech you, consider the connection of these two together, “I believe, therefore I speak.”

By what I have said, then, you may learn what to judge of your natures. There are those who are partial to both sides and to neither, who count it good policy to conceal themselves. They think that whatever may fall out, they will be sure to displease no party beforehand, so that they may have friends. And so, to buy a peace for themselves, they betray religion and the cause of Christ. You may say, “What wisdom is that?” It is a wisdom of the flesh, and a plain discovery that they have no faith at all, or at the least a very weak faith, no faith at all.

And therefore they are called Nicodemites; that is, such as keep religion to themselves. It is a false name. For Nicodemus at first indeed came to Christ in that way, but afterward he defended him against the scribes and Pharisees. And at his death, when all forsook him, then Nicodemus and Joseph appeared. So it was a growing faith. And therefore let no man who conceals religion plead Nicodemus.

If they mean to stay in the condition they are in, if they will sleep with whole skins, then it shows they have no faith at all. But if they are ashamed of it, and grow, and by falls learn to stand strongly, and find their weakness sanctified to gain more strength, it is a good sign. But as for those who are neutrals, and ready for every turn, you may say they have no faith. He is not worthy of a tongue who will not speak for Christ, who will not speak for the giver of speech. He is unworthy to speak who will not speak for him that has enabled him to speak.

You are more like the Samaritans, who would be of no certain religion. They would worship God, and they would worship the gods of their country as well. They would be of the Jewish religion when the Jews flourished, and against the Jews when the Jews were down. So they would be of all religions and of no religion. And so you have some who keep their religion to be chosen for every turn. So far as it agrees with outward conveniences they will show themselves, and when it does not, they will betray it. They are bats in the faith, as he calls them, bats that will be neither among the birds nor among the other creatures, but doubtful creatures, and you cannot tell what to make of them. So there will always be some doubtful persons, and you cannot tell what to think of them in religion. But this you may make out: they do not believe, for if they did believe, they would speak.

And therefore let us be stirred up to speak in the cause of Christ as occasion serves. There must be a spirit of discretion and wisdom as to when and how to speak, of which I have spoken at large before, from Romans 10. Only, I beseech you, if occasion arises, be entreated to be as bold for Christ as others are against Christ, as bold for religion as others are against religion. I am sure we serve a better Master.

It is a shame to hear papists, and popish spirits, and half atheists speak dangerously, to the destruction of youth, that they may be saved in any religion if we believe in God and keep his commandments. And so they run to a few generalities, while the will in the meantime begins to swell and breaks the commandments. They bring everything down to a few heads, and shuffle it all off with a generality: in any religion, if you live well, you may be saved. Therefore let us be as bold and shameless for Christ as his enemies will be against him.

And because we see that boldness in the cause of Christ comes from a spirit of faith, as all other graces come from faith, let us be stirred up to labor for faith above all other graces, so that it may be planted in our hearts. And that it may be so, only observe these directions.

1. Consider who it is that gives us comfort and gives us promises. Dwell much in the consideration of the loving, faithful nature of God, and then consider former experiences, how God has made good all things to us. Consider what pure and glorious pledges and promises we have for the time to come. Peace of conscience is a pledge of the peace that is heaven; joy in the Holy Spirit, a pledge of the joy in heaven. And then consider the excellency of the things we are to believe. The objects of faith, the promises, are surpassing things, even surpassing wonder. Oh, the excellent things laid up in another world! If we cannot express the first fruits, the earnest here, what shall we do with the fullness of happiness that we shall enjoy hereafter? A probability of excellent things will set men endeavoring more than a certainty of petty and base things.

Now that we have offered to us things above all wonder, we may stand in wonderment at the love of God, who has laid up things “that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive” (1 Cor 2:9). And shall not these things stir up the spirit of faith and suitable endeavors, when a probability of excellent things, though earthly, will stir up endeavors? Therefore, where there is no endeavor against earthly things, we do not believe a whit. The evil things we are driven to flee are so terrible, and the good things present to faith so excellent, that if they were only probable conjectures, men would be better than they are.

Therefore many are so far from faith that they do not even have a conjecture that there are such things, for unbelief reigns in their hearts. If faith set up a kingdom in their hearts, however little, it would stir up boldness. And therefore consider all the sweetness of the nature of God, now reconciled to us, and only test the excellency of these things. If we have the apprehension of them in even a weak measure, they will make us better than most of your common blasphemers, and swearers, and scorners of goodness. Such a man inwardly laughs and scorns at all parts of religion. Though for shame before men he conforms himself somewhat, yet for all that, unbelief reigns in his heart.

2. Again, so that faith may set up its government in the soul, consider now that this is the grace that infuses vigor and strength into all our graces; all are nothing without faith. Faith must fetch from Christ strength for patience and contentment. There is no other grace but has its vigor from faith, as faith has its vigor from the Spirit of God. Therefore pour water upon the root; water the root of all other graces; cherish faith.

Oh, this consideration, that all graces spring from faith and have their life and vigor from it, and that now the government of the church, by the Spirit of God under the covenant of grace, is to fetch all from outside ourselves! We must have a supernatural eye, and a supernatural hand to reach to heaven and fetch treasure out of Christ, and spiritual virtue to draw out of Christ and his promises, and have all. Every time, every thing, every word, every action whatsoever, is from outside ourselves, and comes from a principle that is in Christ. And therefore, considering the excellency and necessity of grace, labor for it, and let it be more and more planted in us, so that according to our apprehension of its excellency and necessity, and of the misery without it, we may earnestly endeavor after it.

Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you (2 Cor 4:14).

The apostle, in the former words, as we heard at length, sets down the afflicted and comforted condition of God’s people. And because our nature is as unfit to suffer evil as it is to do good, he opens a further spring of comfort that runs to the end of the chapter.

Among others, as you heard last time, this is one: “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, and therefore I have spoken” (2 Cor 4:13). Here is a double comfort in whatever we suffer. “We have a spirit of faith,” which is a spirit of strength wrought by the power of God itself, and laying hold likewise on divine power.

And another ground of comfort is, “We have the same spirit of faith.” And faith stirs us up not only to believe, which is its proper act, but it stirs up speaking: both to God in prayer, and of God in praises, and for God in times of opposition. I spoke of these things more fully before. I pass on now, only I add this, that before we speak we must believe. Mark the method: “I believe, therefore I speak.” A man cannot speak to God in prayer or in praises, or speak of God rightly, unless he believes what he speaks. You know it is monstrous that there should be a birth without conception, that a man should speak of what he does not know, or speak of what he does not believe. And we must labor to know and believe things in their own light by the Spirit. We must have a spirit of faith before we speak of spiritual things.

It is a careless neglect that people will sometimes speak of good things, but speak of them in a human spirit. Others speak in a diabolical spirit, by way of scoffing or blaspheming. Some never speak of God without blaspheming and swearing, and never speak of religion except with scorn, as if it were not grave enough for them. Or if they speak soberly, they speak of holy things with human spirits, not truly believing what they speak, as their own hearts tell them.

Now the tongue must be the true messenger of the heart. The heart must compose, and the tongue write. And therefore we must endeavor by all means to have a spirit of faith, and labor with these false hearts of ours to believe, and then to speak. Otherwise our hearts will give the tongue the lie: You speak these things, but you do not believe them. And indeed a man may see by the way men speak of holy things that they do not believe what they speak. As one said, “If you did believe these things, would you speak so of them?” So if a man did believe divine things, would he speak so irreverently, so slightingly of them as they do?

And therefore we must labor to believe what we speak. If we speak to God or to others of the state of grace, or the like, we must first have the Spirit of God. We must know the meaning of God, in order to speak of holy things in God’s meaning. Would it not be a bold thing for a man to speak of another man’s meaning, and never know his meaning? God makes his meaning known in the Scripture. And if we do not know his meaning, if we speak of certainty of salvation and of such matters, and of great spiritual things, and of knowing them by the Spirit of God, by his own Spirit, then we speak of the love of God, and the care and providence of God, and do not know by his Spirit that he is this to us.

Indeed, it is presumption for us to speak anything of God unless God first reveals it; and to speak anything of our own condition in an intimate manner, as if we were such and such, when the Spirit of God does not truly dictate so much to our souls. We see spiritual things with spiritual light. We must speak of spiritual things with the help of the Spirit, and must judge of spiritual things by what the Spirit reveals, or else we had better say nothing at all than speak presumptuously. We believe, and then we speak.

Objection. But you will say, Many theologians speak excellently well on points of religion, and hold them, and yet their lives reveal that they have no faith. And therefore there may be a spirit without faith.

Answer. Beloved, mark what I said before. They may speak of religious things in a human manner, and see spiritual things with a common light, but they cannot see spiritual things in their proper light without the Spirit of God. And they cannot speak of spiritual things in a spiritual manner without the Spirit of God. We must first believe, and then speak.

Therefore our labor should be in the groundwork, to get faith in the heart. And when faith has been gotten into the heart, it will quickly overpower all fears and doubts and despairings, and all rebellion. It is a victorious and conquering grace. If we can get that, it will subdue the heart to itself. And it will make us speak boldly, and speak of holy things, and to the purpose: to speak to God and of God in divine things, and for God in oppositions.

So we must speak likewise for the good of others, by way of edification. And we must speak to our own hearts in times of temptation, and speak to Satan when he solicits us. When Satan and our hearts speak to us, and judge us to be this and that, saying, “You are this and that,” faith replies, This is what God says by his Spirit; this is what he has told me. “I am thy salvation,” he says in Scripture (Ps 35:3). If I believe, I shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:15). And he says in particular to me by his Spirit, “Thy sins are forgiven thee” (Matt 9:2). Therefore do not care what our doubtful hearts, or Satan joined with them, may say. God says this, and the spirit of faith says this; and as I believe, so I speak.

So if there is a spirit of faith, we shall speak to our own hearts: “Why art thou so disquiet, O my soul; and why art thou troubled in me? trust in God” (Ps 42:5). Faith will quell all the rising doubts of our own hearts and the temptations of Satan. Satan says this and that, but what does God say? What does the spirit of faith in me say? It says this.

Alas! when our hearts rise against us, and Satan joins with our accusing consciences, and we have no spirit of faith to speak against our hearts, and against our hearts’ accusing us, guilt is a clamorous thing. Oh, what a great commotion the conscience and Satan make! When Satan gets hold of guilt he is an excellent rhetorician and orator, skilled at setting colors on things. If we have nothing to still our clamorous consciences, and to quiet the accusation of conscience, what will become of us? And therefore labor so to believe that we may speak not only to God, but for God, and profitably to ourselves, and also in defense of ourselves, against our own unbelieving hearts and Satan’s temptations.

What is the reason that poor souls so often yield themselves to despair, and so to a desperate conclusion of themselves? Oh, they do not labor for the Spirit of God, to believe first in their own hearts, and to have a word to answer Satan’s temptations. And therefore, of all things, labor for the spirit of faith, that we may believe, and believing, may be able to speak, to speak every way, to express ourselves for God, for ourselves, for the truth.

The next verse is, “Knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up with Jesus, and present us with you” (2 Cor 4:14).

Here are further grounds of comfort, that God will raise us up by Christ, and present us with you. Paul comforted himself with this, that God would raise him by Christ, and present him with the believing Corinthians. Now this has a double meaning. First, that God would raise him out of troubles, which are a kind of deaths, as in the beginning of the epistle he calls the troubles he was in “a great death.” And then, that God would raise him at length out of the grave, and present him and them at the day of judgment, as his crown before the Lord.

This was his comfort. Now, for all I can see, the apostle may mean both, the one subordinate to the other. For God raises us out of trouble by Jesus, and presents us one to another in this world for our comfort, and at length raises us out of the dust, and presents us all together, to be forever together with the Lord.

His comfort then is that God will raise us up, and then he will present us with you. This is set down by the effect: God will do it; God who raised up Jesus will do it. And the cause why God will do it is that he has raised up Jesus. First, God who has raised up Jesus will by Jesus raise us up, and present us with you. So here is the comfort and the ground of it. The comfort is double. God will raise us up, and then God will present us with you. The ground of it, why he will do it, is this: because he has raised up Christ. God is the author of it, and he who has raised up Christ will raise you up. There is such a connection and blessed union between Christ and us that the same power that raised up Jesus out of the grave will raise us up likewise.

So here is a comfort above comfort; but yet “knowing” is set in front of it. Knowing that God will raise us up, because he has raised up Jesus. So I may observe in passing that all comfort comes into the soul by knowledge. God not only raises us up, and presents us one with another, by the same power by which he has raised up Jesus, but we must know that it must be so, if we will have comfort. Whatever comes into the soul to strengthen it comes through knowledge. As from the heavens come light, and through light all influences, and as whatever is sweet from heaven, to make things flourish, comes with light, so all things that come to the soul to make it comforted and cheerful come with the light of knowledge.

Indeed, all graces are nothing but knowledge digested, knowledge turned into affection and practice. What is anything but knowledge? What is any grace but the performance of such a thing from such and such grounds? As we see in fruit, all that is in the fruit comes from the juice that is in the root. And so the vigor and strength of everything is knowledge; I mean knowledge and a spirit of faith to believe what we know, to assent to it, and acknowledge it.

Light, you know, is very comforting. Darkness is a state of fear. So ignorance is a state of doubting and fear. There is no good where ignorance is; but light and knowledge is a state of boldness. We believe, and speak, and are bold. Why? “We know.”

And therefore the people who are careless of growing in knowledge are enemies of comfort and of grace. “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 3:18). The most knowing Christian is the most constant, courageous, comforted, fruitful Christian, because together with divine light enlightening the soul, there goes divine heat, enlarging the soul to every duty, and to all comforts whatsoever. So much for that.

We will speak a little of the comforts, and of the points on which the comfort is grounded. “He will raise us up, and present us with you.” Troubles that are greater are called death, as in the first chapter of this epistle: The Lord who delivered me from so great a death (2 Cor 1:10). And why? Especially for this end: because, as they are partial deaths, so likewise they agree with death. In death we despair of life and recovery. So when a trouble is great, as when a man is dead, the trouble is desperate. It is a death; there is no hope of recovery again. Now, Paul says, though my troubles are great, yet notwithstanding God will raise me up, even out of death, and present me with you.

Question. How did Paul know that God would do this?

Answer. It is likely he knew it by a spirit of revelation, having nearer communion with God, as a more public person, than we have. But what is that to us? Can we say God will raise us up, and present us one to another, as Paul did? No, beloved, we cannot say so. But this we can say: God will raise me up out of this trouble, or if I die in it, God will raise me out of the grave. This is the happy condition of a Christian. He is sure, if he is in trouble, either to be raised for the good of the church, if God has any service for him to do; or else, if I die, God will raise me up at the last day with all his people, to be forever with him. If it is for the good of the church, and my own good, to live, I shall live still; if not, I shall be sure to be raised at the latter day. Fall out what will fall out, all falls out well for the children of God.

Now the holy apostle, no question, had reference to both. He had both in his view, raising out of trouble and raising to eternal life, because he could never speak of any lesser deliverances without his mind running on the future, and that was where all comforts came to their end. All comforts end in the resurrection. Usually when Paul makes mention of a lesser thing, he mounts higher, he mounts to the highest of all; he does not rest his thoughts until he has thought of that. So in the end of this chapter he ends in the resurrection, and ends in comfort, speaking gloriously of it. So at this time, no question, all deliverances in this world were present to him, but especially eternal deliverance in the world to come. As in 2 Timothy 4:17-18: The Lord delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, and can and will deliver for the time to come, and present me to his heavenly kingdom; that I am sure of.

So it would be a very heavenly course for Christians, whenever they think of anything that comes from the love of God to them, to take hints from that, and to take notice of the outcome of all. All deliverances come to their end in the last deliverance out of the grave, and all blessings come to their end in the last blessing, life everlasting. And take everything as a pawn, a pledge, a beginning of that. For the same love that gives eternal comforts gives comforts in this world; and the same God who delivers out of the grave delivers us out of troubles; and the same God who will bring us all to heaven will bring friends together in this world, if it is for their good. And therefore if we would comfort ourselves solidly in any condition, let us extend our thoughts to the time to come. Was it David’s comfort when he said, “One thing have I desired of the Lord” (Ps 27:4)? Was it his meaning to confine his thoughts to that one desire, and to dwell in the church forever? No; “that I dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,” here while I live, and in heaven forever when I am gone. “Doubtless I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Ps 23:6), here while I live, and forever in heaven. Then they will be solid comforts. If the drops of comfort we have in holy things are carried on to the end of all, to everlasting deliverance by the resurrection and eternal comforts in heaven, then they would be comforts indeed. It is a good either-or when friends promise to meet again: “Well, we shall meet either here or in heaven, and perhaps both here and in heaven.” The same God who will comfort us in heaven, if he sees it good for us, will comfort us here with the presence of one another.

“He will raise us up, and present us with you.” That is another of his comforts. But what comfort is that in this world, if he means only the joy in the world to come? For I am persuaded that this is what he mainly aims at; the other was only what he raised his thoughts to by meditation. What a comfort it is that friend shall be presented to friend, pastor to people, believers among friends!

There are various kinds of communion. If we are absent, there is communion by letters, by tangible tokens, by message. But what are these compared to presence? Presence is the sweetest kind of communion there can be. Communion with one another in presence is communion in deed and in word. And therefore God will deliver us from trouble, and present us with you; for in presence everything speaks comfort. Even without conversation, the very presence of a friend comforts. There is a quick and living power in the very face of a friend. The eye comforts, the speech comforts, all comforts, and nothing but comforts, if they are hearty friends in the Lord.

And therefore Paul says that this shall be my comfort and your comfort, that I shall be delivered out of this death and presented with you, for your good and for my own comfort. And no question, this is a beginning of heaven in this world. If there is any heaven on earth, it is the communion of saints. It is when many join together in a holy affection, who have not only general likings for the same things, but have the same spirit acting and living in them all, one and the same Spirit of God stirring up approval and dislike of the same thing, and the same end, for good causes. This is a special comfort, if there is any comfort in this world.

And this is what Paul means when he says, I shall be delivered, and presented to you. And therefore we should take special care to make the most of communion by every means, considering it was so sweet a thing. “Oh, what meetings there were, and how great the glory!” when Paul had been separated from them a great while. Paul came with an abundance of the blessings of God, and they came with an abundance of desire to have heavenly conversation with St. Paul.

Thus while we are in this world we must be exercised with these intermittent comforts. This is a life of separation. We shall enjoy one another a while and then part, until we are in heaven, “and then we shall be for ever with the Lord.” “Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess 4:18). What is the comfort? “We shall be for ever with the Lord.” If it is such a comfort to enjoy communion with one another, what is it to enjoy communion forever with the Lord in heaven?

That is the meeting time, when body and soul shall meet, when Christ and all his members shall meet, when all the members of the church from the first to the last shall all meet. These three blessed meetings shall take place: Christ and we, and we with one another, and body and soul. Then is the meeting, then is the presenting. But all other meetings together are comforting as they are tastes of the last and everlasting meeting that shall be revealed.

This may comfort us in the parting of friends, and in the loss of friends by death. There will be a time of meeting again. Our head will bring all the members together, as it is said of Christ, that he shall gather all to a head (Eph 1:10). That is Christ’s office: to gather together all the children of God, from whom they had fallen; to gather them to the angels, with whom they were at odds; to gather them together, one to another, in love, and to gather them to themselves in peace. This is Christ’s work. This gathering together to a head belongs to Christ. And though we are not together now, yet in heaven we shall be.

Now the ground of this is that God, who has raised up Jesus, will do this by Jesus. Paul considers God in the way that serves his purpose. It is the act of a Christian, of a discreet and wise soul, to single out from God those attributes and those actions that suit his present distress or present condition. If a man is in perplexity, let him think of God as strong and wise. If a man is in any trouble, let him think of him as a good and powerful God. If a man is wronged, let him think of him as a God of vengeance: Thou God of vengeance, show thyself! (Ps 94:1). And when we are in any trouble, and cast down and dead, as when troubled by others’ deaths, then let us think of him as the God who can raise Christ out of the grave, who is our head.

And out of the love with which he loves both mystical Christ and natural Christ, the Lord is gracious to all for his sake. He who loves Christ as his own natural Son loves Christ mystical, all who are Christ’s, with the same love with which he loved Christ. As Christ himself prays that he will embrace all such with the same love with which he loved Christ himself (John 17:26), so God is well pleased and rests in his love, not only in his natural Son, but in all who are his. And therefore, out of love for his own Son, as he has raised him up and set him in heavenly places, he will raise up all who are his and are engrafted into him.

He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also. What is the consequence? Because he has raised up Jesus, therefore by Jesus he will raise us out of trouble. The ground is that Christ is a public person, and so in heaven is a public person, a second Adam, and raised up as a second Adam. And therefore he was raised up as a public person, and as a second Adam, and a root of all believers. He has taken heaven in our place as our husband, and we sit in heavenly places with him; and therefore God, who raised him up, will raise us up also.

If Christ is risen, we shall rise. There is no question of it, as he proves at large: “because I live ye shall live also” (John 14:19). I cannot pursue the point, but it is a point you are all acquainted with, being an article of faith. Therefore see the ground of this comfort. God will raise us up and bring us together, because he has raised Jesus. He is “the first-fruits of them that slept” (1 Cor 15:20). Now all the harvest is blessed in the first-fruits. Our first-fruits is Christ now. And therefore we shall be raised here out of little deaths, and at the resurrection out of the great death, and be forever with the Lord.

This may teach us this comforting observation: to see all our comforts in Christ first; to see all we look for from God, first in Christ and then in ourselves. If we look for love from God, see his love on Christ first. He loves us because he loves Christ first, and he loves us in him. If we look for resurrection, ascension, or glory, see it in Christ first. If we look for the performance of any promise, see that promise in Christ first, for all are made for his sake and made good in him, to Christ first and then to us. If we lack any grace, see it in Christ first, for he has fullness of the Spirit for our sakes: “And of his fullness we have received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).

So in both estates, of humiliation and of exaltation, each in turn, see all first in Christ and then in ourselves. Look on Christ in his state of humiliation, and see ourselves there. “Christ was a curse for us” (Gal 3:13), he died for us. All this is for us. And see all the evil that belongs to us taken away by him in his state of humiliation. He humbled himself to death, and became a curse for us. And so in his state of exaltation, in its several degrees. See our resurrection in his resurrection, our ascension in his ascension, our sitting in heavenly places by his sitting in heavenly places.

The ground is the union I spoke of before. And then, God has decreed that we shall be made conformable to his Son. We must be conformable to Christ our elder brother. We are chosen to be conformable to him. And therefore whatever was in him, there will be a conformity to it in us. And we must be content to go to heaven as Christ went. He first suffered and then entered into glory (1 Pet 1:10-11); he rose again, but he died first. We must be content to go to heaven by the way that our blessed head and Savior has gone before us. And if we do so, surely that God who raised him will raise us up too.

I beseech you, therefore, when we are to consider any comfort, see it in Christ first, not only as a pattern to whom we must be conformed, but see it in Christ as a cause, because Christ will raise us up. We shall not only be raised because he is raised, and ascend because he is ascended, but God will raise us up with Jesus. Between God and us comes Jesus, for all that comes from God comes from Jesus. So all that comes from us to God must go through the mediation of Jesus. “He that raised up Jesus will by Jesus raise us up.” Christ is not only a pattern of conformity, but likewise a cause.

And it heightens the favor that God does us this favor through such a one, who stands between him and us; that there should be so excellent a person as Christ to do all, to be a pattern of all, and the cause of all. For can there be a better than he to raise us out of trouble here, and to heaven hereafter? And then, he who is our own head, will he allow his members to perish? And what of him who stands in such favor with God, and is one with God, who as man lays hold on us, and as God lays hold on God, as a friend to him, being between both as a friend of both?

As he is God, so we must trust him with everything, with our rising again, with our ascension, with our glory in heaven. He is the Joseph between God and us. As Joseph conveyed all favor to the patriarchs, from Egypt, through Pharaoh, so Christ is the high steward of all, and has the dispensing of all his comforts: our sweet head, who is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to make us forever one with him. So there is comfort in the very deriving of comfort through so sweet, so loving, so gracious a head as Jesus is.

But you will say, “Will Christ raise us out of trouble likewise?” Yes, by the same power and virtue. For the virtue of Christ’s resurrection reaches farther than raising us from death; it extends itself to all abasements in the world. God raises us out of all abasements by the power by which he raised up Christ, and by the power by which Christ raised up himself. And therefore we should comfort ourselves in the distress of the church and in personal distresses.

And first, for the church. God raised up Christ, the head of the church, after three days, when they had rolled a stone upon the grave and set a watch too, and when Christ had been a surety to bear the sins of all the elect of the world from the beginning to the end. Christ had a stone upon his grave, so much earth and such a stone, and his grave watched and sealed; and besides this he had, as a public person, the sins of all the world. Yet Christ rose up again for all this.

Beloved, Satan and his instruments labor to bury the church if they can, and to roll a stone on the church, so that it should never rise up again. It was their design of late, in the Gunpowder Plot, and it is their purpose now, except that their power is a little broken. They would bury Christ and his church altogether, roll a stone on him, watch him so that he should never rise again. This they do; and now on the third day he shall rise again. There may be a limited time of Jacob’s sorrow, but there will be a day of deliverance. He who raised up the head of the church, after the time he had appointed for him to lie there under the bondage and captivity of death, will raise up the body of Christ.

Our times are not in our hands, nor in the devil’s time, nor in man’s time, but in God’s time. Men may oppose his time and be against his time. They shall cast you into prison for ten days (Rev 2:10). It is certain and sure, which may be a comfort to the church. The church beyond the seas was lately under hatches, and the enemy had got her into the grave and thought to have rolled the stone upon the church. But God, who raised up Jesus, has raised up the church in some comforting measure, by Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. This may put us in hope that now there is time to set prayer to work.

It puts encouragement into our hands. What God has done encourages us to pray to God for the finishing of his own good work. We have not only faith and promises, but performances to encourage us. We see the stone rolled off, as it were. This is our comfort, and this is the church’s comfort to the end of the world. She may be under the grave for a while, but God will send his angels, his messengers, one or another, to take away the stone and raise up the church, as in the parable of the dry bones (Ezek 37:1 and following). The church was as dry bones, but the Spirit entered into them, and made them live. So at length a spirit shall enter into the church, and it shall live. Babylon must fall; the church must rise. Christ will enlarge his church to the end of the world. Heaven has said it, and hell cannot annul what God has concluded. He who raised up Jesus will raise up the church out of all its troubles.

And for ourselves, in all deaths and all our desperate troubles, do not sink under them. Make use of the articles of faith. They have a wonderful, enlarged sweetness. The sweet article of the resurrection and life everlasting has influence on all our lives. Make use of that. God, who does the greater, will he not do the less, if it is for our good? Will God raise my body out of the grave, and not out of this sickness? God, who can raise me out of dust, can he not raise me out of this trouble, and present me to my friends again? If it is for my good, he can do it.

And let us rise from inferior things to strengthen our faith, and use the greatest things we hold in faith for the time to come. Will God give me life everlasting, and not daily bread? Will God give heaven, and not provision to bring me there? Will God raise me out of the dust, when it is scattered I know not where, and get all my dust together, and quicken that dust, and not quicken me out of this, if it is for my good and the good of others? If he has any service to do for me, he will do it.

And therefore, I beseech you, beloved, let us labor to strengthen our faith on the way to heaven by that which is to come. What made the apostles pass through thick and thin, and break through all the troubles between them and heaven, but that they thought God would deliver them? If he did not deliver them from trouble, he would deliver them to heaven, and present them to his heavenly kingdom. When they have heaven in their eyes, the time to come in heaven, resurrection in their eyes, and glorious times in their eyes, it will have such force and influence on their hearts that they shall go through all things between, and make this either-or: “Either God will raise me out of this, or out of the grave, and present me to his heavenly kingdom.”

I beseech you, therefore, learn this: in all our dejections, make use of that last and powerful work of God in raising from the dead. The raising comforts us for what is past. Our Savior Christ, our best part, our head, is in heaven, and we shall all draw to him in time. Let us not lose the benefit of such a meditation, of such a ground as this. See all in Christ beforehand; all is done in Christ. Beloved, can we have a better pledge and pattern than to see all we look for done in Christ beforehand? We look for the resurrection: Christ is raised. We look for ascension: Christ is ascended. We look for glory in heaven: Christ is glorified, Christ, and we in Christ; for when we think of Christ, we must think of ourselves in Christ. And therefore, when we hear the creed repeated, and the articles of religion, or anything of Christ, let us wrap ourselves up in Christ by the spirit of faith, and see ourselves crucified in Christ, and dead in Christ, and raised in Christ, and set in heavenly places with Christ.

I only offer you the heads, for your meditations to work upon. You see what excellent use the apostle makes of his faith. It made him believe, and speak confidently for the present. And therefore attend with cheerfulness upon the blessed means of the word and sacrament, which God has appointed to strengthen our union and communion with Christ. Christ is our life, and the nearer our communion with him, the more life we have. And the sacrament is appointed to seal this communion to us, to strengthen this near union, and to revive us with the spring and fountain of life, Jesus Christ.

And therefore come with exceeding comfort; and the more our union with Christ, the more our comforts in life or death. All depends on that. As we see, hope of resurrection, hope of deliverance, hope of glory, all depend on that union, first in Christ, then in us, and in us because in Christ. Therefore strengthen union with Christ, and strengthen all. As for the matter of the sacrament, you are acquainted with the doctrinal part of it; have this conception of it. It is a high ordinance of God, which strengthens faith, and faith, being strengthened, strengthens all the powers of the soul.

For all things are for your sakes, that most plenteous grace, by the thanksgiving of many, may redound to the praise of God (2 Cor 4:15).

The holy apostle, as we heard, labors to arm himself and all others against all discouragements in religion, by comforts drawn from religion.

He brings in various springs of comfort in this latter part of the chapter. “I believe, and therefore I have spoken”; as David believed, and therefore he spoke (2 Cor 4:13). It is no otherwise with us than with David and other saints before us, as we showed at length.

Last time we dealt with this comfort: that God would raise him out of his trouble, and present him together with the Corinthians in this life, and at the last in the world to come. And this rests on the ground that God raised up Jesus. “Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up by Jesus, and shall present us with you” (2 Cor 4:14). Of this I have already spoken at length.

I beg you, before I leave this point, learn this: that in all our dejection we make use of that last and powerful work of God, in raising from the dead.

I now proceed to what follows.

“For all things are for your sakes.” Here is a further ground of comfort, both of present deliverance and of its being for their sakes.

The second ground is that all is for the glory of God.

And the means of that glory is this: because the grace from which these deliverances spring abounds, thanksgiving abounds to the glory of God. Why should we be discouraged in suffering, since God will be present with us in sufferings, delivering us in time, considering that it is for the church’s good, and for the glory of God? And it is for the glory of God in this way, because it will supply matter of praise, not for one but for many, and out of this praise God will be glorified. This is the scope of the words.

The first ground of comfort is, “All are for your sakes”: both our sufferings, and God’s assistance and presence in them, and deliverance out of them. All is for you. We suffer for the elect’s sake (2 Tim 2:10); all is for your sake. Indeed, beloved, this is a broad and far-reaching consideration, for all is for the church’s sake, even the world itself. The standing of the world is for the church’s sake. If God had gathered in his elect, there would be an end of these sinful days. God would not allow the world to stand for another sinful generation, for a company of wretches who daily blaspheme his name, who pollute and defile their souls and bodies, who oppose his truth like rebels.

That the world continues is for the elect’s sake, that they may be gathered out of the world. The world is, as it were, reprieved, because many are yet to be born in the world; just as wicked women under sentence are reprieved when they are with child, for the sake of the one who is to be born. So the world continues because there is a generation to come; the number of the elect is not yet complete.

Thus you see that the very world, and the standing of the world, is for the church’s sake. The world is the elect’s, and so are things in the world, in heaven or on earth, in a certain sense. They are for the church’s sake. “To us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Isa 9:6); for the church he died, for the church he rose again, for the church he appears in heaven and makes intercession, as in Romans 8:34. He sits at God’s right hand making intercession for us. “I sanctify myself” (John 17:17, 19); that is, I prepare myself as a sacrifice to suffer for them. “I pray not for the world, but for them thou hast given me out of the world” (John 17:9). All that Christ suffered, and all that he enjoys and does in heaven as our head, is for the church’s sake.

That he gives gifts to wicked men, and that they continue, is for the church’s sake, that they may be instruments and servants of the church. In that sense they are redeemed by Christ, as servants of the church. We see in nature that summer and winter serve the vines and the fruitful trees and plants, and the good grain. In cold weather and warm weather alike, they have their leaves to cover them. And everything serves to bring forth the fruit, all these circumstantial things.

So it is with whatever is circumstantial in the world, such as kingdoms, states and governments. Those who hold them think to tumble about in the world for their own ends, and to toss the world as they please. Yet it is for a number of men unregarded and unknown, who pass here as unknown men, hidden men for the most part; it is for the church’s sake that those who hold kingdoms and states continue, that they have any favors. They are indebted to the church for their lives, to the church for their standing, and for the gifts they have, though they do not think so. God, the great God of heaven and earth, and Christ the great king of the church, with regard to his church, gives gifts to men, to magistrates, ministers and people, yes, even to those who are not good men, and all for the good of his church. So “all is for you”: word, sacraments, everything.

I might enter on a long discussion here, except that I unfolded it at length from that passage in Corinthians, “All is yours” (1 Cor 3:21), which is the general truth. The church is yours, “whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or things present, or things to come, or life, or death, or the world, all is yours, you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:22-23).

And from this general truth the apostle deduces this: “it is for your sake.” All things that we suffer, all things that are done to us, are for your sake. If all things are for the church’s sake, beloved, we ought to join with God, as Paul does here. Christ has, as it were, made over a deed of gift of all things to the church, to serve her need, to bring the church to heaven. Shall not God’s intent and Christ’s intent be ours? Paul says, All that I do and suffer is for your sake. It is a happy thing, beloved, when God’s intentions and ends and our ends meet in one, voluntarily. And God will bring all men’s ends to serve his against their wills. Oh, but happy are we if we can make our ends meet with God’s ends willingly and cheerfully.

Question. What is the ground of this, “that all things are for the church’s sake”?

Reason 1. The ground of it is that covenant in which God makes himself over, as it were, to the church: “I will be your God.” And Christ is, as it were, not his own; he is the church’s. Christ is the church’s. Therefore all are the church’s. All three persons of the Trinity have their title of excellence from their relation to the church: God a Father in regard to the church, Christ a redeemer in regard to the church, the Holy Spirit a comforter in regard to the church. So God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in covenant with the church. And they are the church’s, as it were making themselves the church’s, out of that infinite, bottomless love; being God, they have made themselves the church’s.

Now if God himself is the church’s, and in covenant with it, so that the church may make use of him and whatever is in him, all his excellent attributes, for their comfort and good, shall not all other things be the church’s? If God himself is reconciled to the church, shall not all things else be reconciled? If God is in covenant, shall not everything be? The stones in the street are in covenant with him, as Job says (Job 5:23).

Reason 2. A second ground, subordinate to this, is the union with Christ the king of the church. Now all things serve Christ, who is the king of heaven and earth. His kingdom reaches from heaven to the bottom of hell; he overrules cursed devils and wicked spirits. Who is he whom the devils obey? says God. Now if all things serve Christ, they serve his spouse, by reason of the union and spiritual commerce with Christ, to whom God has dedicated and committed the rule and government of heaven and earth. All things in heaven and earth are mine, committed to me, says Christ, when he ascended into heaven. And therefore as Christ is the great Lord of the world, so the church is the great queen and empress of the world.

All things serve Christ the husband, and all things must serve the church his spouse. It must be so. God is in covenant with the church, and Christ is hers by union with the church. “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (Ps 105:15). Withhold the hand of violence from them; they are mine. So Christ is head, king and husband of the church, and will not allow her to be wronged in his sight, but all things shall serve for the church’s good.

Reason 3. Again, to come nearer and lower, to ourselves. If you look to us, all is for the church’s sake, the children of God too, because God has put a Spirit into his church to extract good out of all. “All is for your sakes.” The Spirit of God will teach you to see God seeking your good in all things. God puts it into the spirit of his children to seek the good of his church in all things. Paul had the Spirit of God to direct his aims, as none but the child of God has right aims, to seek God in all things, and his glory.

The church has the Spirit of God to see God seeking their good in all things. “This shall turn to my good,” says Paul, “through the supplies of the Spirit and your prayers” (Phil 1:19). The church prays that all things may serve for his good, that God would sanctify all his crosses and afflictions, that God would bless magistrates, ministers and all ordinances for their good. So with the Spirit of God, and this active exercise of the Spirit of thanksgiving and prayer, all things are made for the church’s good, because they have a spirit showing itself especially in a spirit of prayer, to work good out of everything. Therefore the children of God pray that God would bless each one’s sufferings and deliverances, and all things, not for his own good, but for the church’s good.

And the church itself and every good Christian labor to see God seeking and deriving good for them out of everything, because of the covenant of God, being friends of God; and they are near to Christ, and near to God in Christ. And they labor to see the love of God and the love of Christ in all things, so that the sweetness and communion of that love may be increased. God acquaints them with his secrets in everything, as much as may be for their eternal good, and with the secrets of his election, how he directs and orders all things to their good. He never corrects without instructing by it. He never afflicts without their knowing the ground of it, and so by the Spirit of God they are enabled to draw good out of everything. In prosperity they see God seeking their encouragement; in crosses they see God seeking their humility and repentance. So on these and other grounds which I might name, all things are for the church’s sake. Why do the children of God look for the good of the church?

The reason why St. Paul as a minister sought the good of the church was the relation between a master and a people, between an apostle and a people called and gathered by him; and, in his relation as a Christian, because he was a fellow member with them.

If I were speaking to ministers, I would speak of the relation between pastors and people, how they should seek the good of one another. But as a Christian, all is for your sake. There is no Christian who, as soon as he is a Christian, does not have a public mind breathed into him, to seek the good of others; he concurs with God willingly. As soon as ever he is a Christian, he learns self-denial. He knows he has given up himself and all to God, to the church, and he has become a servant to others for Christ’s sake. As soon as ever a man begins to be a Christian he has a spirit of love, and does not seek his own good. As soon as ever a man becomes a Christian, he has an enlarged spirit, he has higher and farther aims, and large affections toward God and the church; his soul is large.

All other men are cramped in their affections and cramped in their aims. They have poor aims and ends of their own. And in their affections they are cramped; they cannot love, nor long after good things; yes, they are confined to their own in all things. Such a man is within his own circumference, within his own limit; the point to which he brings everything back is himself. He brings all back to himself, and seeks himself in all things. He does not think that he sins, but he does, for it is impossible for any but a Christian to seek the good of others as they should. But as soon as he is a Christian, the Spirit of God makes the heart public, to seek the good of others.

And the more of the Spirit of Christ people have, the more they seek the good of others; and those who are greatest in heaven are the greatest servants. Christ is greatest in heaven, and who was more made a servant? He became a curse to make us blessed, and poor to make us rich. As he was the greatest servant, who died for others, so those who are the greatest next to him have learned self-denial.

The greatest are not those who heap up great estates and are put into great places, but those who have public minds and public spirits, who seek the good of others, and abase themselves for the good of others, such as Paul is here: “All is for you, and for your sake.”

I beg you, therefore, make this use of it: learn from so excellent an apostle as St. Paul was, to have large affections and public aims and ends. Labor to discern your condition and state by this, that you have the Spirit of Christ in you, because to do good to others you can deny yourselves. “All things are for your sake.”

This should likewise teach us to have an honorable and high esteem of God’s people. Are they those for whom Christ gave himself, and for whom he made himself of no reputation and power? Are they those whom heaven and earth serve, and shall we despise them? Are they God’s darlings, as dear to him as the apple of his eye? Are they the jewels, as the Scripture portrays them in such excellent terms? Are they his friends? Are they his heirs and fellow heirs with Christ? Are they such as the Holy Scriptures describe them? Are “all things for their sakes”? And shall we not have an honorable esteem of them? Let this correct our notions of them, that they are not worthy to live in the world, when indeed the world is not worthy of them. “All things are for your sake.” Suppose they have nothing in possession; yet in use and service all things serve them, to bring them to heaven and direct them for their good.

They are here as princes in a strange country, who must be honored for their father’s sake and for their country’s sake. They shall be great men when they come home. And therefore, however the world values and esteems them, when we see any worth of grace and of the Spirit of God, think that these are yours; for the present, all things are theirs. Oh, but how great will they be! These shall be Christ’s, not the world’s; these shall sit and judge the world; they shall judge me before long, if I am not a Christian. Now, therefore, let me beware of despising one of Christ’s little ones, of demeaning one who is so great in God’s esteem, for whose sake the world stands. And let this respect for them be evidence to us that we have another spirit than the world has, that we know another Christ.

And again, let it comfort God’s people, who have some testimony that they are his, in their losses, in their crosses, in their mistreatment in the world. Let them consider: is that what they are to God, is that what they are to Christ? Oh, no! Let them labor therefore for a spirit of patience and courage to go through good reports and bad reports, good usage and bad usage; for the worst thing that befalls them has a command to do them good. Do the young man no harm, says David of Absalom (2 Sam 18:5). And so all things have a command to do God’s people no harm. Kings have a prohibition: “Touch not mine anointed” (Ps 105:15). There is a prohibition given that no hurt shall be done.

They may kill them, but not hurt them; imprison them, but not hurt them; they may wrong them, but not hurt them. That is, they cannot hinder their everlasting good, they cannot take away their Christ, their comfort, their peace, or touch their good names; but often, against their wills, they do them most good when they think to do them most harm. And therefore, I beg you, labor for a spirit of comfort, considering that all things are for our sakes, if we are Christ’s.

I have been somewhat long on the point, but it is comforting and useful. I will now hasten to what follows.

“All things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace, through the thanksgiving of many, may redound to the glory of God” (2 Cor 4:15).

The second ground of comfort is from the main end of all, which is the glory of God. Here is a sweet combination of the grace of God and the glory of God, “that abundant grace, through the thanksgiving of many, might redound to the glory of God.” The links of this chain are these. God allows his children to be exercised in this world. In the exercise he gives evidence of his presence, by grace and by comfort. And after all he delivers them, giving them cause and matter of praise; and that praise is the praise not only of themselves, but of many. The praise of themselves and of many returns to the glory of God. Here grace breeds praise, and praise breeds glory.

We will handle the words as they lie: “that the abundant grace, through the thanksgiving of many, may redound to the glory of God.”

“The abundant grace.” What does he mean by abundant grace? We shall know it a little by distinguishing a little the word “grace” in the Scripture.

The first and original grace is the free favor of God in forgiving sins, and access to life everlasting.

Secondly, the next grace, which springs from that, is the grace by which we are sanctified, usually called habitual grace, by which our natures have a stamp of Christ on them, and we are transformed into his image.

Thirdly, grace is the stirring of us up, exciting grace that stirs up the grace that is in us, and draws it forth to particular actions of doing, and suffering, and resisting, and carrying ourselves as Christians should. For besides the favor of God, and the fruit of that favor in our nature, there must be spiritual stirring grace, to act and stir up the grace which would otherwise lie sleeping in us. There must be new grace on all occasions. God must give the will and the deed (Phil 2:13). God must stir us up to every good action, as I have shown at length before. A man cannot do the good he is enabled to do by habitual grace, unless he has grace to stir him up to do it. As he has all graces in general to enable him, so he must have new graces for every new act; he must have constancy of spirit. And if the troubles are great, there are enlargements of grace, just as if a man carries a greater burden, he must have more strength.

But, fourthly, grace is any favor that comes from the first and original grace and favor of God. As we say of a great man, when he gives a petty thing to an inferior person, “This is such a man’s grace.”

Or grace is such a thing as springs from his love and favor to us. So not only the favor of God that accepts us to life everlasting, and that inward grace of God’s Spirit, and that actual grace that stirs us to every good action, but everything that comes from God is grace.

When God once enters into covenant with us, to become our God and to love us in Christ, whatever befalls us comes to us as a fruit of that love. For since he is Lord of heaven and earth, and has all things at his command, he will not allow the wind to blow upon his church, he will not allow the waves to beat upon it, except out of love and for the good of the church. Otherwise his government and wisdom would be called into question.

Fifthly, and lastly, by abundant grace is meant the presence of God, the assistance of God to Paul in suffering, and God’s delivering him out of trouble. These two things he especially means: God’s presence in troubles, and his delivering him out of them.

It is a grace of God that we have faith. It is a grace of God that we have strength to suffer for that faith. To endure anything is a special grace. “To you it is given to suffer” (Phil 1:29). It is a more special grace when we have not only grace to believe and grace to suffer, but strength of faith. And therefore “it is given, not only to believe, but to suffer.” It is grace to have special peace, and joy, and comfort in the midst of every contrary spiritual condition. And therefore God’s presence and comfort in the midst of Paul’s disconsolate state was a grace. And not only is the doctrine of suffering for Christ a grace, but whatever comes from the presence of God is a grace likewise.

And likewise his deliverance out of trouble is a grace. For as gold comes purer out of the furnace, so Paul comes out of trouble richer in experience: rich in faith, rich in love, rich in mortification, more heavenly-minded in the experience of God and his ways, and rich every way. And therefore it is an exceeding grace. And then it is a grace that God will bound and limit the malice of the devil and his instruments, so that they may trouble his people just so long, and then must set them at liberty. So by this we may plainly see that all is done in favor of the church.

So it is a grace that God has put bounds and limits to the boundless malice of Satan and his instruments, and that he delivers the church, or any poor member of the church, as Paul was delivered, at any time. And therefore they were to reckon as graces all that they were to praise God for, both his trouble and his deliverance out of trouble, since both are graces.

Question. But why does he call it “abundant grace”?

Answer. St. Paul does this out of his abundant humility and out of his abundant love to God, out of his abundant measure of knowledge of the love of God toward him. For Paul saw and knew his own lack of worth and his own weakness in himself, and that at the very best he was nothing in himself. And St. Paul weighed and considered the mighty power and malice of the enemy, the devil and his instruments, who labored to trouble him and oppose the gospel. When Paul saw that opposition and his own weakness, and when he saw likewise the evidence and demonstration of the excellency of God in being present with him in trouble and delivering him out of trouble, and saw the power, and goodness, and mercy of God, here was an abundant grace. Here was a spring tide of grace, an overflowing, as David says, “My cup overfloweth” (Ps 23:5).

I have not only enough for necessity, he says, but something for abundance: “My cup overfloweth, and thou hast spread my table in the sight of mine enemies.” David considered the circumstances of God’s bounty, for it was abundant. And when Paul considered the great comforts he had in the Lord, his great enemies and God’s, and their malice against him and his God, here was an abundant grace.

Beloved, let us learn from this, first of all, to see God in everything that befalls us: in sufferings, in deliverance, in the dealings of others toward us. See the grace of God in it. There is, you know, in things in this world, the bulk and surplus, or body of things; and then there is the spirit, and quintessence, and vigor of things, an extract, the vigor and quintessence of things. What are things without it? They are next to nothing. Take God’s grace, God’s mercy, out of things, and what are things? What is the world? Take away God’s love, and what are riches? What are honor and worth? Therefore, in everything, see it as a grace, see it as derived from the original grace, from the favor and mercy of God in Jesus Christ. And then we cannot but be thankful, for we shall see the sweetness of grace.

Every little gift, though it comes by the hand of man, indeed, every injury that is sanctified, the Christian sees as a grace of God, and looks to see God in it, his free love and grace among men. What is it that commends to us anything that comes from another? Not the thing, but the mind of the person who sends it; not the bringer, but the sender. So when we have anything, look to God the sender. Look not to the thing, but to the love of God in the thing, which is the spirit, and quintessence, and vigor of the thing, the best thing in it. Indeed, the substance of anything in the world is the love of God in it, conveyed to us through it. Let the grace of God be conveyed through losses, crosses, injuries, and they are sweet. “It is given to suffer” (Phil 1:29). Not everyone is a partaker of such a favor.

See the grace and favor of God in health, and wealth, and strength, and riches, the life and quintessence of all, which commends all to a Christian soul. God channels and conveys his grace and love to men through this. This is a little drop of that great love that he bears to me in Jesus Christ. This comes from that love by which he intends heaven for me. And when God intends heaven and happiness for us, and that we should be with him forever, everything that befalls us along the way has something of that love, dipped, as it were, in that love. Whatever befalls us between this and heaven, if we are God’s children, has a tincture of that love, which moves him to keep heaven for us.

And therefore labor to see the grace and love of God in everything; see the language of Canaan, the language of the Spirit of God. What gives anything the title of grace is this: it is a free gift, an undeserved thing issuing from love. The word implies love and freeness, and undeserving in the person who has it. Therefore, think of everything we have in this way: it comes first from this grace; it is undeserved on my part; it comes from love. This will make us use things as we should, to the glory of the Giver, and it will make us comforted in all conditions, seeing them as grace.

And labor, as the apostle does here, to see them as abundant graces, to raise the favors of God to a high esteem, as Paul does here: “It is abundant grace.” And that we may think the grace of God is great, consider to whom he has denied it. Has he not denied it to thousands? Therefore we have abundant grace in us, with great opposition; therefore it is an abundant grace. Consider the designs of the devil and devilish-minded men, who would have the church trampled underfoot. Is it not above our worth? Do we deserve so much? Oh no! Then it is “abundant grace.” We who deserve nothing should be thankful for everything, as a beggar who deserves nothing is thankful for every little gift. Labor in this way to see a grace in everything, and labor to see an abundant grace.

The graces of God bestowed on St. Paul raise up the thankfulness of many, and that tends to the glory of God. St. Paul had the prayers of many, for he had commended himself to their prayers: “Strive with God for me by prayer” (Rom 15:30); and so with the Philippians and others, “I shall be delivered by your prayers” (Phlm 22). It was usual with Paul to commend himself to the church and people of God; and having done so, he knew that as a matter of course they would praise God. As he desires them to pray for him, that God would be present with him in trouble and deliver him out of it, so he knew they would praise God. And as many prayers for him, so many praises for him; and therefore, “through the thanksgiving of many …”

Beloved, see here that the blessing of God bestowed upon public persons, or upon the church, or upon public persons in the church, should stir up thanks, and many thanks from many persons. Many thanks were given for the grace of God shown to St. Paul.

Reason 1. I said before that a Christian, when he becomes a true Christian, has the Spirit of Christ in him and has learned self-denial. He can love others, especially public persons who are eminent in their standing for the good of the church, upon whom the good and honor of the church depend in great measure. And therefore you see the Corinthians praise God for St. Paul.

We should therefore labor to consider what favors God shows to his church, to any public person in the church, magistrates, ministers, or any notable Christian or friend; praise God for his benefits to others. Thus, in the prophet David’s time, the good people made a circle, as it were: “The righteous shall come about me” (Ps 142:7), and they were glad and joyful and gave praise for his sake. And this made him say, “Come hither, ye children, and I will teach you what the Lord hath done for my soul” (Ps 66:16). He invites them to come and tells them what the Lord has done for him, that they may praise God. “The righteous shall hear it and be glad” (Ps 64:10). And therefore, in the communion of saints, the sweetest communion is rejoicing and giving thanks for the good that God does to others, especially those who are eminent in the church.

Reason 2. Another reason, which concerns ourselves, is this: our good is laid up in the good and prosperity of others. Our good is in the fellowship of the church and commonwealth; our private welfare is in the public. As it is in the state, so especially in that heavenly commonwealth of the church, the communion of saints: the good of one depends on the good of the other. Why? Because God channels and conveys all good to man by man. It is his ordinance; he will have it so. And therefore, considering that he channels good to men by men, when he shows any favor to any man, we ought to praise God for it, because God channels good by that man to us.

A Christian is a public good, because he has a public mind. When he has any favor from God, he is sure the public shall be the better for it; he will be useful, he will be serviceable. As soon as ever a man is a Christian, he becomes as a tree of righteousness. And therefore, if you see favors bestowed upon any good man, thank God for it, especially if it is a Paul, a blessed instrument on whom the good of many depends.

Therefore, what shall we say of those who are led by the spirit of envy, who think they have the less the more others have, who have an evil eye? Oh, beloved, take away that cursed spirit of envy! What I have is yours, and what you have is mine; in religion there is a kind of blessed community. The more you have, the more I have. If your envy does not hinder you, and if envy is taken away, the more you have, the more I have. Oh, take heed of this cursed spirit, which hinders us from praising God for the good of others, as Paul does here, who says that God shall have praise, and many praises, for his goodness shown to him.

Now, he says many praises because many had prayed. When they receive the harvest of prayers, they are thankful. You know that prayer is a sowing in God’s bosom. Prayer is a seed. So many prayers, so many seeds sown in heaven. When the harvest comes, when they see the fruit and issue of their prayers, then they praise God.

If we will therefore praise God, learn this one thing, to observe what we pray for; not to pray at random and never observe whether God answers or not, that we may be able to render him the tribute due to him. Observe how he answers our prayers for the church, for the special instruments of the church’s good, king and state; how he answers our prayers for our particular friends; and then let him have the tribute he requires of everyone, which is only praise.

There is a kind of friendship between God and us, by which we enter into covenant with him; and friendship is maintained by duty, by a return for whatever we receive. Now, when we pray to God and have this blessing and that blessing, and give nothing back to God, friendship will not be maintained without a return. When men are graves for benefits, burying them and returning nothing, this dissolves the bonds of friendship among men; and it dissolves also that bond with God, when they draw down blessed benefits and return nothing back again. Thanks is nothing but a reflection of the favors in which he has first shone on us. It is his due, and an echo. Therefore give thanks for blessings to ourselves and others. And to that end, observe how he hears our prayers for ourselves and others.

But how does the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God? Certainly it does, “that the thanksgiving of many may redound to the glory of God.” The more heart, the better music in God’s ears, the better music and the louder music; the more the prayers are, the more are the praises. The wise man says, “The glory of a king is in the multitude of his subjects” (Prov 14:28), and the glory of God is in the multitude of subjects, thankful subjects, who will return praise to him and give him the tribute he requires at our hands. The wages and service are, to him, the more the better. When a company can, as it were, levy an army, not only in prayers, to offer a holy violence to God to get a blessing, but, when it is gotten, to join in company to praise God, oh, it is a blessed sound, a blessed noise in God’s ears, when many do it.

Reason. The reason is this, because there is more abundance of incense. Prayers and praises are incense, and if the prayer of any one man is powerful with God, of one righteous man, what is the prayer of many righteous men? If the praise of one man is incense, what are the praises of many? “If where two or three be gathered together, Christ is in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20), what will he do where two or three thousand are gathered? Will he not be much more in the midst of them? O beloved, company is excellent here, and therefore, as you have it recited well in the psalms, stir up one another to praise the Lord: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, praise his holy name” (Ps 103:1). But that is not enough: Praise the Lord all his angels, all the creatures. The holy prophet puts a voice into hills, dragons, mountains, rivers, and every creature, that they may praise the Lord (Ps 148:7).

But fearing he should not have heart and spirit enough to praise God enough, he stirs up sons of Levi, sons of Aaron, angels of heaven, to praise God. So large was the heart of that blessed man, because he knew that if the praises of one would be acceptable, what would the praises of many be? Why do we have such narrow hearts? Indeed, God intends our good, God intends it, to make us heavenly-minded, who would otherwise have been like moles in the earth; but in regard of God, he intends that we may think of God and praise God. And therefore there is a psalm of the Sabbath (Ps 92), in which there is a high exaltation of God’s works.

And we have the sacrament. Why is it called eucharist, the Greek word, but because it is a praising of God? Having the sacrament, we are to praise God for the good we have by his body broken, his blood shed; and therefore we have cause for the greatest praise that ever was, for the greatest gift that ever was given, “the Son of man.” This is God’s end in Sabbaths, in sacraments, his end in all his favors and blessings both in this life and a better one; and therefore let us stir up our hearts, and stir up others to praise God, that thanksgiving may abound by many. But I cannot finish this argument, so necessary.

For some rules on how to do it, I will not go out of the text, because I have spoken of thanksgiving on every occasion.

If we will praise God, see that everything is a grace, a grace and abundant grace, answerable to the degrees of goodness. The abundant grace indeed is Jesus Christ, who is the gift of gifts, and the cause of all gifts, and the good we have by him. The abundant mercy in God is new birth in Christ. There is the abundant grace. But even in the things of this life, that we have sacraments, ministers, helps to heaven, is abundant grace. Beloved, whatever we have more than hell, which is ours by nature, is all grace; and when we are Christians, and delivered from the fear of hell, whatever is over and above is a grace. If we were poor all our life, and miserable all our life, what would that be? But when, on our way to heaven, God gives double portions, mercy here and abundant mercy hereafter, here is abundant redundant grace.

Therefore if we will be thankful, see grace and abundant love in everything. And consider the circumstances that increase the favors of God in Christ toward us: when we were unworthy, when we deserved the contrary. It came in opposition to the enemy; it came when we had much comfort in it, being stripped of all other comforts. See it come from the spring of God’s favor, and see all its sweet circumstances, and that will make us thankful.

And then consider that it is all we can do or need to do. It is just that we should do it. God does not need our thanks or praises, but it is justice on our part. Is it not just that we should return praise, that rivers should run into the sea, from whence they came, that beams should reflect to the sun, from which they came? An unthankful person is an unjust person. Therefore stir up others, that the thanksgiving may be by many.

But now you see what cause he gave the church to be thankful. Beloved, if we have the Spirit of God, and if we consider the churches abroad, to whom this is grace, and not to them only but to us also, since we are all the spouse of one husband, branches of one root, heirs of one inheritance, sheep of one flock and pasture, all as from one head, then whatever God does, and whatever favors he shows to our brethren beyond the seas, there is grace, and abundant grace shown. And now there ought to be thanksgiving, and “thanksgiving of many,” if there were many prayers, and for the church.

Everyone who has the spirit of prayer has many prayers for the church of God, and so much humiliation for the misery of the church, which, as the psalmist says, “lay among the pots” (Ps 68:13), as scullions do, all besmeared and all bedaubed with misery. But now God has brought it from “among the pots,” and covered it with silver wings, the wings of a dove, and begins to restore beauty and excellency to the church. As we were then ready to pour forth our prayers on behalf of the church, now let us labor to have our hearts enlarged for his mercy to the church, that there may be thanksgiving, and thanksgiving of many. This is our duty, and all who have the Spirit of God will do it.

Thus the saints of God have done at all times. You see, when the ark was brought into Jerusalem, how David forgot himself and his kingly state and danced before the ark, so far that Michal his wife scoffed at him (2 Sam 6:14 and following). And so we should rejoice, as if we had forgotten ourselves, especially those whom it nearly concerns; as indeed it concerns us all, for if we were in their case, we would want others to rejoice on our behalf. Prayers went “out of Zion.” God blessed the church out of our Church of England; our prayers helped them. An army of prayers is as good as an army of fighters. Now as an army of prayers went out of our Zion, so let an army of praises go out of our Zion: “Praises wait for thee in Zion” (Ps 65:1), says the psalmist.

When there is matter for praise, make the best use of it. We have waited for matter for praise, we have waited for good news, and we have news. Now as God has helped out of Zion, so let us help with our praises, for praises help as well as prayer. So it was in the story of Jehoshaphat: after they had praised God in a solemn, special manner, the victory came (2 Chr 20:21). Now praises prevail more than prayers, for there is more self-denial in praises than in prayer. God has more honor, and all his attributes are given to him, whereas self-love may move a man to pray. Therefore, I beg you, as we have helped them with our prayers, so help them with our praises to God, for that will help them still farther and farther. When God sees that he gains a return by our praises, we shall have matter for praise more and more, and still cause to pray that we may have a heart to praise; and praises shall be evermore a pleasing obligation to God.

But a place of all places is Revelation 19, where you see a voice in heaven crying to God to avenge the blood of his saints on that man of sin and that cursed seat there, and how all creatures in heaven and earth have their alleluias against these things. “I heard a great voice and much people in heaven,” that is, the church, say, “Alleluias! Salvation, glory, and honor, and power, be given to the Lord our God,” much people. Here are many thanksgivings. When antichrist begins to fall, Babylon to fall, we who belong to the people of God, if we have a part in heaven or any portion in heaven, will praise God, we will have our alleluias.

And now because the work is beginning, we should join with a choir of heaven, join with the people of God, join with angels, join with all God’s people. “Alleluia! Salvation, glory, honor, and power, be to the Lord our God.” Why, what is the reason? “For true and righteous are his judgments; he hath judged the great whore, which corrupted the earth with her abominations.” And again, “they cried, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever;” and so “the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped God. Alleluia. Praise God all ye servants, ye that fear him, both small and great,” praise and glorify God, and let all, small and great, in heaven and earth, join in praises. If we had any wise consideration of what God is working now in heaven, how he exalts himself, what excellent attributes he shows in delivering his church, of power, and justice, and mercy in destroying his enemies; if we have divine spirits, let us sing forth praises to God, expecting by God’s blessing more matter to praise God, to sing alleluias as the church did there.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor 4:16-18).

Let me touch a little on the two former verses, for they are part of that heavenly comfort by which the holy apostle raises up his spirit in the midst of all discouragements, multiplying comfort upon comfort, as trouble upon trouble.

“But we do not faint; though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). “We do not faint.” Indeed, if we look at outward causes, there is great reason why we should faint. For if we look within, nature is weak, and the suggestions of the flesh have been strong since the fall. And then we are usually beset with temptations of discouragement in our particular calling, thinking we could do anything better than what we are called to. This is a heavy temptation. And we tell ourselves that if it were to do this thing or that thing, it might more easily be done. And then there is hard usage from the ungrateful world; when a man does any good, he receives ill for it.

These are great grounds of fainting, but the apostle says he does not faint for all this, “though our outward man perish.” He grants that the outward man, body and condition, strength and health, may grow more and more downward. But the inward man, the soul, is under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and it is renewed day by day. The outward man wastes away continually. Death and life work together; we die as soon as we live. It is like a man who holds a lease: every day it is shorter and shorter. While we live we die, and the more we live the more we die. Death stands at the last moment, but the candle is going out continually until it is spent. Indeed, more than this: let a man use his body ever so holily, let him endure many crosses, the outward man will perish. It must be so.

But where is the comfort? “The inward man is renewed day by day.” The inward man is the sanctified soul. All the graces of God are renewed; they are upheld under the wasting condition of the outward man. This is the blessed condition of a true Christian, that when he grows downward he grows another way. He does not wholly perish as a base wretch does, but as he decays in one part he is renewed in another. God by his Spirit renews him. For as in the body the spirit is what gives life to what we do, so the Spirit of God gives vigor to the inward man day by day.

But when is it that the inward man is renewed day by day? In the time of affliction, for then we grow most; for in time of prosperity we grow backward. Usually in time of prosperity, when all things are according to our will and desire, we go backward; but when the outward man decays, the inward man is renewed day by day. We decay in prosperity, but we grow in adversity, as a body shoots up more after sickness than before. Why then should we be afraid of sickness and weakness of body, considering it is a time of growth for the inward man? Mark the gracious goodness of God. When he takes away strength, because we are not for this life, he makes it up, working strength and vigor in the inward man. We owe God a death. Since we must die, is it not better that the decay be made up in the inward man? If we gain what is gain to the soul, though with weakness and sickness to the outward man, it is well gained, because that is for eternity.

But this is a constant course with God. He is so good that he never takes anything away from his children without giving it to them another way. Shall we then be discouraged when God takes strength, and makes it up in the inward man? If anything is a ground of patience, this is. Whatever God does to his children, there is love hidden in the doing of it. If he gives comfort, it is to encourage. Does he follow us with crosses? It is that we may grow in the inward man. If we had hearts to follow God in his dealing, we should lose nothing but what he takes away.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works a far more exceeding weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17). Here is a ground of comfort to those who are in any crosses and afflictions. Whatever they suffer, it works glory, it works happiness; it is set forth by glory. Now the Spirit of God sets forth this future state of a Christian by way of comparison with anything we suffer. Here are afflictions, here is glory; momentary afflictions, eternal glory; light afflictions, a weight of glory; and not only a weight, but a superlative, an exceeding weight of glory. So the Spirit of God meets all discouragements here, for we can suffer nothing here but we shall have better for it afterward. Grace is glory, but mixed with imperfection. What are those things we suffer here in this world, compared to glory, and eternal glory, and excessive glory? What cause have we to be discouraged by anything we suffer here?

But he says afterward, “causeth unto us an eternal weight of glory.” That is more than to say that glory follows afflictions; there is a causal power in what we suffer, to work glory. We know that the working by way of merit and desert is done by Christ; we have a right to glory only by Christ. And it is sacrilege to attribute it to any creature, except in the sense of a working power that fits us. Now afflictions work by way of fitting us for that glory to which we have title by Christ. As soon as a man is a Christian, he has title to heaven. But how does God fit us for heaven? One way is by crosses and afflictions. He fits us for heaven as the winter fits the ground for the spring, by killing the weeds and mellowing the ground. So whatever we suffer here fits us for heaven, and that in many ways.

(1) By weaning our hearts from the love of these things, upon which we are desperately set. When we see what they are, we see they are vanity.

(2) And then again, they exercise and try our graces, and they increase a desire of heaven; and we know that the more hardly we are used here, the more we desire to be at home. And usually God reveals himself more sweetly and more comfortably in these hard times. We feel more of heaven in our worst times. Therefore they have a fitting power.

Question. How does this come to pass? Do crosses, losses, curses, and such things have this power naturally?

Answer. God by his Spirit overpowers and overrules these things, and there is a sanctified use of them that helps them to work. “All things work together for the best to them that love God” (Rom 8:28); that is, God’s power so overrules them that it makes them advantageous to his children. And his children, by the grace of God’s Spirit, draw a sanctified use out of everything. So by the grace of God the worst things work an eternal weight of glory.

As God prepares heaven for us, so he prepares us for heaven: he prepares us by Christ, but also by the cross and affliction. So you may see the truth of the point.

Use 1. But what shall I say of popish merits? For in merits there must be a proportion to the things we suffer. We receive glory forever, and suffer afflictions for a time; a weight of glory. This overthrows popish notions.

Use 2. Beloved, are they not out of their wits who add vexation to God’s children? What is the worst they do? They work their good. They vex them; yes, but they work their happiness, as if a man would hurt a fish by casting it into the sea, or a bird into the air. And when a Christian is vexed, it drives him nearer to heaven. It is his best condition. Compare our careless, complacent state with our afflicted condition, and see which is best. There is no man who is a Christian but will say that there is more in the cross than in prosperity; the one dulls, but the other sharpens.

Use 3. Do not be discouraged, whatever befalls us in this world. While Satan works our hurt, God is then working our good at the same time. When the outward man is wronged by the world, at the same time the inward man is set at liberty. So much for that.

But how does it come to pass that these things we suffer fit us for glory?

Verse 18: It is brought about by grace, enabling us to eye things that are not seen. And then we reason, “because the things that are seen, are temporal, but the things that are not seen, are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).

Passing over various things, I hasten on to other things.

But you see that the things we suffer do work for us an eternal weight of glory, as medicine does on the body. What we suffer does no good unless we use those parts and graces that God has given us. And therefore he says, while our minds are occupied, and “looking on things that are not seen,” for God has made man a reasonable creature. And so in the way to salvation he sanctifies those principles he has given him, to bring him to heaven by way of discourse and reason. And as a Christian is saved, so he is saved by something in his understanding. As we see in this world that man works by principles in him, so it is in the way of Christianity.

Some things are hindrances to heaven and happiness, such as conceitedness and self-sufficiency. Therefore the apostle says these things “work an eternal weight of glory,” not whether we think of them or not; but these things do so because God gives a sanctified understanding, to see the difference between heavenly things and earthly, when we do not look on things that are seen.

This much will serve to give you a reason how the inward man grows more and more, and we do not faint: because we look on things that are not seen.

What I will speak of at this time is this: that the best things in this world are not seen; the lowest things are those that are seen. The best things are to come; the lowest things are present. The best things are such as are eternal; the lowest things are temporal. And when I have unfolded these, then I will show you a wise and gracious use the sanctified soul makes of looking on things that are not seen, and how its sight works, and what use we are to make of it.

Doctrine. The observation is that a Christian is to look to the things not seen, for things seen are not the object of a Christian’s eye. The best things are not seen; the lowest things are such as are seen. I will not stay to unfold the negative part much, because I have spoken of that before.

But to speak especially of this: what are the things that are not seen?

Beloved, if you labor to be good Christians, you will better feel them than I can tell you what they are; you will better know them by experience than by discourse here.

(1) We cannot see God face to face. We do not have immediate communion with God here. We have it in the word and sacraments; but in heaven we shall see all things that are good. Here we may see God in everything; there we shall see everything in God. There we shall see health, and strength, and comfort in God.

(2) Among the things not seen here is Christ in our flesh. The heavens are between us and him now. The sight of him is the happiness of a Christian, for the head and members to be together, husband and wife together. Yes, but here we are severed. Here there is a spiritual communion, but that is not what the soul looks for.

(3) Neither do we have full communion of saints; for here there is a mixture of good and bad, and here the best have their imperfections. If here a holy joining together of two or three wise Christians is so sweet, what will it be when we all meet together in heaven? Now we do not see God, and Christ, and the blessed souls in heaven.

(4) Here we do not see our perfect liberty.

(5) Here we do not see that eternal Sabbath we shall have there.

(6) Here we do not see that perfection of grace.

(7) Here we do not see that comfort we shall have there. Here we have a taste and the beginning, but what is this compared with what is there? Therefore let us think of what is not seen.

Objection. But why do we not see them here?

Reason 1. You might as well ask me, Why is heaven not on earth? God will have a difference between heaven and earth; he will have us walk by faith and not by sight. Heaven is a place for sight: if we will have happiness in sight, it is in heaven. But here we have hope, and faith, and some feeling of comfort; and therefore, considering that our condition is by faith, God preserves matter of sight for another world.

Reason 2. Again, the best things are not seen, because we do not have proportionable parts. Our parts are not fitted for that glory. Peter, James, and John were, as it were, drunken with this sight, so that Peter speaks he knows not what (Luke 9:33). And Moses, when he came from God, had to cover his face (2 Cor 3:13). If these glimpses were such that people could not endure them, how could we endure a full manifestation of glory, when Christ says, “No man can see God and live” (Exod 33:20)? Therefore let us be content to die to have this sight. Our understandings here are too shallow, our hearts too narrow, our imperfections too many: darkness cannot conceive of light. So no soul can see what is in heaven.

And so here we cannot tell what happiness there is until we are there. That is the reason why the best things are not seen. And these are the proper objects of a Christian. For things seen are exposed to the outward man; they are not fitting for the soul. The soul will soon spend all the good that is in things seen. Take all the beauty, and all the riches, and all the honor there can be, and the soul will quickly be weary of it. The soul will draw out all the good. We see that those who are in great positions grow weary of them within a little while.

But there is an everlasting spring of comfort and contentment in things not seen. They are larger than the soul. The more we see of them, the more we may see: the communion with God, joys in heaven, and such things. Alas! the soul is a very capacious thing, yet the joys in heaven are larger than it; therefore things seen are not the object of the soul.

Question. But does the soul never look on things that are seen?

Answer. Yes; but if the soul looks on them, it looks also beyond them.

If it looks on them, it looks on them as in a glass, to see farther. It does not look on them as clouds to stop our sight from the sun, or as placing contentment in them. For the soul takes no rest here. The things seen “are vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccl 1:14); “unrighteous mammon” (Luke 16:11). We may and ought to look on them as helps and comforts in our pilgrimage. If there are such comforts here, what is in heaven? Does God convey such sweetness in outward things, which castaways have along with us? What then are those he has reserved for his friends? And so by way of a gracious use we ought to look on things seen; but as for settling on them, and making them the bottom we stand on, they are no fit objects for the soul. But is there no way to see things that are not seen?

Question. But have we nothing of them here?

Answer. Yes; there is nothing to be seen there but we have some little taste of it here. For full peace to come, we have peace of conscience here. For full joy to come, we have joy in the Holy Spirit here. For full communion of saints to come, we have some communion of saints here. If there is any heaven upon earth, it is in the meeting of two or three judicious, wise, gracious persons; and our employment here in hearing, praying, and conference with God is but a taste beforehand of what is in heaven. So God does not reserve all for the time to come. But in regard of the full accomplishment, he does.

But those who do not have the first-fruits here will never have heaven in the harvest. Those who do not have the earnest payment here will never have the bargain hereafter. But what is the full satisfaction of the soul is for hereafter. Therefore, whatever sweet employment there is here, it is not like what the soul will have hereafter. Therefore do not rest in these things, but rather let them set an edge on us, to desire it more and more, until we have it fully in heaven.

Reason 3. Here is why these objects are things not seen. Things that are not seen are eternal, things that are seen are temporal. No man who has an eternal soul, and knows it, will make what is temporal his object. Therefore the soul must look on things of equal excellency with it, and that is, things not seen. For things that are seen are temporal: riches are fading, honors are but blazing comets, pleasures are but worm-eaten vanities. So for the ill we suffer, it is but temporal, all ended in death. The grave makes an end of all things that are seen.

This should be a comfort to us when we are under any sickness. It is a seen thing. This sickness I feel, and this I taste, is but for a time. The thing I look at is what is not seen, and what lasts to eternity. So the good not seen is eternal in its cause. It is in Christ, who is forever in the heavens; and God is forever in the heavens; and Christ reconciles the Father. And then the place is eternal. Heaven is eternal.

Now the influence from which all good comes is eternal, and the soul is itself a spiritual, eternal substance. The influence of grace and comfort is eternal, coming from God and from Christ, who is a head forever and a husband forever. Heaven is an inheritance immortal, undefiled, continuing forever. And since the soul is an everlasting substance, its joy and comforts are eternal. Whom God loves, he loves forever; whom he makes happy, he makes happy forever. He is life everlasting. It is a kingdom “that cannot be shaken” (Heb 12:27). “It is an inheritance that fadeth not” (1 Pet 1:4). It is not only everlasting, but everlastingly fresh. It is not only immortal, but it keeps its beauty still: eternal joy, eternal peace, eternal communion with one another in the heavens, everlasting Sabbath, everlasting triumph over all enemies. There is no end of this joy, no cessation of this comfort.

I come now to the wise use the soul makes of beholding the things that are not seen, because they are eternal, while it neglects the sight of things that are present and temporal. You see the wise use the blessed apostle makes of it. For he brings it as a reason why he does not faint, but is renewed day by day in the inward man. It is as though he said: You wonder why I do not faint, and why day by day I grow fresher and fresher, and still fitter and fitter for heaven, and why all things I endure here fit me for heaven. It is all because I have an eye to things that are not seen, not regarding things that are present. So if we will look for the difference between these things, we may easily understand that some things are fading and some things are eternal. If we would get comfort in this, that our portion is not only in fading things, we must have grace to consider it, and not to look on the other things too much.

Here is a test of whether we look at the things that are seen or not.

(1) If we look to things not seen, because they are eternal, this is a sight that enraptures the soul, that lifts the soul above itself. Things above are so exceedingly above things below that it makes the soul almost forget itself; it works a high esteem of heaven and of heavenly things. For as it is said of knowledge that it has no enemy but the ignorant, so there is no enemy of grace except those who do not feel it in their own consciousness. All who see it have a high admiration of it, which appears by their low esteem of all things else. When the sun rises, the stars hide themselves. And when these comforts rise in the soul, upon its apprehension of the glory in the mirror of the word and promise, and a little feeling of it here, all earthly comforts are gone.

When Moses saw God who was invisible, what does he care to look toward Pharaoh (Heb 11:27)? And when Micaiah had seen God sitting on the throne, what does he care for Ahab (1 Kgs 22:19)? We have seen the Lord, and what have we to do with base idols? Nothing in the world must be set up as a rival with God. What have I to do with pride, with riches, with honor? I have seen God, I have seen heaven. When the patriarchs had with the eye of faith seen the excellency of the world to come, what did they care for banishment or death? When Paul had seen Christ, all things else were dung and dross (Phil 3:8). Therefore as for your great admirers, those who admire worldly things, it is a sign they never saw anything better. As for those who dote on worldly things, it is evidence of spiritual folly.

(2) Again, the consideration of spiritual things, it is a purifying sight, a purging sight, that makes the soul fit for the object. A man cannot with the eye of faith apprehend things to come, nor by hope wait for them, without that hope being effectual to purify the soul. Those who have any faith, any hope of good to come, will prepare their souls to suit that condition (1 John 3:3). And therefore where the apprehension of these things does not have a purging power in some degree, it is only a fancy. We do not see them in such a way as to be convinced that they are as excellent as they are.

(3) Again, this is a sight that marvelously affects us. Love comes from sight. Sight is the most affecting sense. What moves the affections most is sight. Feeling is but dull. And therefore if we have the eagle’s eye, a sharp-sighted faith, to see things that cannot be seen with the eye of reason and flesh, then certainly this sight will enliven and affect a man greatly; it will move him to joy and move him to delight, move him to the love of God and of heavenly things. A man cannot see any excellency without his heart embracing it; as the patriarchs (Heb 11:2 and following) saw the promises afar off, and their hearts joined with them. They embraced them, grasping as it were the things they saw in the arms of their affections. In whatever measure I apprehend and see things, in that measure the heart lets the things in, to embrace them and close with them.

Therefore where there is no love there is no sight. And the reason why affections are so flat and dead is that people do not exercise this sight of faith. Let us examine ourselves by these things, whether we have spiritual sight of the things we see. Do they affect us? Do they enliven us? And do they put holiness into our hearts? Do they raise our hearts to a holy admiration? If so, certainly we have seen them.

I will give you a familiar comparison. The nearer an object is to anyone, the more glorious it seems; the farther off anything is, the less it seems. The stars are bigger than the world, and yet they appear little to us. Now, ask our souls how great things are in comparison with former times. Are heavenly things greater? And as for earthly pomp and state, do our souls esteem them less than in former times? If so, it is a sign we are nearer heaven, and heaven nearer us. When we can look on earthly things at a distance, it is a sign we are removed from them, and drawn nearer to the best things. And then the best things seem great to us, when we conceive of them in their own magnitude.

Question. But how shall we come to look on things not seen, and things eternal, according to their own worth?

Answer. (1) Labor every day more and more to be purged and purified, and then we shall have delight in looking on what is proportioned to us. The holier a man is, the more delight he has in holy and heavenly objects, and he labors to grow in grace more and more. The more we see, the more gracious we are; the more gracious we are, the more desire we shall have to behold these excellencies with the eye of faith.

There is no apprehension without light. We cannot see light without light; we cannot see heavenly things without heavenly faculties. And therefore labor for something gracious within, which may have correspondence and harmony with what is in heaven; otherwise contraries will not apprehend contraries. But heaven and a sanctified soul have some proportion and natural kinship; and therefore let us never rest until we have something like what is in heaven, though not in degree, yet in quality.

(2) Again, labor to get the eye of the soul clear, that the dust of the world may not be in it. Satan’s policy is to cast pleasure and profit into the eye of the soul; and then corruption raises a foggy mist in the soul, so that we have a natural love for present things. And present things raise a cloud in the soul, and that cloud interposes itself between heaven and us. Labor therefore for mortification more and more.

That the eye may be clear, consider seriously that they are temporal things, shorter-lived than the soul, lower than the soul, not fit for it. We shall outlive them all. And when base affections rise in the soul to cast a mist over it, consider what a foolish thing it is for us to dote on things lower than ourselves. Why should such affections intercept this heavenly sight from us?

The dignity of the soul is this, that it is an excellent substance. The whole world is not worth a soul. The soul is between heaven and earth, and all earthly things are lower than itself. Shall the soul marry itself and join itself with things baser than itself? Does it not then debase itself? And therefore keep the eye of the soul clear from impediments within and without; labor to have true judgment of things in their own nature.

(3) And then let us dwell often on the consideration of things to come; have serious considerations of it, and every day redeem some time to think that we cannot live here forever. We have an immortal soul, which must be immortal in misery or immortal in happiness. If we are not good, heaven will not take us, and nothing but hell will receive us. And these things may enliven us. I have an immortal soul, I must not stay long, I must give account; and how shall I appear?

Get these and similar considerations every day. We live as we see; and considering that life is guided by inward notions and apprehensions of soul, labor to have apprehensions of soul that may guide the life as it should be. Labor to see what is reserved in the heavens; consider how we are assured of it, what ground we have, what assurance we have if we should die immediately, for we do not have the certainty of a minute. These are awakening considerations. And these will be a means by which we look on things not seen.

And when we do take liberty to think on these things, dwell on them until the heart is warmed. The sun does not heat without some staying. Those beams that are broken do not gather themselves to heat by reflection. So let the soul stay a while in consideration of these things. Our soul is naturally unstable; and therefore labor by grace to settle the soul until the affections are warm, until the resolutions are fixed. For then we shall see to good purpose, when we resolve to take this course; otherwise we do not see to good purpose.

And therefore because we do not know in the morning what will befall us before night, never rest until we are set in heaven by faith. And consider the condition there, so far as will be effectual to guide our lives to suit what we see. This would be a wise course indeed, to guide our courses to suit eternity, and to fetch reasons for a holy and good life from eternity, and not from pleasing this person and that person.

One says, I will do this because I shall get riches, because I shall satisfy my flesh and raise myself. Are these reasons for a Christian to work by? Let a Christian work like a Christian, having his reason raised by faith higher than himself, to consider things as they are in themselves and as they shall be hereafter. This is temporal, he will say, my soul is eternal; and I will fetch the reasons for my course from eternity. What if I should have all the world and die? What good will the satisfying of the carnal desires of others do me? And therefore I will sway my actions by a rule that shall hold to eternity.

Is not a man wise who does this? And is any man wise who does not do this? He is wise who guides his life to the last end, how he shall be happy hereafter, how he shall avoid torments forever. He who is wise to get advancement, to undermine others, to flatter and ingratiate himself, to give contentment against conscience to the carnal whims of others: is he a wise man, who is penny wise and pound foolish? He is wise in a particular matter, he is wise in a little. But what is this particular wisdom, when in the general scope of his life he is foolish, not considering what is good for him as a Christian? None is wise but a Christian. Every other man is a madman or a fool. What are all other things but straw and baubles compared with eternity? Therefore regard the things that are beyond the soul, and more excellent than the soul.

I beg you, take this course. It will make us wise and diligent in our place and calling; for we should keep our eye on what lasts to eternity, notwithstanding all discouragements. Many have fainted and given up because those they served are unthankful persons, and they grow cold in doing good. What is the reason? They do not look to eternity. It is good sometimes to meet with ill usage from unthankful persons, for God will make amends, though we have deserved well of ungrateful persons. And sometimes again I will do them good, and leave the glory to God alone. It is good to meet with ill usage in the world; for sufficient amends are made in the world to come. Will you have all your wages here?

And therefore do as St. Paul did: get into heaven in our thoughts by faith, and by meditation on how it will be with us before long. That will set us in such a frame of conduct as shall fit us for Christ, and only that will do so. It will keep us in a growing condition, in a fruitful condition, in a constant, courageous condition.

And when we do not do so, we fall into discouragements. The cause of sin, is it not some present temporal thing we dote on? So sin is nothing but placing on what is temporal that affection which should be on what is eternal.

Now when does a man sin, but when he lets go of his object? As long as a man keeps his eye on heaven he is well enough; but when he looks to discouragements, to the arm of flesh, then he is discouraged. But when is he not discouraged? When he has heaven in his eye, and God in his eye, and spiritual things in his eye. And now at this pitch he is neither sinful nor discouraged; and then he is as well as he can wish in this world. Therefore labor with Paul to have the eyes of your souls exercised about these spiritual things. Look on things that are not seen, because they are eternal; and do not be carried away with outward things, nor dazzled with them, because they are temporal.