The Hidden Life and Other Sermons

For ye are dead, your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory (Col 3:3-4).

The connection of these words, in a word, is this. After laying the grounds of certain doctrines, the apostle frames the building of a holy life and conduct. It is in vain to believe well unless a man works accordingly. He who lives against his faith shall be damned, just as he who believes against it shall. So in this chapter he goes on to raise their affections to heavenly-mindedness, and stirs them up to subdue whatever is contrary to heavenly-mindedness. And because it is a duty of great moment to be heavenly-minded and to subdue base affections, he inserts weighty reasons along the way. “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above” (Col 3:1). And among other reasons there is this: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). And on this ground he presses home the seeking of the things that are above and the mortifying of earthly members.

For the duties of Christianity are to be applied in two ways: to be heavenly in our affections and to subdue what is contrary; to be heavenly-minded and to mortify our earthly members. Now how shall we do both? “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God…”

You see the first proposition: “Ye are dead.” With whom? “With Christ, in God.”

A Christian is dead in many ways. He is dead to the law, to the moral law. He does not look to have comfort and salvation by it, by the law; he is dead to the law, and so he flies to Christ.

A Christian is also dead to the ceremonial law. Now, in the glorious luster of the gospel, what have we to do with those poor elements that were for children? A ceremonious disposition is opposed to the glory and luster of the gospel, as the apostle says in the previous chapter.

He is likewise dead to sin. Having communion with Christ when he died for sin, he is dead to sin. He who has communion in the death of Christ has the same disposition toward sin that Christ had. Christ hated it infinitely when he suffered for it. So every Christian thinks, “Christ died for my sins,” and by union with Christ he has the same disposition toward it; he is “dead” to it.

And because this is only a first start and beginning, a Christian is not perfectly dead to sin. He stands in need of afflictions, and in regard of afflictions he is dead. They must help the work of mortification. And because no affliction can sufficiently work mortification except death itself, which is the accomplishment of mortification, we are dead in respect of death itself, which is the accomplishment of all. Though we live here for a time, we are dead in regard of the sentence that is passed on us, as we say a man is dead when the sentence is passed on him. In that respect we are dead men, for our life is only a dead life. Besides the sentence that is passed on us, death seizes on us in the time of our life, in sicknesses and the like, and so these prepare us for death. Thus, and in many other ways, we are dead.

The second proposition is: “Our life is hid with Christ in God.”

We are dead, and yet we have a life. A Christian is a strange person. He is both dead and alive; he is miserable and glorious. He consists of contraries. He is dead in regard of corruption and miseries and the like, but he is alive in regard of his better part, and he grows in two ways at once. It is a strange thing that a Christian does. He grows downward and upward at the same time; for as he dies in respect of sin and misery, with natural death approaching, so he lives the life of grace, and grows more and more until he ends in glory.

This life is said to be a hidden life: “It is hid with Christ in God.”

The life of a Christian, which is his glorious spiritual life, is hidden in these respects, among others.

1. It is hidden from the world, from worldly men, because a Christian is a man unknown to them. Because they do not know the Father who begets, they do not know those who are begotten, as St. John says (1 John 3:1). They do not know the advancement of a Christian: he is raised to a higher rank than they are. Therefore, as a beast does not know the things of a man, so neither does a carnal man, however great his excellence, know the things of the Spirit, “for they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). Therefore it is a hidden life in the eyes of the world. A worldly man does not see this life in its excellence. He passes scorn and contempt on it, calling it folly and the like. A Christian, in respect of his happy life, is a stranger here, and therefore he is willing to pass through the world and to be treated as a stranger.

2. It is likewise often a hidden life, not only to worldlings, but also to the children of God themselves. For because of certain infirmities that are in the best of God’s children, they are apt to judge wrongly, harshly and rashly of one another. They do so likewise because of those calamities that are common to all men alike. Those who have this life are afflicted as others are, and have sicknesses, and are despised more than others; and because of this the children of God often censure those who have the beginnings of spiritual life in them. It is hidden from them.

It is likewise hidden from themselves, for God’s children often do not know themselves. In temptation, in their immaturity, in the beginning of their conversion, in the time of desertion, and in spiritual slumber and sleep, grace seems to be dead in them, and then they do not know that they have this spiritual life. Especially if this desertion is joined with outward abasement, they call their condition into question, as in Psalm 73:2 and following, and in various places of Scripture. God’s children often, through their own inquiry and searching, raise clouds by which they conceal their own life from their own eyes. Partly through disorder of body and partly through disorder of spirit, clouds are raised between them and their happiness, so that they cannot see their spiritual life.

But it is hidden especially because of common infirmities, since they lack gifts that others have, others who sometimes have not a dram of grace, who live to please men and look altogether to the outside. Many times these do what pleases men better than a Christian does.

Sometimes God himself hides himself out of wisdom and mercy to us, when he sees that we do not carry ourselves as reverently as we should. And this reason may be sufficient for God’s dealing. God will have it so, partly for the further hardening of wicked persons, and for trial. For if everything in this excellent condition of a Christian were laid open, who would put their patience to the test? Who would not be a Christian for the comfort, and for the sense and feeling of it? Oh, but this is not how it is. A Christian has a life, but it is a hidden life. Therefore God will test whether men will live by faith or by sense, whether they will have their own way now or not, or whether they will depend on that glorious life that God will reveal in time to come; and he will exercise and strengthen faith.

God will have it so that this life shall be hidden now, so that we may live by the promises, though we have no feeling at all; so that in the greatest desertions and extremities we may persuade ourselves, “Yet I have a hidden life in Christ. Though I have little influence and manifestation of it in me, yet I have a glorious life in Christ my Head, and I live now by faith until I come to live by sight.” This is one reason.

We should not therefore take offense. We must not judge of Christians by outward show and appearance. As Christ says, we should not judge of ourselves by outward appearance (John 7:24), nor of the church. The whore of Babylon has more painting and adornment, in all her glorious shows (it being an outside religion), than the true spouse of Christ, whose glory and beauty are within. Does it follow therefore that she is the true church? Oh no; for the beauty of the wife of Christ is a hidden beauty: “She is glorious within” (Ps 45:13). A stranger does not share in the joy of the church. Christians have a name indeed, and a stone that none know but them that have it (Rev 2:17). It is “hidden manna.” We must not judge of the church, or of Christians, by outward appearance; we shall be deceived in that.

Our life is hidden with Christ, the spring of all spiritual life. The life of a Christian is a secret life. It is a life peculiar to Christians. It is a safe life. It is secret because it is hidden. As I said, God’s children are secret ones. They are not known to the world, and often not to themselves.

But ordinarily faith in them breaks through the cloud, and unmasks God himself, and sees God’s fatherly face, though he hides himself. They have a promise to lay hold of, and they acknowledge him to be their Father, and wrestle with him. It is a secret life, but not so secret that faith cannot see into it. Faith pierces the veil and sees a glorious life there. Faith will see God’s glorious countenance. Faith makes it a glorious life though it is secret. Therefore let us not judge of ourselves or of others by appearance.

And it is also a sure life. “It is hid with Christ in God.” Notice on what grounds it is sure.

First, it is hidden in heaven. No enemy can come there. The devil has not come there since he first lost it and was cast out. It is safe in regard of the place. It is hidden in heaven.

And it is safe because it is hidden in Christ, who purchased it with his blood, who has trampled on all opposing powers, on death and hell itself. It is hidden in heaven and in him who has overcome all opposing power. Therefore it is a safe life.

And it is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is in the bosom of God, Christ the mediator. “It is hid with Christ in God.” He is the storehouse of this life. It is hidden with him. If any can rob God, then they may rob us of our life; for it is hidden with Christ in God. It is therefore a sure life.

Objection. Oh, but we may lose it, though it is sure in respect of God.

Answer. No, says St. Peter, “We are begotten again to an inheritance, immortal, and reserved for us in heaven, and we are kept by the power of God to salvation” (1 Pet 1:3-5). It is kept for us, and we are kept for it. God has prepared it for us, and prepared us for it. So it is a most sure life, especially because Christ, with whom it is, lives forever. “It is hid with Christ in God.”

It is likewise a life peculiar to God’s people only. For they alone have union and communion with Christ; and therefore he says here, “your life is hid with Christ in God.”

It is likewise a glorious life; for it is hidden with Christ, who is the glory of God. And he says in the next verse, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4). It is a glorious life. But I shall speak of that in the next verse.

We see then that our life is hidden in Christ, and what kind of life this is.

It is a secret, sure, peculiar, glorious life. Alas! We are ready to judge of ourselves by the present, and not to think it a glorious life. But he says that it is hidden for us. “Light is sown for the righteous” (Ps 97:11). It does not appear for the present. A garden has seeds and herbs sown in it, but in the winter there is no difference between it and a common field; but when the sun shines and appears, then the herbs appear in their luster. So it is with a Christian. There is light and immortality and happiness sown for him. When Christ, the “Sun of righteousness,” shall appear, “then we shall appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4).

We may say of all things below that they have a hidden life: the plants and the flowers in the winter live by the root, and when the sun appears, then they also appear with the sun in glory. So it is with the righteous: they have a hidden life. It is hidden now in the root, in their Head, in this life. When Christ the Sun of righteousness shall appear, when the spring comes, when the resurrection comes, then we shall appear with him in glory. And so I come to speak of that verse.

“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye appear also with him in glory” (Col 3:4).

Our life is now hidden. Our happiness is veiled over. There are many things between us and our life. But shall it always be so? Oh no! “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall appear also with him in glory.” He is meeting a secret objection. The parts to be dwelt on here are these.

1. Christ is our life. He shall appear in glory as our life. This is taken for granted, it is a supposed truth: “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear.” It is taken for granted that he shall appear in glory.

2. The next thing is that we shall appear likewise with Christ. Christ shall appear, and we also.

3. And then the consequence: how these depend on one another. Because Christ appears in glory, therefore we shall also, “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear.”

The apostle cannot mention Christ without adding a word of comfort; and the Christian soul loves Christ. It sees such matter for comfort and such righteousness in him that it cannot think of Christ without a comforting addition of Lord, Savior, life, hope, glory, and the like. Christ carries all comforts with him. He is food, the bread of life, the water of life, all that is good to the soul. Therefore the apostle gives this sweet addition, “Christ our life.”

How is Christ our life?

He is in every way the cause of the life of grace and of glory. And not only the cause, but the root and spring in whom it is. We have it from Christ and in Christ. We have it in Christ as a root, and from Christ as a working cause, and by Christ as a mediator. For Christ procured life at God’s hands by his sacrifice and death. We have it in Christ as a head; from him as a cause, together with both the other persons of the Trinity; and through him as mediator, who by his death made way to life, appeasing the wrath of God. So we are reconciled and pardoned by the death of Christ.

Christ is our life not only in this way, but also as the substance of our life, which we feed on. When he has worked spiritual life in us, the soul still lives by faith in Christ and feeds on him. He is our life because we feed on him. For as food nourishes the body, so the soul, being set upon every day by fresh temptations, afflictions, troubles and fresh discomforts, is of necessity forced to look to Christ every day and to feed on Christ, to feed on his blood afresh, which runs continually. For he is a mediator forever, and he is in heaven to make good what he has done by his death; and we look on him every day and feed on him, and so he maintains the life he has begun. Christ is our life in this way.

More particularly, for memory’s sake: when by faith we once have union with Christ (as we can have no communion without union with him), when we are once one with him by faith, we have life from Christ, the life of reconciliation in law, the opposite of our death in law and in sentence. For by nature we are all dead and damned as soon as we are born, for our own sins and the sins of our first parents. We are dead in sentence. Now by Christ there is a reversal of this sentence. Christ by his obedience and suffering has satisfied his Father. So by our union with Christ we are alive in sentence. We are absolved in God’s court of justice; for he will not punish sin twice.

And then, after the life of justification, being justified by faith, we have the life of sanctification and holiness. For God, out of his love, when he has pardoned our sin, gives his Spirit as the best fruit of his love; and we, having our consciences absolved and acquitted by the Spirit of God through the obedience of Christ, love God. God so loves us when he is appeased by Christ that, the bar being taken away, our sins being pardoned and the sluice of mercy open, a way is made for another life, the life of sanctification by the Spirit. Upon the pardon of our sins he gives the Spirit; and we, feeling that love, have love worked in us toward him in return, and that love stirs up every Christian to obedience.

In the next place, after he has acquitted us by his all-sufficient satisfaction, being God and man, and has given us his Spirit, there is another life, the life of comfort, which is the life of our life, in peace of conscience and joy unspeakable and glorious. This life issues from the former. For when we find our conscience appeased, when God says to our souls that he is “their salvation” (Ps 35:3), and when we find a newness worked in our nature by the Spirit of God and some strength to obey him, then we begin to have a sweet peace, such as the children of God find in themselves, and joy unspeakable and glorious.

This is the life of this life. Having union with Christ and his righteousness and Spirit, we have this peace, which is the way to glory and the beginning of it. For besides the fact that Christ is our life in glory afterward, he is our life in this life. Over against our servile fear, as we are dead in law, we have a life in justification. As we are dead in nature, so we have a life in sanctification. We are dead in despair and run into terrors of conscience; so we have a life in joy and peace.

But all these are imperfect in this life, because there is only a union of grace here, until we come to the union of glory in heaven; and then at the day of judgment there will be a perfect justifying of us. We shall not only be acquitted in our conscience, as we are now, but we shall be acquitted before angels and devils and men, and Christ will acknowledge us: “These are the ones for whom I died. These are the ones for whom I made intercession in heaven.” We shall be acquitted there, and there we shall be acknowledged.

And then the life of sanctification, which is now in part, shall then be perfect; and likewise the peace that now “passeth understanding” shall then be full; and our joy shall be full by Christ who is our life.

So then we see that we have in Christ, the second Adam, whatever we lost in the first root. From where did we draw sin and misery? By union with the first Adam we have damnation, we have the wrath of God, we have corruption opposed to sanctification, we have terrors and horror of conscience. By the second Adam, and union with him, we have a spring of life and peace, and all that we lost in Adam, and more than all we lost, he being God-man. The sin of the first Adam was the sin of a man; the obedience of the second Adam was the obedience of God-man, which raises us to life everlasting (Rom 5:16 and following). So there is more comfort in the life we have by Christ than there is discomfort in our death by Adam.

We see from this, then, that in all our deadness and dullness and lack of grace, there is a spring in our nature. God has given Christ, God-man, so that there might be a treasure in him for all the church, so that we may draw supply out of our nature. He is fit to be our life, for our nature in him is united to the Godhead. Therefore Christ is a fit fountain to convey grace to believers, because man’s nature in him is advanced; by being united to the second person he is God-man, able to convey all grace and comfort and righteousness whatsoever. Shall the first Adam, who was a man, convey unrighteousness, discomfort and misery, and shall not Christ, God-man, convey righteousness and comfort and joy and peace and whatever is good? Undoubtedly he shall.

Therefore in all lack of grace, in all temptations and assaults, let us go to the fountain, to the fullness of grace, to the fullness of God’s love in Christ. Christ, God-man, is our life. As when we are cold we come to the fire, so when we are dull-hearted let us come to this quickening Spirit.

And to this end let us be stirred up to use those means in which Christ will be effectual, by which, as by veins, the blood of this spiritual life is conveyed: the word and sacraments, the communion of saints and all sanctified means by which the life of grace and comfort may be conveyed to us. Let us never be out of such ways and courses by which Christ conveys this life of grace, and let us take heed of those that are contrary.

Question. “But how shall I know,” says a weak soul that finds little comfort and peace and little sanctification, that is besieged with troubles and is doubtful, and does not know whether his sins are forgiven or not, “how shall I know whether Christ is my life or not?”

Answer. 1. I answer that the life of Christ is only now begun in us, and it is very little at the first. Nothing is smaller than grace at the beginning. The life of Christ is conveyed to us from Christ voluntarily, not by necessity. He gives the will and the deed according to his pleasure (Phil 2:13). Therefore we must know that we have more or less comfort, and more or less grace, as he pleases. He brings to heaven, in all ages, all who have the true life of grace, though he makes a difference, and gives to some more and to some less; because he is a head who flows into his members not out of nature, but out of his own pleasure.

2. And a Christian soul that has union with Christ, that has a being and station in him, may know it. There are always some pulses from this heart. As we know there is some life by the beating of the pulses, so Christ’s dwelling in the heart is known by these pulses. There will be striving against corruption, and complaining of it. Nature and corruption will not complain against corruption; corruption will not strive against corruption. There will be sighing and groaning, which is seconded by a constant endeavor to grow better. It is not a flash. These pulses beating in the soul of a true Christian show that there is the life of grace in him, that Christ dwells in his heart.

And this often appears more in the greatest temptations. Take a Christian at the worst: his heart sighs to God to recover him; he is sick, and yet he hopes in Christ. Christ in the greatest desertion is his life, who was also our pattern when he was at the lowest: “My God, my God.” So a Christian at the lowest has a spirit of prayer. Though it may be that he cannot pray distinctly, yet he can sigh and groan; and God always hears the sighs of his own Spirit. Therefore when these pulses beat in him, in the greatest temptations he may know that Christ lives in him.

Sometimes Christ, in respect of this life, reserves himself in this world for the chief occasion, such as some great affliction of the outward man. In 2 Corinthians 4:10 we see that when the body of St. Paul was afflicted, when it was abased by many afflictions, the life of Christ was most manifest in him. God reserves for poor Christians who now live in peace and quiet the greatest feelings and manifestations of Christ’s living in them, until some great cross, until the hour of death, until a time of need. The life of Christ is most manifest in the time of abasement.

By the way, therefore, let us not avoid crosses for Christ’s sake. Do not avoid any abasement, though it is imprisonment or death. The more our outward man is abased, if it is for Christ’s sake, the more this life of Christ, this blessed life, this peace that “passeth understanding,” and this “joy in the Holy Ghost” is increased. We shall feel our absolution and justification the more. This life of Christ is most manifested when we honor him most by suffering for him. Therefore let us avoid no cross for him.

“Christ, who is our life, shall appear.” There are two appearings of Christ, as we know: his first appearing and his second appearing. His first appearing was to work our salvation; his second shall be to accomplish and finish what he has begun to work. His first appearing was to redeem our souls from death, and his second shall redeem our bodies from the corruption of the grave. So his second appearing shall be to accomplish all the good that he came to do and to work by his first. As truly, therefore, as Christ has come in his first appearing, so truly and certainly he shall appear the second time. And as it was the description of holy men before his first coming to wait for him, “to wait for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), so it is the description of Christians now. Those blessed souls who have the report of this wait for the coming of Christ.

There were all kinds of witnesses then of his first coming: angels, men, women, shepherds, the devils themselves. The Trinity from heaven bore witness of him. So for his second coming there are witnesses. Christ himself says he will come. The angels say, “This Jesus that ye see go up shall come again” (Acts 1:11). It is an article of our faith that he shall come. The Spirit of God in every Christian says “Come,” and that is not in vain. The desires of the Spirit of God must be fulfilled. Therefore he shall come. And the Spirit of God stirs up our spirits to say “Come.” There are all kinds of proofs and arguments for it. It is an article of our faith. It is laid down here as a foundation, and therefore I will not enlarge on it, but come to the next point.

Christ will appear, and “We shall also appear with him in glory.” We shall appear, and appear with him, and appear in glory with him. The glory of Christ himself is in some sense hidden now. For though he is king of the church, we see what enemies are in the church; and Satan swaggers in the church for a long while, and the nearer he is to his end the more he rages. So Christ’s glory seems to be hidden. But Christ shall then appear, and his church shall appear with him in glory.

Question. Why shall we appear with Christ and be glorious with him?

Answer. This is clear, partly because it is Christ’s will. In John 17 he says, “Father, I will that where I am they may be also.” It is Christ’s last testament that we should be where he is and be glorious with him, and Christ’s will must be fulfilled.

Again, consider what we are to Christ, how near we are brought to him, and then this will be clear, that when Christ shall appear in glory, we must appear with him. For Christ is our husband, and we are his spouse. When Christ comes to be glorious, therefore, his spouse must be glorious. Now is only the time of betrothal; the time of the marriage ceremony shall be at the appearing of Christ. Therefore, “when he shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory.”

Christ in his own person, as distinct from his church, is now glorious as a head. But the mystical Christ is not glorious; the mystical Christ suffers. There are many members who are not yet called. Some are abased, and some are not brought to the fold. And Christ has a care for his mystical body, as for his natural body; and as that body is glorious in heaven, so he will bring all his members to be one glorious body. He gave his natural body to redeem his mystical body. Therefore, as he is glorious in his natural body in heaven, so he will be glorious in his mystical body, in every believing soul, at the last, when he “shall come to be glorified in his saints,” as the apostle says (2 Thess 1:10). He is glorious in himself now; then he will be glorious in his spouse.

And then this is clear from the ground of predestination: We are predestinate to be conformed to Christ, that he might be the first-born of many brethren (Rom 8:29-30). Now Christ is glorious, and we were predestined before the world was to be like Christ: first, in abasement, to be abased for him who was abased for us, to suffer for him who suffered for us, and to be conformed to him in grace. So there must be a time to be conformed to him in glory. From the ground of election there must be a state of glory. Our glory must be revealed when Christ shall come and appear.

I will press no more reasons that we must be glorious at the second coming of Christ as well as he himself.

Question. In what does this glory consist?

Answer. I will clear up this point a little, but I will not be long in it, because indeed this glory is such as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man” (1 Cor 2:9). The apostles do not speak much of it. They speak of it in negative terms, by denying imperfections: “It is an inheritance incorruptible, immortal…” (1 Pet 1:4). And when it is likened to earthly things, it is compared to a banquet, to a marriage, and so on. But this glory shall be in body, in soul, in the whole person.

In soul there shall be the knowledge of those mysteries of salvation of which we are now ignorant. Now we are in the grammar school, but that shall be like the university. Then we shall know things more clearly. We shall see God face to face, and then our souls shall be raised to be capable of more knowledge and grace. Now the vessel of our soul is not capable of knowing what we shall know then; our souls are not capable now as they shall be in heaven.

St. Paul himself was not capable; therefore when he was taken up into the third heavens, lest he should be proud of his revelations, he had to be abased. We are not capable; we cannot know the glory of heaven in full measure now. But then God shall enlarge the heart and sanctify it, so that we shall have strong spirits, and holy understandings and affections to understand holy things. We shall know God face to face. There shall be a proportion between the glorious things in heaven and our soul; there shall be a heavenly soul for a heavenly place, whereas now it is not so.

I refrain from showing the particulars of the glory of the body. The apostle Paul sets it down: “It shall be a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). It shall be guided by the Spirit; and the body shall not then need food and drink, but God “shall be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Now our life at its best is fed and clothed by created things; then all shall be drawn from God himself. God himself shall be all in all. The presence of God, and of Christ our Savior, shall supply everything that we now have in other ways. Now comfort is conveyed from this creature and from that; but whatever comfort is now dropped to us by the creatures we shall then have all in him, and in fullness, and for evermore. So we shall be glorious in soul and body.

And in our whole person the image of God and Christ shall be perfectly restored. We shall be like Christ, always preserving the difference between the head and the members, and preserving the difference between a natural Son and adopted sons. He shall be more glorious than we. We shall be glorious as much as we are capable of. In all fullness of joy, and grace, and dominion over the creature, in freedom from evil and readiness for good, we shall be glorious sons of God. I need not be long in unfolding these things.

Question. When shall this be?

Answer. “When he shall appear,” says the apostle, “we shall also appear with him in glory.” It is left indefinite, to stop curiosity. There is no time set down, but “when he shall appear…” In a word, it shall be when all the elect are gathered together. It is not fitting that our bodies and souls should be glorified until all God’s people are gathered together. As in a family they do not sit down until all the servants have come in, and then they sit down together, so in this great family of God, the saints in heaven and earth, there shall not be perfect glory until all are gathered and saved.

And then what a blessed time that will be, when every one shall be glorious himself, and shall outshine the sun in glory in his body and soul, and when there shall be such a world of them so glorious!

If every star is beautiful, how beautiful are all of them in their luster! When so many saints are gathered together, they shall be far more glorious than the sun in his majesty; and this glory is reserved until all are gathered together. God said of the creatures one by one that they were good, but when he looked on them together they were exceedingly good. So the souls of Christians are glorious one by one, but at the day of judgment, when all shall be gathered together, there shall be an exceeding glory.

It is reserved, I say, for the gathering together of the saints. When Christ, who is the head, shall have gathered by his word and ministry, out of this sinful world, all who are scattered here and there, then they shall come to perfect glory. Then there shall be perfect union between the body and soul; then there shall be a perfect union between us and all who are dead together; then there shall be a perfect union between us and Christ; then we shall have the perfect enjoyment of God, of angels, of all the blessed company in heaven. Oh, what a blessed time this will be! And this shall be at the glorious appearing of Christ.

Christ shall appear in glory himself, as surely as he appeared in his first coming; and we shall appear with him in glory.

Why should we doubt it? Is not that which is greater done already? Has not God himself become man? Has not God died, and God been abased, in his first coming? Is not that more of a wonder than that a man should become like God in his second coming? Which is greater, for God to become man, or for men to be raised out of their graves and become glorious? Certainly this is the lesser. Why should we doubt it? Let us raise our hearts with this, that as surely as he came in abasement to work our salvation, so surely he shall come and raise us to glory; and this is a lesser work than the former.

But to come nearer, and to make some further use of this: surely these are main points, and should be often thought on. Oh, that the hearts of Christians were exercised with them! Could we be lifeless, either for grace or for comfort, if we often thought of this and applied it? Let us often warm ourselves with these things; let us bring ourselves to the light; let us think of the blessed times to come. Could we be unfruitful?

This made St. Paul adjure Timothy and the Thessalonians: “I beseech you, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (2 Tim 4:1; 2 Thess 2:1). I shall need no greater argument to press you than this: as surely as Christ shall come in glory, and as you shall be gathered to him, so hear what I say. So St. Paul charges Timothy: “I charge thee before Christ, who at his coming … keep this commandment” (1 Tim 6:13-14). This will move a man’s conscience, and carry him to duty, if nothing else will.

Let us think seriously: Christ will come with thousands of his angels in glory and majesty, and all shall be glory then. There shall be nothing but glory: glorious in his company, glorious in himself, glorious in his enemies. He shall trample them under his feet by a glorious overthrow; there shall be nothing but glory in heaven and earth then. And we shall come to the same glory. The spouse shall partake of the glory of her husband. Let us think of this. It will quicken and inspire all our courses with a kind of spiritual light for all our actions; it will enliven and quicken them.

And it will put a certain manner upon all our actions, so that they shall be acceptable to God. For how should we perform all that comes from us? All should be done in sincerity, and constantly, and abundantly, and cheerfully, readily, and willingly; for God requires these qualities in what we do. Now, what stirs us up to do everything in this manner, acceptably to God, but this consideration?

What stirs us up to do things sincerely for Christ? He will appear in glory; therefore let us do things that may stand up under his judgment. It does not matter what the reprobates of the world judge; let us do things so that we may stand before Christ at that day. A Christian makes it his study to arraign himself before Christ, so that he may do what will approve him to the one who shall be his judge before long.

And so let us hold out; we shall receive a reward. What will make us constant but this? What makes a man sow his seed, which he can scarcely spare, but the hope of a harvest? What makes a man run, but the victory and the crown? So what makes a man work, but the hope of reward? Be constant, “for in him ye shall receive the reward if ye faint not” (Gal 6:9).

And so for abounding in good works: “your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58). What made St. Paul press the abounding in good works? “Finally, my brethren, be steadfast and unmovable, alway abounding in the work of the Lord.” Why? “for your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” Your bodies shall rise again before long in glory; when Christ shall appear you shall appear, and be glorious with him. “Therefore abound in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58); “sow to the Spirit” (Gal 6:8), and you shall reap glory. “They that sow sparingly shall reap sparingly” (2 Cor 9:6). What makes men abound in works of mercy and love, but this appearing of Christ? If their love is perfect, they have comfort in this appearing, and if they abound in mercy, Christ will appear in mercy to them.

And so for cheerfulness. God also requires that in every action. What enlarges the heart of a man in God’s work? What puts fire into his affections but this, that Christ will come and appear in glory before long? That he will come and crown every good work; that we shall not lose a good word that has been spoken in a good cause, not the least good action, not a cup of cold water, but all shall stand to our account at that day when Christ shall come to be glorious in his saints. This makes us do things sincerely, constantly, abundantly, and cheerfully.

I beg you, consider from what ground these things come; for these are principles that should be grounds of faith. They are fruitful, and spread themselves through the whole course of a Christian’s life, and therefore they are worthy to be thought on often.

Again, why does God reveal these things beforehand, that we shall appear in glory in our body and soul, in our whole person? As it shows us our duty and the manner of it, so it is a ground of comfort in every condition. A Christian may think, “Now my life is a hidden, secret life. I pass under censure. It is thus in the world, and thus with me. Well, a time will come, the time of resurrection, that will make amends for all: for this sickness of body and disquiet of mind, and all annoyance and adversity.” And it is revealed beforehand for our comfort that there shall be such a time, so that we may make use of it, and may ground our patience upon it. When St. Paul exhorts to patience, he says, “The Lord is at hand” (Phil 4:5); and St. James says, “The Judge standeth at the door” (Jas 5:9). Let us be patient in disgraces and sufferings. It will be otherwise before long; Christ is at hand.

Again, God reveals these things that we might continually be breathing out thankfulness to God. Our whole life should be spent in thankfulness to God. The angels in heaven who stand in the presence of God, and the blessed spirits in heaven, spend the vigor that is in them; they spend all that is in them in praising God, in thanks and praise to God, and they sing, “Glory, glory.” Even so, knowing beforehand that before long we shall appear with Christ, and appear in glory, let us thank him beforehand. As St. Peter says, “Blessed be God, that hath begotten us again to an inheritance, immortal, undefiled … reserved in heaven for us” (1 Pet 1:3-4). Let us bless God beforehand, as if we were in heaven already.

Certainly if we hope to be with those who shall sit in heavenly places in heaven to praise God, we will begin it on earth; for the life of heaven is begun on earth. We are kings now; we are priests now; we are conquerors now; we are new creatures now. We must praise God, and begin the employment of heaven now; for what they do perfectly, that we begin to do. In heaven, we know, there is no evil company; we will abstain from it now. There is no defilement of sin; we will conform ourselves to that state we hope for. There is nothing but praising God; as much as may be, we will warm our hearts with meditation on what God has done, what he does, and what he has reserved for the time to come, and with what we have in hope.

The best things of a Christian especially are in hope; for what we have by Christ is principally not in this world. Therefore, considering that the best things that Christ died for are in hope, “let us rejoice in hope,” and in rejoicing have our hearts enlarged with praising God for what we hope for.

And let us be comforted in all the changes of this life, all the changes for the time to come, and in death itself, which is the last change. Are not all these degrees to make way for that glorious appearing with Christ? For the soul at death goes to heaven, and the body shall come after. Why should we be reluctant to die, when death is nothing but a change from misery to happiness? It is a change from the danger of sinning to an impossibility of sinning; from a vale of misery to a place of happiness; from men to God; from sinful persons who trouble our peace and quiet to better company in heaven; from actions that are sinful to actions altogether free from sin. It is a glorious and blessed change in every way. We shall have better company, a better place, better employment, all glorious then, until the time comes that all the elect are gathered together, and then body and soul shall be “for ever with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17).

Why then should we fear changes, when all changes shall end in what is better? Is a laboring man reluctant to have his wages, or a weary man reluctant to have rest? Is a king reluctant to be crowned? Is one who is betrothed reluctant to have the marriage consummated? Why should we be reluctant to die? We should be ashamed of ourselves, that we have been so long in the school of Christ, and yet have not learned to unloose our affections from earth to better things; that we stand in fear of death, which makes way for the glory of the soul now, and the eternal glory of body and soul afterward.

In a word, we are exhorted, in the beginning of the chapter, to have our minds in heaven, where Christ is; and we are exhorted, after the text, to mortify our earthly members. These are two necessary duties: to have our way of life in heaven before we are there, and to mortify our earthly members, to die in our affections to earthly things before we die indeed. Would we have strength put into our souls to perform both of these? Let us often meditate on the things that are between these verses. Let us consider that we are dead, so we should be more alive to God. Consider that our life is hidden with Christ; that Christ shall appear before long, and we with him in glory.

We should raise our thoughts to be with Christ, and draw our souls up to heavenly things; for the more our affections are upward, the less they will be below. Our affections are finite. The more we spend them on heavenly things, the less they will run on earthly things. As a man in a trance has his thoughts so taken up with one matter that he is dead to other things, so the soul that is taken up with the glory to come, and with Christ, is dead to earthly things. It only takes them for necessary use, as having use of them in our travail; but it uses the world as if it did not use it. And this issues from this principle, that we shall before long appear with Christ in glory. Every man will drown himself too much in the things of the world if he does not have this to raise up his soul: “I shall appear before long with Christ in glory,” and then these things will be consumed.

The last point is how these depend on one another: because Christ shall appear in glory, therefore we shall too.

I will touch on it a little, because it is a point of faith that helps our judgment a little. It is a ground of divinity that whatever is in us who are members is in our head first; for God is first, and then Christ the mediator, and then we. Whatever is good in us, or shall be for us, is in Christ first. He is justified from our sins, for he was our surety from sin. He was abased for them first; therefore he shall appear then without sin, to glory. Our sin was only imputed to Christ; he became our surety for sin and he must be abased; therefore we cannot be glorious here, because of our corruptions. Christ was surety for our sins in his first coming. Now his resurrection showed that he had satisfied for our sins. The second time he shall appear in glory. Why are we justified from our sins? Because Christ, our surety, was acquitted.

We ascend gloriously to heaven. Where is the ground of it? He ascended first, and we ascend because of him and in him.

We sit in heavenly places. Why? Because he is in heaven beforehand, as a husband takes possession of a place for his wife. Why does she go into the country and take possession of it afterward? Because her husband has gone before and taken it. Our ascension rises from his, and our sitting at the right hand of God from his.

And so at the day of judgment, our being glorious comes from his. He shall then appear in glory, as the head and husband of his church, and shall shine upon all his members. He, as the sun, shall cast a luster and beauty and glory upon all who are his; and then they shall reflect that glory they have from him back upon him, and he upon them again. So he shall be glorious in them and they in him; but the ground of all is that he is first in glory. He shall appear in glory, and then we in him.

I speak of this all the more because I would have humble consciences make use of it in times of desertion, when God seems to be a God who hides himself, when they find neither life nor comfort. Yet if they have only grace to believe, they may comfort themselves in this: “Well, I have it only from Christ, and he is perfect in glory. He has ascended, and I shall ascend and rise, and be glorious, because he is so. Suppose now that I feel no such thing. It does not matter. I live by faith in Christ, who has all in fullness; and what he has done for me, he will do in me, if I believe in him.”

Let a troubled soul comfort itself with this. It is as impossible that one who believes in Christ should be damned as that Christ should be damned, because the one who believes in Christ is one with him, and as surely as Christ is in heaven, that believer shall be there; for Christ rose for all who are his. The little finger lives the same life as the hand or the foot does. So a weak Christian who has little grace lives by the same faith in Christ, who is in glory, as well as those who are stronger.

Let us strive and fight with this encouragement, as St. Paul says, “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12). “Oh, but shall we always be fighting and striving?” No, he says; lay hold of eternal life, and then we may well fight against doubts and despair. Let us therefore labor to fight, so that we may lay hold on eternal life, which Christ keeps for us, and keeps us for it; and before long we shall partake of what we hope for.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death (Rom 8:2).

There are four things especially that trouble the peace of a Christian, and indeed of any man, in this world.

The first is sin, with the guilt of it, binding them over to the wrath of God and to the expectation of misery, a heavy bondage.

The second, besides the guilt of sin, is the remainders of corruption, with the conflict that accompanies them while we live in this world; and that conflict cannot help but be wearisome.

The third is the miseries of this life, which always accompany both the guilt and the remainders of sin in this world. We are condemned to a great deal of trouble here, and this greatly tries and perplexes God’s children. And then the close of it all: death and damnation.

The thought of these things greatly disquiets and disturbs the peace of a Christian’s soul.

Now, in this epistle we have comfort against all these. First, as for the guilt of sin, which binds us over to eternal judgment and the wrath of God, we are freed from it by the obedience of Christ, the second Adam, as is excellently shown in Romans 5.

And as for the remainders of corruption that we struggle with in this world, we are assisted against them by the Spirit of Christ. For as by the obedience of Christ we are freed from the guilt, so by the Spirit of Christ we are helped and assisted against the remainders of our corruptions.

As for the third, the miseries of this life, we have victory in Christ: “In him we are more than conquerors,” as you have it in this chapter (Rom 8:37). They can do us no harm. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:39). We have many singular comforts in this chapter against all the troubles that can befall us, and this is one that triumphs over all: “All things shall work for the best to them that love God” (Rom 8:28). Why should I speak of harm from anything that befalls us, when all shall work for the best, by the overruling of him who commands all?

And as for death itself: “Neither life nor death shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom 8:38-39). And as for damnation, which accompanies death: “It is God that justifieth, who shall condemn?” (Rom 8:33-34). In God’s book, and indeed in this epistle and in this chapter, there are comforts set against all that may in any way trouble our peace. “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” says the apostle (Rom 8:1); and then he goes on afterward to show how, by the help of the Spirit, “all things work for the best” (Rom 8:28). In this very verse likewise you have this comfort set down, of our freedom by Christ from anything that may hurt us: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death.”

The words depend on what goes before, as we see in the particle “for”: “for the law of the Spirit of life…” They depend on the first verse in this way: they give a reason why, although there is sin in God’s children, there is yet no damnation for them. “There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.” He proves it thus. Those who are free from the law of sin and of death, which brings in condemnation, are undoubtedly free from damnation. But those who are in Christ Jesus are freed from the law of sin and of death; therefore there is no condemnation for such.

But how shall we know that we are in Christ Jesus? Those who have the Spirit, and are led by the Spirit of Christ, are in Christ. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death.” So, I say, the words are especially a reason for what went before, “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” because by the Spirit of Christ they are freed from “the law of sin, and of death,” and consequently they are freed from damnation; for what brings in damnation but sin?

In the words, then, there is an opposition. There is law against law: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ,” and “the law of sin and of death.” Now, where there are contrary laws, if there are contrary lords, as there must be, new lords will have new laws. Especially if they are lords by conquest, they will alter the very fundamental laws that stood before, as you know the old conquerors have done in this kingdom. Here is law against law, and lord against lord: Christ against sin and death. Here is a Lord by conquest over all other lords and laws. Therefore there must of necessity be an alteration of laws here; the very fundamental laws must be altered.

But to come more particularly to the words: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death.”

These words have been much disputed by expositors. I would rather give my own judgment of them, and reconcile them, than dash one man’s judgment against another, for that does not tend to edification. “The law of the Spirit of life…” The meaning of the words is plain if we compare them with other Scriptures.

“The law.” It is nothing but a commanding power; for so the word written “the law,” in the apostle’s meaning, is only a power forcing and commanding. So the “law of the Spirit of life” is the commanding and forcing power of the “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”; and so the “law of sin” is either the tyrannical command and forcing power of sin, or else the condemning for sin afterward, as we shall see hereafter. For we shall unfold the words better in the particulars.

First, then, we have set down here what state we are in by nature: we are under “the law of sin and of death.”

And then, here is our freedom and deliverance from that: we are made free from “the law of sin and of death.”

And then the author of it, Christ Jesus: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death.”

In these words, and those that go a little before, there are these three main fundamental points of religion: the misery and bondage of man, the deliverance of man, and his duty.

Here you have his misery: he is under sin and death.

Here is his deliverance: he is free from this by Christ.

And as for his duty, you have it in the last verse of the former chapter, speaking of his deliverance: “Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24). Then it follows, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25). Thankfulness is due, and not verbal thankfulness only. Indeed, the whole life of a Christian after his deliverance is a real thanksgiving. But that is not in my text.

To speak, therefore, of our state by nature and of our deliverance: our state is that we are under the law of sin and death.

We are under the law of sin.

Observation. We are under sin. What sin? We are under a threefold sin.

1. We are under the first sin of our first father; for as Levi paid tithes in Abraham to Melchizedek, so we all sinned in the loins of Adam, our first parent, and the guilt of that first sin lies on us.

2. There is another sin that is derived from and springs out of that first sin, which is the deprivation of the image of God, the depravity of our nature. We call it original sin, whereby we are stripped of the good we had in our first creation, and have the contrary image, the image of Satan, stamped on us. So we are under the first sin, the guilt of it; and we are under the sin of nature, which we call original sin, because it comes down to us even from our birth and from the first origin we had in Adam.

3. And then we are under actual sins, which are so many bonds to tie us fast under sin. We are dead by nature, but we are dead and rotten by actual sins. We add still further to the guilt of our sin by our daily conduct. We are blind by nature, but we are blinded indeed much more by our customary way of life. Every sin ties us, as it were, faster to damnation, and keeps us faster under the bondage of sin. Every new sin takes away some part of the light of the understanding, and takes away some freedom of the will. It darkens the judgment more and more, and enslaves the will and affections, and binds a man more and more to the just sentence of God, so that “the sinner is tied with the bonds of his own sins” (Prov 5:22). He is under the chains of a habitual wicked course of life, as well as of the sin of nature, which is the spring of it all.

This is the miserable state of man, and these chains of his sins reserve him for further chains. Even as the devil is reserved in chains, that is, in terrors of his conscience, which bind him like chains until he is in hell, the place to which he is destined, so we, being in chains and bondage, vexed with our sins, are at the same time in the chains of terrors of conscience, the beginnings of hell, and are reserved for chains of damnation and death, world without end. Our state by nature is a very different matter from what it is usually taken to be. If men had only a little supernatural light to see what condition they are in until they get out into Christ Jesus, they would not continue a minute in that cursed state.

And we have deserved to be cast into this state, because we left the subordination and dependence on God that, being creatures, we should have had. Therefore, since we turned from God to the creature, God punishes our rebellion against him with rebellion in ourselves. Because we withdrew our subjection from him, therefore there should be in us a withdrawing of the subjection of sin and of the whole soul to God. So this captivity to sin and giving up to sin in us is penal and sinful; but as it comes from God, it is altogether judicial.

Therefore we often have this in the New Testament, in Romans 1:21 and 2 Thessalonians 2:10. As for the Gentiles, because they would not entertain the truth that they might have had by the light of nature, God gave them up to their sins. And then the Christians after the apostles’ times made light of the good word of God, the gospel. Therefore God gave them up to believe lies. It was sin in them, but as God gave them up, it was justice. So this captivity, and this giving men up to their own lusts, is justice; as it comes from God, it is a horrible judgment. It is worse than being given up to the devil himself, for by being given up to our lusts we increase our damnation. To be given up to be tormented by the devil is not so great an evil as this spiritual captivity under sin.

We ourselves are guilty of our own enslavement, and this will increase both the shame and the punishment. The shame, in that a man will say in hell afterward, “I have brought myself here. I had means enough, prohibitions enough. Sometimes I had chastisements from God, sometimes stirrings of his Spirit, sometimes one help from God, sometimes another. Yet for all that I broke through every obstacle God set between me and the carrying out of my lusts. Toward hell I would go, and here I have brought myself.” So indeed the greatest part of the torments of hell, the shame of them especially, will be that men have brought themselves there by their own wits and carnal lusts.

And indeed all the wit a carnal man has, not sanctified by God’s Spirit, serves only to work him into misery and to make him a drudge to his lusts. He sets all the abilities he has to work, not on how he may serve God and be happy in another world, but on how he may prowl and provide for his own carnal lusts. This is the state of all men by nature. They are under sin, under the power of sin. The blind judgment leads the blind affections, and both “fall into the ditch” (Luke 6:39), into hell.

1. The fearfulness and odiousness of this condition, of being in prison and enslavement and bondage to all kinds of sin, natural and actual, will appear further from this: that being in subjection to our base lusts, we are as a consequence under the bondage of Satan. For he has power over death by sin, because he draws us to sin, and then accuses us and torments us for sin. By sin we come to be under his bondage. So we are under the fearful captivity of the devil while we are under the captivity of sin, for all the power he has over us is by sin. He is only God’s executioner for sin. First, God gives him power to draw us to sin, to punish one sin with another; and then God allows him to accuse and to torment us afterward.

What a fearful bondage this is, that being under sin we are under Satan! We are servants to our enemy, as God threatened his people that they should serve their enemies. But this is a greater judgment, to be slaves to this enemy. This is the condition of every sinner. To be a slave to one’s enemy is a judgment of judgments; yet this is the case of every man by nature. He is a servant to his enemy, to Satan and his own lusts. He is a true Ham, a “servant of servants” (Gen 9:25); for Satan uses him as the Philistines did Samson. He puts out his eyes; he puts out his judgment, his wits; he stupefies him; and so the man goes blindly on in Satan’s blind work and business. He is in a maze all his life long, till at length he sinks into hell. So this is what makes a man’s state by nature worse still: he is a slave to his enemy.

You know what blessed Zechariah says: “That, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve him without fear, in righteousness and holiness, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-75). There is no wicked man who is not driven by the devil. Oh that we would consider it! We think we are led only by our own lusts and sins, as men; but until a man is in Christ, he is ruled by the command of the prince of the air (Eph 2:2), and he is ruled by Satan, according to his will (2 Tim 2:26).

Even as a bird in a snare may move up and down, yet it is still in the snare, and he who has it there does not care, for he knows he has it safe, and he goes about to catch other birds; so when we are in our lusts and follow them, the devil has us in his snare. He is sure of us, and goes about getting more and more still. The devil drives, and moves, and leads all carnal men.

But how does it happen that they do not know and perceive it?

It is because he goes with the stream of their own corruptions. Indeed, we must make some limitation of this. In some cases the devil does not move carnal men. They are better than the devil would have them be, for the good of the commonwealth and state; yet take them as they stand in relation to religion, and they may be devilish, secret, bitter, dark enemies to it. Though they may have strong heads for the good of the state, it is not from any inherent good in themselves; rather, God uses them and makes them do it. For the devil would have all things evil. He is an enemy to the very swine, and therefore much more to the good of a state. Therefore there are many politic and moral virtues, as we see in Ahithophel and Judas, which no doubt are more than the devil would have. He would not have moral men so good; he would not have them do what they often do for the common good. Yet the devil will be sure to be at one end of the good they do, to taint them, so that their aim will not be good. It will not be for the glory of God; it will not be with reference to salvation.

And so, as the good is temporal, they have a reward suited to their desire, and they care for no more. For they believe in heaven only as a general notion. Perhaps there are such things, they think, and perhaps not. Therefore the good they do is some little, petty obedience. And what do they desire? To be well esteemed and respected, to be venerable, and to have honorable opinions in the hearts of men, so that men may bow to them in their thoughts as men of respect. This they deserve indeed, and this they have; God gives them what they wanted. But as Christ tells the Pharisees, who did excellent good things but did them to be “seen of men,” “they had their reward” (Matt 6:2). They had all they looked for, for they were atheists; they did not look for heaven.

So a man may say of all who are out of the state of grace: though they do more than the devil would have them do, and in various degrees of what they do they are not subject to the devil, yet he taints their actions one way or another in the end. He joins himself in the action first or last; he has a hand in all their actions. So although there are many good things, this is no hindrance at all: they may still be under the power of the devil. For it is only with reference to civil government and the state, which lasts only for a time. “The fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:31). Before long there will be no magistrates here to govern and no people to be governed.

I say this because many are ready to hold up such and such a person, to imitate them in their courses, and to say, “I will be no more religious than he is,” when perhaps it may all be only formality and common graces for this world. God will honor some so much as to make them instruments for the common good here; but what is that to eternal salvation? A man may be a slave to his lusts, and an enemy to the power of grace, for all that. Therefore, unless we see men thoroughly wrought upon, to be of the mind of Christ, to have the Spirit of Christ, to judge of things as Christ judges, to judge the service of God and the doing of his will to be the best things, and to “go about doing good” (Acts 10:38), and that with reference and obedience to God, all of it is nothing more than that. A man may be under the bondage of his corruptions, and so through them to Satan.

2. Again, when we are under our lusts and sins, it is about earthly things; we are in slavery to that which is worse than ourselves. Sin is the vilest thing in the world, and the things with which sin is occupied are the profits and pleasures and trifles of this world, mean and petty things. It is a base slavery, if we consider whom we serve.

3. And consider what it is that is in bondage: the immortal soul of man, which had the image of God stamped on it; and in the soul of man, the most excellent part, the will, which is most free, yet being under sin is most bound. Our will was given to us to cleave to God and the best things, to make choice of the best things, and to cleave to them undivided in life and death and forever; and so, by cleaving to things better than ourselves, to advance ourselves to a higher condition.

For when the soul of man is under better things, under God and Christ, and cleaves to God and Christ in its affections, and to the things of a better life, these are things that better a man’s condition, even raising the soul from its own present state to a glorious condition; for we are as we love and choose. Our wills and our affections transform us. Therefore wicked men are called the world, because they love it; and holy men are called heavenly, because they are carried in their affections and wills to heavenly things. Our affections and wills define us; they give us the name. Nay, that is too little: they give us the reality, the state.

When God so alters and changes our dispositions that out of a sanctified judgment we make a right choice of things, and then cleave to them constantly in our wills and affections, this raises our nature to be higher than itself: “He that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit,” as the apostle says (1 Cor 6:17). Indeed, our affections transform us anew. As it is with fire, which transforms cold and gross bodies to be all fiery, so God and heavenly things work on our hearts and transform us to be like themselves.

Now, consider this inward soul of man, so excellent a thing, fitted by God to cleave to better things, for communion with himself and everlasting happiness. For this soul to be a drudge to base pleasures and profits, to the windy, empty things of this world, to vain titles and suchlike empty things, and to place its happiness in these things, is a pitiful degeneration. It is pitiful that so excellent a thing as the immortal soul of man, which shall never die, should join with those things that will make him miserable, so that it will be better for a man that he had never been; as it is said of Judas, “It had been better for that man that he had never been born” (Matt 26:24).

4. In the next place, consider what follows this enslavement and baseness to our lusts. There is a double fruit of it.

(1) The one is uncertain. I mean, for our yielding to our base affections, what do we get? “The pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb 11:25); a little pleasure or profit, and perhaps not even that; but if we have it, it is a fading commodity that goes away quickly. When they are gotten, what are they? Vanity. They promise more before we get them than they perform when we have them.

(2) But then there are other wages, which God in justice has appointed for it, that is, damnation: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). It cries for wages. When we are under sin we can look for nothing but death, and therefore the apostle joins them together here: “the law of sin and of death,” an expectation of eternal misery. This is what a man has who is wedded to himself, who has not learned the first lesson in the gospel, to deny himself. He is a wretched slave to the devil in his best part and power. His lusts imprison his will and affections. His wit, which should devise how he may be happy for eternity, is only a drudge to his base lusts.

There are a company of men who are the shame and blemish of the gospel, who set their wits to work only on how to satisfy their base lusts; and then the issue and conclusion of all this is eternal misery, and in the meantime, the expectation of misery in terrors of conscience. This is the estate of every man until he is brought over by the Spirit of God to a better condition in Christ: he spends out his time in a base and miserable thralldom, worse than the thralldom of the Israelites in Egypt or in Babylon.

5. And it is all the more fearful because men are insensible of it, like lunatics who make nothing of their chains, who laugh in their chains. A madman, when he is bound in chains, laughs, while those who are around him weep at his misery. So you have men frolicking in sin. They will swear at liberty, and besot themselves at liberty, and corrupt their consciences, even for base trifles. They think they are in no bondage, and they do it all most cheerfully and well; when in fact the more cheerfully and readily any man performs the base service of sin, the more he is in bondage. Freedom is opposite to bondage. Yet such is the nature of sin that the more freely we do it the more we are bound, because the more freedom we have, the more we are entangled. We run into guilt upon guilt, until after guilt comes execution, an eternal separation from the presence of God, and a sentencing to eternal torments forever.

So it is a false judgment that the world has. They think great men are happy men. Why? They do as they please. Yes, they may do so, and they often take the liberty to do so. They will be under no laws. They are so far from obeying the law of God that they are loath to be hampered by the laws of the state, or by any laws; they will be above them all. A miserable condition! Why? The more will a man has in evil, the more miserable he is; for the more freely and with the less opposition he entangles himself. However great his place may be, he sinks the deeper in rebellion and the deeper into guilt upon guilt, all of which will come to a reckoning at the hour of death and the day of judgment.

So the men we admire and envy most, out of simpleness and want of judgment, are the most miserable creatures in the world, if they are out of Christ and do not have grace. For they have nature let loose in them without restraint; and nature, being under the captivity of sin, becomes sinful beyond measure in such men. The less a man is curbed, either by laws above him or by the law within him to check him, the more wretched a man he is. For the deeper he goes in rebellion and sin, the deeper his torment will be afterward.

Great persons have a great privilege. What is that? They shall be greatly tormented. That is all the privilege I know of, if they are wicked. As for those who shake off all bonds, any earthly privilege and prerogative is so far from exempting them from misery that it makes them more miserable. For unless they have grace to use those things that might be an advantage toward better things, they sink deeper and deeper into sin, and so into terrors of conscience, first or last, and by consequence into damnation. Oh, it is a fearful condition to be the greatest monarch in the world and not to be in Christ, and under the law of “the Spirit of life in Christ”! To truly judicious souls, who know from God’s truth and by the light of the Spirit what is to be judged of the state of men, such men are objects of pity above all kinds of men. You see, then, what kind of misery it is that natural men are under, being under the law of sin.

6. To declare it a little further, for men will hardly think it is such a bondage to be under sin, I beg you, only consider how sin tyrannizes where it gets strength. See it in some instances. The covetous worldly man who is under the law of that lust has the law of other lusts too, but that one is predominant. See how it tyrannizes. It takes away his rest, and the use of God’s blessings, the good things God has given him to enjoy. It puts him in thrall to the creature.

We see it in carnal pleasure. When Amnon lusted after his sister Tamar, it took away his rest (2 Sam 13:2 and following). And how does this base affection tyrannize in some men? It makes them so forget their bodies that they overthrow their health and hasten temporal death. It hurts the natural man. It makes them forget their reputation; it makes them forget their souls; it makes them stink, by living in that carnal, noisome sin.

The judicious heathen were aware of it, by the strength of natural judgment. Yet sin, where it is in any strength uncurbed, so tyrannizes that it makes men forget both health and life and reputation and estate in this world, so that they come to nothing. Why should I speak of forgetting eternal life and damnation? They have no faith to believe that. But such is the tyranny of sin that it makes them forget what is plain to their senses, what they know by experience after they see how dearly they have bought their base pleasures, with the loss of reputation and health and comfort, with the loss of the estate God has trusted them with in this world.

Take a man who is under the base law of ambition, a proud person. See how it tyrannizes over him. It makes him forget blood and kindred, all the bonds of nature. He will kill his brothers to make his way, as you know from our own histories of such tyrants. If there were not histories enough of this kind, daily experience shows it. Where the law of ambition and pride reigns, it makes the heart in which this tyrant sets up his throne forget all bonds whatsoever, of nature and justice. You know whose speech it was, “If the law must be violated, it must be for a kingdom.” But men will do it for far less. We see what men will do for a base place to command others in this world, when they are conscious of their own evil courses and commanding corruptions; and all to give way to the base affection of ambition.

A touch is enough on these things, for experience bears witness and goes along with me. All men who are not in Christ have some predominant sin, either some base sin or some more refined sin and lust, that keeps them from Christ and salvation; and this tyrannizes over them.

And this is the nature of this tyrant sin. It has such possession of a man, until he is gotten out of it and is in Christ, that it takes away the sight of itself. It hinders the knowledge of itself; it puts out a man’s eyes. For that by which a man should judge of corruption is itself corrupt. The wisdom of a man is death, it is enmity to God (Rom 8:7). The wit he has, which should discern his base courses, tangles him more and more in his own lusts; so that wit and wisdom, the highest part of the soul, is imprisoned by base affections, and that power which should discern corruption is set to work to satisfy corruption.

What is the wit of a man who is not in Christ occupied with all his lifetime? It is nothing but a drudge and a slave, to devise means to satisfy his base lusts. Take a worldly man. He is exceedingly clever at contriving worldly plots and business, though he is a dunce and a fool in matters that are spiritual. In his own track and course, he has a shrewd wit. Why? Because his lusts toward the world whet his wit. So we see that the best thing in man now is enthralled to sin, his very wisdom itself; therefore it is enmity to God.

Every man has some Herodias, some sin or other that he is in bondage to, until he is in Christ. He cannot be given and enthralled to all sins in a like measure. It is unnecessary, because one sin serves another. Many sins serve one great one. Corruption does not run in all streams with one equality; but it runs at full force one way, unchecked and uncontrolled and unmortified, in all men who are not in Christ, and subdues the soul to itself, so that it can devise and plot for nothing but to satisfy that base lust. This is the state of man by nature.

Objection. But some will say, “This is not our state and condition. We are baptized, and receive the sacrament, and hear sermons, and read good books; and therefore we are not under sin.”

Answer. But the apostle says, “His servants ye are to whom ye obey” (Rom 6:16). You may know the state of your service and subjection by the course of your life. And it is as Christ says to the Jews, who bragged that they were free (John 8:33). Alas, proud people! They were free neither in soul nor in state, for they were under the Romans. They thought they were free because they were “Abraham’s children.” Were they not in captivity to the Egyptians, and under the Babylonians, and in present captivity under the Romans? Yet they forgot themselves out of pride. “If the Son make you free, ye are free indeed,” Christ tells them (John 8:36); but because they were in a sinful course, they were slaves of sin.

So it is no matter what privileges men are under, that they receive the sacrament, and are baptized, and live in the church, and so on. “His servants ye are, whom ye obey.” If there are prevailing lusts that set up their throne and tyrannize in our hearts, and set our wits to work to devise how to satisfy them more than to please God, it is no matter what privileges we have. It is no matter whose livery we wear, but whom we serve. We may wear God’s livery, which will be pulled over our heads afterward and we will be stripped, so that it will appear that we are the devil’s servants under the profession of Christ.

There is no man not in Christ who denies his corrupt nature anything. If revenge bids him take revenge, he will if he can; if he does not, it is no thanks to him, but to the laws. If any sin rises in the heart, all the parts of the body and powers of the soul are ready weapons for this tyrant to keep a man in slavery. If anger and wrath keep a man in bondage, you will see it in his countenance; his hand will be ready to carry it out; his feet will be ready to carry him to revenge. If it is a proud heart that a man is kept under, you will see it in his looks and outward expressions. If it is the base affection of lust, you will have adultery in the eye, an unchaste and uncircumcised ear, and filthy, rotten language. Men, you see, are ready on all occasions to carry out the commands of these tyrannical lusts, in some kind or other.

Therefore never talk of your freedom when lusts are raised up within you, either ascending from your own corruption, or cast in by Satan and so joining with your heart. At once your tongue will speak wickedly, and your eyes and looks and countenance show that there is a wicked heart within, and the whole man is ready to carry it out, except so far as a man is curbed by law, or respect for his reputation or the like, which is no thanks to him. Yet a man cannot act the part of a civil man so well that the corruption of his vile heart will not betray itself in his looks or language. One time or other this tyrant will break forth. Therefore let us look to our hearts and courses; for if we are not in Christ, we are under the “law of sin.”

“And of death.”

We are not only under the law of sin, but also “of death.” Now, first, there is a death in this world, the separation of the soul from the body. But that is not so much what is meant here, for when we are in Christ we are not free from this death. But there is, second, a worse death, which is a separation of the soul from the favor and love of God, and from the sanctifying and comforting Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God does not comfort and sanctify the soul, it is a death. For as the soul is the life of the body, the body has only a communicated life, from the union it has with the soul. The soul has a life of its own when it is out of the body, but the body has its life from the soul. So it is with the soul in this world.

1. When there is an estrangement of the soul from the Spirit of God and Christ, sanctifying and comforting and cheering it, then there is a death of the soul. The soul can no more do anything that is savingly and holily good than the body can be without the soul. And as the body without the soul is a noisome, odious carcass, offensive in the eyes of its dearest friends, so the soul without the Spirit of Christ quickening and seasoning it, and putting a comeliness and beauty upon it, is odious.

All the clothes and flowers you put on a dead body cannot make it anything but a stinking carcass. So all the moral virtues and all the honors in this world, put upon a man out of Christ, do not make him a spiritual living soul. He is only a loathsome carrion, a dead carcass, in the sight of God and of all who have the Spirit of God. For he is under death. He is stark and stiff, unable to stir or move to any duty whatsoever. He has neither sense nor motion. Though such men live a common, natural, civil life, and walk up and down, yet they are dead men to God and to a better life. The world is full of dead men, who are dead while they are alive, as St. Paul speaks of the widow that lives in pleasures (1 Tim 5:6). A fearful estate, if we had spiritual eyes to see it and think of it.

2. But then, after the death of the soul in this world, there is another degree of spiritual death, which is when the soul leaves the body. Then the soul dies, for then it goes to hell. It is severed forever from the comforting and gracious presence of God, and likewise it lacks the comforts it had in this world.

3. And the third degree of it is when body and soul shall be joined together. Then there is an eternal separation of both from the presence of God, and a sentencing of them to eternal torments in hell. This is the state of all men who are not in Christ. They are dead in soul while they live; dead after the separation of the soul and body; and afterward to be sentenced to eternal damnation, world without end.

Life is a sweet thing, and we know that death is terrible. When we want to set out our hatred of anything, we are accustomed to say, “I hate it as death.” Do we love life, and do we hate death? We should labor, then, to be out of that condition that we are all in by nature, in which we are under sin and death, in regard to spiritual life, I mean; for as to civil life, and government, and statecraft, men who are hypocrites may have life and vigor enough. But I speak of a better life, an eternal life, that is not subject to death.

Now, mark the joining of both of these together. We are under sin and death by nature. Where a man is under sin he is under death; for as the apostle says, “Sin entered into the world, and by sin death” (Rom 5:12). Neither of them was God’s creature, neither sin nor death. But sin entered into the world by Satan, and death by sin. “Oh, ye shall not die,” says Satan. He was always a liar, from the beginning. So now he says to men, “You shall not die; you may do this and do well enough.” But he is a liar and a murderer. When he solicits to sin he is a murderer. Let us take heed of solicitations to sin, from our own nature or from Satan.

Mark how God has linked sin and death: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). When we are tempted to sin, we think, “I shall have this reputation, or profit, or contentment, or preferment and advancement in the world.” Yes, but what you get by sin is not as great as you look for when you have it, if you get it at all. But afterward comes death. The beginnings of eternal death, terrors of conscience, universally follow, if a man is himself, if he is not besotted. The more a man is a man, and enjoys the liberty of his judgment to judge of things, the more he sees the misery that is due after sin, with a fearful expectation of worse things to come.

Sin and death are an adamantine chain and link that none can sever. Who shall separate what God in his justice has put together? If sin goes before, death will follow. If the conception goes before, the birth will follow after; if the smoke goes before, the fire will follow. There is not a more constant order in nature than this in God’s appointment: first sin, and then death and damnation after.

Use. Therefore when we are tempted to sin let us reason with ourselves, “There is death in the pot” (2 Kgs 4:40). Let us discern death in it. It will follow. And if a man afterward repents of it, it will be a repentance more sharp and grievous than the sin was pleasant, so that he will have little joy of his sin, if he does repent. If he does not repent, what a fearful estate a man is in after he has sinned!

Sin and death go together. No human power can sever them. For take the greatest monarch in the world: when he has sinned, conscience is above him, as great as he is, for conscience is next under God. It awes and terrifies him and keeps sleep from him, as we have seen of late in our bloody neighbor country, where after that great massacre the monarch could not sleep without music and the like. All that they have and enjoy in the world, all their greatness, will not satisfy and stop the mouth of conscience. But when they sin, they feel the wrath of God arresting them, and they are, as it were, shut up in prison under the terrors of an accusing conscience, until they come to eternal imprisonment in the chains of hell and damnation.

This is the estate of the greatest man in the world who is not in Christ. They are not as happy as we think they are. They are imprisoned in their own hearts, though they walk abroad at ever so much liberty and do as they please; for sin and death go together, and before eternal death comes, the expectation and terrors of it seize on them for the present. So whatever our first birth may be, though it is noble and great, yet by it we are bondslaves under sin and death, unless our second birth, our new birth, makes amends for sin, for the baseness of our first birth.

This prerogative, our spiritual nobility, is an estate in which we are not born, but to which we are born again, “to an inheritance immortal…” (1 Pet 1:4). But by nature we are all bondmen, however nobly we are born. Therefore let us never brag of our birth, as the Jews did, that they were the children of Abraham. No, says Christ, you are of your father the devil (John 8:44). Let no one stand upon the gentility and nobility of their birth, unless they are taken out of the condition they are in by nature, to be in a better condition in Christ; for we see that all men naturally are under the law of sin and death.

These things are slighted because we enjoy “the pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb 11:25). Men think that to be enthralled to sin is a pleasant thralldom, that these are golden fetters: “For I shall have the pleasures of sin all my lifetime; and as for death, I will set a Roman spirit against death.” A Roman says, “What! Is it such a matter to die? It is nothing to die.” They set a good face on the matter. And this is the notion of many men until they come to it.

But, alas! To be enthralled to death is another matter, for behind death there is a gulf. A man may break the hedge well enough with a strong resolution to die; it would be nothing to die if there were an end. But there is a gulf; there is damnation and destruction behind; there is eternal torment behind: to be sentenced away from the presence of God forever, to be separated from all good and all comfort, and to have the society of the devil and his angels in hell, and that forever and ever.

You may, perhaps, make light of the service of sin, because you have the present baits to delight you, but you should regard death. You may neglect death, but then regard eternal death. This word “eternal” is a heavy word: “eternal” separation from all good, and eternal communion with the devil and his angels, and for the wrath of God to seize on your soul eternally, world without end. It seems to me men should not make light of that. Therefore, considering that this is our estate by nature (we are all slaves to sin and death), let us labor to get out of this cursed estate by all means, and that is by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

Now, I come to speak of our freedom: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). This is good news indeed, to hear of freedom: good news to the Israelites to hear of freedom out of Egypt, and for the Jews to hear of Cyrus’s proclamation for their freedom out of Babylon. Freedom out of bondage is a sweet message. Here we have such a message of spiritual freedom, from enemies of another kind than those were.

The year of jubilee was a comforting year to servants who were kept in and were much vexed with their bondage. When the year of jubilee came they were all freed. Therefore there was great expectation of the year of jubilee. Here we have a spiritual jubilee: a manumission and freedom from the bondage we are in by nature. The Spirit of life in Christ makes us free from the law of sin and death. There is life in Christ, opposite to death in us. There is a Spirit of life in Christ and a law of the Spirit of life in Christ, opposite to the law of sin and of death in us.

So this is our happiness while we live here (oh, it is the blessedness of men to make use of it while they have time and space and grace to repent and to cleave to Christ), that whatever evil we are under by nature, we may have full supply in Christ for all the breaches that came by the first Adam. There came the wrath of God, the corruption of our nature, terrors of conscience, death and damnation. All these followed the sin and breach of the first Adam. All these are made good in the second. He has freed us from all the ill we received from the first Adam, and from what we have added ourselves; for by our voluntary and daily transgressions we make ourselves worse than we come from Adam. But we are freed from all by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

How does this freedom come?

1. There can be no freedom without satisfaction to divine justice. For why are we under sin? God gives us up to sin. Why are we under death? God gives us up to death. Why are we under Satan’s government? He is God’s executioner, God’s arresting officer. God gives us up to him here because we offend God. Why are we under damnation and wrath? Because God is offended. All our slavery comes originally from God. However sinful it may be on the part of Satan who holds us, yet the power by which he holds us is good, for it is from God that he does it. His will is always wicked, but his power is always lawful.

Therefore the power by which the devil holds us, if we look up to God under whom that power stands, is a lawful power; for God has a hand in giving us up to sin. It is a judicial giving up, and then, by lusts and sin, a giving up to Satan and death and damnation. So if we speak of freedom, we must not begin with the executioner: the wrath of God must be satisfied. God must be one with us, but in such a way that his justice has its contentment. Satisfaction must be made with the glory of his justice as well as of his mercy. His attributes must have full content. One must not be destroyed to satisfy another. He must be merciful in freeing us in such a way that content is given to his justice, so that it does not complain of any loss. Now, reconciliation always presupposes satisfaction. It is founded upon it.

2. And satisfaction for sin must be made in that nature which has sinned. Now man of himself could not satisfy divine justice, being a finite person. Therefore God, the second person, became man, that in our nature he might satisfy God’s wrath for us, and so free us by giving payment to his divine justice. The death of Christ, the God-man, is the price of our liberty and freedom.

But why, someone may ask, does the apostle speak here of “a law of the Spirit of life in Christ” which frees us? There is no mention here of satisfaction by death.

Oh, but death is the foundation of all, as we shall see afterward. Let us unfold the point, therefore, because it is a special point, and the words need unfolding.

Here it is said that there is life in Christ, “a Spirit of life,” and a law of the Spirit of life in Christ.

1. There is life in Christ, not only as God, for so indeed he is life. God’s life is himself; for life is the being of a thing, and the actions and moving and vigor and operations of a thing answerable to that being. So the life of God is his being: “As I live, saith the Lord”; that is, as I am God, I will not the death of a sinner (Ezek 33:11). Now, Christ has life in him as God, as the Father has. But that is not especially meant here.

2. There is life in Christ as God-man, as mediator. Now, this life is that life which is originally from the Godhead. Indeed, it is nothing but the Godhead’s quickening and giving life to the humanity in Christ, the Spirit quickening and sanctifying the humanity. And we have no comfort from the life of God as it is God’s life alone and severed; for, alas! what communion do we have with God without a mediator? But our comfort is this: that God, who is the fountain of life, became man, and having satisfied God’s justice, he conveys life to us. He is our head; he has life in himself as God, to impart spiritual life to all his members. So there is life in Christ as mediator.

And there is a Spirit of life. That life is a working life, for “spirit” is an emphatic word. “Spirit” added to a thing increases the thing. Again, the apostle says, “The law of the Spirit of life.” Law is a commanding thing. This shows that the life in Christ is a commanding life: it countermands all opposite lives whatsoever, of sin and death; and this law is a countermand to all other laws. “The law of the Spirit of life” frees us from all other laws. So here is life, the Spirit of life, and the law of the Spirit of life, all words of strong signification.

But for the clear understanding of this sweet and comforting point, first consider how the law of the Spirit of life is in Christ, what it does in him, and then how it is in us by derivation from him.

First of all, we must know this as a foundation: whatever is done to us is done to Christ first, and whatever we have, Christ has first. Therefore life is first in Christ, and then in us; resurrection first in Christ, and then in us; sonship first in Christ, and then in us; justification from our sins first in Christ (he is freed from our sins), and then in us; ascension first in Christ, and then in us; glory in heaven first in Christ, and then in us. We have nothing in us but what is derived from Christ. Therefore, with this laid as a foundation, we must consider how the Spirit of life works in Christ, what it does in Christ, and then what it does as it is in us; for whatever Christ has, he has not only for himself, but for us.

What does it do in Christ?

1. The Spirit of life in Christ, first of all, did quicken and sanctify his human nature. In that nature which Christ was pleased to take upon himself it stopped sin. It made a stop of original sin, by sanctifying that blessed mass of flesh out of which his body was made. For the foundation of his actual obedience, that it was so holy, was this: his nature was purified by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin. The foundation for his death and sufferings being satisfactory and acceptable was this: his holy nature was sanctified by the Spirit of God. So the first work of the Spirit of life in the Son of God was to sanctify and quicken that blessed mass of flesh that he took upon himself.

2. And the Spirit of life that quickened and sanctified our nature in Christ likewise did ennoble our nature. For even as a lowborn woman is ennobled when she is taken in marriage by a great man (his dignity is accounted hers), so our nature, being sanctified by the Spirit, is knit into the union of person with Christ, so that our nature and the second person make one Christ. So our nature by the Spirit is ennobled by this union.

3. And the Spirit also enriched it with all grace that our nature is capable of. For the nature of Christ had this double prerogative above ours: first of all, that blessed mass of flesh was knit to be one person with God; and then, that nature was enriched and ennobled with all graces above ours. And this the Spirit of life did to Christ himself, to his human nature that he took upon himself, that he might be a public person. For God, the second person, did not take upon himself any man’s particular person, of Peter, or Paul, or John; for then there would have been distinct persons, and one person would have died and another risen. But he took our nature into his person, so that the same person who died was God, though he died in our nature, that he might be a public person. So we must consider Christ sanctifying our nature, that he might fit and sanctify all our persons.

But did the Spirit of life do nothing else but sanctify and enrich the human nature of Christ with grace?

4. Yes, it did more. For the Spirit of life in Christ sanctified him for his sacrifice, as he says in that blessed prayer, “I sanctify myself for them” (John 17:19). It prepared him for his death, and made him a fit sacrifice. When he entered upon his calling, he had more of the Spirit: the Spirit of life, as it were, was increased. For it is no heresy to think that the gifts of Christ, in the manifestation of them, were increased. For in every state he was in, he was perfect; and when he set about his office and was baptized, he was fuller of the Holy Spirit. As it were, there was a fuller manifestation than before, when he had not set about his office openly.

5. In his death, what did the Spirit of life do then? It supported him in his very death; for there was a union of the Spirit. When there was a separation of his soul and body, there was not a separation of the union. That which gave dignity, and strength, and value, and worth to his death was the Spirit. Though there was a suspending of the comfort for a while, yet there was no separation of the union. But I will say no more of that, as it is not especially meant here.

6. But especially in his resurrection (which we are now to think of by reason of the day, and it is not amiss to take all occasions), especially then, the Spirit of life that had sanctified Christ, and quickened him, and enriched his nature, and supported him, and done all, that Spirit of life quickened the dead body of Christ. “And he was mightily declared to be the Son of God by the Spirit of sanctification, by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). The Spirit of life raised him from the dead, and put an end to all that misery that he had undergone before for our sakes.

For until his resurrection there was, as it were, some conflict with some enemies of Christ, either with Satan, or the world, or with death itself. He lay under death three days. Until Christ’s body was raised, our enemies were not overcome. God’s wrath was not fully satisfied. At least, it was not declared to be satisfied. For since he was our surety, until he came out of the grave we could not know that our sins were satisfied for.

But now the Spirit of life in Christ comes and quickens that body of his in the grave, and so justifies us, as it is in Romans 4:25, “He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.” That is, by the Spirit of life in Christ quickening his dead body, he declared that we are fully discharged from our sins, because he was fully discharged from our sins. Being our surety, he showed by his resurrection that he was fully discharged from all that he took upon himself. When a man who is a surety comes out of prison, his very coming out of prison shows that he has a full discharge of all the debt he undertook to pay. So the Spirit of life, raising Christ’s body the third day, manifestly declared that the debt he took on himself was fully discharged. And so as he died for sin, to satisfy God’s justice for it, so he rose again for our justification, to show that he had a full discharge for all.

Now, since the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has quickened his body, the soul may make a bold demand to God, as it is in 1 Peter 3:21. It may make that demand of Romans 8:33-34, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is Christ that died, nay rather, that is risen again,” and ascended into heaven, and makes intercession for us. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s people? It is God that justifieth, who shall condemn?” Our sins? Christ has taken our sins upon himself and satisfied divine justice for them, and by the Spirit of life he has quickened that dead body of his, he who was himself surety for us.

We may well say, “Who shall lay anything to our charge?” He who is our surety is dead. Dead? No, risen again; no, ascended, and sitting at the right hand of God. Therefore now the conscience of any Christian may make that interrogation and bold demand there. It may stand its ground against anyone who dares to oppose the peace of his conscience, now that he may say, “Who is it? It is the God-man who died. It is Christ who died in our nature, and has raised that nature of ours again, and is at the right hand of God. Who shall lay anything to our charge?” The Spirit of life in Christ, quickening him, has quickened us together with him, so that now we may boldly claim that we are freed from our sins, because our Surety is freed from all.

All this was for our good. What Christ did, he did not for himself but for us. And in his birth, and life, and death, and resurrection, we must consider him as a public person, and so go along with all that he did as a public person. Whatever may be terrible to us, we must look upon it first in Christ. If we look upon the corruption and defilement in our nature, let us look upon the pure nature of Christ. His nature was sanctified in his birth, and he is a public person; therefore this is for me. And though I am defiled in my own nature and carry the remainders of corruption about me, yet the Spirit of life in Christ sanctified his nature, and there is more sanctity in him than there can be sin in me.

When we look upon our sins, let us not look upon them so much in our consciences as in our surety, Christ. When we look upon death, let us not look upon it in ourselves, in its own face, but as it is in Christ, undergone and conquered; for the power of the Spirit of life in Christ overcame death, in himself first, and for us, and will overcome it in us in time. When the wrath of God is on our consciences, let us not look upon it as it is in ourselves, but as undergone by Christ, and as Christ, by the Spirit of life now in him, is raised up, not from death alone, but from all terrors: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

See Christ, by the Spirit of life, quickened from all: not only from bare natural death, but from all the enemies you need to fear. From the law: it is nailed to his cross, and he now triumphs over it. From sin: he was a sacrifice for it. And from the wrath of God: he has satisfied it, or else he would not have come out of his grave. So whatever is terrible, look on it in Christ first, and see a full discharge of all that may frighten your conscience and trouble your peace in any way.

See him in his death, dying for every man who will believe. Consider him in his resurrection as a public person, not rising as himself alone, but for us all. Therefore there is an excellent passage in 1 Peter 1:3-4: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to an inheritance immortal, undefiled…” And so go along with him to his ascension, and see ourselves “sitting with him in heavenly places,” as St. Paul speaks (Eph 2:6). Oh, this is a sweet meditation of Christ! To see ourselves in him, in all the stages of his birth, and life, and death, and resurrection, and ascension to glory in heaven; for all that he did was as a public person, as the second Adam.

But now, before the Spirit of life in Christ comes to free me, I and Christ must be one. There must be a union between me and Christ. I must be a member of the mystical Christ. For as Christ quickened his own body, every joint when it was dead, because it was his body, so he quickens his mystical body, every member of it. But I must be a member first; I must not be severed from Christ myself. Therefore the first thing the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ does (next to procuring and obtaining happiness) is to work application. For these two go together, procurement and application. Christ by his death obtained all good, and by his resurrection he declared it; but there must be an application to me. Now this Spirit of life which is in Christ, which quickened him and raised him up, and all for my good, must apply this to me.

The grace of application is faith. Therefore this must be worked in the next place. How does the law of the Spirit of life free me? Because first it freed Christ, therefore it frees me. But that is not enough, unless there is application. Therefore the law of the Spirit of life works faith in me, to knit me to Christ, to make me believe that all he has done is mine; and the same power that raised Christ from the dead works the power of faith and application.

For we must not think it an easy thing for a carnal man to believe, to go out of himself, and to hold that it is salvation enough to have salvation by the obedience of another man. No. Both in Ephesians and in Colossians, in various places, it is St. Paul’s phrase that the same power “that raised Christ from the dead” must raise our hearts and work faith in them. For the good things that faith lays hold on are wondrous good things, even almost past all wonder: that poor flesh and blood, a piece of earth, should be an heir of heaven, a member of Christ; that it should be above angels in dignity. As these things are surpassingly excellent things, even past all wonder in a sense, so the grace that believes these things is a strange, and excellent, and wonderful grace, and that is faith.

Therefore faith must be worked by the law of the Spirit of Christ, by the ministry of the gospel. This is the grace of application, when a man goes out of himself; when he sees himself first in bondage to his corruptions, to Satan, and to death; and then sees the excellent way that God has made in Christ to bring him out of that cursed condition. Then he has faith worked in him by the Spirit. And indeed the same power and Spirit that quickened Christ from the dead must quicken our hearts to believe in Christ. It is a miracle to bring the heart of man to believe.

We think it an easy matter to believe. Indeed, it is an easy matter to presume, to have a fancy. But for the soul in the time of temptation and in the hour of death, for the guilty soul to go out of itself and cast itself upon the mercy of God, who is justly offended, and to believe that the obedience of Christ is mine, as truly as if I had obeyed myself: here there must be a strong sanctified judgment and a mighty power to raise the soul, to cast itself so upon God’s mercy in Christ. So besides the obtaining of salvation by Christ, there must be a grace to apply it; and this is what faith does.

Faith is said to do what Christ does, because faith lays hold upon Christ. What faith does, Christ does; and what Christ does, faith does. Therefore the same actions are applied and given to it that are given to Christ. Faith is said to save us. You know it is Christ who saves us. But faith lays hold on Christ who saves us. Faith purges the heart and overcomes the world. Christ by his Spirit does all this. Because faith worked by the Spirit is such a grace as lays hold on the power of Christ, and goes out of itself to Christ, therefore what Christ does, faith is said to do.

So then the law of the Spirit of life in Christ not only freed Christ himself by his resurrection, but likewise, by the same power by which he raised himself, he raises our hearts to believe what he has done, both in his state of humiliation and of exaltation, and makes all that Christ did ours.

The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, working faith in us, and by faith other graces, frees us from the law of sin and death. Christ does it, and faith does it, and grace, which issues from faith, does it subordinately. Christ does it by way of merit; and he does it by his Spirit working faith in us, to lay hold upon whatever Christ has done or suffered, as if we had done it ourselves. So faith frees us from the law of sin and death, because it lays hold of the freedom Christ has accomplished for us. But besides this, and next to faith, there is a Spirit of sanctification, by which we are free from the commanding law of sin and death. But to clear all this, consider that there is a freedom from sin and from death, in this life and in the life to come.

1. A freedom in this life, in calling, in justification, in sanctification; and in the life to come a freedom of glory.

(1) There is a freedom in effectual calling, by the ministry of the gospel. When the gospel is preached and unfolded, faith is worked in us, by which we know what Christ has done for us; and we see a better condition in Christ than the one we are in by nature. Seeing by the Spirit of God the cursed state we are in, we are convinced of sin in ourselves and of the good that is in Christ. And on this we are called out of the slavery we are in by nature, by the Spirit of Christ and the word of God, unfolding what our condition is.

For by nature man has self-love in him, and when that self-love is turned the right way, he begins to think: Ah, does the word of God say I am a slave to sin and damnation? The word of God can judge better than I can. And then the Spirit of God presses it home with conviction, that undoubtedly this is true. And together with the cursed kingdom and slavery that I am under, a better condition in Christ is revealed; for the gospel tells us what we are in Christ: freed from hell and death, and heirs of heaven. Oh, the happy condition of a Christian, to be in Christ!

When the gospel, with the Spirit, reveals this, a man is called out of the cursed state he is in by nature to the fellowship of Christ by faith, which is worked in this calling. So now he comes to be a member of Christ by faith. So whatever Christ has, or is, or has done or suffered, is mine by reason of this union with him by faith, which is the grace of union that knits us to Christ, and the first grace of application. So there is the first degree of liberty and freedom worked by the Spirit of God, together with the gospel, in effectual calling.

(2) The second is in justification. The faith and belief in Christ that was worked in effectual calling frees me from the guilt of my sins. For when the gospel, in effectual calling, reveals that Christ is such a one, and that there is such a condition in Christ, and faith is worked in me, then that faith lays hold upon the obedience of Christ to be mine. For Christ in the gospel offers his obedience to be mine, as if I had done it in my own person. Whatever Christ did or suffered is mine; for God has made him to be “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30), to be all in all. The gospel sets him forth to be so.

Now when faith lays hold of Christ as made by God all in all, obedience, righteousness, and so on, whatever is needful, then this faith justifies me. Then I come to be free from the guilt of my sins, because my sins were laid upon Christ. Christ’s death was the death of a surety. It was as if I had died myself, and firmer still. Thus I come to be free in justification; for what my surety has done I have done.

(3) Again, there is a freedom in sanctification. That is, when a man believes that Christ is his, and that his sufferings are his, then the same Spirit that reveals this to be mine works a change and alteration in my nature, and frees me from the dominion of sin. The obedience of Christ frees me from the condemnation of sin, and the Spirit of sanctification frees me from the dominion of sin. This is the freedom of sanctification, which faith lays hold on. “Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his” (Rom 8:9). Christ as a head communicates to me the Holy Spirit to sanctify my nature; and “of his fullness we receive grace for grace” (John 1:16). So the Spirit of sanctification in Christ frees me from the dominion of sin and death.

It is said here that by Christ we have spiritual liberty and freedom, not from sin and death, but from the law of sin and of death. It is one thing to be freed from sin and death, and another thing to be freed from the law of them. For we are not in fact freed from sin and death, but from the law of sin and death, that is, from the condemning power of sin: though sin is in us, yet it does not condemn us; and though we die, yet the sting is pulled out. Death is but a passage to a better life. So I say that in justification we are freed from the condemning power of sin, and in sanctification from the commanding power of sin. Once we are knit to Christ, we have the obedience of Christ as ours in justification; and the holiness of Christ is communicated to us, as from the head to the members, in sanctification; and so we are freed from the law of sin.

To understand this a little better: the same Spirit that sanctified the natural body, the human nature of Christ, by which he “became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh,” that same Spirit sanctifies the mystical body of Christ, that it may be “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh” (Eph 5:30). For before we come to heaven, Christ must not only “be bone of our bone …,” that is, in his incarnation, but we must be “bone of his bone ….” That is, we must have natures like Christ’s, not only flesh and blood (for so a reprobate has flesh and blood, as Christ has), but we must have his Spirit altering and changing our nature. Instead of a proud, disobedient, rebellious nature, it must now be a holy and humble and meek nature, together with human frailty, for that we carry about with us. Then the Spirit of life communicated from Christ makes us “bone of his bone.”

For indeed, in his human nature being “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,” he made us “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.” He became man that we might partake of the divine nature, being partakers of the divine Spirit. So now the Spirit of life in Christ, when we are knit to him, is a Spirit of sanctification, altering our natures and working in our hearts a disposition like Christ’s, so that we judge as Christ judges, and choose as Christ chooses, and aim at God’s glory as Christ did. For there is the same mind in us that was in Christ (Phil 2:5), in our proportion, growing still more and more to conformity with Christ, till we are in heaven, till Christ be all in all (1 Cor 15:28), when he will change our nature to be holy as his own.

2. Besides this liberty from sin and death in this life, there is a glorious liberty and freedom that we have by the Spirit of Christ when we are dead. For then the Spirit of life that raised Christ’s dead body will raise our bodies; and that Spirit of Christ that raises his body and raises our souls in this world from sin to believe in him will raise our dead bodies. The same might and power that works in Christ works in his members. This is called “the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Rom 8:21). Then we shall be freed indeed, not only from the law of sin, but from sin itself; and not only from the law of death, but from death itself; and we “shall live for ever with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17). Christ then shall be all in all by his Spirit.

Christ will never leave us till he has brought us to that glorious freedom. We are freed already from sin and death. He has “set us in heavenly places together with himself” now (Eph 2:6). In faith we are there already, but then we shall be indeed. Thus you see how we come to have the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, to free us from the law of sin and death, and all the stages of it.

Use. You see here that there is law against law: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ against the law of sin and death. I beseech you, consider that God has appointed law to countermand law, the Spirit of Christ to overcome sin in us, not only in justification but in sanctification. Oh, let us therefore think of this with comfort: there is a law above this law. I have cold, dead, base affections now; but if I have the Spirit of Christ, he can revive me and give me life. He will not only pardon my sin, but by the law of his Spirit direct, guide, and command me in a way contrary to my lusts.

And this is an art of spiritual prudence in heavenly things: whenever we are beset with dangers, to set something greater against them. The devil is an angel; but we have a guard of angels about us. The devil is a serpent; but we have a brazen serpent that cures all the stings of that serpent. We have principalities and powers against us, but we have greater principalities and powers for us: the law of life against the law of sin and death. We have a law of our lusts tyrannizing over us and enslaving us. It is true. But then there is a law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus to overcome and subdue that law of our lusts, provided that we use the prerogatives we have, that we use faith and go to God and Christ, in whom are all the treasures of grace. He is the treasury of the church: “Of his fullness we receive grace for grace” (John 1:16).

Are we troubled with any corruptions? Go to the Spirit of liberty in Christ, and ask him to set us at liberty from the bondage and slavery of our corruptions. And remember what Christ has done for us, and where he is now, in heaven. Let us raise our thoughts, that we may see ourselves in heaven already, and that we may be ashamed to defile with the base drudgery of sin and Satan our bodies and souls, which are sanctified in part in this world and shall be glorified in heaven. Certainly faith would raise our souls so.

We betray ourselves when, being once in the state of grace, we are basely enslaved to any sin. “For sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are under grace,” says the apostle (Rom 6:14). Being under grace, if we only use our reason and use faith and exercise the grace we have been given, we cannot be in bondage to corruptions. We shall have remnants to trouble us, but not to rule, and reign, and domineer. For sin never holds sway except when we betray ourselves, and either do not believe what Christ has done for us, or else do not exercise our faith. A Christian is never basely overtaken except when he neglects his privileges and prerogatives, and does not stir up the grace of God in him.

Learn this, then: when we are troubled with anything, set law against law. Set the law of the Spirit of life in Christ against all oppositions whatsoever, and let the temptation lie where it will.

1. Let it lie in justification, as when we are tempted by Satan to despair for sins, for great sins. Oh, but then consider: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has “freed me from the law of sin and of death.” Christ was made sin, to free me from sin. Consider that Christ was God-man. He satisfied divine justice. “The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), “though they be as red as crimson” (Isa 1:18). Thus set Christ against our sins in justification, when the guilt of them troubles our souls.

2. And so likewise, when we are set on by base lusts, set against them the power of Christ in sanctification. What am I now? A member of Christ; one who professes to be an heir of heaven. There is a Spirit of life in Christ my head. There is a law of the Spirit of life in Christ; that is, there is a commanding power in his Spirit; and that Spirit of his is not only in the head, but in the members. If I go to him for grace, I may have grace corresponding to the grace that is in him, grace that will strengthen me with his power. “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Eph 6:10), and in “Christ I can do all things” (Phil 4:13), by his Spirit, though in myself I can do nothing.

3. And so in deadness and desolation of spirit, when the soul is cast down for want of comfort, let us think with ourselves: The Spirit of life in Christ is a life-giving Spirit. If I can believe in Christ, he has freed me from the guilt of sin, and by his Spirit he has given me some little release from the dominion of my corruptions. Why should I be cast down? I am an heir of heaven. Before long Satan shall be trodden under my feet (Rom 16:20). Before long I shall be free from the spiritual combat and conflict with sin that I am now engaged in. Therefore I will comfort myself; I will not be cast down overmuch.

4. In the hour of death, let us make use of this freedom of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. When the time comes that soul and body must be separated, oh, let us think with ourselves: Now I must die, yet Christ has died; and I must die in conformity to my head. And here is my comfort: “The law of the Spirit of life hath freed me from the law of death.” It has freed me from spiritual and eternal death. So now through Christ death has become friendly to me. Death now is not the death of me, but it will be the death of my misery, the death of my sins; it will be the death of my corruptions. Death now will be the death of all that troubled me before. But death will be my birthday in regard of happiness. “Better is the day of death than the day of birth” (Eccl 7:1).

When a man comes into this life he comes into misery; but when he dies, he goes out of misery and comes to happiness. So indeed we never live till we die; we never live eternally and happily till then. For then we are freed from all misery and sin. “Blessed are they that die in the Lord; they rest from their labors” (Rev 14:13). They rest from their labors of toil and misery; they rest from the labors of sin, from all labors whatsoever. “Blessed are they that die in the Lord,” and of all times blessed then, more blessed than before. They rest from their labors, and then begins their happiness that shall never end. So you see what comfort a Christian’s soul, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, may have, if it goes to God in Christ and begs Christ to be set at liberty from all enemies, to serve God in holiness and righteousness.

I speak too poorly when I say that the law of the Spirit of life has freed us from sin and death. This is not all. The Spirit of life not only frees us from ill, but advances us to the contrary good in everything in which this freedom consists. For we are not only called out of misery, but to a kingdom. We are not only freed from sin, but entitled to heaven in justification; and in sanctification we are not only freed from corruption, but enabled by the Holy Spirit of liberty to run the ways of God’s commandments, and to make them voluntary, to serve God cheerfully, “zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).

We are not only freed from the command and condemnation of sin and the rigor of the law, but we have contrary dispositions, ready and willing and voluntary dispositions, worked by the Spirit of Christ, toward everything that is good. And so we are not only free from death and misery (for so are things without life; they suffer no misery), but we are partakers of everlasting life and glory, the liberty of glory.

God’s benefits are complete; that is, not only negative, freeing us from ill, but positive, implying all good; because God will show himself a God: he will do good things as a God, fully. For the law of the Spirit of life not only frees us from the law of sin and of death, but writes the law of God in our hearts. He not only frees us from the law of death, but advances us to everlasting life, to the glorious life we have in heaven, “to live for ever with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17). Oh, the happy condition of a Christian, if we could know our happiness!

Let us often meditate deeply on Christ, and on ourselves in him. Let us see all our ill in him, and all our good in him. See death overcome, and sin overcome by his death, he being “made a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). See the law overcome, he being “made under the law” for us (Gal 4:4-5). When the wrath of God vexes and terrifies us, see it upon him. He sweat water and blood in the garden (Luke 22:44). That wrath made him cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). See all that may trouble us in him, as our surety. And all the good we hope for, see it in Christ first. Whatever he has in his natural body is for his mystical body; for he gave his natural body for his mystical body.

In this world God, to humble us, exercises us with troubles and calamities, as he did Christ. We must be conformed to our head. But consider that the poison and sting of all the ills we need to fear is swallowed up and taken away by Christ. And, as I said, let us see all our good in him. We are sons in him, raised in him, blessed in him, “set in heavenly places with him” (Eph 2:6), and shall be fellow heirs and kings with him; for we are his members, his spouse. The wife shall enjoy the same condition as the husband; whatever he has she shall have. What a comforting condition this is! We can fear no ill and lack no good. Whatever he has is for us. He was born for us. He died for us. He is gone to heaven for us; for us and our good. He did and suffered all these things. We cannot exercise our thoughts too much in these meditations.

The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of union and communion. Hence it has its name; and by receiving the sacrament, our communion and union with Christ is strengthened. What a comfort then it is to think that if I have fellowship with Christ, it is sealed by the sacrament! When I take the bread and wine, at the same time I have communion with the body and blood of Christ shed for my sins; and as Christ himself was freed from my sins imputed to him, and by his resurrection declared that he was freed, so surely shall I be freed from my sins. So this communion, the taking of the bread and wine, seals to us our communion and fellowship with Christ, and with it our freedom from sin and from the law, and sets us in a blessed and happy state.

We should labor therefore by all means to strengthen our union and communion with Christ; and among the rest, to attend reverently and carefully upon this blessed ordinance of God. For the body of Christ broken gives us life, because it is the body of the Son of God. “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55). And he calls his body broken “the bread of life” (John 6:35). Why? Because it was the body of the Son of God, who is life. All life comes from God. Now, since Christ took our nature upon him, his death is a life-giving death; and by reason of the union with the divine nature, it is now the body of God broken and the blood of God shed for us.

There is our comfort; and he was declared to be so by his resurrection, which declared that he was God, and that he was freed from our sins. How powerful that Savior must be, who was so strong in his very death, when his very body was broken and his blood let out! Then he laid the foundation of all comfort, for then he satisfied the wrath of God. Christ was strongest when he was weakest. The resurrection was but a declaration of the worth of what he had done.

Now, in the sacrament we have communion with Christ dying, especially as his body is broken and his blood shed, for that is the foundation of all comfort by his resurrection. The Spirit of life was in Christ, and gave life to his body while he was alive, and was a Spirit of life even when he died, and gave worth and excellency to his death. Because of this, when we take the communion, we ought not to meditate merely on the death of Christ, as his blood was shed and his body broken, but on the death of such a person as had the Spirit of life in him, as was God and man. And so set the excellency of his person against all temptations whatsoever. Set the excellency of Christ so abased, his body broken and his blood shed, against all temptations.

Even if it is the greatest temptation, the wrath of God upon the conscience, yet when conscience thinks this, that God, the party offended, gave his own Son to be incarnate, that the Spirit of life in him gave life to man’s nature, and that in that nature the Son died to make satisfaction, then it sees that God will now be satisfied by the death of such a surety as his own Son. So the excellency of the person, who has the seal of God upon him, “For him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27), wonderfully satisfies conscience in all temptations whatsoever.

What need has a man to fear death, and damnation, and the miseries of this life, and Satan? What are they all? If God is appeased and reconciled in Christ, then a man has comfort, and may think of all other enemies as conquered enemies. Now, we cannot think of the death of Christ, who was a “quickening Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), without thinking of the death of an excellent person, who gave worth to his death, so that it is a death that makes satisfaction for us.

Therefore let us receive the communion with this comfort: as surely as Christ is mine, so his life-giving Spirit is communicated to me, and whatever he has is mine. If I have the field, I have the pearl in it. His obedience, his victory over death, his sonship, are mine; his sitting in heaven is for me; he sits there to rule me while I am on earth, and to take me up to himself when I am dead. All is for me. When we have communion with Christ we have communion with all. Therefore “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” when I am one with him, gives me life, and “frees me from the law of sin and death.”

Also we know that all things work together for the best to them that love God, even to them that are called of his purpose (Rom 8:28).

There are three things especially that trouble the life of a Christian, or at least should trouble it.

1. The first of these is sin, with its guilt and punishment.

2. The second is the corruption of nature, which still abides in him, even after his calling and conversion to Christ.

3. The third is the miseries and crosses of this life, which follow and ensue both upon sin and its evil, and also by reason of that corruption of nature still remaining in him after his restored state in grace.

For the first, the guilt of sin, which binds men over to death and damnation, is forgiven to all believers in Christ Jesus, the “second Adam.”

The second, the corruption of nature, which cleaves so fast to us, is daily mortified and crucified in the saints by the word and Spirit of God.

As for the third, the grievous crosses and afflictions which accompany and follow the guilt of sin and the corruption of nature still remaining in God’s children, though they are not taken away, yet they are made to have an excellent outcome, “for all things work together for the best unto them that love God.” So these words of the apostle give us:

1. A ground of patience.

2. A ground of comfort.

In the former part of this chapter, the apostle had told us “that we know not how to pray as we ought, but that the Spirit itself doth teach us how to pray, and makes requests for us with sighs that cannot be expressed” (Rom 8:26). And therefore, though our corruptions and miseries in this life are not quite taken away, yet the evil of those evils is removed, God teaching and directing us by his Spirit to seek, by prayer to him, for grace to profit by them. And this is the connection of these words with what came before.

The parts to be handled here may be these.

1. An excellent prerogative: “All things work together for the best.”

2. The persons to whom this prerogative belongs: “To them that love God,” and whom he calls.

3. The main cause of this blessed prerogative.

Those who “love God” have this privilege belonging to them because they are effectually called by his word, “according to his purpose.” We know, says the apostle, “that all things work together for the best” to these. He does not say, “we hope,” or “we conjecture,” but “we know it assuredly.”

We have the Scriptures of God for it. David says that “it was good for him that he was afflicted” (Ps 119:71), for by it he had learned to reform his ways; he knew by observation that all things would tend to his future happiness. For he had seen in the example of Job that, in spite of his sore afflictions, he had a blessed outcome out of them all. He knew this in many ways. He knew it by faith, and also by experience, that everything should further the saints’ well-being.

We know: that is, we alone know it, who are led and taught of God, and none but we can be assured of this. This excludes the wicked, who shall never know any such thing. But what is it that Paul is confident of here? Namely, “that all things work together for the best to them that love God.”

And this may serve to forestall a question which weak Christians might raise in their troubles, saying, “No one was ever more afflicted than I am.” Why, says the apostle, let it be so. Yet, nevertheless, all things whatsoever, all your crosses, vexations, and trials, “shall work together” and join in one outcome. Though they are hostile to one another and opposed to the good of God’s children, as Herod and Pilate were, yet all things, contrary as they are, shall work for the best to them. There is:

1. A good of quality.

2. A good of state.

Question. What kind of good, then, does the apostle mean here?

Answer. He does not here mean the natural or civil well-being of those who love God, but their spiritual condition in grace and their glorious state for the life to come; and whatever befalls them in this life shall still help to further these.

And so much for the words themselves.

Doctrine. The first point to be spoken of is the excellent privilege of God’s children, “that all things shall work together for the best”; both good and evil shall turn to their happiness. The reason stands thus: “All things shall work together for the best to them that love God.” Therefore all afflictions, crosses, and vexations whatsoever that befall such persons shall work together for their good; and for this reason all God’s servants must learn patiently to bear, and cheerfully to undergo, poverty or riches, honor or dishonor, in this world.

That all good things work for the best to God’s servants is most apparent by daily proof and experience.

1. To begin with the first chief good of all, which is God the Father, who is goodness itself, and unspeakably comforting to all his own. Do not all God’s attributes contribute to our eternal welfare? Is he not set forth in Scripture under the sweet name of a “Father,” of a “Shield and Buckler,” of a “Tower of defense,” of an “all-sufficient and almighty God,” just, wise, provident, merciful, full of boundless compassion, and all to uphold his poor creatures from failing before him?

As he is our “Father,” he cares for us above the care of earthly parents for their children; as he is a “Shield,” so he shelters us from all wrongs; as he is “God almighty and all-sufficient,” so his power and bounty serve to sustain us in this world, and to reserve us forever safe in the world to come. His wisdom makes us wise to forestall the cunning plots of the devil or of wicked men. His justice and providence serve to defend us in our right, to provide for us in all our wants, and to prevent the evils the ungodly intend against us. His power is ours, to keep us; his providence, to dispose all things for our advantage.

Everything in God shall work together to provide and foresee all good for us, and mercifully to impart and bestow on us whatever is needful. So, God being our Father, we have right and title to his love, mercy, power, justice, truth, faithfulness, providence, wisdom, and all-sufficiency, all of which shall ever work together for the best to them that love his appearing.

2. So also for Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. All his glorious titles and attributes likewise serve for the everlasting comfort of his poor saints on earth. He is called the “husband of his church,” to cherish and maintain it. His love for his church is far above the love of any husband for his wife. He is called the “Savior of the world,” because he so loved the world, that he gave his life for it (Gal 2:20), and has promised “that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish” (John 3:16). He is called the “Fountain of life,” the “Well of life,” the “Water of life,” the “Bread of life,” the “Way, the Truth and the Life,” because in him is our life, and by him we are fed and nourished to eternal life. Here in him we obtain the life of grace, and in the world to come we shall forever enjoy the life of glory.

3. So likewise for the Holy Spirit. What heavenly attributes are ascribed to him in the Scriptures! He is called “the Comforter” of God’s servants, and the “Sealer” of the redemption of God’s children in their hearts. He teaches the elect to call God Father; he “beareth witness with their spirits that they are the sons and daughters of God”; he teaches them “to pray as they ought”; “he fills them with peace that passeth all understanding,” and refreshes their spirits with such unspeakable joy as eye has not seen, nor ear heard the like.

He who is instructed by the Spirit knows the things of God, of which a natural man is ignorant. The Holy Spirit calls to remembrance the doctrine of God taught to his servants, and writes it in their hearts, so that the operations of the blessed Spirit all belong to those who “love God,” and they alone have their right in them. The direction, comfort, teaching, and guiding of the Spirit of God serve entirely and uniquely to order and work all things together for the best to the godly.

4. Yes, the angels themselves are called “messengers and ministering spirits,” appointed by God to attend and wait upon his servants. He gives his angels charge over these, to serve them in all their ways, and to pitch their tents round about them (Ps 34:7). Whenever God is pleased to call any of his own out of this world, the angels are a safe escort to carry their souls into “Abraham’s bosom.” And at the last judgment, the Lord shall send forth his angels “to gather his elect” (Matt 24:31) from one end of the world to the other, that they may fully enjoy what they have long waited for, even eternal bliss and glory.

5. Under the angels, all other creatures are likewise made serviceable for his people’s good. Princes in authority are called in Scripture “nursing fathers and nursing mothers” to the church of Christ (Isa 49:23), the purpose of all magistracy being that we might live religiously and peaceably in all the ways of God.

6. Ministers also are called in the word by the names of “watchmen and seedsmen,” and “spiritual fathers,” to beget men again to the kingdom of heaven. They are called “God’s husbandmen,” to cultivate and till his ground. They are called “God’s lights,” and “the salt of the earth,” both to enlighten the church with the light of the glorious gospel of which they are ministers, and to season its people with such savory and sweet instructions as may make them wise to salvation. This is the very purpose of all God’s giving of gifts to men, that they might build up the church of Christ here below.

7. So also the word of God is called the “savor of life,” and “the power of God unto salvation.” It is “the seed of God,” which, being sown in the hearts of God’s children, springs up in them to everlasting happiness. God’s word is a “light and a lantern” to guide and direct us in all his ways. It is the sword of the Spirit, to arm us against sin and to maintain us in grace.

8. The sacraments likewise are the seals of life and pledges of our salvation in Christ. And excommunication, though it is rough and the most extreme censure of the church (and therefore ought to be undertaken on weighty grounds), yet has this as its end: to save the souls of God’s people, and to make them turn to him by repentance.

9. So all outward gifts, such as beauty, strength, riches, and honors, are given by God to serve for the good of his children. So the beauty of Esther was an instrument of her advancement, by which she became a preservation to God’s children and an overthrow of her enemies and theirs. And so Joseph’s outward honors and wealth were made by God’s disposing hand a means of the preservation and nourishment of the Israelites in the time of their great extremity and famine. The like may be said of learning and other natural attainments, all of which often tend to general and public advantage.

10. Yes, the outward gifts of God which are bestowed on reprobates are still for the good of his own; for those who had the skill and knowledge to build Noah’s ark, though they themselves were not saved in it, were yet the means of Noah’s preservation. And so it often happens that men of excellent talents and great abilities without grace, though they themselves are not profited by them, are yet so used by God that their gifts do much to further and build up the church of Christ.

11. Even the outward favor of princes often tends to the good of God’s servants. “A just man,” as the heathens could say, “is a common benefit.” And so with a true Christian: whatever good he has, it is communicable to all the faithful; and therefore St. Paul says of himself that he was a debtor to all men, both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 1:14), and that he “became all things to all men, that he might win some” (1 Cor 9:22).

But here the main question will be, and the difficulty arises, how all evil things can work together for the best to God’s children. I shall therefore demonstrate:

1. The truth of this, how it can be so.

2. The reasons why it is so.

3. Observe a caution, that it not be abused.

4. Let us see the sweet and comforting use of this doctrine.

That this may appear the better, we must know that all evil things are either:

1. Spiritual evil things.

2. Outward evil things.

And spiritual evil things are either, first, sin; or, secondly, that which has reference to sin, as being evils that follow after sin.

1. The first sin of all, which has gone over the whole of mankind and is spread abroad in every one of us, by God’s mercy and our repentance proves a transcendent good to all believers. For the fall and sin of the first Adam caused the birth and death of the “second Adam,” Christ Jesus. Though he was God, he took on himself the nature of man, and by his coming he has made us far happier than if we had never fallen. Nor would God have allowed Adam to fall but for his own further glory, in the manifestation of his justice and mercy, and for the greater happiness of his servants in Christ their mediator.

2. The next spiritual evil is the corruption of nature remaining in all mankind, however broken and subdued in the Lord’s dear ones. This works for the best to them in the following way.

(1) It serves to make us see and know we are kept by God: that we are not the keepers of our own selves, “but are kept by his power through faith unto salvation” (1 Pet 1:5). For were it not that God upholds and sustains us, our corruptions would soon overturn us. But the sight of corruption, being sanctified to the soul, causes us to ground our comfort outside ourselves in Christ, and not to rely in the least on anything that is in us.

(2) Our corruptions are also good to abase the pride of our natures, and let us see the wickedness of our spirits, that we may be humbled before God.

(3) And it is good that we should have something within us to make us weary of the world; otherwise, when we have run out our race, we would be unwilling to depart from here. Now our bondage to this natural corruption serves exceedingly to make us mourn for our sinful disposition and hunger after our God, to be joined with him. We see this in St. Paul’s example in Romans 7:24, where, finding the rebellion of his nature and the strife that was in him, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, he cries out, saying, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” and immediately seeks God in Christ for mercy.

(4) Sometimes God allows corruption to break out of us, that we may know ourselves the better. And because corruption is weakened not only by smothering but many times by having a vent, grace thereupon stirs up in the soul a fresh hatred and revenge against it, and lets us see a necessity of having the whole Christ, not only to pardon sin, but to purge and cleanse our defiled natures. But still, that which is evil in itself must not be done for the good that comes from it by accident. This must be a comfort after we have been caught by surprise, not an encouragement beforehand.

(5) It is our great consolation that our nature is perfect in Christ, who has taken our nature on himself, and satisfied divine justice, not only for the sin of our lives but for the sin of our natures. He will finish his own work in us, and never give up until by his Spirit he has made our natures as holy and pure as his own, until he has taken away not only the reign but the very life and being of sin out of our hearts. To this end he leaves his Spirit and truth in the church to the end of the world, that the seed of the Spirit may subdue the seed of the serpent in us, and that the Spirit may be a never-failing spring of all holy thoughts, desires, and endeavors in us, and dry up the contrary issue and spring of corrupt nature.

(6) Lastly, it is good that corruption should still remain in us, that the glory of God may the more appear, when Satan, that great and strong enemy of mankind, shall be foiled and overturned by a weak and poor Christian who is full of corruptions; and that through the strength of faith, though mixed with much distrust. For a Christian in the state of sin and corruption to overcome the great adversary of mankind, what a wonder that is! It tends greatly to the shame and dishonor of that “fiery dragon” that weak and sinful man should be his conqueror. Oh, how it confounds him to think that “a grain of mustard seed” (Matt 13:31) should be stronger than the gates of hell, that it should be able to “remove mountains” of oppositions and temptations cast up by Satan and our rebellious hearts between God and us! Abimelech could not endure that it should be said “a woman had slain him” (Judg 9:54); and it must surely be a torment to Satan that a weak child, a decrepit old man, should by a spirit of faith put him to flight.

3. A third kind of spiritual evil of sin is the things that issue out of this cursed stock; and these are either inward or outward. Inward sins are either errors or doubtings, or pride or wrath, or the like.

(1) And first, for doubtings of the truth. This often makes God’s servants more resolute to seek and search it out, and afterward to stand more firm and courageous for it. For if we never doubted things, we would not afterward be put out of doubt, nor seek to be better grounded and instructed in them. The Corinthians once doubted the resurrection, but were ever after better resolved in that doctrine, the benefit of which has greatly redounded to the church’s good ever since. Thomas had the like wavering disposition, but this doubting made the truth the more manifest. Luther, being a monk at first and not fully grounded in the doctrine of the gospel, therefore suspected himself the more, and wished all men after him to read his writings warily.

The doctrine of the Trinity was formerly much doubted, and therefore it has been more evidently proved by the greater pains and study of worthy men then living in the church. And when the Pelagians grew into heresies, they were contradicted and very strongly withstood by St. Augustine. So the doctrine of the Church of Rome, branching into various erroneous opinions and broached to the great hurt and harm of Christians, has occasioned the truth of God against them to be the more excellently cleared and made known. For when religion is attacked, then it is time to hold fast, as the apostle St. Jude says, with both hands the word, and to fight for the faith, so that we may know both what to hold and on what ground we oppose heresy.

(2) Now for inward sins, such as anger, covetousness, distrust, and the like, these often prove advantageous to the saints. Their corruptions are a means of their humiliation. Paul and Barnabas, having a breach between them, were so exasperated that they forsook each other’s company, by which means it came to pass that the church was more instructed than before. And from this we may see what the best men are in themselves. If Luther had had no infirmities, how far beyond measure would men have credited him? As we see, they were ready to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. This shows us that even the distempers and weaknesses of God’s servants are disposed by divine providence to their eternal welfare.

(3) Yes, God often allows his children to fall into some outward gross sins, that by means of them they might be humbled and abased, and in the end be cured of that provoking sin of being proud in spirit.

(4) The falling of God’s children greatly dejects them, and brings them to their knees with shame. It makes them gentle and meek in the reproof of their brothers; for having slipped out of the way themselves, and having been recovered by repentance, they learn to “restore others with the spirit of meekness,” as the apostle speaks (Gal 6:1). A man humbled by experience of sin in himself will soon relent at the fall of others. Those who have formerly been overtaken with some gross sin, and by it have ever after been much abased in their own eyes, often prove the most excellent instruments in the church.

We see that David, Paul, and Peter fell grievously, but being afterward raised again and finding comfort themselves, they were a great means of strengthening others; for he who teaches out of his own experience and feeling is the fittest and best teacher of all. So it was with Jonah: when God had humbled him by casting him into the sea, he was fit to preach repentance to Nineveh. This is a most certain truth, that no one of God’s elect ever fell grievously but he was the better for his fall all the days of his life. David had been thoroughly humbled for sin, and when Shimei his subject cursed him to his face, how patiently he bore it (2 Sam 16:13 and following)! So with Peter: he denied his Master and afterward recovered himself again, and we see how zealous he was for his Lord Christ, and how he suffered death for him.

(5) Furthermore, not only do the sins of God’s children which they themselves commit work for their best, but also the sins of others of the saints with whom they associate and live tend greatly to their good and welfare. Do not the falls of David, Peter, Manasseh, and Paul comfort the distressed and despairing souls of those who languish and are ready to faint under the burden of their sins? And does not the record of their sins in Scripture give us hope that God will be merciful to our sins also? We must not think it is God’s will to set the sins of his servants on perpetual record for their shame, disgrace, and punishment, but for the comfort of us who live and remain to the end of the world. And the faults of the saints have two excellent uses, the one for comfort, the other for instruction.

Use 1. The use in regard of comfort is this. God has shown mercy to David, Paul, Peter, and others, who sinned grievously against him and repented of it. Therefore, if I also sin and truly repent as they did, surely God is where he was, as full of mercy and readiness to forgive now as ever.

Use 2. The second use, for instruction, is this: If such excellent and eminent saints have fallen grievously by sin, how much more are we poor weak souls subject to fall if we neglect watchfulness over ourselves! If a weak Christian, often assaulted with temptations, should not see the falls and slips of God’s worthier servants, he would be in a dreadful despair, and cry out concerning himself, saying, “Alas! what shall I do? No one was ever so assaulted and tempted, so cast down and overcome in temptations, as I am; and therefore my case is more fearful and worse than anyone’s ever was.” But when he considers the grievous falls of God’s special servants, how they have stepped aside foully and yet obtained mercy, by their examples he begins to be revived and to receive inward comfort. By this it is evident that all sins whatsoever of God’s elect, vile and loathsome as they are, do by God’s providence and our own serious repentance turn to their good, and the good of those with whom they live.

4. The next spiritual evil is that which follows after sin has been committed, namely, God’s desertion or forsaking of us, when he seems to hide his favor from men after they have sinned against him. When God shows himself as an enemy to his people, this grieves them more than anything else in the world. We see how David calls on God not to rebuke him in his wrath, nor forsake him in his displeasure (Ps 6:1), where he shows how grievously he was afflicted with the anger of the Almighty.

But although God does seem at times to forsake his servants, it is not to confound them but to console them. For by this means they come to be poor in spirit and wonderfully emptied of themselves. And it is very worth noting that when those who have been thoroughly wounded and afflicted inwardly come to recover strength and peace again, they often prove the most comforted Christians of all, walking with more care to avoid offense all their lives afterward.

Christ Jesus himself, though he never sinned, but only stood as a surety in our place to pay the ransom of our debts, seemed to be forsaken by God his Father; and because he was thus humbled, he was afterward most highly exalted above all, both in heaven and on earth. So Job seemed to be forsaken, and grievously bemoans his miseries. But this was not because he had sinned against God more grievously than others had done. It was for the trial of his faith and patience, to give him experience of God’s love to him in the cross, that he might cling the closer to his Maker all his time afterward.

5. Another evil arising from the guilt of sin is anguish of mind and a wounded spirit, of which Solomon says, “who can bear?” (Prov 18:14). But for all this, grief for sin is a happy grief, yes, a grief never to be grieved for. This wound in the spirit afterward breeds a sound spirit. Repentance is good, and faith in Christ is good. But what prepares us for these happy graces? Is it not a wounded spirit? Who would ever repent of his sins, and lay hold on Christ for the forgiveness of them, if he were not pricked and pierced with the sense of them? Christ professes himself to be a physician, but to whom? “To the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt 15:24). He promises ease and refreshment, but to whom? To those who are weary and laden with the burden of their sins. “The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, that he might preach the gospel to the poor” (Isa 61:1), and “he was sent to heal the broken hearted, that he might preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).

6. Again, many Christians walk very heavily and without comfort because of inward temptations and blasphemous imaginations, which often are suggested to them and enter into their minds. But these sins, which so vex the souls of poor Christians, are a means of humbling them, causing them to plead more earnestly with God for pardon. And these sinful corruptions further serve as a testimony to themselves that they are not under the power of Satan, but live in the kingdom of grace. For if they were held captive by the devil and under his government, he would never molest and vex them, but would let them live and die quietly in their sins. But because they are out from under his rule and jurisdiction, he perplexes and troubles them all he can. By this it is evident that all sins, by God’s mercy and our repentance, “do work together for the best unto us.”

7. Yes, even such circumstances of sin as continuance in it, which greatly aggravates the sin, make a person more zealous and watchful ever after, when he truly repents and is restored to Christ. We see this in Paul, and in the thief on the cross. Finding favor, the thief acknowledges that he deserves punishment, rebukes his fellow on the cross, and justifies Christ as having done all things well; and so, giving glory to God and crying for mercy, he receives a comforting promise of a heavenly kingdom (Luke 23:43). All things are possible to God. We can never be so ill as he is powerful and good; God can bring contrary out of contrary. He has promised to pour clean water on us (Ezek 36:25). Faith pleads that promise, and remembers that Christ has taken it on himself to purge his spouse and make her fit for himself.

8. Further, the very relapses and backslidings of God’s servants into sin do not prove that there is no repentance, but only a weak repentance. And therefore, when they are again rebuked and turned from sin, their relapses make them set about the service of God more strongly and run more constantly in his ways. Where there is true grace, sin loses strength by every new fall; for from this come deeper humility, stronger hatred of evil, fresh indignation against ourselves, more experience of the deceitfulness of our hearts, and renewed resolutions until sin is brought under. Adam lost everything by sinning once, but we are under a better covenant, a covenant of mercy, and are encouraged to go to God every day for the sins of that day.

For it is not with God as it is with men, who when offended will scarcely be reconciled. God, though offended, still offers mercy. He is not only ready to receive us when we return, but persuades and entreats us to come to him. Yes, after backsliding and false dealing with him, in a case where he allows no mercy to be shown by man, he will still take the liberty to show mercy himself, as in Jeremiah: “If a man have an adulterous wife, and shall put her away, and she become another man’s, he will not receive her any more to him.” But the Lord says, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet turn again unto me” (Jer 3:1); “for I am merciful, and my wrath shall not fall upon you: I will not always keep mine anger” (Jer 3:12). “Though your sins be as crimson, they shall be white as snow, and though they be red like scarlet, they shall be as white as wool” (Isa 1:18); “if ye will turn to me, and wash ye, and make ye clean, and cease to do evil, and learn to do well” (Isa 1:16-17).

So Christ, speaking to the church of Ephesus, says, “She hath fallen from her first love” (Rev 2:4); but, he says, “Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, and I will receive thee to favour” (Rev 2:5). By this we see that the relapses of God’s elect do not finally keep mercy from their souls, and that notwithstanding those relapses they are still encouraged to return to God, to renew their covenant by faith and repentance, and to cling more strongly to him.

9. As for outward evils, they are, first, evils of estate, such as want and poverty, which often fall to the lot of God’s children. Yet they are not at all the worse for this, but rather the better in their inner man; for the less they have in this world, the greater and larger happiness they shall partake of in another world. What they lose one way is supplied another. Whatever comfort we have in goods or friends below is all conveyed from God above, who still remains, though these be taken away. The saints see that if, to preserve the dearest thing in the world, they break with God, he can make it a dead contentment and a torment to them; whereas if we care to preserve communion with God, we shall be sure to find in him whatever we deny for him: honor, riches, pleasures, friends, all, and these so much the sweeter by how much the more immediately we have them from the spring-head. Our riches and friends and life itself may soon depart. But God never loses his right in us, nor we our interest in him.

Everything beneath teaches us, by the vanity and vexation we find in it, that our happiness is not there. These things send us to God. They may make us worse, but better they cannot. Our nature is above them, and ordained for a greater good. They can only go along with us for a while, and their end swallows up all the comfort of their beginning.

Besides, none have such experience of God’s goodness and faithfulness as those who are in want and misery. God in his wisdom, foreseeing what is best for his servants, knows that the more worldly wealth they abound in, the less they would esteem heavenly things. He sees how apt the poor creature is to be carried away with present comfort, and to have his love drawn to the world from better contentments. The poorer they are in worldly riches, the more they seek to be rich in grace, in knowledge, faith, and repentance, and these heavenly treasures incomparably surmount the most transcendent excellence that created things can yield.

10. As for the evil of losing a good name, a thing that often befalls the children of God, to be slandered and evil spoken of: on every small disgrace they take occasion to enter into themselves and examine whether they are guilty of such hard accusations as are flung at them.

And if on serious consideration a believer finds himself disgraced for good things, he wears it as a crown and as a garland on his head, “rejoicing that he is accounted worthy to suffer for the Lord Jesus” (Acts 5:41), esteeming “the rebukes of Christ greater treasure than the riches of Egypt” (Heb 11:26). A true believer resigns his good name, and all that he has, to God. He is assured that no man can take away from him that which God will give him and keep for him. It is not in man’s power to make others think what they please of us.

11. As for the evils of the body, such as sickness and diseases of all sorts, which daily attend our houses of clay, by means of these God acquaints his children with their frail condition, and shows them what a little time they have to provide for eternity, thereby driving them to search their evidences and to make all straight between him and them. Outward weaknesses are often a means to restrain men from inward evils. God usually sanctifies the pains and griefs of his servants to make them better. The time of sickness is a time of purging from the defilement we gathered in our health. We should not be cast down so much for any bodily distemper as for sin, which procures and envenoms it.

That is a good sickness which tends to the health of the soul. Naaman the Assyrian, if he had not had leprosy in his body, would have continued a leper, both in body and soul, all his days; his outward grievances made him inwardly sound. The very heathen could say that we are best in soul when we are weakest in body, for then we are most given to heavenly resolutions and seeking after God. Yes, then it appears what good progress we have made in time of health. Oh, how happy our condition would be, if we were as good when we are well and in health as we usually are when we are sick and ill!

12. Even death itself, which is the end of all, though it is fearful and irksome to nature, yet to God’s servants it is a bed of down, easing them of all their miseries and putting them in possession of a heavenly kingdom. Therefore Solomon says, “The day of death is better than the day of birth” (Eccl 7:1). God will be the God of his own, not only unto death, but in death. Death is the death of itself, and not of us. It is a disarmed and conquered enemy to all the faithful; for which cause St. Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is best of all (Phil 1:23). Death, though it seems terrible and dreadful, yet, its sting being taken away by the death of Christ, brings everlasting joy along with it, and is only like a groom porter to let us into a stately palace. To what do all the troubles we meet with in this world tend, but only to fit us for a better condition hereafter, and to assure the soul that when earth can hold it no longer, heaven shall?

13. Yes, when friends forsake us and are false to us, God is a sure help in time of need (Ps 37:39). He is our refuge from one generation to another. Do we not see that in the decay of worldly comforts, God then shows himself most comfortingly to his people? Does he not style himself the comforter of the comfortless, and the help of them that are in distress; and do not “with him the fatherless find mercy” (Hos 14:3)?

If men were more fatherless, they would find more mercy at God’s hands. As Christ makes us everything to him, so we should make him “all in all” to ourselves. If all comforts in the world were dead, we have them still in the living Lord. How many friends have we in him alone, who, rather than we should lack friends, can make our enemies our friends?

Thus it appears that all miseries are a trial of what we are, both to God and to the world. They are a cure of past sin, and a preparation to endure further crosses. They have many excellent uses and ends, and all for the best to God’s servants.

It is good that we should be exercised with present crosses, to put us in mind of the evils we did long ago, so that we may repent of them. Joseph’s brothers, being afflicted and imprisoned, called to mind how harshly they had dealt with their brother long before (Gen 42:21). It should be our wisdom, while we remain here, to consider our warfaring condition: how we are daily surrounded by enemies, and therefore ought to stand continually on our guard against Satan and the powers of darkness, and as pilgrims and strangers go on in our journey to heaven, not starting at the barking of every dog, nor entangling ourselves in worldly things by which we would be stopped in our way.

It is for our best not to be condemned with the world. Afflictions serve for this very end, to make us prize God more, and deny created things with all their excellencies. Are our crosses great here? Let us not be daunted, but bear them patiently; our comfort shall be the greater afterward. It is good for us not only that we should have crosses, but that they should be continued on us, that we may know ourselves the better. If all were well with a wounded man, and the sore clean healed, the plaster would fall off by itself. So if we were thoroughly cured of our spiritual wants, and in continual resistance of every evil way, these afflictions, which are the plasters of our souls, would soon cease and leave us.

14. Furthermore, Satan himself and all his instruments, when they most set themselves against God’s people and seek their overthrow, are then working their chief good. The devil, when he thought to make an end of Christ by putting him to death, was even then, by that very thing, vanquished himself, and the church of God was fully ransomed from hell and damnation. God permits many heretics to be in the world; but why? Not that the truth should be held in darkness, but that it might by this means be more manifested and known. It is Satan’s continual trade to seek his rest in our disquiet. When he sees that men will go to heaven, and that they have good title to it, then he pursues them with all the temptations and discomforts he can. He cannot endure that a creature of meaner rank than himself should enjoy a happiness beyond him. But our comfort is that Christ was tempted, that he might succor all poor souls in the same case. We are kept by “his power, through faith unto salvation” (1 Pet 1:5).

Now, the causes why all things work together for the best to those who love God are these:

1. It is God’s decree.

2. It is God’s manner of working.

3. It is God’s blessed covenant.

4. It is the foundation of the covenant, Christ Jesus.

1. God’s decree and purpose is to bring all his elect to eternal salvation; and therefore all things in heaven and earth must contribute to bringing his servants to glory. The reason is this: God is infinitely wise and infinitely strong, provident, and good; therefore by his infinite wisdom, power, providence, and mercy he turns all things to the best for his own. Whatever is in heaven, earth, or hell is ordered by God, and there is nothing outside him; therefore nothing can hinder his decree. Satan himself, with all his instruments, yes, the worst of creatures, all must serve God’s purpose, contrary to their natures, for the good of his children.

The prophet says, “God hath commanded salvation, and he hath commanded deliverance to Jacob” (Ps 44:4). When God has determined to save any man, all things must of necessity serve him who overrules all things. As it was said of Christ when he stilled the seas, “Who is this, that the very wind and seas obey him?” (Matt 8:27). God commanded the whale to serve at his beck to save Jonah, and it obeyed. All creatures on the earth are at his disposal, and serve to accomplish his pleasure.

2. The second cause why all things work together for the best to believers is the manner of God’s working in things, which is by contraries. He brings light out of darkness, glory out of shame, and life out of death. We fell by pride to hell and destruction, and must be restored by humiliation to life and salvation. Christ humbled himself, being God, to become man for us, and by his death restored us to life. When our sins had brought us to the greatest extremities, even then we were nearest to eternal happiness. Therefore the apostle says, “When we are weak, then are we strong in the Lord” (2 Cor 12:10). When we are abased, then we are readiest to be exalted; when we are poor, then we are most rich; and when we are dead, then we live.

For God works all by contraries. He lets men see his greatness and his goodness, so that they may admire his works and give more glory to him. He works without means, and above means, and against means. Out of misery he brings happiness, and by hell he brings men to heaven; and this, as it shows God’s glory to his creatures, so it serves to confound man’s pride, that he may discern that he is nothing in himself, but is all that he is in the Lord.

3. The third cause why all things work for the best to those who fear God is God’s covenant with his church. When once this gracious covenant is made, that “he will be their God, and they shall be his people” (Lev 26:12), that he will be their Father and protector, must not all things then of necessity serve for their good? When God tells Abraham, “I am thy God, all-sufficient; only walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Gen 17:1), does this not engage him to set his power and mercy, his wisdom and providence, all to work for the happy estate of Abraham?

When once God by his promise has become our God, there is a covenant between us and the creatures, yes, even the stones in the street, that nothing shall wrong us, but all shall contribute to our good. The angels are ours; their service is for our protection, safety, and welfare. Heaven and earth are ours, and all things in them for our benefit. Christ himself, and together with him all things else, have become ours; in him we are heirs of all.

What a wondrous comfort this is, that God has made himself over to be ours! To enjoy him is to possess all things, and to lack him is misery inexpressible. Had we all the world without God, it would prove a curse and no blessing to us; whereas if we have nothing and enjoy God, we have happiness itself for our portion. If we have no better portion here than these things, we are likely to have hell for our portion hereafter. Let God be in any condition, however bad, and it is full of comfort. He is goodness itself. And indeed, nothing is so much a Christian’s as God is his; because by his being ours in covenant, all other things become ours, and therefore they cannot but work together for our good.

“When thou art in the fire and water, I am with thee,” says God (Isa 43:2). And “Thou art my buckler, my glory, and shield; therefore I will not be afraid though ten thousand of people shall beset me round about,” says David (Ps 3:3, 6); for “salvation belongeth unto the Lord” (Ps 3:8). And if God is on our side, who can be against us? “If God justify us, who shall condemn us?” (Rom 8:34). Can anything hurt us when he has become our loving Father? Neither “death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor principalities, nor powers, nor anything whatsoever, can separate us from his love toward us” (Rom 8:38-39).

4. A fourth ground why all things fall out for the best to the saints is the foundation of this covenant of God with his church, which is Christ Jesus, who by his blood has purchased our peace. He, being God, became man, and is the sole author of all our comfort. Without Christ, God is “a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29); but in him, a most loving Father, and ever well pleased. God promises in Christ his Son “to marry his people unto himself for ever; yea,” he says, “I will marry thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in mercy, and everlasting compassion” (Hos 2:19). Now upon this blessed contract made in Christ to his church, what follows? “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth: and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Israel: and I will have mercy upon her that was not pitied; and I will say unto them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God” (Hos 2:21-23).

Here we see the reason for all their happiness, namely this, that God will marry them to himself. So this marriage works all our bliss. Our union with Christ, and reconciliation through his death, is the cause of all our comfort; in him we have the adoption of sons. From this it comes that we are at peace with God and have freedom from all harms. Christ in his greatest reproach and deepest humiliation had his greatest triumph and exaltation. In his death on the cross he vanquished death and entered into eternal life. When Christ came into the world and took on himself our nature, even then the greatest monarch in the world, Augustus Caesar, was at his command, and Christ so ordered him that, by Augustus’s causing all the world to be taxed (Luke 2:1), Christ was manifested to be born at “Bethlehem in Jewry.”

How does it come to pass that death, which is fearful in itself, cannot hurt us? The reason is, “Death is swallowed up in victory” by his death (1 Cor 15:54). It is Christ who sanctifies all crosses, afflictions, and disgraces to the saints’ advantage. The evil of them all is taken away by him and turned to his people’s good. How does it come to pass that the law cannot hurt us, which pronounces a curse against everyone who does not abide in all things written in it, to do them? The reason is, “Christ was made a curse for us; he was made under the law, that he might redeem us who were under the law” (Gal 3:13; Gal 4:4-5); and thus Christ is a meritorious and deserving cause of procuring all good for us and removing all ill from us.

He not only overcomes evil for us, but also overcomes evil in us, and gives us his Spirit, who unites us to himself. By this we have ground to expect good out of every ill, knowing that whatever Christ wrought for the good of mankind, he did it for us in particular.

In outward favors grace makes us acknowledge all the blessings we have to be the free gifts of God, and invites us to return the glory to him.

God’s servants take all occasions and opportunities of doing good by the gifts and abilities with which they are endowed. When Esther was advanced to great honor, Mordecai told her that God had conferred that dignity on her for his people’s welfare, that she might be a means of their safety. On the contrary, a proud heart, destitute of the Spirit of Christ, ascribes all to itself, grows more haughty, and becomes worse and worse the more good it enjoys.

A gracious soul, on seeing the evil of sin in itself, is more deeply humbled before God, and with St. Paul cries out over its wretchedness (Rom 7:24). A heavenly-minded man, being smitten for his wickedness, labors for subjection under the hand of the Almighty, and says, “I will patiently abide and endure thy correction, because thou, Lord, hast done it” (Ps 52:9). When the gracious man is held under the cross and suffers bitter things, he says, “It is good for me that I am afflicted, for thereby I am taught to know thee” (Ps 119:71). In all troubles that befall him, he professes that it is good for him to cleave unto God. And the less outward wealth he has, the more he seeks inward grace, making a holy use of all things.

On the basis of these instructions, let us take a view of ourselves, and test whether we in our afflictions are such as cling to God and are drawn nearer to him by them. Call to mind the crosses with which God has exercised you, and the blessings he has at any time bestowed on you, and see how in both you have been bettered; see what profitable use you have made of them for your soul’s comfort.

Let us see how we have followed the providence of God in his dealing with us. For if we have an interest in his goodness, we will be careful, as God turns all things for our good, so to follow the same, together with him, for the good of our souls.

Objection. Now, because things do not always contribute to the good of God’s children, as outward peace and prosperity often make them worse, some may object, “How can this be true which the apostle here says, ‘that all things do work together for the best to them that love God’?”

Answer 1. The answer to this is that for the most part the children of God do take the good of the blessings which God bestows on them, and avoid the snares of evil which accompany them. Job says, “The things I feared are come upon me” (Job 3:25). By this we see that Job in the midst of all his prosperity feared and kept a jealous watch over himself.

2. But a plainer answer to the objection is that if the good things of God, such as peace, plenty, and prosperity, do fall out at first to their harm, yet nevertheless they shall prove in the end a great gain to them; for whereas by occasion of these things they formerly fell (having too high an estimation of created things, and overprizing them), they now see further into their nature and learn to despise them.

3. Again, the outward good things of this life show the weakness of God’s servants, and serve to try what is in them; and therefore we read of Hezekiah that God left him “to try what was in him” (2 Chr 32:31). The outward treasure he had was a means to make known to himself and to others the pride and vanity of his mind. The plenty and prosperity of the saints are greater triers of them than adversities and wants. For many who have comfortably gone through a low condition have yet foully failed in a full estate, their corruptions breaking out to the view of others. Prosperity teaches men themselves. It tries their spirits and lays them open to the world. Therefore it seems good to God to strip his servants of these outward things. They can acknowledge with patience his righteous dealing, knowing that man’s happiness does not consist in the abundance of these things, but that the blessing of God is riches enough.

Objection. But some may object and say, “I have been long afflicted, and have had many crosses upon me, and little good do I find by them. I am never the better, but rather the worse for it all.”

Answer. What you say may be true, but stay a little and consider the outcome. However little good you have found so far, because of the bitterness and continuance of the cross, yet know that God is all this while only hammering and working on your unruly heart; your good will follow afterward. We see by experience that sick people, while they are under medicine, are made sicker and sicker, but after it has finished working, the patient is far better than before. It is folly to think that we should have medicine and health both at once. It is impossible for a man to sow and reap both together. We must of necessity endure the working of God’s medicine. If trouble is lengthened, lengthen your patience. When the diseased humor is carried away and purged, then we shall enjoy the health we desired. God promises forgiveness of sin, but you find the burden of it on you daily. Cheer up; when the morning is darkest, then comes day; after a fight, victory will appear. God’s time is best; therefore wait cheerfully.

Often God’s servants under his cross are so sorely wrought upon that they hardly have leisure to make good use of it, being distracted and dejected for the present, so that they rather burst out into further evil than before. But afterward, when their afflictions are thoroughly digested, they begin to find the fruit of patience, humiliation, and obedience, and are better for it ever after. Therefore wait contentedly for God’s leisure; you will surely find a sweet calm after the storm is over. Though we find little benefit from afflictions for the present, yet let us not conclude that all is bad with us; for temptations, being bitter, will not allow men in them to lift up their hearts at once. After their extremity and vexation have been laid to rest, there follows the “quiet fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11).

Objection 1. But if all things, yes, sin itself, shall turn to the best for those who love God, why then need we care about committing sin?

Answer 1. The apostle St. Paul was troubled in his day with the same question. Observe, therefore, with what detestation he answers, saying, God forbid, the damnation of such men is just (Rom 3:8). But let me answer more fully and plainly, for the satisfaction of weak Christians.

2. It is true that all things, even the sins of God’s servants, shall by God’s mercy turn to their good; yet, nevertheless, the rule of God’s word must always be regarded, which is this: we may not do evil that good may come thereof. That which is evil in itself must not be done, no, even though by doing it we might gain the greatest good or avoid the greatest evil whatsoever. If it were to win a world, we might not tell a lie, because it is a breach of God’s law. Christ says to the devil, “It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt 4:7). We may not, therefore, tempt God by sin, so as to set his goodness to working good out of our wickedness.

If, therefore, on this ground of doctrine (that all things shall turn to the good of God’s children, yes, even their sins themselves), any of us shall commit wickedness and displease his Majesty, to try what mercy and wisdom is in him to draw good out of our evil, this is a provoking of God’s goodness. Those who do so turn the truth of God’s word into poison, and make that very thing their destruction which should build them up in grace and holiness.

If we sin through the weakness and frailty of our flesh and through the strength of temptation, we may find grace upon repentance. But if we break his law presuming that God will turn all things to our good, what else do we do but, first of all, make God the cause of our evil? Second, we vex and scandalize the saints on earth. Third, we sadden the blessed angels in heaven. Fourth, we delight the devils and damned spirits in hell, putting darts and deadly weapons into their hands to work our ruin and overthrow. Indeed, fifth, we grieve the good Spirit of God, who continually puts us in mind of better things, if we would listen to him, and by whom we are sealed up unto the day of redemption. Sixth, we slacken grace in our hearts, and whereas we should grow forward in virtue and holiness, we exceedingly weaken the power of godliness in us.

Seventh, all willing sins diminish our trust in God and the feeling of his favor toward us. Yes, often by sinning in this way many of his dear children have walked heavily, without spiritual joy, all the days of their lives. For although, because the Lord has elected us, we shall never finally fall away and perish, yet we may lack the sweet sense of his favor and remain afflicted in spirit all our life long. And then we shall know that the grief and trouble we undergo here to avoid sin and subdue it will be nothing like as great as the mischief and sorrow that sin, once committed and yielded to, will bring on the soul.

Yes, there is no child of God who will not one day feel by experience that, although God by his wisdom and mercy can turn every sin to our good, yet it will prove bitter as wormwood in the end; the pleasure will never match the smart and vexation that attend it. The contrition and breaking of your heart for your sins committed, if you are God’s, will disquiet and trouble you more than it can possibly be a trouble to resist and forsake sin.

Indeed, God often punishes the very want of reverence in his servants toward him, as also their slackness and unfitness in good duties, so that they may easily discern that he is offended with them for it. We may see this by the example of the Corinthians, who, coming to the Lord’s supper unprepared, were for this very cause so punished that some of them were sick, and some weak, and some were struck by death (1 Cor 11:30). As for David’s numbering of the people and Hezekiah’s showing of his treasures to the princes of Babylon, though some may think them small sins, yet God scourged both men very sharply for them.

And it is good that God’s servants should know a little what it is to offend their Maker, for if they will be so negligent and careless in walking with him, it is fitting that they should reap the fruit of their own devices. It causes much relapsing and backsliding from God when men have never truly smarted for their sin. Having had knocks in our own ways establishes us in God’s ways. For we love to wander from ourselves and remain strangers at home, until God by one cross or another brings us to himself, and then we think of returning to him. Indeed, it is a thousandfold better for them that God should school them in this way than that they should be let alone, and so go on unchecked from sin to sin until they come to despair.

Therefore, although God can and will turn the sins of his servants to the best advantage, yet it would be better for them if they had never sinned at all. Do we not think that David wished he had never fallen into that sin of adultery? And would not Peter have been glad if he had never denied his Master? The sin of David cost him many a cry for pardon: “Mercy, Lord, mercy”; “against thee have I sinned, forgive me this heinous crime.” And it cost Peter many a bitter salt tear too, although both David and Peter, after their recovery by repentance, were the better for it to their dying day.

As for all who persist in sin so that God may turn all things to their best, let them know that all things shall work together for their bane and utter destruction forever, which I now come to show.

1. God himself and his blessed angels are at enmity with them. And therefore:

2. All the creatures, both in heaven and earth, are against them. In Pharaoh’s ten plagues we see that the creatures were all ready to execute the pleasure of the Almighty against him. And the “bears out of the forest” were armed by God to devour those scoffing children (2 Kgs 2:24). This is one part of the burden under which the creatures of God groan, that they serve God against wicked men and are his armies to punish the rebellious world.

3. Even the good gifts of God are turned to the bane of the wicked. Absalom’s glory, his goodly long locks, were his halter to hang him up by. Ahithophel’s wisdom and statecraft brought him to that fearful end of being his own hangman. Haman’s honor, what good did it do him, except only to bring him to greater shame? His greatness made him swell in pride, and his pride had a sudden fall. What became of Herod’s high-mindedness in taking to himself the glory of God? When foolish people ascribed it to him, was he not immediately struck down, so that the worms consumed him (Acts 12:23), and he died a loathsome death? What became of the riches of Dives? Did not his abuse of them plunge him deeper into hell?

Wicked men, though they abound in this world, yet not being in covenant with God, have nothing with a blessing. The wicked are only like traitors before God; and it is often seen that great traitors, whom the prince keeps in prison, are nourished very liberally until their time of execution comes. So it is with all graceless persons. However great their allowances are for the present, yet as traitors they shall in the end have a hard account to make to God for all those things they have sinfully enjoyed. And not only so, but they abuse the very truth of God, as shall appear in various particulars.

(1) For the comforting doctrine of justification by faith alone: they pervert it to their own destruction, saying, “We are justified by faith only, so what need have we to care about doing good works? Alas! They profit us nothing toward our salvation. Therefore it is to no purpose to strive to do good.”

(2) Again, for the doctrine of Christian liberty. God having given us lawful recreations and the plentiful use of his created things, they turn everything into licentiousness. Instead of moderate refreshment, they make a daily occupation of sports and games; instead of a lawful use of created things, they run into all excess of riot in food, drink, clothing, buildings, and delights.

(3) And as for the doctrine of mortality, how do wicked men abuse it? They say, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die” (Isa 22:13). That which should put them in mind of spending their time well increases their sin.

(4) Whereas the longsuffering of God should lead men to repentance, the wicked by means of God’s patience run on more complacently in sin, “treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and the declaration of God’s just judgment” (Rom 2:5), which one day shall seize upon them. “Because he doth not speedily execute his displeasure” (Eccl 8:11), therefore they grow worse and worse. They never consider the lamentable condition that sin brings them into; if they thoroughly weighed it, they would give the whole world, if they possessed it, to have their spirits free from this bondage and fear.

God will take care that his grace shall not be turned into wantonness. Sooner or later you shall find, whoever you are, at what price you buy the pleasure of sin. Those who have long enjoyed the sweetness of sin may expect the bitterest sorrow and heartbreak for it.

Indeed, the greater the good things they have, the greater the evil they receive from them through abusing them.

(5) The more they are illuminated by the word, the more rebellious against it their hearts become; and the greater the authority, wealth, and health they enjoy, the more mischief they do with them. Those heavenly doctrines which should build up a good heart in holiness, they abuse to bring their souls deeper into wickedness, showing themselves like their father the devil, whose children they indeed are. God has said, “He would give his angels charge over thee” (Ps 91:11), which is a most comforting passage to a good heart. But how does Satan abuse this to Christ? He says that Christ should fling himself headlong from the pinnacle of the temple. And like the devil, every wicked man takes occasion from all his instruction in the word to tempt God the more, turning both grace itself and the doctrine of grace into wantonness.

Are there not many who hear the word and know God’s mind, who yet profit nothing toward amendment of life? Would it not be better for these people never to have enjoyed such means of heavenly wisdom, than now, having the light, still to live in darkness? Their knowledge only makes their damnation the greater if they continue in sin. What a lamentable condition that man is in, whose knowledge is only sufficient to damn his own soul! But let us see further how all evil things work together for the worst to ungodly persons.

(1) And to begin with spiritual ill things, such as heresies and errors. They serve only to ensnare the wicked; for instead of making them cautious and diligent to search out the truth, they are carried away “with every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14).

So also with the ill of good men, their falls and sins. The wicked of the world reap no benefit from them, but encourage and hearten themselves the more in a sinful way, rejoicing at them and making them their daily talk. Nor do their own daily sins better them in the least; rather, these are so many punishments of their former transgressions, God in his justice allowing them still to run on to the fulfilling of the measure of their iniquities.

(2) And as for outward evils in this life, those that turn to a good man’s happiness continually fall out to the destruction of the wicked. Pharaoh’s ten plagues, which might have humbled his soul, only made him worse and worse. Therefore God says, Why should I smite you any more? for even since I punished you, you revolted still (Isa 1:5). The wicked are like the smith’s anvil, which is made harder and harder by frequent beating. So the more they are corrected, the more stubborn and stiff in sin they grow. Their crosses are laid upon them by an angry God, and are forerunners of his eternal wrath, which shall seize upon their souls in hell, where the more they are tormented the more they shall blaspheme, and the more they blaspheme the more they shall be tormented, without cessation.

Causes. The cause of all this evil upon the wicked is, first, God’s infinite justice, which will not be left unsatisfied; secondly, their own vile hearts, which, like a sick man with a bad stomach, digest nothing but turn everything to poison. Therefore the apostle says, To the unclean all things are unclean (Titus 1:15). As poisonous plants put into a fertile place envenom the ground into which they are moved, so the same crosses that turn to a good man’s welfare prove a bad man’s ruin, because of the corruption within him.

Another cause is the devil’s malicious working by it. He makes wicked men abuse all their abilities, both inward and outward, to God’s dishonor and their own confusion, endeavoring to conform them to himself. No one has greater knowledge and understanding of the word of God than the devil. Yet he turns all his knowledge to the sin against the Holy Spirit. But still, the devil cannot force men to wickedness. It is their own sinful hearts that betray them into his hands.

Use 1. From this we learn that all wicked men, in the midst of their happiness, are most unhappy, because they turn the sweetest blessings into bitter poison; for all the gifts of God, without his special gift of using them well, are turned into a curse. Thus Balaam had good abilities, but because they were not sanctified, they proved his bane.

Use 2. We see further that outward prosperity is no mark of the true church. Abundance of temporal blessings is no sign that we are in God’s favor; neither are learning and knowledge evidences of spiritual grace. For the devil has greater understanding and abilities than any man. However, the sight of sin preserves us from falling into it; and those who shut their eyes against the light plunge themselves into the deeper misery.

Observation 1. Now to proceed to further instructions. Do all things work together for the best to God’s servants? Then from this we may learn the certainty of the salvation of God’s elect. I take my reason from the text itself, in this way. That which nothing can hinder is certain; but the salvation of God’s children cannot be hindered; therefore the salvation of God’s children is most certain. If anything does or can hinder the saints’ recovery or perseverance, it is sin; but to those who are united to Christ by faith, sin is so far from hindering their happiness that by God’s overruling providence it turns to their best good.

Observation 2. The second thing which we may ground here for the information of our judgment is this: That as we know the providence of God is the cause why all things work together for the best to his children, so we should eye this very particular providence in all that we enjoy, turning it to our good. There is a working hand of God in everything toward us, as we may see in the examples of Job, Joseph, and David, with others of his servants, whose present sorrow and humiliation was only a means of their future glory and exaltation. There is nothing so bad that he cannot draw good out of it when any evil is intended. God either puts bars and hindrances to its execution against us, or else limits and bounds it, both in regard of time and measure. The God of spirits has an influence into the spirits of all men, and knows how to take them off from doing us harm. All the strength of the creature rests in the great Creator of all things, and if he denies his concurrence, the arm of their power soon withers.

It cannot but bring strong consolation to the soul to know that in all variety of changes, and interchange of good and bad things, our loving God has a disposing hand. So all blessings and crosses, all ordinances and graces, indeed, our very falls, yes, Satan himself with all his instruments, being overmastered and ruled by God, have this injunction upon them: to further God’s good intention toward us, and in no way to hurt us. This should move us to see his disposing hand in all that befalls us. We owe God this respect, to observe his providence in the particular passages of our lives, considering that he is our Sovereign, and his will is the rule, and we are to be accountable to him as our Judge. We should question our hearts for questioning his care in the least degree. So long as God sits at the stern and rules all, we may be sure that no evil shall befall us that he can hinder.

Observation 3. Hence we may learn that there are not two, but one sovereign Head over the whole world, which is plainly proved by this text of Scripture. For “all things work together for the best to them that love God”; and things which in themselves are contraries agree together to procure their good. Therefore all things whatsoever are overruled by the sole power of the Almighty. The devil himself, although he is called “the god of this world,” is yet at Christ’s beck, and could not enter into a few swine without first obtaining leave. He raises up hideous storms and tempests against the saints, but perishes himself in the waves at last. Persecutions and perils may follow us, but they are all limited in doing hurt, which plainly demonstrates that there is but one main worker and wise disposer of all things.

Observation 4. Further, observe from this that there is nothing in the world that to God’s servants is absolutely evil, because nothing is so ill but some good may be raised out of it; not as it is an evil, but as it is governed and mastered by a supreme cause. Sin is of all evils the greatest; and yet sinful actions may produce gracious effects, through God’s ordering and guiding them.

Observation 5. Again, observe that a child of God is truly happy in the midst of all misery. To prove this, I reason thus. In whatever estate the child of God is, it shall turn to his good; therefore no affliction can make him truly miserable. The apostle sets down the proof of this in his own example: He was poor, yet made many rich; he sorrowed, yet always rejoiced; he had nothing, yet possessed all things; he was chastened, and yet not killed (2 Cor 6:10). God’s children, although they may seem to the world to be miserable, yet, having communion and fellowship with him, are always happy. The very worst day of God’s child is better than the very best day of the wicked. The worst day of St. Paul was better to him than the best day of Nero was to him; for the wicked, in the midst of their happiness, are accursed, whereas the godly, in the midst of their miseries, are blessed.

This doctrine is a ground for understanding various other places of Scripture. In Psalm 91:3 the Lord promises that he will “deliver his from the snare of the hunter, and from the noisome pestilence,” and yet his dear servants are often in the hands of the wicked, and taken away by the stroke of his judgments. This truth nevertheless remains firm, that “all worketh together for their best.” So God teaches us in his word that he makes a league between his servants and the creatures.

But we must bring all such expressions of his love to this text, and then they are true; otherwise they may seem to be false. “The plague shall not come near thy dwelling-place” (Ps 91:10), but only so far as it is for your benefit. The good prophet was torn in pieces by a lion (1 Kgs 13:24), and many holy men have received hurt from wild beasts, whose eternal welfare was furthered by it. Therefore this phrase of Scripture, that “the creatures are in league,” is to be understood not as meaning that they have put off their hostile nature, but that they have the same outcome for us as those that are at peace with us.

Here likewise is a direction for us how to pray for earthly blessings, and for the removal of temporal judgments. Worldly honors and riches are often snares to God’s children, and temporal chastisements, which we pray against so earnestly, work much good for us. And therefore it happens that when we pray against temporal calamities, we pray against our own good.

Therefore when we are afflicted, we should not desire absolutely that God would remove our troubles, but that he would work his own good pleasure on us through them. Our prayers for temporal blessings and for the removal of temporal crosses must always be conditional; for what good will it do us to come out of the fire worse than we were when we went into it? If, therefore, God in his wisdom sees it good for us to have affliction, we should not desire him absolutely to remove it until it has done us good. And then, “Lord, deal with us as seems best in your own eyes.”

As for those who love neither God nor goodness, let them know that if all things work for the best to the saints, then they may well give up the fruitless efforts they undertake against them every day. In going about to hurt the godly they do them the most good, for God will benefit them by their malice. Their wicked practices will not only be frustrated but will prove dangerous to themselves. After chastising his servants for their good, God will cast the rod into the fire. Men may know whether they are “vessels of mercy” or not by the use they are put to. The basest of people are fit enough to be executioners. It is a miserable wisdom when men are wise to work their own ruin. Do not many spin a fine thread and weave a fair web, when by their turnings and devices they turn themselves into hell? Whatever we get by sin for the present, it will one day prove the heaviest business we ever undertook.

God is the only monarch of the world, and he makes all things and all persons whatsoever serve his own end and his church’s good. He is higher than the highest. Satan and all his instruments are only slaves to the Almighty, executioners of his will. Can we think that God’s children, who are so near and dear to him, will always be trampled on by the powers of darkness? No, certainly. He has a stake in all their quarrels, and takes their injuries as done to himself. When we can be more subtle than the devil, or stronger than God, then we may think to thrive against them.

He is a “wall of fire” around his church, not only to defend and preserve it, but to consume all its adversaries. God does great things for his servants; he rebukes kings and princes, and ruins empires for their sakes. To bring the Jews back home again, he transferred the Babylonian empire to the Persians. And therefore the wicked must take heed of attempting anything against God’s church, because the harm of it will rebound on their own heads. God delights to take the part of the oppressed, and makes use of all his enemies for his people’s good. They scheme against the righteous, and he laughs them to scorn. Wicked men cannot do God’s children a greater pleasure than to oppose them, for by this means they help exceedingly to advance them.

Satan and all his instruments: what do they get by their cruelty to the saints? They only increase their own torment, and do the saints the more good. But this is against both their knowledge and their wills. Therefore if they are loath to do them any good, let them take heed how they attempt any evil against them.

Use 1. And here let all such be warned how they provoke God’s children to cry out against them in their prayers. For it is better for the wicked to have all the creatures in heaven and earth against them than the poor saints, for a few of these will do them more harm than all the rest of the world.

Let us now come to the grounds of practice to be observed from this.

Use 2. Again, does God order all “for the best” to them that love him? Then let us not take exception to any evil that befalls us, for this present cross of ours will turn to our future comfort. It is the saints’ happiness that their best is still being worked out, until they are complete in heaven. But as for the wicked and men of the world, their worst is always being contrived. Their life is bad, their death is worse, and after death it is worst of all with them. God himself, and all under him, work continually for the good of his children. Their best is last. Their light grows on clearer and clearer, as the light, until the noonday (Prov 4:18). But the worldly grow worse and worse every moment. To those who fear God, sin and sorrow, their very worst, are by God’s mercies best for them, whereas all the best of the wicked turns by abuse to their worst.

Use 3. Observe here the excellency of the saints’ comfort above all other comforts whatsoever. The nature of it is this: it must be stronger than the grievance for which it is a cordial. And the reasoning behind spiritual comfort must be more forcible than any carnal reasoning can be to undermine it. Now what stronger consolation can a man have than to be assured that all things, without exception, will work together for his good? But this is not all. What a sweet refreshment it is when the soul can say, “God will either stop me from falling into sin, outwardly by afflictions, or else subdue my corruptions inwardly by his Spirit, so that I will not be overthrown by them. He will never allow me to rot in my sins, but when I do fall, he will raise me up again.” It bears up a Christian’s heart that rather than let us continue in an evil way, God will send some Nathan or other to rouse us out of our complacency.

Therefore to all your comforts add this: that God will not only save you at last, but turn all things to the best while you are here. This is the highest strain of consolation. It is far stronger to refresh and quicken us than any grievance can be to afflict us. It makes evil things seem good by comparison, as Moses counted the rebukes of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Heb 11:26). He made more choice of “affliction” than he did of the world’s glory. If God is with us, who can be against us? If he is our shepherd, we are sure to lack nothing. There is such a force of comfort in salvation that we will choose outward evils rather than enjoy outward good things. Moses, by faith, seeing that outward affliction and shame were knit to salvation, chose these and refused dignity and ease.

How this ought to steady the soul under all its heavy pressures! Why should I not be patient in sickness, in poverty, in disgraces? Or why should I despair at the hour of death? Am I not under the hand of my God, who is working my good out of every evil? It is the subtlety of our arch-enemy to drive us to a standstill, so that we may doubt our condition and say with Gideon, “If the Lord be with me, and that I am his child, why is it thus with me?” (Judg 6:13). How is it that all this sorrow and misery has befallen me, and lies so heavy on my soul? But our comfort here is that God, who turns all things to our best, is stronger than Satan.

Use 4. Again, considering that all things contribute to our good, though in appearance ever so opposed to it, this comfort arises: that if God so works this or that, then I must believe against belief. I must stand firm against contraries; my faith must answer to his manner of working, and believe that God can bring me to honor by shame, and to heaven by the gates of hell. For if it is his course of dealing first to cast down and then to lift up, and by disgrace to bring his servants to glory, then in all my extremities I must rest on God, who is never nearer to his own, to help them, than when he seems to be furthest off. When he means to give victory he allows us to be foiled first, and when he intends to justify a poor sinner he will condemn him first. Let us therefore hope against hope, and ask God in our distresses to open our eyes, that we may see our consolations.

Hagar had a well by her when she was ready to perish from thirst, and yet she did not see it; and Elisha’s servant had angels to defend him when the Arameans surrounded him, but did not perceive them. So “the angel of the Lord continually pitcheth his tent about the godly,” though they are not aware of it. Yes, God is nearest to us when we are in the greatest straits. Cordials are kept for fainting spells. When Christ went to cast the devil out of a child, the devil raged most and tore him. So likewise Satan and wicked men rage most when they are nearest to their end and destruction.

In your greatest danger, never rest on your friends, but on the Lord, who never stands nearer and firmer to us than when we are most perplexed and do not know what to do. A distressed soul often sees no comfort in outward things, and therefore retires to God, in whom it finds whatever may make it happy. Our strength may fail, and our heart may fail (Ps 73:26), but God is our portion forever. When we are weak, then we are strong; and when we are most cast down in ourselves, we are nearest to God’s helping hand. This way of the Almighty’s dealing ought to establish our faith.

In all cases of extremity we should have a double eye: one to look on our grievances and troubles, and another to look on their issue and outcome. Why do men in time of dangerous sickness take bitter medicine, which is almost death to them? Why do they then undergo such things as they loathe at other times? Is it not because they rest on the skill of the physician? And shall we then in our distresses distrust God for our souls, when we will trust a weak and mortal man with our bodies? If opinion is so strong in earthly things, as indeed it is, then faith is much stronger when it grounds itself on the truth of the word.

When God exercises us with poverty or other afflictions, this should teach us submission to his providence in any condition, saying, “Lord, do with me what you will, only let this poor soul be precious in your eyes! You have promised that however heavily these afflictions lie on me, yet in the end all will turn out for my good. Therefore dispose of your servant at your own pleasure; I resign all to you!”

Here is the rejoicing of a Christian, which makes him pass cheerfully through any affliction: he knows that good is intended in all that befalls him. With what alacrity Joseph said to his brothers, “Ye sold me hither, but God hath turned it to the best, that I should preserve and nourish you all, and save much people alive, who otherwise were like to have perished with famine” (Gen 45:5)! This made Job say so patiently, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

This is the ground of all true contentment. “I have learned,” says St. Paul, “in all estates to be content: to be rich and to be poor, to abound and to be in want” (Phil 4:11). And why so? Whatever his estate and condition was, God turned it to the best. Will anyone dare to dislike God’s allowance? Does he not know better what is good for us than we can possibly imagine what is good for ourselves?

This likewise should teach us not to take offense at the reproach and disgrace that is cast on God’s children; for “mark the righteous,” says David, “and behold the upright: the end of that man is peace” (Ps 37:37). The issue of their trouble is always quietness. Do not take one piece of a Christian man’s life by itself, but take it all together, and then you will see the truth of this doctrine. If we see Joseph in the dungeon and in his irons, we may perhaps be offended and call God’s providence into question; but beholding him in his honor and advancement, we cannot but conclude that he is a happy man. So if we look on Job sitting with sores on the dunghill, there is matter for offense; but to see him restored again, and blessed with a greater estate than he had before, is matter for praising God. If we consider Christ abased and hanging on a cross, there will be offense; but look on him exalted to glory, far above all dignities and powers, and then the offense is soon taken away.

Let us therefore lay one thing beside another when we look at God’s people, and we will see a blessing under their greatest curse. Things contrived by human wisdom may look like great folly if one part is not joined to the other. Therefore look to God’s whole work toward his servants, and then you will never be offended at their condition.

Use 5. This also is a ground of Christian boldness in holy courses, when a man is fully resolved that, come what may, God will turn all to his good. It encourages him to go cheerfully through any difficulty. What is the reason for the fearfulness and cowardice of most men, except only this: that if we do this or that duty, or do not abstain from this or that good action, then this cross and this displeasure from such and such a person will be brought on us? The wise man says that “the fear of man bringeth a snare, but he that trusteth in the Lord shall be exalted” (Prov 29:25). Let us not, out of regard for the fear of man, neglect our duty to God, for he can turn the hearts of the kings on the earth to seek the welfare of his poorest creature, and make your very enemies your friends.

He who for sinister ends will offend his Maker may well be dismissed to the gods whom they have served (Judg 10:14). It is as if God said, “Go to the great men, whom you have obeyed for advantage, to your riches, to your pleasures, which you have loved more than God or goodness. You would not lose a base custom, a superfluity, for me; therefore I will not own you now.” Such men, who will claim acquaintance with God at last when they have carried themselves as his enemies all their days, are more impudent than the devil himself. God does not lack means to maintain his own without being beholden to the devil. He has all help hidden in himself, and will show it when it will make most for his own glory. He who will displease a king for fear of a subject does not deserve to live under that king’s protection.

The three children in Daniel said, “Know, O king, that our God can deliver us out of thy hands; but if he will not, yet, nevertheless, we will not fall down and worship thine image” (Dan 3:17-18). “The righteous are bold as a lion,” says the wise man (Prov 28:1); “the Lord is his strong tower” (Ps 61:3). What need have we to fear any creature, when we have him on our side who has both men and devils at his command?

Use 6. And if God turns all things whatsoever to our good, should we not, through the whole conduct of our lives, chiefly aim at his honor? God writes our names in his book, he numbers our hairs, and he bottles up our tears. He has a special care of us. Every good deed we do he writes down for eternity. Yes, if we give only “a cup of cold water in his name” (Matt 10:42), he takes notice of it. And shall we not then take special occasion to magnify him in all things? We pray daily, “Hallowed be thy name,” and therefore we ought accordingly to observe God’s dealing with us. How is it possible for us to give him the glory of his mercies if we never observe them?

A wicked man reasons, “This makes for my advantage, and this for my profit; this tends to my ease and wealth,” and so on. He studies how to make friends and please persons in places above him, not regarding God’s honor and glory in the least. But the sincere Christian looks on all things as they tend to his best happiness, and therefore he reckons ahead in this way: “If I do this or that good, then I will grow in grace and wisdom and knowledge; but if I neglect it, and am careless of doing well, I will hurt and wound my soul, and break the peace of my conscience. By this company and good acquaintance I will be furthered in holiness, and become wiser and better in heavenly understanding. If I fall, they may raise me up, and help maintain a gracious frame within me.” Where there is true holiness, the soul is sensible of all advantages and disadvantages to its good. To be indifferent to what company or employment one has shows a dead heart.

This is a main difference that distinguishes a child of God from a profane wretch who lives only for himself. That man’s heart is wholly taken up with the world and matters below, whereas the godly are all for thriving in grace and increasing in godliness. The wicked man considers things as they serve to satisfy his lust; and if he has better thoughts at any time, it is only for a moment. But a godly man’s aims are always holy, and the strength of his soul is put forth that way. He values himself as he stands in relation to God and a better life, and he esteems all other things more or less as they further or hinder his spiritual growth, and bring him peace or sorrow at the last.

2. But I hasten to the second part of the text, the persons to whom this privilege belongs; that is, “to them that love God.” And why to them that love God? Because the apostle is speaking of afflictions, and we know that the grace most engaged in the saints’ sufferings is patience, which flows from love.

Also, because love is of all the graces the first and sweetest. It is the first, for we are sorry to offend those we love, and we hate whatever is contrary to what we love. We rejoice in what we love, and grieve in its absence.

It is the commanding affection over all the others, and it sets the whole man sweetly to work to attain its desire. Love makes us eager and zealous Christians. All the inward worship of God lies in the affections, as in this: You shall rejoice in no God but me, and fear no God but me. All the commandments of God are brought by Christ to this duty.

Again, love has a special part in this privilege of bringing all things to work for our good. For when we love God, we will make the best use of everything we suffer or do, if we love God and keep our eye on his glory in it. Love makes any burden easy. It makes us studious of pleasing the one loved; as we say in the proverb, “Love me, and do with me what you will.” Love is full of inventions. It studies how to please, and sets the soul to work to honor God in all things.

In that the apostle says “to them that love God,” and not to the children or servants of God, we may observe that Christianity is not a bare title, but requires some qualification. Therefore the Scriptures, when they describe a saint on earth, do not usually say “the child of God,” but they set him forth by some holy affections or actions wrought in him, such as those who love God, or fear God, and “walk in his ways.” In this way they show that religion is not a matter of polite formality, but a real and holy endeavor to please the Lord. And although the Scriptures name only some one particular affection, yet it is the same as if they had named all; for where one is in truth, all the rest follow.

Again, in that the apostle here ascribes privileges only to those who are thus qualified, we must take heed, in applying the promises of God and these sweet consolations, that we are such persons to whom they belong by right. For “all things work for the best,” not to everyone, but to such as “love God.” We must not therefore preach comfort to all, but must first labor to make men capable of it. To this end,

1. We will show the nature of this love.

2. Its exercises, and directions toward it.

3. Some incitements to this holy affection.

1. The ground of love is a considering of God as our own God in the covenant of grace, and an acknowledging of ourselves to be his special children in Christ Jesus; it is when we can say, as the spouse does in the Song of Solomon, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3). This is a loving of God, not as the God of nature only, but as our own in a special way by grace. This union of love, which knits us to Christ, implies another union first, by faith, which is a cleaving to God as my God and to Christ as my Christ. From this issues a second conjunction or cleaving to him in love, as my Savior, my husband, and my head.

Let us come to the nature of this grace, and then to the working of it. The nature of love is seen in four things:

1. In admiring some secret good in the thing beloved, which stirs up the soul to go out after it.

2. In a studious care for the contentment of the person beloved.

3. In a desire for union and fellowship with the person we love.

4. In resting and solacing ourselves in the thing we love.

By these let us examine ourselves whether we have the true love of God or not. For it concerns us greatly to have this grace. It will distinguish us from all others, who do not fear him.

1. Our love to Christ comes

(1) From the high esteem of the good things we see in him. But how shall we know whether we have this admiring of the good things we see in God and in his word and children? We will know it by our choice, and our choice follows our judgment. Would we know whether our judgment is good? See what we choose, especially when the things of the world and of God come together. And here we do not lack examples to guide us. The question was whether Moses should still choose to live in Pharaoh’s court and be accounted his son-in-law, or else depart and suffer adversity with God’s children.

Now Moses, by sound judgment, had a high esteem of the excellency and privileges of the saints, and therefore chose rather to endure afflictions “than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb 11:25). Let us then see whether we can be content to part with our preferment or pleasure for God or not, and whether we esteem the rebukes of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world; whether we can lay down our lives and liberties at Christ’s feet, and gladly go without everything, so long as we may enjoy him. If it is so with us, our condition is good.

(2) Again, let us see whether we have a right prizing of the good things in God. Do we delight to speak much and often of Christ and the benefits we receive by him? How St. Paul’s heart was enlarged, and his tongue full of heavenly eloquence, in setting forth the unspeakable mercies of God, which we have by Christ Jesus our Lord! If “God be on our side, who can be against us?” he says. “What shall separate us from the love of Christ; shall tribulation, shall anguish and affliction? I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor any other thing can do it” (Rom 8:38).

(3) Another sign to know whether we have a secret admiration of the good things we see in God is this: if we undervalue all things else for Christ. Worldly men are always admiring the things below, accounting those men happy and blessed who abound most in them. Therefore there is nothing that tries a man more truly than this. The soul that sees a vanity in the things beneath, and can rejoice in God alone as its true riches, is in a good condition. Where there is a true judgment of God and religion, the soul of that man will never stoop to the creature; the soul so rejoices in God that it will not yield itself to any other. Adam and Eve, in their innocence, were both naked and were not ashamed. One reason might be that their thoughts were taken up with higher matters. In heaven we will not be ashamed of things we are now ashamed of. A Christian soul is so ravished with the enjoyment of God that it minds almost nothing but him.

2. The second branch in love is a desire to do all things

(1) To the contentment of the one beloved. Our love to God will shape us to the obedience of his will. Obedience is the proof of love: “If ye love me,” says Christ, “keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If we love God, we will pray for the enlarging of his kingdom. Where love is kindled in any heart, there is a care to be approved by the one we so love. This makes our obedience general, extending to all God’s commandments, in all places and in all things whatsoever. It makes us give our inner selves to God, serving him with the soul and spirit.

Those, therefore, who nourish unclean hearts within them, and think it enough to abstain from the outward act of evil, do not love the Lord sincerely. The devil himself will do outward things as readily as you; he will confess Christ to be the Son of God, and say, “Why art thou come to torment me before my time?” (Matt 8:29). So if you only confess God outwardly, what do you do more than the devil? In outward duties without sincerity there is no love. You will pray; the devil will do as much. The devil has a bad end in good actions. So there are many who come to church and make a show of religion to cloak their evil courses. But such poor wretches, however pleased they are with shadows, are little better than Satan himself.

(2) Again, if we are eager to content the one we love, then we will suffer anything for his sake. Therefore the apostles went away rejoicing, and accounted it their glory that they were esteemed worthy to suffer hardship for Christ (Acts 5:41). And David, when Michal mocked him for dancing before the ark, says, “I will yet be more vile for my God” (2 Sam 6:22). He cared nothing for any reproach that could come to him in a good cause. Yes, this will make us zealous in his truth. Whoever has no zeal has no love. If our hearts do not rise when God is dishonored, what love do we have for him? Are God’s glory and the church’s welfare dear to us? It is a sign we love him. But if we can see those things go backward and have no zeal, and are not at all affected by it, then surely we have no love.

3. Again, if we have a true love for God, then:

(1) We have a desire for union and communion with him. We will be much in meditating on him, in speaking to him and conversing with him. As for those, therefore, who go on from day to day without private speech with God, or without solacing their souls in him, what affection do they have for him? Love is communicative; and what desire for communion can a soul have that lives as a stranger to its Maker? Can we say we love someone with whom we never confer or speak to any purpose?

(2) Again, if we love a man, we will seek his advice, especially in matters of importance. So if we love God, we will take counsel from him in his word, for the guidance of our lives and the establishing of our consciences. If we do not seek advice from God, it is a sign either that we think he does not regard us, or else that we count him not worthy to take counsel from.

(3) Another sign is to examine what desire we have to depart and to be with Christ. Do we love his appearing for judgment? And are we now fit for his coming? Then surely it is a plain sign that our love is fixed and set on him; as much as we fall short of this desire, so much we fall short in love for Christ. What was the reason that the people under the law were so afraid at the appearing of an angel to them? Was it not this, that they were not fitted and prepared for God? A man may be a good Christian and yet not at all times be willing to die; for as sore eyes cannot always endure the light, so a soul galled with sin does not desire to hear of the day of judgment. Yet we ought to thirst after it.

(4) Another sign of this grace is our eager and hungry desire for God. When with David we can say, “O God, my heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after the brooks of waters” (Ps 42:1); when a soul is never at rest until it enjoys its Maker, but cries out continually, “O when shall I appear in his presence!” (Ps 42:2), it is a good sign.

4. The last branch or property is resting and quieting ourselves in the love of God above all things whatsoever, saying with David, “Whom have I in heaven or in earth besides thee? or what do I esteem in comparison of thee?” (Ps 73:25); let me enjoy only “the light of thy countenance” (Ps 4:6), and it is enough for me.

Ask your own heart, therefore, what things trouble you most, and what is the cause of your sorrow and unrest. Is it losses or crosses outwardly, or the lack of God’s love and of the sense and feeling of his favor inwardly? Those who grieve chiefly over outward evils are carried most in their affections that way; but if in the full tide of all worldly blessings we can grieve for our spiritual wants, it is a comforting evidence. When a man reckons that his happiness stands not in the possession of created things but in the enjoyment of the Creator, and desires God’s favor above anything, it is a gracious sign.

David had abundance; yes, he had a kingdom, yet nothing would satisfy him but the mercies of God. And when he was in want, what course did he take but this: he “still comforted himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam 30:6)? What a man sorrows for most when he lacks it, that he rejoices in most when he has it. Can we in our crosses rejoice that God is ours? This is an excellent sign, and plainly reveals that we place our contentment more in him than in anything else. Can we delight more in the solace of his favor than in outward prosperity? It is a heavenly testimony of a renewed condition. When David was in his greatest distresses, what desires were strongest in him then? Why, he longed for the house of God. When the people were ready to stone him, in what did he trust, but in “the Lord his strong tower” (Ps 61:3)?

In the last place, would we know whether we can rest in God or not? Let us:

(1) Examine ourselves, then, as to what efforts we make every day to cleanse our souls from sin, so that God may take pleasure in us, and we in turn may delight in him.

(2) Let us see how we restrain our affections from running riot after the world and sinful pleasures.

(3) And let us see how we set our joy on God, and shape ourselves to do his will. I beseech you, let us deal faithfully with our own souls in this particular.

(4) And if we find that our hearts tell us, as Peter’s told him, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee” (John 21:15-17), and say, “I desire, O Lord, to please you above all things; I have set my heart on you, and I rejoice in you and in your love more than in everything else in the world”; if, I say, we can in the integrity of our spirits appeal in this way to God, who alone knows and searches our ways, and say, “Truly, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then it is a certain and infallible sign to us that we are his, and that all things shall work for the best for us.

But let us take heed how we deceive ourselves in these things. By love we are Christians; therefore labor for sincerity of affection. A reprobate or a castaway may go far in these four signs of love. He may admire and wonder at the good things of God; but he does it not from anything within him, only from the outward beholding of them. He can admire them and talk of them, yet such men are without any relish or sweet taste of the thing they speak of. So likewise a hypocrite may desire to please God in many things, but not in all things. We see this in Herod: he heard John the Baptist willingly, and obeyed in some things, but not in all. He could not be crossed in his beloved sin, which remained in him; that must not be touched. Then farewell God, and farewell Christ and all.

So a castaway may desire to be in heaven, as a place good for him; and he may have some little taste of those joys above, as is mentioned in Hebrews 6:4-5. But he has no relish of them from the love of God, only from the love of himself. And his desire is not such as will draw him on to the use of means for spiritual growth and progress toward it, as we see in Balaam. He had a desire “to die the death of the righteous” (Num 23:10), but this could not make him leave his covetous disposition and find contentment in God alone.

A reprobate may be content with religion and with God’s ways so long as peace accompanies them (as now in this our country, Christ comes among us with plenty and prosperity, and therefore Christ is a good Christ). But if the gospel and religion had to be professed with persecution and danger and disgrace, it would soon appear where men’s contentments were. There is a resting in the truth not because it is truth, but on account of the good things that follow it. If we desire to approve ourselves to God, let us examine ourselves about this affection and every branch of it. The deceit is both common and deadly; and the profession of religion in many Christians is not for religion itself, but for selfish ends and sinister motives. To that end consider further these particulars.

Where there is true love, there will be a desire for union with the beloved object; so where the love of God is, there will be a desire for the accomplishment of the marriage between God and the soul. “He that loves a harlot,” says the wise man, “is one with her” (1 Cor 6:16). So the one who loves the Lord desires to be one with him; and therefore men have their names from what they love. If they love the world, they are called “worldlings”; if they love Christ, they are called Christians. How can you say that you love the Lord, and yet not desire his presence in his ordinances? Can we say we love a man when we care nothing for his company? God does not observe so much what we do as from what affection our duties proceed.

Again, if we love, there will be a desire to give contentment to the one beloved. This appears even in carnal self-love; for take a man who loves himself: he makes himself his utmost aim and end in all his actions. But once God has plucked this fleshly love out of our souls, then our affections will be carried to Christ only. This made the prophet David say, “I love the Lord dearly” (Ps 18:1). “He is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer” (Ps 18:2). A Christian has his contentment in God alone; he finds an all-sufficiency in the Almighty, and therefore makes him his resting place. In all his troubles he will make God his deliverer, and find more true comfort in him than in all the things of the world besides. Therefore, if God should take all other things from us, yet if he leaves us himself, a Christian is well contented, because he knows his best being is in God.

Question. But how shall I know whether I esteem God rightly or not?

Answer. If we highly esteem anything, whether of this life or a better, we will often be speaking of it. It is a sign men undervalue heavenly truths when they say little about them. They think very lightly of God who do not have him in all their thoughts.

Again, what we esteem we will choose above other things. It appears we have a precious esteem of God when we choose him, and him alone, for our portion, as David did when he said, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I may dwell in his courts for ever” (Ps 27:4). Where God is truly loved, all earthly things will fall in that man’s estimation. So long as he may gain Christ, he counts all else but dross and dung.

Lastly, if you love God, you will be afraid to offend him, and careful to please him in all things. God does not delight in a proud and haughty spirit, but in a humble and meek soul. These, then, should be your delight. God is wonderfully well pleased with faith, for it is what binds him to perform his promise; therefore seek it earnestly. Whatever God approves, a Christian should take pleasure in. Every grace is an ornament to a Christian, and God delights to see his own graces in us. Isaac, before he took Rebekah as his wife, sent her jewels to adorn her; so Christ sends rich jewels to his children, even the graces of his Holy Spirit, to make us love him, and to fit us the more for him.

Those who live in sins against conscience, do we think that they love God? Certainly not. If they did, they would love what he loves and hate what he hates. What a pitiful thing it is to see men glorying in what is their shame, in swearing and profaneness, and yet for all this saying they love God! Is it possible that the love of God and the love of sin should ever stand together?

Let us now proceed to some reasons and directions for attaining this grace.

1. And first, let us not rest in an inferior degree of this affection, but rise up in it, and labor that it may have its full ascent. There are degrees of ascent, as when we love God because we love ourselves. A natural man may do so, but this is not enough; for if we love God for our own sake, we make ourselves our god. Where the heart is truly set on God, it delights in him only for himself, and takes comfort in no condition further than it sees God in it. He never loved Christ in truth who is more taken with the benefits and privileges that come through him than with the excellency of his person. What friend will be content that a man should love him only because he does him good?

We must love ourselves and all other things in and for God. Moses and Paul rejoiced to honor the Lord, even if they themselves were accursed and deprived of happiness. And if we could so love Christ as not to desire heaven itself if Christ were not there, this would be truly to love him; for indeed if Christ were not there, heaven would not be heaven to us. We must love our happiness no further than we can have with it God’s leave and liking.

2. Again, we shall know whether our love for God is sincere or not by our abstaining from sin. If we avoid evil only for fear of punishment or hope of reward, our love is unsound; but when we so love God that we will not do anything contrary to his Spirit, it is a special sign. Such a man, if there were no hell to punish him and no place of bliss to receive him, still would not break with God on any terms.

For the means to attain this love, we must in the first place labor for a humble and empty soul. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” says Christ (Matt 5:3), for such alone apprehend their misery without Christ and their need of him, which occasions a holy rejoicing in the Lord and unfeigned love for him. What is the reason that some are so ravished with the favors of the Almighty? Is it not because they were formerly so stung with the sight and feeling of their sins? The more loving Christian is ever the more humble Christian. Mark it when you will, and you shall find this disposition manifest in every true convert. They are daily humbling themselves for the least offense.

A second direction is to taste the love of God in Christ. When the beams of his favor once shine into our hearts, we cannot but reflect them back on him. “We love him,” says the apostle, “because he loved us first” (1 John 4:19). Mary therefore “loved much,” because she had the experience of God’s love in forgiving her many sins (Luke 7:47). When a broken, humble soul truly savors the goodness of the Lord, it cannot but be inflamed with desire for him. A Christian, after having had a taste of the love of God, has a different kind of judgment of justification than before. “Taste and see,” says David, “how good and gracious the Lord is” (Ps 34:8). A man who relishes the sweetness of a thing can judge of it better than one who never tasted it.

A third direction is to see what motives and reasons we have from the love of God in Christ to exercise our understandings in this way. We know that heat comes from light, and there is a sympathy between the brain and the heart. The brain must make a report to the heart before the heart can be inflamed with affection; therefore seriously search into the grounds of your affection.

(1) The first ground is goodness in God. God is goodness itself, in whom all goodness is enfolded. If, therefore, we love other things for the goodness we see in them, why do we not love God, in whom is all goodness? All other things are but sparks of that fire and drops of that sea. Do you see any good in created things? Remember there is much more in the Creator. Leave, therefore, the streams, and go to the wellhead of comfort.

(2) Another reason for love is our affinity with God, our Father and friend, who is to us in all degrees of nearness, both our head and our husband. Were the Son not ours, what fellowship could we have with the Father? Having such a Mediator with God, who is “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh,” why should we fear to go to him? He has taken on himself these comforting relations of shepherd and brother, to assure us of his acquaintance with our infirmities and his readiness to relieve us. For shall others, by his grace, fulfill what he calls them to, and shall he not, who out of his love has taken on himself these relations, so thoroughly founded on his Father’s assignment and his own voluntary undertaking?

How the tender mother sympathizes in the anguish of her child, despite all its peevish resistance! And shall we think there is more tender compassion in ourselves than in God? Can there be more sweetness in the stream than in the spring? If the well of consolation is always open, and the fountain of living water is never shut up, let us teach our hearts to suck and draw comfort from these rivers of refreshing. What a shame it is that men should hunger at such a feast!

Consider, likewise, the benefits that have been bestowed on us, and the end for which God grants us so much favor.

Benefits win love even from brute creatures. Therefore we are worse than beasts if we do not love God for his benefits. “The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isa 1:3). What indeed are we but a heap of God’s benefits? All our faculties of soul and body are the blessings of God. Whatever we have or hope to have is from him. Our breath, life, and being subsist in God, who has promised that heaven and earth, men and devils, crosses and blessings, sin and death, shall all be turned by his overruling power to our good.

(3) Consider what we are now, and what a happy condition God has made us capable of hereafter. Is it a small matter that we should be regarded above the angels that fell, and that he who knew no sin should be made sin for us, indeed, become a curse to free us from the curse? It was strange that the three children, cast into the hot fiery furnace, should not burn. So likewise it is a wonder that Christians, being in the midst of the flame of God’s love, should be so cold and dead-hearted. It is not only the guilt of sin we are freed from, but the unbearable vengeance of the Almighty due for it. And is this a small matter?

(4) If we regard the manner of bestowing his benefits, it will greatly exalt God’s goodness toward us, and raise up our spirits to love him in return. Does he not love us first of all, and go before us with his favors? Is not his love full and overflowing, so that he never leaves us until he has made an end? Where he frees a man from danger, he settles him in a good estate, never ceasing until he puts him in possession of glory. As it says in 2 Timothy 4:17-18, “The Lord hath freed me out of the mouth of the lion, and he will preserve me to his everlasting kingdom.” He delivers us from spiritual evil and gives us spiritual good. Meditating on these things will warm our hearts.

(5) The next means is to join fear with our love for God. Whom we love thoroughly, we will do nothing to displease. The fear of God, whom we love, will cause us to be scrupulous about the least sin against him; for there is no sin, however little, that will not weaken our affection for goodness. When we venture on anything against conscience, is there not a decay of our love for God and of our sense of his favor toward us? Surely sin is the one troublemaker in our souls, and the weakener of all our comforts. Those, therefore, are the most loving souls toward God who are most conscientious in their ways. Careless Christians do not have that feeling of God’s love which humble, fruitful Christians have, nor do they live or die with the comfort that these do.

We are the spouse of Christ, and he is jealous of our love. Our betrothed husband cannot bear that we should set our affections on strangers. Take heed, therefore, of adulterous and false affections. The more we love earthly things, the less we shall esteem heavenly things; and as our affection toward created things increases, so our heat toward Christ abates.

(6) The next direction to stir up our love for God is to exercise it daily. For true love is not an abstract affection, but an affection in practice; and we know that everything increases by exercise. Exercise it, therefore, in fighting against the love of the world and all self-love; for as there are contrary commands, so there are contrary desires in a Christian. As there is the old man and the new man, the flesh and the spirit, so there are contrary affections, one setting itself against another in him.

When we see a poor Christian, the love of God will say to us, “Now show your love for Christ by helping one of his members.” “No,” says flesh and blood, “charity begins at home; you may be in want yourself another day.”

In doing good, likewise, we should say, “Here now is an occasion offered to me of honoring God, and I will embrace it.” “Oh, but,” says self-love, “there is time enough hereafter; by this you may run into poverty and disgrace; do not be too forward.” Therefore there must be a perpetual denial of ourselves against our whole perverse nature. Those who are Christians know by experience what belongs to these things. But take a carnal man or woman, and they are led altogether by their sensual lusts, like brute beasts. Whatever ease and self-love will, that sways their hearts any way it pleases. And indeed the most sincere Christian has the stirrings of these carnal and worldly considerations; but his love for God constrains him to deny them all, and to listen to what Christ whispers in his heart.

Let us consider a little what may stir us up to exercise ourselves in this. Love is the light of our life; something we must love; and he does not live who does not love. Seeing, then, that we cannot but love, and that the misplacing of our affection is the cause of all sin and misery, what can we do better than attend to directions on how to love as we should?

To come, therefore, to the four things mentioned before, the branches of love. First, we must admire God above all things. And can we admire anything with wisdom but God alone? It is commonly said that we cannot be wise and love at the same time, because this affection is blind, except when it is set on God.

Again, is there anything more comforting than that we give contentment to God? Is any service comparable to the service of a prince? We must serve the Lord only, and others in and for him, or else all we do is worthless. All other services are bondage; this is perfect freedom.

Again, is there anything more worthy of our souls than to be united to God? Can we have a greater happiness than to be made one with Christ? By loving a thing we come to be like it. Is there anything that may or ought to claim our love but Christ? Is it not a base thing to unite our souls, which are the best things under heaven, to earthly contentments, than which we shall one day find nothing worse? The love of God planted in our hearts makes Christ and us one. As a pearl in a ring makes the ring more precious and valuable, so the soul united to Christ comes to be more gracious and heavenly. The more excellent the soul is, the more loving it will be toward God. The holiest saints have ever burned with the most affection for Christ, as Moses and Paul did.

Can anything satisfy us more than God? Do we not know that all things here shall perish? Therefore when we place our love and joy in the world, do we not lose them too? We shall leave behind us the things of this life; only our sins we carry away, which cleave fast to us and stain our consciences world without end. What could content us more than the love of God, which will endure forever and accompany us to heaven when all other loves perish?

Consider that everything you do without love is dead and empty. Love is the life of all actions; as we say of a gift, the love of the giver is better than the gift itself. Not only is our performance nothing without love, but we ourselves are nothing without it. Every acceptable service we do must proceed from this heavenly flame: “Though we speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, we are like to a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1).

Have we not much to do and suffer in this life? And what is it that makes us constant in duty, and carries us through so many oppositions as we meet with? Is it not love? Does not love sweeten our hearts, and take away every difficulty in our way to heaven? While we live here, we must of necessity suffer ill things and go on in well-doing, and neither of these can be performed without love. This rules our whole lives. Beg God, therefore, to quicken you in all cheerful and willing obedience; pray that the Sun of righteousness would enlighten your heart. We cannot serve God without God, nor have any holy affection unless he works it in us by his Spirit.

I have learned, in what estate soever I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and how to abound: everywhere, in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me (Phil 4:11-13).

These words are the blessed apostle’s concerning himself. They express the glorious power of the Spirit of God in a strong and mature Christian, and they are meant to wipe away the charge of worldliness against the apostle. In this they also serve as a pattern to all God’s children, that they may learn by his example that, as they must be careful to avoid all blemishes and accusations, so they must especially avoid that of worldliness, since it is most contrary to the profession of a Christian, who has a “high calling” (Phil 3:14) and whose hope is in heaven.

The Philippians had sent Paul some relief; and lest they should think that he expected great things, he tells them that he had “learned to be content in what estate soever he was.”

It is not amiss sometimes for God’s children to speak of themselves, as Paul does here, both for other good ends and also to clear away false accusations by way of just defense, and likewise to be an example to weaker Christians. Is not the doctrine of contentment and of the power of grace in all conditions better learned by this blessed example of Paul, when he speaks thus of himself, “I have learned, in what estate soever I am, to be content: to want, and to abound …” than if he had weakly said, “Be content with your present condition”? The Scriptures are intended for practice, and that is why there are so many examples in them, to show the power of God’s Spirit. This is the purpose of Paul’s speaking so of himself: “I have learned …”

To come to the words. First, in general he sets down the power of God’s Spirit in him with regard to that blessed grace of contentment: “I have learned, in what estate I am, therewith to be content.”

And then he parcels out this general statement into particular conditions in this same state: “I know how to be abased, and how to abound.”

And then he wraps up all in general again: “I can do all things …”

But lest this should seem somewhat vainglorious, “I can do all things,” as if he were omnipotent (in some sense, indeed, a Christian is omnipotent), he therefore adds, “I can do all things,” but with a blessed correction: “through Christ that strengtheneth me.”

“I have learned,” he says, “I am instructed.” This is very significant in the original; it means, I am consecrated to this knowledge of contentment in all conditions. It is a learning not of great persons, or of learned persons, but of holy persons. It is a mystical knowledge. There is a mystery in it. For all religion is a mystery: “great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim 3:16). And this is true not only of the speculative part but likewise of the practical part of it. So every part of religion is a mystery: repentance is a mystery, faith is a mystery, and this practical part of contentment in all conditions is a great mystery.

And therefore St. Paul says he is instructed in it as a consecrated person, having in him the Spirit of God. All the degrees in this world cannot teach this lesson that Paul had learned, “to be contented.” He learned it in no school of the world, not at the feet of Gamaliel; he learned it from Christ, and by blessed experiences in afflictions. Some graces are reserved for certain conditions. He had learned patience and contentment in a variety of conditions. He did not have it by nature, for he says, “I have learned.”

It is a mystical thing, not so easily attained as the world is foolishly persuaded. Your ordinary Christian thinks that religion is nothing, that it is easily learned; whereas there is no point in religion that is not a mystery. There is no Christian who does not find it so when he sets himself heartily to go through any religious work, such as to humble himself, to repent, to go out of himself, and to cast himself upon the mercy of God in Christ. Then he will say, “Oh, it is a mystery. There is a difficulty in this work that I never thought of until I came to it.” And so to be content with our condition, whatever the case may be, to bring our hearts low, is a mystery. Nature never teaches this. It is learned in the school of Christ, and not without many stripes. We must be making progress for a good while before we can learn to any purpose this one lesson of contentment in any condition.

But the last verse is what I will now dwell on, in which we may see three things worth observing.

1. God carries his children in this world through a variety of conditions. They are sometimes in want, and sometimes abound. Their condition is sometimes more comfortable than at others. That is the first point.

2. In this variety of conditions, as they know what it is to be in want and to abound, so in all variety of conditions they know how to carry themselves.

3. They know in all variety of conditions how to avoid the sins incident to that condition. As there are graces belonging to every state, so there are sins incident to every condition. And the child of God has learned to practice the one and to avoid the other.

1. God’s children know by experience what it is to be in want and to abound. God leads them through a variety of conditions. Their state is not always one and the same.

Question. What is the reason for this dispensation in God, thus ruling his children and bringing them to heaven by a variety of conditions?

Answer. Among many other reasons this is one: that their graces may be tested. Every grace that brings a Christian to heaven must be a tested grace. He must test his patience, his contentment, his humility. How shall these graces be tested except in a variety of states and conditions?

And secondly, how should we have experience of the goodness of God except in a variety of states? When we find the stable, certain, constant love of God in a variety of conditions, we see that however our conditions may ebb and flow, and go up and down like the spring weather, sometimes fair and sometimes foul, yet the love of God is always constant. And we never have such sure experience of it as in the variety of conditions that befall us. Then we know that in God there is “no shadow of changing” (Jas 1:17), whatever the changes of our life may be. Is it not a point worth our learning, to know the truth of our grace and to know the constancy of God’s love, with whom we are in a gracious covenant?

And then again, we learn by this much wisdom in how to manage our life, even as our changes come and go, and we are now rich, now poor, now high, now low in estate. Wisdom is gained by experience in a variety of conditions. He who is carried along in one condition has no wisdom to judge another person’s state, or to conduct himself toward a Christian in another condition, because he was never abased himself. He looks at him very haughtily. He who has not been in another’s condition does not know how to be tender toward him. And therefore, to equip us to carry ourselves as Christians, meekly, lovingly, and tenderly toward others, God will have us go to heaven through variety, not in one uniform condition as regards outward things.

Use. Learn from this not to quarrel with God’s government; for though he alters our conditions, yet he never alters his love. A Christian is unmovable as regards the favor of God toward him and as regards sanctifying grace. In all movable conditions he has a fixed condition. Therefore let us not find fault with God’s dispensation, but let him do as he pleases. So long as he brings us to heaven, it does not matter by what way or how rugged it may be, so long as he brings us there.

2. The second general thing is this: in this variety of conditions, God’s children know how to carry themselves. As they know what it is to be in want and to abound, so they know how to abound and be abased as they should. For there is no condition out of which a Christian may not pick good material. As a good craftsman will sometimes make a good piece of work out of a poor piece of material, to show his skill, so a Christian can frame something good out of any condition. He knows how to be in want and how to abound, and that with the expression of graces too. He can practice the graces that ought to be and may be practiced in all conditions.

For instance, he can abound; that is, with the expression of the graces that should be present in abundance, namely, thankfulness to God. When he abounds he has a spirit of thankfulness; he has a spirit to be a faithful steward in his abundance, a spirit to honor God with his abundance. He has a spirit to be humble in his abundance, knowing that all is as “grass and the flower of the field.”

He can be humble; he can stoop under the mighty hand of God; in abasement he can have experience of the vanity of worldly favor and worldly greatness. He learns what it is, and so he can learn patience and all the other graces that are to be practiced in a lowly estate. It would take too long to name particulars; a Christian can do this. Grace is above all conditions. It can manage and rule all states of life. It makes them serviceable to its own ends. A man of grace is not dejected overmuch by abasement; he is not lifted up overmuch by abundance, but he carries himself in a uniform manner, as becomes a Christian in all conditions.

3. The third general thing is this: he can be in want and he can abound without tainting himself overmuch with the sins of those conditions. For instance, he can abound without pride, though it is a hard matter. Abundance works upon the soul of a man. A man needs a strong brain to digest abundance; it is a wild, untamed thing. And we see by experience in God’s children how hard a matter it is for them to manage abundance. We see how it worked upon Solomon and David (1 Kgs 11:1; 2 Sam 11:2). They were better in adversity. And yet the child of God has grace even to overcome the sins that are incident to abundance. He has grace to be lowly-minded in a great estate and not to trust in uncertain riches. He knows by the Spirit of God what they are, and that he has an inheritance of better things in another world, which teaches him to set a light value on all things below.

And so also with dejection. The sin that we are liable to fall into in want is putting out our hands to evil means, to shift for ourselves. God’s child can learn to be in want without tainting his conscience with evil courses, and then he can be in want without impatience, without too much dejection of spirit, as if all were lost; whereas, indeed, a Christian is in a manner always equally rich. For God is his portion, and though a beam may be taken away, the sun is his; take away a stream, the spring is his; in the poorest estate, God all-sufficient is his still (Gen 17:1). And so a Christian is in a manner always equally rich. God never takes away himself. He knows this, and therefore he can be in want, he can be abased, as long as he has the spring of all. Though a cistern is taken away, he does not care; he can be in want and abound without murmuring, without dejection of spirit.

But those who have not been brought up in Christ’s school, nor trained in a variety of conditions, are able to do nothing. If they abound, they are proud; if they are cast down, they murmur and fret and are dejected, as if there were no providence to rule the world, as if they were fatherless children. This is the excellence of a Christian, that as he knows by experience what it is to abound, so he knows how to abound with the practice of the graces, and how to be in want while avoiding the snares that are usually in that condition.

Objection. But has a Christian learned this from the first?

Answer. No; he does not learn it very easily, nor very soon. Self-denial is the first lesson in Christ’s school: to have no understanding of our own further than Christ’s wisdom; to have no will of our own further than his commandment guides us. And he who has learned self-denial is well on the way to learning this blessed lesson of contentment in any condition whatever. So every Christian has some degree of it, insofar as he can deny himself. But there are many things to be learned before we can come to carry ourselves wisely in any condition.

For besides self-denial, we must learn the doctrine of the covenant of grace, that God in Christ has become a Father to us and bears a fatherly mind toward us. In whatever condition we are, he is a father still, and intends us well, and will provide for us in the hardest condition. Having taken the relation of a father upon himself, do you think that he will fail to behave as a father toward us? He has pity on us; he has regard for us in the lowest condition. He who knows God to be his father, cast him into what condition you will, knows that he has a good portion.

And then we must know the doctrine of the providence of this Father, that all shall work together for the best to those that love him (Rom 8:28): want and abundance, prosperity and afflictions, whatever it may be. God by his overruling power will bring all things to this blessed issue, to help forward the eternal good of his child. A man must know this, and various similar things that are to be known, before he can learn this blessed lesson of contentment.

There is a venom and a vanity in everything without grace, with which we are tainted; but when grace comes, it takes the sting out of all evil, and then we find a good in the worst. There is a vanity in the best things, and there is a good in the worst. Grace picks the good out of the worst; as God turns all to good, so grace finds good in every condition. The Spirit of God sanctifies a Christian to all conditions, and sanctifies every condition to him.

Now, I beg you, think of what I have said. I wish that, without further enlargement, it may add to your care and desire to be in the happy condition of Christians. What a blessed thing it is to be in the covenant of grace, to have God as our father, to be in Christ, so that, let our condition outwardly be what it will, we shall have grace to carry ourselves in it, and God will go along with us by his Holy Spirit! What a blessed thing it is, in all the uncertainties of the world, to have a certain rule to go by, as a Christian has, which carries him along in all the uncertainties of this world! None but a Christian has this. “I have learned,” says Paul. When did he learn it? Not before he was a Christian. I could wish to press this, except that I have other things to speak of, to make us in love with religion, with the state of Christians, which is thus above all conditions whatever and can rule all other conditions.

A Christian is not at the mercy of the world; his contentment is not a dependent contentment. You may cast him into prison, you may impoverish him, you may labor to debase and disgrace him; but can you take away his comfort? Can you take away his grace? Can you take away the love of God? No; God will rather increase all these upon him. For the best things of a Christian are not at the mercy of the world, nor at the mercy of his various conditions. Prosperity and adversity, these are outside him. He has a state depending on the good will and pleasure of his Father, who loves him better than he loves himself, and who out of love will work good out of the worst condition that can befall him. So I hasten to what follows.

4. Having spoken in particular, he then comes to the general, in which he wraps up all: “I can do all things, but in Christ that strengthens me.” Here we have:

(1) The blessed apostle’s ability: “I can do all things.”

(2) And then, the spring of his ability, from where he has it: “I can do all things, but in Christ that strengthens me.”

In the apostle’s ability you have:

[1] His strength itself.

[2] The enlargement of it.

“I am able.” And to do what? A few things? No; “all things.” The point of doctrine offered is this, that a Christian man is an able man. Whoever has the Spirit of Christ is an able man, and his ability is a large ability; he is able to do all things. Take the word doing in a comprehensive sense, not only to do, but take it as to resist evil, to resist temptation, to suffer affliction, to enjoy prosperity, to break off sinful courses and take a new course, to practice all duties. For this is what the apostle means by “I can do”; that is, I can carry myself in all conditions, I can express all graces, I can resist all temptations, I can suffer all afflictions, I can do all this. What is the reason a Christian is so able?

[1] Because he has a stronger and abler spirit than his own. The Spirit of God is a spirit of strength (2 Tim 1:7). It is the Spirit of power, which is the soul of his soul and the life of his life. Now the strength of a man is in his spirit. The stronger spirit makes the abler man, and the Spirit of God, being the strongest of spirits, indeed the strength of spirits, makes a Christian in whom it dwells the ablest man.

[2] And then again, a Christian is a new creature; therefore he is furnished with abilities fit for the new creature. When Adam was created he was endowed with all the graces fit for a state of wholeness. As when God made heaven he made stars to beautify heaven, and when he made the earth he made trees and flowers, so when he made man he furnished him with graces and fitted him for that estate. Now after the fall, when God brings a man in Christ to be a new creature, that man has abilities to furnish him for that new condition.

[3] And then again, every particular grace of the new creature is a grace of strength. As the Spirit is a strong Spirit, so the spirit of love is as strong as death; it has a constraining power (2 Cor 5:14). The Spirit of God is so strong in his children who are truly his, that it makes them lay down, even with willingness, their lives, which are dearest to them in this world. Here is a sweet kind of tyranny in the affection of love, which will carry a man through thick and thin, through all, and that with pleasure, willingly and comfortably too; as the apostles were glad to suffer anything for Christ’s sake, their hearts were so enlarged with a spirit of love.

The spirit of faith is a strong and mighty spirit, an able spirit. It conquers God himself, as Jacob wrestled with the wrestlings of God, and by the strength of God overcame God (Hos 12:3-4). And the woman of Canaan overcame Christ by the strength she had from Christ (Matt 15:28). In the sense of God’s displeasure it will believe God’s favor in Christ, and it is able to break through the thickest clouds of discomfort whatever, and to see the loving face of God. In a low condition it can struggle with God, saying with Job, “Though he kill me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). It is a strong grace. Faith prevails with almighty God. It prevails in all inferior conditions whatever.

You see that the fruit and strength of all graces is attributed to faith (Heb 11:33). By faith they overcame, by faith they were strong, and did this and that; implying that faith is not only a strong grace in itself, but that it gives vigor and strength to all graces. And so we see with love (1 Cor 13:4): it is not only a strong grace, but the office of other graces is attributed to it. It suffers long, which is the office of patience. Why should I speak of other graces, when these root and fundamental graces are of such force?

Now every Christian in some measure has a spirit of faith and a spirit of love, and these are very strong to carry him through all states and conditions, and that with such glory and luster that everyone may wonder at the condition of a Christian. Even in the worst estate he has a spirit not of the world but above the world. This faith overcomes the world; and he that is in them, the Spirit of God, is stronger than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).

Let me proceed to a further demonstration of a Christian man’s ability, which is intimated to us in his very name. What is the name of a Christian? “Anointed.” The Spirit of God is compared to oil. What is the virtue of oil? It is to make nimble, for the Spirit of God makes Christians nimble; and oil makes strong. The wrestlers used to be anointed beforehand with oil; so the Spirit of God makes Christians strong. The virtue of anointing oil is to be above. Jumble it together with other liquids; it is a regal liquid, it will have the preeminence and be above. So with grace: although it is mingled with corruption, the Spirit of grace and faith will at last appear, the Spirit of God will be above all; at length it will work itself clear. In all temptations, a Christian as a Christian is an able man. If he lives up to his own name, if he is not a hypocrite, he has an ability in him; he can do more than the world.

Use 1. First of all, then, learn here that religion is not a matter of word, and does not stand upon words, the way a wood consists of trees. To speak this way and that may come from natural gifts, from memory and wit; but religion is a matter of power; it makes a man able. It made Paul what? Able to speak only? No; his learning made him able to do all things. It is a matter of practice, and there is nothing in religion so speculative that it does not tend to practice. Religion is an art, not of great men, not of mighty men, but of holy men. It is an art and a trade. A trade is not learned by words but by experience; and a man has learned a trade, not when he can talk about it, but when he can work according to his trade. So we see that Paul shows the learning he spoke of before by his ability.

The doctrine of the Trinity is a speculative point, and it tends to practice. First, it tends to be a foundation of our worship, that we worship one God in three persons. And then it tends to show the unity among Christians, that God will at length work among Christians so that they shall all be one in some sort, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. Though this is a point of high and deep speculation, yet it tends to practice. Now if the sublime and high points do, what point is there in religion that does not tend to practice?

And therefore let us not please ourselves that we have deep understandings, but let us show our understandings by our practice. As the sheep shows how it thrives in its pasture by its wool and fleece, so show how you profit in religion by being enabled with the power of grace, which carries you through all conditions, to avoid the sins and to express the graces in such conditions. As much grace as you have to carry yourself this way, so much ability you have, and so much religion.

Use 2. If a Christian is an able man, I beg you, let it serve to test ourselves by this measure that I have spoken of. Is Christianity a point of strength and ability? Then let us test the truth of our condition. You would be a Christian; what can you do, then? What sin can you resist? What can you bear? What holy duty can you do? How can you enjoy the good blessings that God sends you without defiling yourself with those blessings, so that you are not proud of the riches or of the honor you have? Grace manages all conditions. So then, if you are a Christian, live up to your name; if not, you are a hypocrite as yet. For a Christian in some measure is able “to do all things, through Christ that strengtheneth him.”

I beg you, let us not deceive ourselves. The best of us all may mourn for our lack in this regard. Our consciences tell us that we might have done a great deal more than we have; that God would have enabled us to do a great deal more than we do, if we had not been false-hearted, and betrayed ourselves, and been negligent in the use of the means. What a shame it is for Christians, who do indeed have some truth of grace in them, that they cannot be brought a little low in the world without being cast down as if to death. Why, where is the power of grace? They are no sooner lifted up a little in their condition than they scarcely know their brother of low degree. Where is religion now? What do you have in you that is better than a worldling has? No, a heathen man, out of principles of morality, would learn to conform his conduct, outwardly at least, better than you do.

Let us learn, therefore, to shame ourselves when we find any murmuring and rising of corrupt nature in any condition whatsoever, and know that this does not befit a Christian. This is what the apostle presses so often, that we should carry ourselves as befits Christians. Oh, does this befit a Christian? A Christian should be able “to do all things through Christ that strengtheneth him.” What a shame it is for one who professes religion to be as worldly, as distracted with cares, as passionate if he is a little touched, as a man who professes no religion at all! Where is the power, where is the glory and credit of religion here? I beg you, let us be ashamed, and know that our profession requires that we should be able.

Use 3. Again, this answers the common objection of carnal men. They ward off all reproofs with this. Tell them of their faults, and they say, “Why, it is my infirmity, it is my weakness.” Is it so? Are you a Christian or not? If you are a Christian, you labor for strength against your weakness; you do not make a plea for it. There is weakness indeed in the best; but that is the matter of their humiliation and the object of their mortification. It is not their plea for idleness, for giving themselves to sinful courses.

Men therefore make a false plea of infirmities and weaknesses. There is no infirmity in a carnal man who does not have the Spirit of Christ. He is dead. There is no weakness in a dead person. In regard of civil conduct there may be weakness in such a man. He may be passionate, he may be perverse, in a way unbecoming a civil man; but that is not in the rank we are speaking of. None can have infirmities but a Christian who has the life of grace in him in sincerity and truth. And therefore if you discover that you do not have the truth of grace, never say it is your infirmity. To show what infirmities are, I rank them under three heads.

1. In the first rank of infirmities are the imperfections of good actions, which are either distractions and deadness in prayer and hearing, or invincible infirmities, of which an ancient father says well, “Lord, deliver me from my miserable necessities.” A man may sometimes be in such a state, in regard of the temper of the body, it being out of tune, that he cannot pray as he would. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” says our Savior (Matt 26:41). It was almost an invincible necessity in the apostles then. Again, we might resist, and we might be more cheerful than we often are. But sometimes there may be such a disorder in the body as may almost of necessity unfit us for the duty. This we call the infirmity of a Christian, because he is ashamed of it and grieved for it.

2. Again, infirmities are those indeliberate passions that sometimes carry us to actions that we should not do, when we are carried along with a tempest of passion and do not understand ourselves well.

3. And lastly, it is an infirmity when we are hindered from doing what we should do by passion, by the surprise of some great fear and terror, so that we are not as bold as we should be to stand firm in a cause when suddenly put to it, as Peter was surprised with a spirit of fear that he would lose his life (Matt 26:70). It was no presumption in him; it was an infirmity in the blessed apostle for that time.

These, then, are the signs of infirmities: to have invincible imperfections, or distraction and deadness, accompanying our good actions; to be carried in the heat and tempest of passion to what we are afterward ashamed of and repent of; or to be hindered from what we should do by some prevailing passion.

But otherwise they are not infirmities, when we live in them, when we make a custom of them. Customary sins are not sins of infirmity; sins of infirmity are the sins that we fall into, that we are overtaken with, on the sudden. Only in some cases a man may live in a sin of infirmity, when the ground of the infirmity is rooted within him and he has not yet purged out the root. For instance, a man prone to anger by temperament may live long in that infirmity, being many times inordinately pettish and peevish, because he carries about him the root, the temper of the body and an inclination that way. Now he who lives in such an infirmity repents daily and gains ground on it; he is still hewing at the root, and at length, at the last stroke, it falls, and he gets the victory over it.

Again, a sin of infirmity is not a sin that we plead for. A man is ashamed of his infirmities; he is grieved for them. Now when a man pleads for them, and makes them a shelter and a covering shade to go on in sinful courses, they are not infirmities. Therefore whoever pleads for sins discovers a false heart; his sins are enormities, not infirmities. A Christian gets the better of infirmities. After he falls, he rises stronger and stronger still. But when a man grows worse and worse, and is habituated in an evil course, it is not an infirmity, because he does not grow out of it. Let us not deceive ourselves with this plea, saying, “It is my weakness.” A Christian should be ashamed to plead this; he should be able to do all things. Well, you see, then, that this point is clear: a Christian is an able man; he has a strength above nature in him, notwithstanding all his infirmities. This will appear more in the second branch, in the generality: he is able to do “all things.”

To come to that, then, many things are required of a Christian. Christianity is a busy trade. If we look up to God, what a world of things are required in a Christian to carry himself as he should! A spirit of faith, a spirit of love, a spirit of joy and delight in him above all. And if we look to men, a Christian has duties to his superiors, a spirit of subjection; and duties to equals, to carry a spirit of love; and to inferiors, a spirit of pity and bounty. If we look to Satan, we have many duties, to resist him and to watch against the tempter. If we look to the world, it is full of snares. There must be a great deal of spiritual watchfulness, so that we are not surprised. If we look to ourselves, many duties are required: to carry our vessels in honor, and to walk within the compass of the Holy Spirit, to preserve the peace of our consciences, to walk in keeping with our worth, as being the sons of God and co-heirs with Christ.

The state of a Christian is no idle condition. Sometimes a Christian is in this state, sometimes in that; and then he must have these graces, and soon after use other graces. He must have a suit of all graces, fit for all conditions. Now, corresponding to the variety of all the duties that are required of him, he must have ability; and therefore the apostle says, “I can do all things through Christ.”

5. So then the point of doctrine is this, that the test of a sincere Christian’s condition is universality of obedience. Universality of conduct in all conditions is the test of Christian sincerity. He must excuse himself in no sin, and he must be a vessel prepared for every good work, a vessel of glory, as the apostle speaks (2 Tim 2:21). He must shirk no service that God calls him to. What is the reason for this?

The reason is because a Christian has the sanctifying Spirit, and the sanctifying Spirit holds the seeds of all graces; so that where the Spirit is, there is the subduing of all sin at the root. And then all graces correspond to the commandments of God in all duties, and to the avoiding of all sins. And therefore James says pointedly to this purpose that he who “offends in one is guilty of all” (Jas 2:10).

Use 1. Let us take care that we do not plead immunity and freedom from some things, and think that the good we do in some kinds may excuse the bad we do in others. You have some who will take liberty in an unclean way of life because they are bountiful and generous; and they will take liberty to be oppressive in their callings because they attend upon the means of salvation. Oh no! Beware of conduct that goes against the profession of religion. There must be a universal disposition to all graces and to all duties, however contrary and cross they may be to corrupt nature.

The devil knows well where to get hold of some men, for he sees that they have their minds set on some sin and are careless in the practice of other duties; and therefore, in the hour of temptation, the devil will surprise such men, and it will be a ground of despair if they do not take heed. Suppose a man says, “I can part with everything else, but oh, I cannot die. I can be content to be imprisoned, but I cannot endure to be disgraced.” Let a man excuse and favor himself in only one thing, and when the time comes he will be discovered to be only a hypocrite. Then Satan will work upon that, and there he will be shaken in his condition. Because he did not learn self-denial perfectly, he does not have grace disposing him to the practice of all Christian duties. He has not learned to know God in covenant, to supply his lack of honor, credit, wife and children, and all that he is to part with for Christ’s sake.

Now take the man who, though God does not yet call him to it, has not learned this in resolution by entering into his own soul and asking himself what he can part with and what he can resist for Christ’s sake: “What can I endure? What can I suffer?” If his heart does not tell him, “I can part with all; I will rather endure death itself, rather endure shame or anything, than break the peace of a good conscience and grieve the Spirit of God”; if he cannot answer his soul this way, surely I can speak little comfort to that man. For we see that a Christian must be able to do all things; that is, to resist all ill, to practice all duty, to break off all sinful courses.

Question. But some will object, “May not a Christian be subject to some particular sin?”

Answer. Yes, he may. God, for special purposes, sometimes will have men of eminent graces subject to notable infirmities. But what, do they plead for them? No; rather, as they are inclined by temperament or by former custom, or as they find themselves leaning more one way than another, so they gather strength especially against their particular sin.

And at the beginning of conversion a blow is given to the sin that reigned before. As when Goliath was slain all the rest fled (1 Sam 17:51), so grace strikes at the Goliath. In conversion a main stroke is given to sin. Perhaps something still remains that grace will be hewing at, and therefore grace may stand with a particular sin that a man is inclined to. But against this he labors to get all strength, strength of direction as well as other strength. You will find that when a Christian is subject to any infirmity, he will speak more learnedly and more judiciously, with greater detestation, against the sin he is most prone to than against any other. He labors to make up the breach where the wall is weakest. So a man may be a good man and be subject to an infirmity, but then he gathers more strength against it.

Use 2. Well, you see, then, that a Christian is able to do all things through Christ who strengthens him. I beg you, let us often enter into ourselves and put what has been spoken to the use of trial as well: what can we do, what can we part with, what can we resist? Let us never think ourselves to be in a condition fit to comfort ourselves with until in truth and sincerity of heart we can renounce all whatsoever.

Yet notwithstanding, this must be understood evangelically: “I can do all things.” What, legally, without a flaw? No; “I can do all things” so far as shall show that I am a true Christian and not a hypocrite; so far as shall be beautiful in the eyes of others, to allure them to embrace religion; so far as shall make base spirits envy to see my even conduct and to see the power of religion; so far as shall put the world to silence from its reproaching; so far as I shall enjoy assurance of the truth of grace; so far as Satan shall not get his will in every sin. Our obedience is evangelical and not legal.

Question. Now, what is it to do all things evangelically? Let us clear up that point.

Answer. To do all things evangelically is, first of all, for a man to know that he is in that same state of grace, that he has his sins pardoned, and that he is accepted in Christ to life and salvation. That is the ground of all evangelical obedience. He must know that he is in the covenant of grace, that he has the forgiveness of sins and a right to life everlasting in Christ. And then comes obedience corresponding to that condition; that is, a desire to obey God in all things, a grief that he cannot do it as well as he would, a prayer that he might do it so, and an endeavor together with prayer that he may do so, and some strength likewise with endeavor. For a Christian, as I said before, has the Spirit of God, not only to set him to endeavor but to give him some strength. So there is a desire, and purpose, and prayer, and grief of heart, and endeavor, and likewise some strength in evangelical obedience.

A Christian, then, in the gospel can do all things when he has his sins forgiven and is accepted in Christ, when he can endeavor to do all, and desire to do all, and in some measure practice all duties in truth. For the gospel requires truth and not perfection. That is the perfection that brings us to heaven in Christ our Savior. We have title to heaven; the ground of it is in him, because forgiveness of sins is in him. Now a Christian’s life is only to walk worthy of this, and to fit himself for that glorious condition to which he has title by Christ, to walk sincerely before God. Sincerity is the perfection of Christians.

Therefore let us not allow Satan to deceive us. We do all things when we endeavor to do all things, and purpose to do all things, and are grieved when we cannot do better. For note that this always goes with evangelical obedience. God pardons what is ill, for he is a Father. He has bound himself to pardon: he will pity you as a father pities his child (Ps 103:13). From the very relation he has taken upon himself, we may be assured that he will pity and pardon us; and then he will accept what is good, because it is the work of his own Spirit, and will reward it. This he will do in the covenant of grace. A Christian can do all, then; and wherever he fails, God will pardon him. What is good, God will accept and reward; and what is sick and weak in him, God will heal, until he has made him complete in Christ.

Thus we see in what sense this is to be understood, that a Christian can do all things through Christ. For as it is said of gold, that the best gold you have carries an allowance of so many grains, so take the best Christian, and you must make some allowance. Some imperfection clings to him. He cannot do all perfectly. For if he could, what need would there be of the covenant of grace? He can do all things in such a way that he flies to the mercy of God in Christ for life everlasting. He can do all things required of a Christian in the covenant of grace in regard of sincerity. These things must be well and soundly understood, and then we can take no offense at the doctrine.

Question. What is the cause, then, that a Christian fails when he does fail?

Answer 1. A Christian fails when he does not understand the promises of the new covenant of grace, that God has given promises not only of the pardon of sin, but of all kinds of graces: a promise of the Spirit in general (he will give his Spirit to those who ask for it), and a promise of every other particular grace, that he will write his law in our hearts, and he will teach us to love one another, and he will put his fear into our hearts. We have no grace for which there is not a promise, either generally or specifically. Now when a Christian forgets this, he fails for lack of understanding the privileges and promises.

Answer 2. Again, he fails for lack of wisdom to plant himself among such helps as would make him able to do all things; for it is sometimes the folly of Christians to be rash in venturing upon occasions, and then a Christian has no more strength than Samson had when he ventured. He loses his strength when he ventures rashly. But if a Christian is wise to keep out of temptation, and to keep himself in good company and acquaintance, using holy means and helps to godliness, in which the Spirit works, a wise Christian may perform all.

Answer 3. Again, for lack of resolution. A Christian does not always go out with his spiritual armor, as he should. He does not go out with a purpose to please God in all things and to avoid all sins; his armor is loose about him. If a Christian would resolve, in the power of God, to break through all difficulties and to do all duties, God would second him. “Arise, and be doing, and the Lord will be with thee” (1 Chr 22:16). Let a Christian go on constantly in a good way, and he will find by experience God’s helping him. Without manly resolutions, a Christian fails.

Question. What is the reason that a Christian many times stands in strong and great duties and is foiled in little duties?

Answer. Because he is watchful in the one and careless in the other. Indeed, it is lack of will. If we would have strength, and would carry ourselves manfully, we might have grace to carry ourselves even to the glory of our profession and to its credit. But we willingly favor corruption and are not willing to put it out of ourselves to the utmost; as a result we lack much comfort that Christians should enjoy, and from this come many breaches in our life. In a word, if a Christian were careful, there is no duty that he might not perform in some measure. He may go exceedingly high upward, always with this exception, that he never looks to be justified by it. For God has not established the covenant that way. That is done by Christ. Again, if he is careless, he may sink exceedingly low. There is no sin, except the sin against the Holy Spirit, that he may not fall into in some manner.

I hasten to the last point. “I can do all things,” but how? With what strength? “Through Christ that strengtheneth me.”

This is to put a salve on an objection that might be made against the blessed apostle: “‘I can do all things’? Here is a proud word.” Oh no; “it is in Christ that strengthens me.” St. Paul was wonderfully cautious and careful to avoid spiritual pride, or the least touch of it, as we see in 1 Cor 15:10. “Not I,” he says. He checks himself at once: “I laboured more than they all; not I, but grace within me.” Above all other sins, take heed of spiritual pride; check it at once. “I can do all.” Oh but, lest proud thoughts should arise, “it is in Christ that strengtheneth me.” My strength is outside myself. As the heads of those rivers that ran through paradise, and that watered the city of God were outside paradise, so the head and spring of those streams that water the church of God and individual Christians lie outside of them; they are in Christ. It is otherwise with us than it was in the first Adam. He had strength, and had no promise to stand. He had power to stand, if he would. But a Christian’s strength is outside himself, in the second Adam, Christ. And it is well that it is in the keeping of so strong a Savior, for we would forfeit it as Adam did if it were in our own hands. It is conveyed to us as much as he thinks good, but the spring is in him. And we have not only a will, but the promise and ability to do good; we do all through Christ.

6. So the point of doctrine is this, that the source of a Christian’s strength is in Christ. God is the source of all strength. But God himself has no dealings of the new covenant with man outside the second person. All our comfort and all our grace comes through Christ, who, having taken our nature upon him and having satisfied God, is fit to convey all grace and comfort to us. For he is near us; he is of our nature, and God is well pleased in him, so that we may now go boldly to Christ. We are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

God himself outside of Christ is “a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). Now, in Christ God favors man. He is gracious and lovely to us, and we to him, because Christ his beloved Son has taken our nature upon him, and now he is in heaven in our nature. So Christ the mediator is the fountain of all strength. He is the spiritual Joseph, who had laid up stores for all Egypt and for all who came. He is the high steward of his church, the second in the kingdom of heaven. He is the Joseph; he dispenses all riches and treasures. All are in him for the church’s sake.

In him we do all things. As we can do all things on account of him, as a mediator who died for us and procured favor for us, so we can do all things in him, as a head to whom we are united. For there must be union before there can be communion. As in marriage there must be a uniting before there is a communion of estates and conditions, so before we can do anything on account of Christ we must be in Christ. We have all both through Christ and in Christ. From this comes communion with Christ’s Spirit.

So then it is Christ by his Spirit, for he does all by his Spirit: “The Lord is that Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17). Christ does all in the church by his Spirit. Now, the Spirit is the union of Christ; he strengthens all. All our strength is by Christ’s Spirit. Now, this Spirit of God first sanctifies Christ, the human nature of Christ, before he sanctifies us. We have all grace and power and strength at second hand. It does not come immediately from Christ as God. And grace does not come to us immediately from the Holy Spirit; rather, the Holy Spirit first sanctifies Christ in his human nature, and then he sanctifies us, and out of Christ’s fullness we receive grace for grace (John 1:16). The same Spirit that sanctified his nature in the womb of the virgin, and that sanctified the holy nature that he now has with him in heaven, the same Spirit is sent from him to sanctify every member of the church. All is in the head.

As the ointment was first poured on Aaron’s head, and from there ran down to the skirts of his garments (Ps 133:2), so all grace is poured first upon the head of Christ, and then from him upon the skirts, even upon the lowliest Christian, in keeping with their portion. And for those things that God means to call them to, they have grace to carry them through. You see then how to conceive of this, how we have all in Christ, that is, by the Spirit of Christ, and how it comes by the Spirit.

Use 1. First of all, then, you see here how these two agree: a Christian, when he is a Christian, has freedom of will and power. He has power and free will. As far as he is freed by the Spirit of Christ, so far he is free. For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:17). So Christ says, “If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). A Christian can do all things; therefore he is free. But this is in Christ; therefore his freedom is from Christ. We speak, but it is Christ’s Spirit that opens our mouth. We believe, but it is Christ by his Spirit that opens our hearts to believe. We are mighty, but it is in God. We are able to do great things, but it is in Christ who strengthens us. We are strong, but it is in the Lord; as it is written, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Eph 6:10).

The understanding is ours, the affections are ours, the will is ours; but the sanctifying of all this, and the carrying of all these supernaturally above themselves, to do their work spiritually, that is not ours, but Christ’s. So we see what is ours and what is not ours. We are able to do; but the strength and the grace and the ability are from Christ. A wind instrument sounds, but the man makes it sound by his breath. We are like wind instruments. Indeed, we sound, but no further than we are blown upon; and we yield music, but no further than we are touched by the Spirit of God. We are light, but only as the air is, as it is enlightened by the sun. And therefore we must understand these points, that God may have glory, and that we may know what is ours.

And then again we see here, that we have in Christ not only a general ability, that we are able, but we have the very act itself, the deed itself. He strengthens us. There is a spiritual life and a spiritual power and will, and then the act and deed itself. Now, we have from Christ not only the life of grace at the first, and then a spiritual power corresponding to that, by which our powers are renewed so that we are able to do something in our will, but we have the deed itself. The doing is from Christ; he strengthens us for the present.

Now, there are some who teach this point loosely, saying that we have general, universal grace, by which we are enabled, if we will, to believe and to do this thing, if we will. But I say that is not all. We have the will and the deed itself from Christ by his Spirit, and in every holy action Christ helps us to do these things in very deed.

First, he moves the soul to the action, and applies the soul to the thing. He does this by the Spirit. For though we have power, we could not exercise it in this or that particular act except by the Spirit.

Second, again, he works a preserving of the grace in that act. God preserves his own work against temptation and against impediments, for there is no act that is not opposed. The devil is in every good work, either at the beginning to hinder it or at the end to defile it, one way or another. Now, God preserves his own work by his Spirit. First he moves us to do, and then he preserves us in doing, and arms us against the impediments of good works.

Then he determines the good work and limits it, how far we shall do well, thus far and thus far; the degrees come from Christ. For sometimes he does it by his glorious power, as Paul says (Eph 1:19). Sometimes we are strengthened to do more, and sometimes less, as he wills. Not only the act itself, and the application of the soul, and the preserving of grace in every act (otherwise we sink), but also the degree in which we sometimes do better comes from Christ, now strengthening us more and now less, as he sees good.

Know, by the way, that he is a voluntary head. Though he is a head of influence that flows into every member, yet he is a voluntary head, according to his own good pleasure and the needs of his members. Sometimes we have need of more grace, and then it flows into us from him accordingly. Sometimes we have need to know our weakness, and then he leaves us to ourselves, that we may know that without him we cannot stand; that we may know the necessity of his guidance to heaven, as we feel our imperfections; that we may see our weakness and corruptions, which we had thought were not in us.

So Moses, a meek man, was tempted to murmur (Num 11:21 and following), and David, a mild man, to cruelty (2 Sam 11:15), though they had thought they did not have those corruptions in them. God sometimes leaves Christians to themselves, that they may know that they are not strong by their own spirit. So the degrees are from Christ, sometimes more and sometimes less. Sometimes we are in desertion, that we may know the manner of Christ’s governing us until we come to heaven.

Use 1. Well, I beseech you, let us know that outside of Christ there is no grace. A merely moral man does nothing in religion well. There cannot be a beam without the sun; there cannot be a river without a spring; there cannot be a good work without the spring of good works, Christ. Therefore we should fetch all from him, since there is no grace outside of him at all.

Use 2. Again, let us be sure, in all particular actions, to be poor in spirit. When we have any temptation to resist, any trouble to bear, or any duty to do, let us empty ourselves. No grace is stronger than humility. No man is weaker than a proud man. For a proud man rests on nothing, and a humble man who empties himself stands upon the Rock. We should therefore make use of the strength of Christ, who has not only abundance for himself, but an abundance for us, an overflowing for every Christian for his good. Let us empty ourselves, as the prophet says to the widow: bring “empty vessels” now, and we shall have oil enough (2 Kgs 4:3).

There is enough in Christ; but first we must empty ourselves by humility, and then there is fullness in him. “Of his fullness we receive grace for grace” (John 1:16). His fullness is like the fullness of the clouds that are ready to drop, and like the fullness of breasts that are ready to yield what they have. He is willing. It is our fault and baseness and pride that hinder us. Let us, as much as we can, empty ourselves of ourselves, and stir up the spirit of faith. Go to Christ. As much faith as we carry, so much grace we bring from him. If we do but touch him by faith, the issue of our corruptions will be dried up in some measure (Matt 9:20), and we shall have a spring of graces in us corresponding to the graces in him.

I beseech you, therefore, let us labor for these two graces, to empty ourselves in humility and by faith to go to Christ, especially since all is outside us in the covenant of grace. Not only salvation is outside us, but the grace that brings us to heaven is outside us. The one grace makes us go out of ourselves; the other carries us to Christ and to the promises of Christ. Learn to do this in every action, for we may be foiled in every particular action for lack of humility and faith. We must not trust to any grace or any ability in us, but trust to our spring, and go to Christ when we have anything to do.

Question. What is the reason that Christians fail?

Answer. They think, “I had grace yesterday, and before,” and so they do not go to Christ for a supply of new strength. Know that in every act, in every temptation, in every particular suffering, we need a particular new strength, and a greater strength than we had before, if the temptation is greater, if the work is greater. As a porter cannot carry a new burden that is heavier than the one before without a new strength, without more strength than he had before, so a Christian cannot bear a new affliction without new strength, without more strength.

Therefore consider what the nature of the business is that we are to do, and the strength of the temptation that we are to encounter, and go to Christ accordingly for a measure greater than we had before. He never upbraids us or throws it in our teeth, as James says (Jas 1:5). There is an art, a skill of fetching strength from Christ to do all things, if we would learn it. As there is a skill to being a Christian (it is a trade), so there is a skill in fetching the strength that a Christian has from his spring, from Christ. Now, that skill in a word is this:

1. To know our own need, and to know the necessity of grace and the excellency of the state of holiness: that of all conditions it is the best, and of all conditions a sinful state is the worst. This will make us go out of ourselves to Christ. Well, how then shall we fetch strength from Christ?

2. Consider why Christ has the treasures of all things in him, and go to him for whatever particular graces we lack. When we know beforehand the excellency and necessity of grace, then make use of the power of his death and resurrection. Thus, are we tempted to any sin? Make use of the death of Christ, of his great love in giving himself, and then of the holiness of God in giving Christ to die for sin, so much does he hate sin.

3. And then consider the fruit of his death, which was to free and deliver us from sin. When we think of these things, we say, “Did God and Christ so love me? Is it the holiness of God and the holiness of Christ that God became man to die for me, and shall I go and trifle, and be tempted to sin, and offend so holy and so gracious a God, who hates sin so infinitely?”

These are strong reasons drawn from Christ. We have both from him: the reasons why we should do good and why we should not do evil, and the strength as well. Two things are required for a man to do a thing as a man: the reason why he should do it, and strength to perform it. Both of these are from Christ.

As we are stopped from evil by the consideration of Christ’s death, so when we are moved to grace, consider the power of Christ’s resurrection. Why is Christ now in heaven in our nature? Is it not to fill his church with his Spirit? Why does he make intercession in heaven? Is it not that we should not be discouraged despite our daily infirmities? Shall we not make use of it? He is glorious for us, not for himself, but for his mystical body. As he has made his natural body glorious, so he will make his mystical body glorious little by little. Since he is in heaven, therefore, making intercession, go to him in the lack of grace.

And so for infirmities. The Spirit of God raised him at his lowest, and shall not the Spirit of God raise me from this and that? Yes, the Spirit of God will raise me from the baseness and misery of sin to be better and better. The same Spirit that raised his body will enable me. And so fetch power and strength from Christ; make use of Christ for every turn. Oh that we could learn these things! Then we would be able to go through all conditions: we would be able to live, able to die.

I beseech you, therefore, consider what has been spoken. Let us study Christ every day more and more, not for redemption and reconciliation only, though for that in the first place, but study Christ to be all in all to us, to be our sanctification to fit us for heaven. Study the promises in Christ; lose no privilege. God would not have left them in his word except for our good.

Take heed of base despair: “Oh, I shall never overcome this sin and that.” What! Did that not shut the people out of Canaan? Base despair lost them the earthly Canaan (Num 14:22 and following). So take heed that it does not shut you out of the heavenly Canaan. “I shall not be able to get the victory over sin, and I shall not be able to suffer.” No. Why are there promises? And why is Christ in heaven? Shall we, by despair and by base unbelief, lose Christ and the promises and all that is put into our hands, and betray our souls basely to Satan?

I beseech you, consider the necessity of these things. We do not know what times God may call us to before long. Do not despair beforehand. Let what will befall, get into Christ, to be in him in a happy and eternal condition. We shall have strength from him to conduct ourselves in all conditions. Come what will, he will stand by us; he will not fail us nor forsake us.

When did Paul speak these glorious words? In prison. “I can do all things through Christ …” (Phil 4:13). Did the Spirit of God leave Paul in prison? Was it not better for Paul to have grace than to be freed from the thing itself? Wicked men may be freed from trouble; only a Christian has grace to conduct himself well in trouble. Come what will, if we are in Christ, either we shall be freed from troubles, or we shall have grace to bear them. Either we shall have what we lack, or we shall have contentment without it. Is it not better to have grace without the thing? Is it not better to have a glorious Spirit of glory resting on us? Did not the Spirit of glory rest on Paul?

Could not God have freed Paul from prison? Yes. But where then would have been the demonstration of a contented spirit, of a heavenly mind? Where would have been this example of a Christian bearing the cross with comfort? Paul lost nothing. Here you see how many stars shine in the night of his affliction, what a luster he had in the dark state of imprisonment. Shall we then be afraid of any condition? No. Get the Spirit of God; get understanding of Christ, and of the promises and privileges by him, and then let God cast us into what condition he will, and we shall be safe and well.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O God (Ps 130:1).

This is a pithy psalm, and therefore it is called a psalm of degrees. The Jews give other reasons for this title, but they do not agree. Some will have it that these psalms were sung on the fifteen stairs that went up to the temple. Some call them this because, they say, they were sung with an extraordinarily high voice. But in these difficulties, “it is better to doubt about hidden things than to quarrel about uncertain ones.” Not all historical truths need to be known, for Christ did many things that were not written (John 20:30).

The author is not named. However, we may be assured that the Spirit of God composed it, setting down, first, the state of the writer (Ps 130:1); second, how he carried himself in that state: he prayed, being in depths (Ps 130:2); third, the ground of his prayer, which was God’s mercy (Ps 130:3); his own faith, hope, and patience; his waiting, which is laid down simply (Ps 130:5) and by comparison (Ps 130:6); and fourth, an application to the whole church (Ps 130:7), from his own experience of God’s mercy and sufficiency.

Out of the first part of this psalm, concerning the state of the writer, let us observe these particulars, following in their order. First, that the children of God do fall into depths; that is, into extreme misery and affliction. These are called “depths” because, like waters and depths, they swallow up and drown the soul, and because they surround the soul, burying it in great, terrible, continuing, deep dangers.

These depths of a Christian are either outward or inward. The outward troubles and depths are those of the body. God’s children are afflicted with these, as Jonah was when he was at the bottom of the sea, Joseph in prison, and Paul in the dungeon. These are like the man of God to the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:18): they only call our sins to remembrance.

But the inward spiritual troubles are the great depths; that is, trouble of mind for sin that lies upon us, causing us to doubt our state, to feel God’s wrath, to fear rejection and exclusion from God’s presence. This is the soul of sorrow, other outward sorrows being only the carcass of sorrow. “The spirit of a man will bear his infirmities; but a wounded spirit who can bear?” (Prov 18:14).

In such a state was our head, Christ Jesus, because of the extreme burden of the sins of the whole world laid on him, which made him sweat “drops of blood” (Luke 22:44); and when he was on the cross, when he cried with strong cries and tears, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

But why is this so, that the Prince of our salvation should be in such a depth of misery? I answer: because it was necessary that salvation should be repaired by the contrary means to that by which it was lost. It was lost by lifting up: Adam wanted to be like a god. And Christ regained us by abasing himself. The Son of God must become man, and a man of sorrows. And as the head was, so the members have been and must be, for we are predestinated to be like the image of his Son (Rom 8:29), and so to pledge him in the same cup in which he drank deep to us.

In this plight we often find David, though a man after God’s own heart (Ps 6:2-3; Ps 88:2 and following; Ps 40:12); and Jonah, a prophet (Jonah 2:2 and following); and Hezekiah (Isa 38:13); and Job especially (Job 6:4).

But why is this so, seeing that our head, Christ Jesus, has suffered for us? I answer that we must suffer:

Reason 1. That we may know what Christ suffered for us by our own experience. Without this we would esteem our redemption only lightly, not knowing how to value Christ’s sufferings sufficiently, which is a horrible sin (Heb 2:3).

Reason 2. By our sufferings we know what a bitter thing sin is (Jer 2:19), that is, by its evil consequences. For without the taste of God’s wrath, we find nothing but sweetness and pleasure in sin. And therefore we have enough sense of God’s wrath to humble us, but not so much as to show us the extremity of the depth of sin, lest we should sink down into despair.

Reason 3. By our afflictions and depths, we manifest God’s power and glory the more in our deliverance; for the greater the trouble, the greater the deliverance, just as the greater the cure, the greater the credit the physician gets.

Reason 4. Many times it is God’s manner to cure greater evils by lesser ones. Thus he lets us feel wrath to cure us of complacency, which is like a grave to the soul, and also to cure spiritual pride, which robs us of grace. He deals with us as he did with the Israelites. He would not cast out all the nations from before them, but left some who might be employed in hunting and destroying the wild beasts, which might otherwise multiply against the children of Israel. And so God dealt with Paul, giving him to be vexed by a base temptation, lest he should be lifted up with spiritual pride through the abundance of revelations (2 Cor 12:7).

Reason 5. These depths are left to us to make us more desirous of heaven. Otherwise great men, who are surrounded with earthly comforts, alas, with what zeal could they pray, “Thy kingdom come”? No; with Peter they would rather say, “Master, it is good for us to be here” (Mark 9:5). And therefore it is God’s usual way with great men to let them fall into spiritual desertions, to smoke them out of the world, whether they will or not.

Reason 6. God works in us by these afflictions a greater gentleness of spirit, making us meek and compassionate toward those who are in depths. This was one cause of Christ’s afflictions: he suffered that he might help and comfort others. He let Peter stumble, so that when he was converted he should “strengthen his brethren” (Luke 22:32).

Use 1. Hence, therefore, we learn not to pass a rash censure on ourselves or others who are in such depths as this holy man was in. For the afflicted soul no sooner tastes this bitter fruit than it immediately breaks out into complaints: “No one was ever afflicted as I am!” It thinks it impossible that there could be greater crosses than it feels, when in fact the draught that Christ our head drank to us was far beyond the comprehension of mortal man, and therefore much more beyond his power to endure.

Let us beware how we censure others who are afflicted, for God’s ends are hidden. It may be that God sends afflictions to bring to light some excellent graces that lie in a man, unknown both to the world and to himself. So he set up Job as a flag of defiance against the devil, bidding him do his worst: he would find Job an upright and just man. And therefore we should rather take notice of affliction as a sign of some excellent grace with which God has furnished such people; for God will not call out any of his own to suffering without getting himself honor by it.

Use 2. Note this doctrine against the profane persons who sneer at religion, and make a mock of the dejected condition of those who are good, because they seem despised, afflicted, and forsaken. They, alas, are ignorant of God’s ways and works. It would be much safer for them to consider their own ways and to reason: if God deals this way with his dearest ones, with the green trees, what will become of those who are his enemies, who are dry trees? If such troubles come to the godly, even from God’s love to them, what will defend the wicked when the vials of God’s wrath are poured down upon them, when they call to the rocks and mountains to hide, cover, and defend them (Rev 6:16)? If the “righteous hardly be saved, where shall the ungodly appear?” (1 Pet 4:18). And to conclude, know that the afflictions of the children of God are far better than the pleasures of sin.

Doctrine 2. Let us observe that though Christians fall into depths, yet God upholds them, so that they do not sink down into them without recovery. Thus it was with our Head. Though on a sudden he did not perceive the presence of God, so that he thought himself forsaken, yet even at the worst he could say, “My God.” Thus also Jonah: “I said I was cast out of thy sight; yet will I look towards thy holy temple” (Jonah 2:4). So also in Psalm 31:22 and Psalm 118:5-6.

Reason 1. For the Spirit of God is in them, and where he is, he is stronger than hell, even though the grace is only like a grain of mustard seed.

Reason 2. Again, as there are depths of misery in a Christian, so in God there are depths of love and of wisdom.

Reason 3. Faith, where it exists, unites the soul to Christ, and to God through him, and draws down divine power, laying hold by true and fervent prayer on the almighty power of God, at whose rebuke the waters of affliction flee away (Ps 77:16). And so the stronger the faith, the stronger the deliverance, for faith is of mighty power, enabling us to wrestle with God, as Jacob did. Thus when we lay hold on God, and God on us, what can drown us?

Reason 4. It is the nature of God’s working to be by contraries: in his works of creation, making all things out of nothing; in his works of providence, saving by little means from the greatest dangers. That he might bring us to heaven, he lets us go down even into hell, to see our worst state, to humble us. And this may therefore be a reason why many men lie long in afflictions: because they do not come low enough to see their sins and their need of help. In glorifying our mortal bodies, he first brings them to the grave, that they may rot and decay, and so be refined and molded anew.

Use 1. This should teach us a mark of difference between those who are God’s children and those who are not. Those who are his go to him when they are in danger. They always have such a hold by faith that they can say, “Yet God is good to Israel” (Ps 73:1). Others seek to escape by desperately undoing themselves, as Saul, and Judas, and Ahithophel, for all his strong natural abilities. And indeed men of such abilities are in the most danger of such courses of all others; for God will tread on them for their pride. On the contrary, in the worst state his children are in, he mingles comforts with griefs, the griefs to humble them, the comforts to keep them from despair. And so he sets them on a rock that is higher than they.

Use 2. It should teach us how to carry ourselves in all extremities. We should beware of the stream of grief and strive against it, as we desire a mark of our good state. Let us take heed how we think that God forsakes us. It is an accusation unbefitting him who never forsakes his own. Take heed of judging ourselves by feeling. Is food sour because someone who is sick does not relish it? No. The fault lies in his indisposition. So in such desertions, be sure that you keep your anchor of hope, though it is contrary to hope. And therefore, in the next place:

Use 3. We should answer God’s dealing by our dealing. He works by contraries; we should judge by contraries. Therefore, if we are in misery, hope and wait for glory; in death, look for life; in the sense of sin, assure yourself of pardon. For God’s nature and promises are unchangeable, and when God intends to forgive, he lets us see our troubles. And therefore, with resolute Job, say, “Though he kills me, I will yet trust in him” (Job 13:15).

But to come to particulars, I will set down cures for such depths as may arise from various causes. These depths are either imaginary or real. Christians sometimes think themselves to be in depths when in fact they are not; it is only imaginary, raised perhaps from a melancholy disorder of the spirits, which also disorders the reasoning work of the mind, raising as false and feigned notions about their souls as it does in many about their bodies. And yet these notions have real effects, as in Jacob, who sorrowed as truly for Joseph as if he had been dead indeed.

Therefore, to avoid this, do not be alone; a friend and good company are made for such times. For the devil assails men in such a case most of all when they are alone, and the strongest are then too weak for him. And do not believe your own fancy, but rather believe those who can discern us better than we can discern ourselves. We know how men have been deceived in this way, and therefore when friends advise and counsel us so, let us suspect that it is a prompting of the devil, or a fancy of our own, that is troubling us.

There is another imaginary depth, arising from mistaking the rules. Men conclude that because they do not have as much grace as others, or as much subduing and prevailing power over sin, therefore they have no grace at all, they are damned hypocrites, and the like. Little do they think that perfection is not attainable here, but is reserved for the blessedness of that other life hereafter. Little do they look to the imperfections of the best saints of God and the great depths they have been in. And indeed they do not know what the covenant of grace requires: not a perfect fulfilling of the law by our own persons, for that was the end of the law. But the covenant of grace requires sincerity with growth, and this is the only perfection we can look for here.

There is also another depth, which arises from taking the promptings of the devil for those of a man’s own corrupt nature. The baseness and unreasonableness of them make such people think they cannot be God’s children and have such detestable promptings within them. Let them know that these will be charged to Satan’s account. And it is rather a sign that they are none of the children of the devil; for if they were, he would let them rest in quiet without vexing them.

Again, some men fall into another depth, which arises from an apprehension of God’s forsaking them. To such I give this advice: let them not judge themselves by their disorder. For a sinful conscience sometimes puts a veil between God and us, hiding his favor, which nevertheless may be as great toward us then as at any other time. And it may be intended by God to drive us to him, by scourging us from our wicked ways and sins in which we formerly lived.

Therefore by faith pull the mask off the face of God. Do not judge according to present appearance, but by God’s nature and his promises, who has said he will be with us forever, and that no temptations shall be above measure (1 Cor 10:13). Judge by the nature of him who is unchangeable. Thus the Canaanite woman saw Christ’s loving nature under his frowning look. He does as Joseph did, hiding his love and person from his brethren out of an increase of love, not out of any ill intent.

Again, in such a case let us be sure to trust others who are our friends rather than ourselves. I mean in time of temptation, when others can better discern our health by our spiritual pulses than we ourselves can, who are then blinded. And in such cases there is the trial of faith and love.

There is another sort of depths, and these come before conversion. Thus Paul was troubled: “Lord, what shall I do?” (Acts 22:10). And thus was Manasseh. Let such people consider the commandment, that they may be humbled and cast themselves on Christ and his promises, considering that the end of Christ’s coming was to save and seek those who are lost.

Use 4. And if anyone finds that he has already escaped such depths as have been mentioned, let him take comfort, as being evidently proved by this to be a child of God; for it is utterly impossible that nature should overcome such difficulties. To that end let him reason in this way: God’s children go to him in depths. I go only to him in depths. Therefore I am God’s child. For to have the spirit of prayer, to go to God in time of trouble, is a work of the Spirit; a natural man does not have it (Job 27:9-10).

Use 5. Hence, therefore, in the next place, note a sure sign of the true religion, namely, to be able to support men in danger and in spiritual troubles. This is verified in our religion, as the subtle Jesuit will acknowledge, since the Jesuits hold that resting ourselves purely on mercy and favor in Christ, and not on man’s good works, is the safest way. So they live by their comfortless rules, and when they die they fly for refuge to that mercy and favor which they despise in their lifetime.

Use 6. Moreover, let this be a ground to encourage us never to give up God’s cause. He has said he will not leave us though we are in the depth of our sins, if we belong to him; and therefore much less will he leave us in that work which he himself sets us about. He was with Daniel among the lions, with Moses in the bulrushes, with the three children in the fire, with his church through fire and water.

Use 7. Lastly, let us therefore be sure to keep God as our friend, that he may own us; otherwise when we cry he will not hear us (Prov 1:28). Let us acquaint ourselves with him in prosperity, as it says in Job 22:21, and he will be our refuge.

Doctrine 3. Let us observe that afflictions stir up devotions; for prayers in time of afflictions are cries. “Prayer without troubles is a bird without wings.” For what allays worldly joy and embitters it but affliction? Now we know that it is the worldly affections that quench our zeal and make us cold. Affliction is a purgation opening the soul, causing it to relish and choose spiritual things, and to see its wants and its need of supply, and so it produces longing and earnest hunger. “In their affliction they will seek me early” (Hos 5:15), and therefore it is said that they cried to the Lord in their trouble (Ps 107:6). Now crying supposes want, and a sense of misery, and ardor. Thus Christ’s cries were called “strong cries.” And indeed weak afflictions many times make men peevish and irritable, as Jonah, rather than ardent in seeking relief; and therefore:

Use 1. Let us interpret God’s dealings with a sanctified judgment. He is a wise physician, and knows when strong or gentle medicine is most needed. Sometimes God by great afflictions manifests great graces, but in such a way that they may nevertheless be mingled with a good deal of corruption. And it is God’s practice that by this his graces may be increased and the corruption allayed, to bring down the greatest cedars and to eclipse the greatest lights.

Use 2. Let us oppose despair by all means, by prayer, by crying; and if we cannot speak, by sighing; if not that, then by gesture, especially at the time of death, for God knows the heart. For then eternal comfort is at stake. And therefore let us do anything to show that our faith does not fail. We must know that everyone will meet with these enemies, who would cause us to despair if they could, for this life is a warring and striving life. We will have enemies outside and within us who will fight against us.

Doctrine 4. Next, observe by the example of this holy man that prayers are to be made only to God, who knows our wants, supports us, and binds us up; and it is only Christ who does this. No one can love us more than he who gave himself for us. He is our eye by which we see, our mouth by which we speak, our arms by which we lay hold on God. And therefore it is an intolerable unthankfulness to leave this “fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness” (Zech 13:1), and to dig for ourselves cisterns that will hold no water (Jer 2:13); to leave Christ and run to saints and angels and the like.

Verse 2

Lord, hear my voice; let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications (Ps 130:2).

Mark here his constancy and urgency in prayer by his repetition. He does this not to work upon God, as if God were hard to entreat to mercy, but to waken his own heart, and to entreat from God a more inward and clear communion, communicating increase of grace; so that God’s children are not satisfied with small portions of grace. This is what Daniel did: “O Lord, hear, forgive, hearken, do, defer not!” (Dan 9:18-19). His ardor shows into what an extremity he was brought. And indeed the Lord regards lukewarm prayers no more than lukewarm persons, so that he will spew them out. Prayers must be like incense. They must be set on fire with zeal.

Question. But some will ask: How can we come to make our prayers fervent?

Answer. I answer: consider our wants and our need of supply, our misery in our want, and our hope of prevailing by prayer; and these will sharpen our affections in prayer. Consider also how these times and the state of the church are in sympathy with your own particular depths. The church abroad is in great depths. If we want proof that we are fellow members, that we are children of that mother, let us labor for a fellow-feeling of their miseries and make them our own. To that end, let us plead the depths in our prayers and pray, “Help thou, Lord, for vain is man’s help” (Ps 60:11). For extremity itself is a good argument to a father to help his children. Plead also the insolence of the enemies: “Why should the heathen say, Where is our God?” (Ps 79:10).

There is no church that does not use more helps to humiliation than we do, which foretells a great judgment; for God cannot endure this lukewarmness. Therefore call upon God with fervency, or else he will cast us into such extremities as will force fire into us. He who is poor naturally speaks supplications.

Direction 2. See to it that we are always in such a state that God may hear us. If we are not within the covenant with God, our prayers will turn to sin.

Direction 3. Take heed of willful neglect of God’s word. “He that turneth his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be abominable” (Prov 28:9). Some cry down preaching and cry up prayer, making an opposition between duties where there is none. Do you think God will hear you, when you will not hear him (Prov 1:28)?

Direction 4. Take heed of double dealing with God. This is hateful to God. And therefore David, until he dealt plainly with himself by condemning himself, had prayers that were only roaring, as a beast taken in a snare that cannot get out roars for pain and spite (Ps 32:3).

Direction 5. Take heed, in the next place, of allowing any sin, however little; and though it is only entertained in the heart, the Lord will not hear our prayers (Ps 66:18). For shall we think that God cares for our prayers when we make a covenant with his enemies?

Direction 6. Take heed also of unmercifulness and cruelty. God would not hear the Israelites; their hands were full of blood (Isa 1:15). God will rather have no sacrifice than no charity. Let us take heed of these things, and let us come boldly to the throne of grace while he holds out his scepter to us.

But against this a man may object and say that he is a wicked wretch, and that his prayers will only increase sin.

To such I answer: let them offer their prayers in obedience to the commandments of God, who commands them to pray, and he will respect the very groans of his Spirit within. Elijah was a man subject to the like infirmities, yet God heard his prayer (Jas 5:17). Where God’s Spirit stirs up, man’s spirit is stirred up; and where Christ joins in offering the prayers to his Father as in his own name, why should we belittle what God highly esteems? Let God have his sacrifice. He knows how to accept what is good and to pardon what is amiss. He will second his beginnings, and will enlarge the heart more and more.

Though at the beginning prayer may be dull and unwilling, it will end in fullness. And therefore let these spiritual depths be so far from hindering us from prayer that they should rather encourage us to pray. For it may be one end for which the Lord lets us fall into depths, that we may be stirred up to come to him; that so we may glorify him, and he may glorify his mercy in hearing our prayers and granting our requests. For it is certain that he who has no heart to pray when he is in depths will never come out of them. And let those who do come to him know that although God is not present to the senses, but rather seems to hide himself, yet he is most near to those who, like Mary, cannot see him for their tears and griefs, if with her they seek after him in humility.

Verse 3

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? (Ps 130:3)

These words remove the hindrances of prayer. The psalmist follows after God with a humble confession of what is evil, which is always better than a proud boasting of what is good. In this way he anticipates a secret objection that God and a guilty conscience may raise: that he was a guilty wretch. To this he answers by way of confession, “True, Lord! Yet if you should mark iniquities, no one could endure it.” From this, in general, we may observe:

Doctrine 1. Sin hinders and discourages the soul from prayer; for the conscience will object, and the soul will upbraid us, telling us that we are sinners. God is holy, and how can we think he will hear us then, where there is no faith? The soul cannot help but sink. This was David’s condition (Ps 51:14-15). Sin and a guilty conscience had almost sealed up his lips. So it was with the publican, who dared not lift up his eyes to heaven. And so it will be with us, especially if we yield to sins against conscience. Like Adam, we will run from the presence of God to hide ourselves, however intimate and familiar our former state and communion with God may have been. Therefore let us look to our souls, as we desire to appear with comfort before the throne of grace, for consciousness of remaining sin hinders boldness in prayer even in the best.

Doctrine 2. The way to get out of misery is first to get discharged from sin, for sin is the beginning and cause of all misery. Therefore, when the sons of Jacob were handled roughly by Joseph, the thought of selling Joseph into Egypt came at once into their minds as the cause of all their trouble, though the deed was many years past. And the widow, when her son died, at once called her sin to mind: “O thou man of God, why comest thou to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” (1 Kgs 17:18). If therefore we want to remove the misery, let us remove sin first. So David began by desiring pardon (Ps 143:2), and then prayed for deliverance, for misery follows sin, even as the shadow follows the body.

Doctrine 3. We may observe from the general statement that the way to purge and take away sin is by confession, clearing God in this way and laying the load on ourselves. The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession. The way for God to spare us is not to spare ourselves. And God requires this, not for his own sake, as if he could not be merciful except by this means, but so that we may glorify him, as Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to God” (Josh 7:19). Second, God will have it as a way to mercy because he has so decreed it. And in the third place, he will have it so that a greater shame for sin may thereby be worked in our souls.

And this confession must be serious, thorough and humble, with grief, shame and hatred. Not every “Lord, have mercy” is enough, for many deceive themselves this way, misapplying the promises that Christ will not “break the bruised reed,” that he looks at the desire. Alas! These promises belong to those who are not lazy, who are plain dealers with themselves, who will not spare themselves; who by reading, hearing, meditation, spiritual conversation and all other duties will not give up until they have found out the bottom of their iniquity hidden in their heart. Let only such people apply them, and not those to whom they do not belong. So much in general.

Now to come to some particulars. First, let us observe from this question, which has the force of a strong affirmation:

Doctrine 4. The best men in the state of grace are sinners. Some may be without crime, but not without sin; for in every man there are two principles, one of good and another of evil, the old man and the new. In all there is a combat between flesh and spirit. Christ is not a mediator for those who are already perfect, for there is no need of mediation where all is friendly. And therefore there must be some enmity that makes God’s children stand in need of the perpetual intercession of Christ, who is a high priest forever.

And the servants of God have acknowledged as much: “Answer me in thy righteousness” (Ps 143:1), not in mine, as if to say: I will not have a quarrel with you; you are righteous, I am sinful. I may be just in my own eyes, but in your sight no man shall be justified. We acknowledge as much in our daily prayers, when we keep praying, “Forgive us our trespasses.” However much we profit every day, yet, like leaking ships, we take on what will drown our souls at length if we do not repent. For as it is written, our best performances are as filthy rags (Isa 64:6); “I am a man of polluted lips” (Isa 6:5); “While I confessed my own sins” (Dan 9:20).

The papists themselves imply as much, for otherwise why do they teach the doctrine of doubting? If we are perfect, it is a sin to doubt of salvation, for by doubting we deny God to be just. If they are perfect, why do they need to press the doctrine of penance, or of going to saints to be their mediators? And when they are on the rack of conscience, the best of them will then renounce their dreams of perfection. From this observation, therefore, we learn that no man can perfectly fulfill the law, and second, that there can be no justification by works. Only this: whatever must make us just must be perfect. Our best works are imperfect.

Doctrine 5. In the next place, we may observe that having company in our offenses is no ground for lessening or diminishing sin. It is the trick of a merely formal Christian to wrap himself up in general confessions: “We are all sinners, and if God should deal with us as we deserve, we would be damned.” But come to reckon with him for his particular sins, and he is all in a rage. He cannot be a saint, he says, with other such speeches tending to the defense of his course. The psalmist is not of this nature. He argues otherwise: neither Adam nor Abraham could stand, so how much less shall I, poor worm! David aggravates his sin when he tells us that he was conceived and born in sin. But men nowadays do the opposite: “You must bear with me; it is my natural disposition; I cannot do otherwise.”

Yet I do not deny that to the dejected sinner this may be used as a comfort. For when such people see the mass of corruption within them, they at once think worse of their state and condition, as if no one were so bad, or in so bad a case, as they are. Such people should be steadied by considering that this is the general state of all men; the only difference is that some see their sins more than others do. Solomon uses it this way: “If any man sinneth against thee, as there is no man that sinneth not” (2 Chr 6:36). And God himself uses it as an argument to move himself to mercy: “The imaginations of man’s heart are evil continually, therefore my Spirit shall not always strive with flesh” (Gen 6:3).

Doctrine 6. In the next place, observe that God opens the heart and eyes of his children to see and feel what sin is, and keeps their eyes open and their consciences continually tender. The wicked are blind, even in the most heinous crimes of all. David complains of this, that his sin was ever before him (Ps 51:3). And God threatens this: “I will set them before thee” (Ps 50:21). And the reasons for this are these:

Reason 1. To make our judgments conform to his in hatred of sin; for since we are his children, it is fitting that we should bear his image and be like him.

Reason 2. To make us apprehend mercy the more dearly, and thereby glorify him in it the more.

Reason 3. Because he would have us beg him to cover our sins from his eyes, that they may be covered from our eyes; for even the best cannot shake off the sense of sin, however burdensome it is. But God keeps it in our minds to humble us the more thoroughly.

Reason 4. Again, God’s children have a new life that feels the least thing contrary to itself; and those who are in the most perfect life are the most perfect in the sense of sin, however small, though it be only inward motions. Where the sun shines clearest, there motes are most easily seen; and therefore the best Christians complain most of corruptions, for they see more than others do.

Hence, then, we may know our state, whether we are stillborn or have life. If we have life, we have light, and can see and discern between good and evil. Some are stillborn, yet think they live. Many are like this, thinking themselves blameless in their way of life, yet full of pride in heart. Like the Pharisees, they think well of themselves, knowing nothing of what belongs to the Christian warfare. Others are more bold, and their very lives betray that they do not think of sin. They are bold in their courses, proud in speech and bearing, contemptuous of others and of the means of salvation, content with a little, thinking anything enough. But the worst of all are those who do indeed think of sin, but it is to defend it, and to maintain it by shifting the blame and by recrimination. They will be sure to repay double to those who tell them of their courses in a friendly manner.

Question. But how shall we come to have a sense of sin?

Direction 1. Let us have the picture of the law in our hearts, seeing all evil and its degrees. Let us also learn both to desire to avoid sin and to endeavor to flee every occasion of it, however small; and to take up every occasion of doing good, and of doing good spiritually, from judgment, affection and faith. And let us consider the extent of the law, which reaches to the least thought.

Direction 2. Let us bring ourselves continually into the presence of God. Human frailty appears in nothing more than when it is brought to the light, for opposites illustrate one another when they are compared. Let us consider, therefore, in whose presence we are, what we are, what God is, what we have done and what he commands. Then, with Job, we shall abhor ourselves in dust and ashes (Job 42:6), though we formerly defended ourselves.

Direction 3. And because God is invisible, let us bring ourselves to what is divine. Let us often hear the word unfolded, and we shall, with the unbeliever, be convinced, and falling down shall confess God’s power with it (1 Cor 14:24).

Direction 4. Furthermore, let us keep company with those who are better than ourselves, for the image and likeness of God is seen in his children. It is the custom of many men to keep the worst company so that they may appear to be the best, and in this way they increase an overweening self-conceit in themselves.

Direction 5. Let us also make a practice of going to places visited with God’s corrections; for on seeing misery, the conscience retires into itself, considering the ways of sin and how the devil pays those who serve him. This is the use we ought to make of objects of misery, to see God’s correcting hand. Otherwise we provoke God (Isa 1:3-5), who curses such people (Jer 5:3), branding them with the brand of King Ahaz, “this is Ahaz” (2 Chr 28:22).

While we delight ourselves with pleasing worldly objects, our eyes are shut against sin, but corrections and punishments make them see and discern. All Christ’s admonitions could not make Judas see his sin of covetousness, but afterward the weight of a burdened conscience so worked on him that he could not be pacified. Let us look, therefore, on the afflictions of other men and on those of our own persons and estates, and know that even the least crosses do not come without a just cause.

Direction 6. Lastly, let us pray to God to give us tender hearts; not to deliver us up to a hard, impenetrable heart and to spiritual judgments, but to keep us continually sensible of our sins and least infirmities.

Doctrine 7. In the next place, from the manner in which this speech is delivered we may gather this much: that sin once truly felt is always unbearable; no one can stand under it. There are three impotencies in sinners. First, they cannot see sin: “Who can understand his errors?” (Ps 19:12). Second, when the Lord causes them to see their sins, they cannot justify themselves. And third, they cannot bear the burden of them; for death, the wages of sin, no one can bear or endure. Indeed, God himself cannot endure sin, but is “pressed under them as a cart laden with sheaves” (Amos 2:13). Indeed, the wounded conscience, which is only a part of the wages of sin in this life, no one can endure.

Christ could not endure these sins, but had such a sense of them as if he had been quite forsaken: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). Angels could not bear the burden, but were thrown down to hell by it, and so angels of light became angels of infernal darkness. Adam could not endure it until Christ raised him up by the promise of the blessed seed; and therefore much less can we since the fall, as appears in Cain, Saul, Ahithophel and Judas. The earth could not bear Korah and his company, and neither would it bear us if we had our due. Sin is a debt we cannot answer: “We cannot answer one of a thousand” (Job 9:3).

Use 1. This therefore refutes the papists, who say that Christ has endured the great punishments, but that there are other, lighter punishments which we also must undergo, such as purgatory and the like. To them we say that the wages of the least sin is death. What the angels could not satisfy for, how shall we weak creatures satisfy?

Use 2. This may put a just defense into the mouths of conscientious Christians. Let others call them by whatever names of scorn they please; such Christians have good ground for what they do. They know what sin is and have felt its sting, and what they do, they do in love to their souls. As for those who scorn, conscientious Christians know there is more cause to pity them than to envy their state. These scorners may now outswagger and outface sin, which no one could bear before. They may censure, with grace and authority as they think, those who are conscientious, and themselves swear and profane the holy name of God, showing by this a heart full of unbelief and irreverence, which is more odious than the sin of swearing. Yet a time is coming when God will set their sins in order before them, in such a way that they will melt away in the sense of their multitude and greatness, without hope of relief. Then they will see nothing but vengeance and death before their eyes, and without any manner of hope they will die.

Question. But how does it come to pass, some will say, that many nevertheless seem to bear their sins well enough, and live and die without tears?

Answer. I answer, the state of such people may be dangerous, for Christ is not sweet until sin is bitter. But God is infinite in wisdom. He does not immediately burden every sinner, nor immediately comfort those who desire it. For then who would not be good, and who would be evil? And if comforts were always present, what need would there be of faith? And therefore this is most especially true at the day of judgment, when the wicked shall be blown away as chaff (Ps 1:4-6), when there will be a guilty conscience, watching devils and an angry God. Where shall the wicked then appear? And there must be a hell hereafter, so that men may then feel what they will not now believe.

Use of direction. Therefore let us learn to submit ourselves to the correcting hand of God, saying, “It is thy mercy we are not consumed” (Lam 3:22). Let us consider that this light affliction is nothing compared with what we deserve, or with what Christ suffered for us, or with what the damned suffer in hell, or with the joy we have laid up for us in heaven. And therefore, as it is in Micah 7:9, “Let us bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have sinned against him.”

Second, let us justify God. We have deserved affliction. He has dealt justly with us (Neh 9:31 and following): “Righteousness belongeth to him, but to us shame and confusion of face” (Dan 9:7).

Third, let us moderate our censure of those who are dejected and out of heart through a sense of sin: “A wounded spirit, who can bear?” (Prov 18:14). Do not impute it, therefore, to melancholy, or to despair and madness, or, as Eli unadvisedly did, to drunkenness, when he reproved Hannah (1 Sam 1:14). For can we think it strange, when God sees sin in his children, that he causes them to see it, and that when they see it they should show it in their outward gestures? No; it is no light burden, that a man may run away with.

Verse 4

But there is forgiveness with thee (Ps 130:4)

This verse contains a blessed appeal. God has a court of justice and a tribunal of mercy. If God should examine in justice what we have done, we could not stand; but there is mercy, or forgiveness, with the Lord. Therefore it is an appeal from the throne of justice to the mercy seat. And yet it is not so properly an appeal that it admits of no limitations.

For, first, appeals are used in aid of those who are innocent. Now we by nature are all unclean. Again, appeals are grounded for the most part on the discovery of insufficiency, or of violent, crooked courses in the managing of the cause. This can in no way be attributed to God, who is not rigorous nor insufficient, nor swayed by crooked means, for he shows partiality to no one. Again, an appeal is from an inferior court to a higher. But here it is not so, for we appeal from God to God; from God armed with justice, examining by law, to God a father armed with love, looking on us in the comforting promises of the gospel; from Sinai to Zion, from Moses to Christ.

And in this appeal, as in others, the former sentence of the law, by which we are “cursed,” is utterly annulled, so that “no condemnation is to those that are in Christ” (Rom 8:1). But this belongs to those, as it is in other appeals, who must see themselves condemned before they can have the benefit of this appeal. There is no flying to mercy unless we find ourselves in need.

But to come to some observations. In the first place, we may see by this example that the soul of a Christian apprehends God according to its state, so as to comfort itself, and therefore beholds him as a forgiving God. And so the children of God, when they are at their lowest, recover themselves with something they find in God’s nature and promise, and to that end have a spirit of faith to trust and rely on God. Those who do not have it sink lower and lower.

Doctrine 1. Here we may observe that the Christian soul, once stung with sin, flies to the free mercy of God for ease. Let a sinner be in Haman’s state; tell him of all pleasures, whatever they are, and he does not care. Nothing but pardon delights his soul. David, a king, a prophet, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), beloved of his people, wonderfully graced, could not stand when he was troubled with his sin. He does not regard his outward privileges, prerogatives, majesty and the like. No; the blessed man, he says, is the one to whom God imputes no sin (Ps 32:2).

And this is the reason why so much is attributed to the blood of Christ everywhere in the Scripture: because the soul once pricked finds no ease or cure but in it principally, yet without excluding the other merits and obedience of Christ. And David, when he would raise up his soul to praise God, describes him as a God forgiving sin and healing infirmities (Ps 103:3). Therefore, when our consciences are burdened, we should go as Joab did and catch hold of the horns of the altar, that is, go to the mercy of God. There let us live, and there let us die. And however great the conflict may be, we shall at length find that, like Jacob, we shall be children of Israel, such as shall prevail with God, and that for our depth of misery he has also a depth of mercy. This mercy will appear either in preserving us from sin before we have fallen into it, or in rescuing us from it if we have once fallen into it.

Question. But how is it, some may say, that God forgives? Does he do it without satisfaction?

Answer. I answer, no.

Question. How then is it done, seeing he has decreed that without blood there shall be no remission (Heb 9:22)?

Answer. I answer, this is done in Christ.

Question. But why is he not mentioned here, or in the Old Testament either?

Answer. I answer, he was set before us in the Old Testament in types and promises. For what else was the paschal lamb but “the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world,” by sprinkling our hearts with his blood? He was the priest who, before he could open an entrance into the holy of holies for us, must first shed blood and offer sacrifice. What did the ark signify, with the law covered within it, the mercy seat upon it, and over them two cherubim covering one another, but Christ our ark, covering the curses of the law, in whom is the ground of all mercy, “which things the angels desire to pry into” (1 Pet 1:12), as into the pattern of God’s deep wisdom?

And when anyone prayed in the temple they looked toward the mercy seat; what does that mean but that, whenever we pray to God, we should behold Christ, through whom God appears merciful and gracious? What did the temple signify, toward which they looked when they prayed (2 Chr 6:38; Dan 6:10), but that we in our prayers should always have reference to our temple, Christ Jesus?

And being thus assured, we may safely pass through the flaming fire of God’s justice. If there were anyone else to be trusted besides Christ, there would be no peace of conscience. The sinner would argue, “I am a creature, and my sin is infinite. No creature can satisfy, for creatures are not infinite. Angels cannot stand. It must be an infinite majesty that satisfies, and it must be with blood.” Now, Christ by his blood has obtained eternal redemption for us, and therefore none but Christ, none but Christ! He is God-man, making God and man at one. It is his nature, and it is his office. So God is just as well as merciful. For as it is in Romans 3:25-26, “God the Father hath proposed or set forth Christ” in types and figures “to be a propitiation,” alluding to the mercy seat, “to declare his righteousness and justice, that he may be just in punishing sin,” that is, in Christ, “and a justifier of the sinner that believes in Christ Jesus,” because he accepted Christ’s satisfaction. In this way his mercy devised a remedy to satisfy his justice.

So much in general; now to come to particulars. First, take it exclusively, and we may observe:

Doctrine 1. Only God can release a guilty conscience; only he can speak peace to a soul in distress. Ministers indeed have keys to open and shut heaven; but they use them only ministerially, as they find people disposed, while Christ uses them independently. Now then, when a man assumes this prerogative to himself, as the popes used to do in giving indulgences, it is nothing other than setting such men in the place of God. “I, even I, forgive sin,” says God (Isa 43:25). None can quiet the conscience but one who is above the conscience, and that is God, who alone is the party offended, though there is also an offense against men.

This ought to comfort us, that we have to do with a forgiving God (Neh 9:31). There is none like him, to whom it is natural to remit and forgive sin. It is his name: “Forgiving iniquities, transgressions, and sins” (Exod 34:7), all manner of sins, sins against knowledge and against conscience. With him is plentiful forgiveness.

Doctrine 2. Observe that as only God forgives sin, so he always forgives sin. It is always his nature, as fire always burns. As he is Jehovah, he is merciful. Christ is “the Lamb of God,” who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). It is a perpetual act, as we say the sun shines, the spring runs. He is that “fountain that is opened for sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1). Mercy is his nature, and forgiveness is an effect of his mercy.

Objection. Therefore it is no satisfying objection that the distressed soul will be ready to make: “God was merciful to David and Peter, but how can he be merciful to me, a miserable sinner?” For as God forgave Peter, Paul, and David, so he forgives now. He is a fountain of mercy never drawn dry. He is unchangeable, and therefore we are not consumed (Mal 3:6); and Christ is the same “yesterday, and today, and for ever” (Heb 13:8). The thought of this should be like a perpetual picture in our hearts.

Doctrine 3. Hence we may gather that God’s mercy is free, and from himself. Though in us there is sin and iniquity, yet in you there is mercy. And therefore God says, “I do not this for your sakes, but for mine own sake” (Ezek 36:22). Yet this must not be understood as if mercy were freely and only from God the Father, excluding Christ. Rather, it is free in this respect, that we will stand in need of no merits of our own to make satisfaction. Away, therefore, with popish doctrines of satisfactions by our own works. The holy man does not say, “With you is justice to take my works as satisfaction for my sin.” No; though this holy man was a gracious man, yet mercy is his whole plea.

And if the question is how the sinner stands free from punishment and entitled to all good, it is from forgiveness, which is from God’s mercy, grounded on Christ’s satisfaction. All is laid upon him. He was wounded for our transgressions (Isa 53:5); he bore our sorrows; he was made sin for us, who knew no sin (2 Cor 5:21). The nature of man will hardly stoop to this divine truth. But the Spirit teaches us to rely on the free forgiveness of God in Christ; and therefore Christ and his apostles bid such people “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

We may think this an easy lesson. But hereafter, when God opens our sins and lays them upon our consciences, they will tell us fearful things: “There is no hope! You must be damned!” Against such times, lay up grounds of comfort, and let this text be a haven to resort to. It is true, “if thou markest what is done amiss, who can stand? but there is mercy with thee that thou be feared.”

Doctrine 4. We may observe from this that the best Christian and most gracious man alive needs forgiveness of his sins; for where the conscience is enlightened it will discover what corruption it finds, and so the necessity of being delivered. So we read, “If any man sin, we have an advocate” (1 John 2:1); that is, such as I am need an advocate. And one reason may be that such people indeed see much more ingratitude in their sins than others do, for they sin against the knowledge of God’s love to their souls in forgiving former sins. Then to fall into sin again is like broken bones (Ps 51:8).

And the apostle, speaking to the believing Corinthians, says, “I beseech you to be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20); for Christ was made sin for us, for you and for me. Even we sin daily, and stand in need of reconciliation. We must daily pray, “Forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4); yes, the best of the disciples must do it. If we do not come with this petition, “our sins are written with a pen of iron, and with the claw of an adamant” (Jer 17:1).

Doctrine 5. This mercy and forgiveness is general to all who cast themselves on his free mercy. It is Satan’s subtlety to persuade us at first that sin is nothing; but when it is committed and cannot be recalled, then he tells us it is greater than can be pardoned. No. The gospel is the power of God to salvation to all who believe. Let no one despair. That is a greater sin than the former ones. “God is not the Father of those who despair, but their Judge.”

God’s pardon is general, to all persons who repent of all sin, and by it he frees them from all evil. He pardons all persons: Manasseh the sorcerer, Cornelius, Zacchaeus, persecuting Paul. The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son testify to it. God offers it freely: “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek 33:11). He complains when it is neglected: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you together!” (Matt 23:37). He threatens because men will not hear, and he pardons all sins. There is no disease above the skill of this Physician. He heals all your sins and all your infirmities (Ps 103:1-3).

Yes, if it were possible for the sinner against the Holy Spirit to repent, there would be hope in Israel concerning even this! He has pardon for sin long lived in. “At what time soever a sinner repenteth, he will blot out his wickedness” (Ezek 18:21-22). What if our sins are ever so enormous? God’s thoughts are not as ours (Isa 55:8). Conscience may be overcharged with sin. We may play the harlot with many lovers; yet return to me, says the Lord (Jer 3:1). He who bids Peter forgive seventy times seven times, shall he not have plenteous redemption? What proportion is there between the sin of a creature and the mercy of an infinite Majesty?

He frees from all ill, from all punishment. His forgiveness is perfect. Though we are as red as crimson with sin, he will make us white as snow (Isa 1:18). He removes our sins from his presence as “far as the east is from the west” (Ps 103:12).

Question. But some will say, “Why then does he correct his children?”

Answer. I answer, not from avenging justice, for he is our Father. What he does comes from love, is mingled with love, is moderated with love to our strength, and is turned by love to our good. When he follows us with prosperity, he is our alluring Father; and when he corrects us, he is our correcting, not punishing, Father (Heb 12:3-12).

Yet let this not be taken the wrong way. It is spoken only to the humble heart that is broken with sin, which is the sixth general observation: there must first be sight of sin, then sense of misery, then confession of sin and begging pardon, or else none is granted. For God bestows pardon in the way that may be most for his glory and our comfort. What glory can he reap by pardoning those who will sin “because grace may abound” (Rom 6:1), and so “will turn the grace of God into wantonness” (Jude 4)? And what comfort can we have from the pardon of our sins until we see our sins, and feel what it is to lack pardon?

Sight of sin and mercy are inseparable. Sometimes the sense of pardon is delayed, to make us hunger after it; sometimes it follows suddenly after sight of sin, as it did for Matthew and Zacchaeus (Matt 9:9; Luke 19:8-9). But one must go before the other. First the wind of the sight of God’s anger must come, breaking and rending the rocky, hard hearts that are within us; then comes the soft, still voice speaking peace to the humble soul.

The reasons may be, first, to set an edge on our prayers for forgiveness; otherwise who would care for it? Secondly, to make us esteem forgiveness of sin highly. The promises are as sweet to the dejected soul as a pardon is to the condemned person. Thirdly, that God might have the more glory and thanks. When we find the bitterness of sin, as it is in Jeremiah 2:19, sweetened by God’s mercy, then “My soul, praise thou the Lord; and all that is within me, praise his holy name.” He forgives all my sin, and heals all my infirmities (Ps 103:1-3). And, lastly, because our unrepented sins keep good from us, and us from the fountain of all good, and must be removed before there can be any way for mercy.

This therefore justifies those ministers who in these days of the gospel enforce the law. People must not be offended at this, but must allow their consciences to be laid open, that the word may come close and home to them. And secondly, they must use the means to come to a sense and feeling of their sin.

To that end let us make sin as odious and dangerous in our eyes as we can. It is odious to God. To us it is poison and leprosy, though we cherish it and hate ministers and friends for touching it. It is abomination to God. It thrusts him out of our hearts and puts in the devil, God’s archenemy. It causes us to prefer base pleasure and fading profits before the favor and mercy and love of God. Must this not be hateful to God? But then how much more intolerable are those sins that bring neither profit nor pleasure, but cause us to thrust God out simply because we will?

But this is not all, for as it is abominable to God, so it is dangerous to us. For where do judgments come from? Why is it that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven (Rom 1:18)? Where do sickness, disgrace, and troubles come from? All these are the fruits of sin. Nothing makes us miserable but sin. Take a man when he lies dying. Ask him what troubles him. Oh! he cries out about sin, about the wrath of God. He does not feel his sickness, just as the gout is not felt by someone who has a fit of the stone upon him. Let us think of this in time; let us shame the devil, and shame ourselves.

But is this all? No. Judas saw his sin and confessed, yet he was never the better for it. He lacked what should make his repentance perfect. He lacked faith to lay hold on pardon. A poor man is fit for treasure, but unless he lays hold on treasure, he will never be rich.

Therefore faith and repentance are always joined in the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel, as was said to the jailer. So Christ says, “Come to me” (Matt 11:28). Christ came to satisfy for all sin, to cure all diseases, but they must first come to him and say, “Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean” (Matt 8:2). And to such as these I may say, as they said to the blind man, “Be of comfort, for Christ calls thee” (Mark 10:49).

“That thou mayest be feared” (Ps 130:4).

Fear in this place is taken for the spiritual worship of God, arising from a reverential fear mingled with love. “Fear God and keep his commandments” (Eccl 12:13) is the whole duty of man. So these words, considered together with the former, bring this observation to our attention:

Doctrine. God’s goodness, forgiveness, grace, and mercy are a means to stir up his children to all duties. And therefore we are commanded to do all things in fear: to “work out our salvation with fear” (Phil 2:12), to eat and drink with fear; and in Jude 12 the wicked are branded with this, “that they eat without fear.” So whatever we do, we must do it in fear, continually showing reverence for God and a jealous watch over ourselves, lest we shut out the light of God’s countenance from us.

Question. But it will be said: How then is it said “that we should serve him without fear” (Luke 1:74), being redeemed from our enemies?

Answer. I answer, there is a twofold fear. One is a slavish fear, and that is what the place means. We should serve him without fear of damnation, of punishment, and of judgment. But the fear we speak of here is a fear of reverence and love, which stirs us up to worship him.

Question. But some may say, “How does God’s mercy stir us to duty?”

Answer. I answer, first, it stirs up faith in our hearts. Hope of forgiveness will cause us to cast ourselves into the arms of those we have offended. Where there is no hope of mercy, nothing follows but fear, causing us to flee; even as we see that a proclamation of pardon to rebels causes them to come in, but the contrary makes them run away.

Again, sense of forgiveness works more love. David’s murder, Paul’s persecution, and Peter’s denial caused abundance of love. Where many sins are forgiven, there will be much love (Luke 7:47); and where there is much love, there will be obedience to all God’s commandments, for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:10). On the other hand, desperation is the ground of all sin. This is the ground of all hate. The devils hate God. Because they know there is no remedy left for them, they cannot endure the remembrance of him. But on the contrary, as it is in Psalm 65:2, “Unto thee shall all flesh come.” Why? “For thou hearest prayer.”

Again, fear and forgiveness are joined in the new covenant. “I will put my fear in thy heart, and thou shalt not depart from me” (Jer 32:40). And Christ, to all who are his, is king, priest, and prophet alike. He comes to all by water as well as blood. He has become righteousness, wisdom, and holiness (1 Cor 1:30). Again, a Christian will, by reason, enforce this on himself, as Paul did (2 Cor 5:15). Christ died for us; therefore we must live to him, and not to ourselves.

Use 1. This therefore should cause us to take heed of all thoughts of despair. Let it be enough that we have broken the law; let us not pull a greater sin upon ourselves by denying the gospel, the mercies and truths of God. Let us by all means take heed, for Satan will join with guilty consciences, speaking with cursed Cain, “My sin is greater than can be pardoned” (Gen 4:13). No article of our creed is so much opposed by him as that of the forgiveness of sin by Christ’s merits, which is the very life and soul of a church. All the former articles of the creed are perfected in this, and all the following articles are effects of it.

Use 2. This doctrine furnishes an answer to the papists, who cast scandal on the doctrine of free justification by the merits of Christ, without our own works. They say that we thereby nourish carelessness in a Christian life, when the Scripture, and the Spirit of God in the hearts of those who are truly regenerate, reason quite the contrary. “There is mercy with thee, that thou mayest be feared”; not that we may live as we please. For those whom God forgives, he first truly humbles; those whom he washes, he gives hearts to keep themselves clean, so that, like the burnt child, they dread the fire ever after.

No; it is they who overthrow good works, while they ground them on false grounds. For either they do them to satisfy God’s wrath, which is slavish, or to merit by them, which is the mark of a hireling. And most of their works are such that if God should ask them, “Who required them at their hands?” (Isa 1:12), they could never answer. While they talk of good works, they meanwhile overthrow faith and love, which should be the ground of a good work. What more can they do than a Cain or a Judas, or the wickedest man alive?

Secondly, we may gather from this a ground of discerning our state, by which we will know whether God’s mercy and forgiveness belong to us or not. For it is impossible, where there is no inward worship of God in the heart, where there is no fear and jealous suspicion of sin, where there is no conscience about swearing, blaspheming, and such abominations, that such people have ever yet had any true taste of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Let them not take comfort from the example of the thief on the cross, who cried for mercy and received it. For there is a time of grace, and there are some sinners, such as those who flatter themselves in a course of sin, thinking to repent when they will, against whom the wrath of God will smoke (Deut 29:20). Therefore let such people not soothe themselves. Those who have their sins forgiven fear God. Such people do not fear God, and therefore their sins are not forgiven. Many will say in that day, “Lord, Lord,” to whom Christ will profess “he never knew them” (Matt 7:23). And therefore let us never assure ourselves of forgiveness further than we find in ourselves a hatred of sin.

For a man to live in a course of known sin stops the current of God’s mercy; and God will wound the “hairy scalp” (Ps 68:21) of such as despise the patience and long-suffering of God (Rom 2:4). While we have time, therefore, and are young, before lusts settle themselves in us, serve the Lord with fear; do not deny him the service due to him. If we do, it is just for God to take us away suddenly, or to deliver us over to an impenetrable, hard heart. And when we die, it is just for God to take away our senses from us, or to give our consciences over to such horror and trembling fear as will not allow us to come near enough to have any hope of mercy, but to die in despair.

Let us pray, therefore, against a careless heart, and say to him, “Lord, you came to redeem me and set me free from the works of the devil! Lord, deliver me from the power of sin and of my own corruption.” For we may assure ourselves that he who never discerned this hatred of sin in himself never asked pardon from his heart; and he who never asks it shall never have it.

Use. Let us in the next place learn from this to go the right way, to work assurance of forgiveness: first, learn to see our misery; then, get persuasion that there is a remedy; then, get knowledge of it; and then beg it. It is a backward course that many men take. They will change their ill courses, but without confession or acknowledgment of sin; and therefore they turn indeed, but it is from one sin to another. From being dissolute they will become covetous, and so change for the worse. For they do not change from right grounds, not from love to God and hatred of sin, but always from the love of one reigning sin to another.

For all such people, and all others, who either hide their sin or do not think of it, this Scripture is of excellent use. We may speak of it as St. Paul speaks of all Scripture: “It is profitable for doctrine” (2 Tim 3:16), teaching us what we are by nature since the fall, where we may have remedy for our misery, and how and in what manner to attain the remedy. It is profitable for “reproof” of the doctrine of justification by works. And it is profitable for “correction” of our lives, teaching us to avoid despair, and yet also to avoid complacency.

It is profitable for comfort to all those who are dejected by sin, by considering the mercy of God in Christ, which is more and greater than the sin in us, if we have faith to lay hold on it. So we may say with St. Augustine, “I have committed that for which you can condemn me, but you have not lost that by which you can save me.”

Verse 5

I wait for the Lord, yea, my soul waiteth (Ps 130:5)

These words show the state and disposition of the holy man after his prayer. Though he formerly had a sense of mercy and pardon, yet he waits for a fuller and sweeter apprehension of it. In them we may observe, first, that though God is exceedingly gracious, yet there is matter for waiting as long as we live here on earth, for he does not give all the fullness of his blessing at once. Though he may give a taste of pardon of sin at present, he does not immediately give deliverance out of danger. “The light of the righteous shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov 4:18). There is no day that is perfected in an instant. And the reasons for this may be these:

Reason 1. To force us to search our souls, whether we are fit for blessing, whether we are thoroughly humbled and have thoroughly repented or not. Thus he dealt with Jonah, and thus with the children of Israel for Achan’s cause.

Reason 2. It may be a means to stir us up to more earnestness in seeking: to make us like the woman of Canaan, more earnest the more she was repelled.

Reason 3. He gives us occasion of waiting to show the truth and soundness of his graces in us; otherwise we would have no means to test how the grace in us would serve us in time of need.

Reason 4. By this God endears those favors that we lack, that they may come the more welcome to us, and we may be the more thankful for them. Thus God dealt with this holy man, and thus he deals with his church. For while we live here we are always children of hope: not miserable, because we have a sweet taste of what we hope for, and not perfectly happy, because we lack fullness.

Before Christ they hoped for his coming in the flesh; since Christ, we look for his second coming in glory. In grace we look for glory; and when our souls are in glory, they look for the redemption of the bodies, and for the day of the restoring of all things: “How long, Lord, how long?” (Rev 6:10). Otherwise this life would be heaven to us, and we would not desire or pray, “Lord, let thy kingdom come.”

Use. This should whet our desires and prayers for our heavenly state. We should not make our heaven here on earth, but earnestly desire the full harvest, by considering how excellent the firstfruits of glory in this life are. And with the creation (Rom 8:19) we should wait, and expect, and long, and groan for the time of the dissolution of all things. And let us make this a mark for discerning our state; for it is a certain, infallible token of a good frame of spirit in us if we can long for that better life, which we have here, in its fullness; if we can desire to be with Christ.

Furthermore, note this as a difference between the states of the wicked and the godly. The wicked man must look for worse and worse continually. His best is here, while he has this world; but as for the godly, their worst is here, and their best is to come.

Sermon 1

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:4).

We spoke of spiritual poverty last time, when we showed you that it is a grace especially in the understanding. We must now come to the affections. And first, our Savior begins with mourning, which follows immediately from poverty of spirit. Mourning is a wringing or pinching of the soul upon the apprehension of some present evil, whether it is privative or positive, as we say. That is, when a man finds absent what he desires, and finds present what he abhors, the soul shrinks and contracts itself, and is pinched and wrung; and this is what we call mourning. Now this always comes to pass in poverty. As the poverty is, so is the mourning; and therefore our blessed Savior’s order is very good in joining mourning to that poverty of which we have spoken. So much for the order.

Now for the words. There are, you see, two things in this verse: first, a point; second, a proof.

Our Savior’s point will be our point of doctrine at this time, because we do not wish to speak one thing twice. Therefore we will lay down the point in our Savior’s own words, and it is this: that spiritual mourners are blessed men. He is a happy man who is a good mourner. He who can mourn for his sins is in a happy state. That is the point.

Now in pursuing this, we must first expound it; second, prove it; and then apply it to you, as our Savior does to his hearers: “Blessed are ye that mourn” (Luke 6:21).

1. For the first, I may expound the point and the text together. You see what the proposition is: every good mourner is in a happy condition. Here let us consider the terms a little, to explain them. Who is the party spoken of? “Blessed is the mourner,” says Christ in Matthew; “Blessed,” he says in Luke 6:21, “are the weepers.” Both of these, mourning and weeping, are fruits of the same tree and root. The root is sorrow and sadness, opposite to joy; the bud is mourning, opposite to mirth; the blossoms are weeping, opposite to laughter.

The meaning then is this: those who are spiritual mourners are happy men. That is, those men who have not only cause and matter for sorrow and mourning, for so all have, but who have also a heart to mourn. There is in them a disposition to mourn. They can do it; they will do it as occasion calls. They perform it inwardly: they bleed, which is termed mourning. Outwardly they demonstrate it, as our Savior illustrates by weeping. These are the parties here spoken of as mourners.

Now what is affirmed of them? Blessedness and happiness; the mourners are blessed and happy. As mourning is in itself, it is not simply good, but good because it makes way for happiness. To call mourning simply happiness would be to speak a contradiction, to term misery felicity, and to make felicity misery. But he who mourns aright is happy in a sense; he is in a happy state and condition. A mournful state is a happy state: happy, because this mourning is evidence of some happiness and goodness for the present, and a pledge of more for the future. It makes way for comfort and future happiness, and therefore he is happy.

Objection. You see the proposition now, how mournful men are happy men. But now for the scope and extent of this proposition. Is this, some men will say, universally true? Are all men who mourn blessed men?

Answer. Far from it. There is a carnal mourning, when a man mourns for the presence of goodness and for the absence of sin, because he is restrained and cannot be as bad as he would like to be. There is a natural mourning, when a man mourns from natural motives, when natural losses and crosses are upon him. There is a spiritual mourning, when a man mourns in a spiritual manner, for spiritual things, from spiritual motives, as we will show afterward; when he mourns because good things that are spiritually good are so far from him, and spiritual ills are so near to him. This is the mourner Christ speaks of here, and this is the mourning that has the blessing. Other mourning may occasion this through God’s blessing, and may give some opening to this mourning, but the blessing belongs to the spiritual mourner and the spiritual mourning.

Mourning must be expounded as poverty is. Not every poor man is a blessed man, unless his outward poverty brings him to spiritual poverty. So not every mourner and every weeper is blessed in that, unless his outward losses, and crosses, and occasions become, through God’s blessing, an occasion and a means to bring him to spiritual sorrow and mourning. So now you see the meaning of the proposition. It comes to this: he who mourns spiritually and in a holy way, why, he is in a happy state and condition. This is the meaning of the point.

2. Now let us proceed to the second thing, the proving of it. For proof we need go no further than our Savior’s own testimony; yet besides his testimony we have some proofs and some reasons to give. For his testimony: “Blessed,” says our Savior’s own mouth, “are they that mourn” (Matt 5:4); and “Blessed are they that weep” (Luke 6:21). This weeping and this mourning must be understood of spiritual weeping and spiritual mourning, as we told you, and then the testimony is very clear: every man who so mourns is a happy man. Our Savior does not only speak this, but proves it:

1. By an argument drawn from the contrary: “Woe be to you that laugh now” (Luke 6:25). These carnal mirth-mongers are in a miserable state, and therefore spiritual mourners are in a happy state.

2. He confirms and backs this by a reason here in the text: “Blessed are the mourners, for they shall be comforted.” This reason will not hold for every kind of mourning and every kind of comfort. It is no good argument to say, Blessed is the man who is in pain, for he will be refreshed and relieved; blessed is the man who is hungry, for he will be fed and have his wants supplied. But yet this argument holds good: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” namely, with God’s comforts, with the comforts of the Spirit, with the comforts of the word, the comforts of heaven.

The comforts of God are beyond all the miseries and sorrows that a man can endure in this life; and though he does mourn and weep for them, yet the comforts, the wages, will so far exceed all his sorrows that he is happy in this. He cannot buy spiritual comforts too dearly; he cannot possibly have them on hard terms. Though they cost him ever so many tears, ever so much grief, and sorrow, and heartbreak, yet if he has them, he is happy in having them at whatever price.

Yes, further, spiritual mourning carries comfort with it, besides the harvest of comfort that awaits the mourner afterward. There are firstfruits of comfort to be reaped here, and so it is that the more a man mourns spiritually, the more he rejoices; the greater his sorrow, the greater his comfort. His heart is never so light, so cheerful, and so comforted, as when he can pour himself out with some sighs, groans, and tears before God.

So then our Savior makes the point clear, that they are happy men who mourn in a holy manner. Though mourning is not comfort, and misery is not happiness, yet affliction and mourning may be evidence of a happy state and blessed condition, and that in the following respects, which we will name to you, and which will serve as reasons for the point.

1. (1) He who mourns spiritually has a good judgment, and therefore is happy. Spiritual affection shows a spiritual judgment and understanding. For the affections work according to the information they receive. A creature that is led by fancy has brutish affections; a man who is guided by matter of reason has rational affections, as we term them; but a man whose mind is enlightened and sanctified has holy affections. So holy mourning and holy affections show a sound mind, a holy, settled, and spiritual judgment, and that is a happiness.

(2) It shows a good heart too.

[1] A tender and soft heart. For a stone cannot mourn; only the heart of flesh can bleed. He then who can mourn spiritually has evidence to his heart that his heart is soft, that he has a tender heart; and that is a blessing, and makes a man a blessed man.

[2] As his heart is tender, so also it is sound. It is a healthy soul and a healthy temper, if I may put it so, that he has. For mourning proceeds out of love and hatred: out of agreement, if it is a spiritual mourning, with what is good, and out of a contrariety and opposition between us and what is bad. So he who can mourn after goodness, and mourn for sin and badness, if it is spiritual mourning, shows that he has a good heart. His heart agrees with what is good; his heart disagrees with, and stands in opposition to, and has an antipathy to what is bad. And this is a right constitution and temper of soul, which makes a man happy.

There then is one reason why he who mourns spiritually may well be considered a happy man: because he has a sound judgment, and because he has a sound and a soft heart too.

2. As he is happy in the cause, so he will be happy in the effect too of his godly mourning. For godly sorrow and mourning bring forth blessed fruits and effects; the apostle sets out several of them in 2 Corinthians 7:10 and following, as you see there.

(1) This is one thing in spiritual mourning: it secures and shuts a man off from carnal and hellish mourning; yes, it orders him and keeps him unharmed from all other griefs. A gracious mourning moderates natural grief, and expels and drives out carnal and hellish grief and sorrow, like good medicine that heals and strengthens nature and expels the poison that is hurtful to nature. The more a man can mourn for his sins, the less he will mourn for other matters; the more heavily sin lies on his soul, the more lightly he can bear other losses and crosses, whatever they are. So this mourning prevents a great deal of unprofitable mourning.

When a man bleeds unseasonably and insatiably, the way to divert it is to open a vein and let his blood elsewhere, and so you save the man. When a man pours himself out unseasonably and unprofitably in needless tears, griefs, and cares, the only way is to turn his tears into a right channel, to make him mourn for that which is mournful, and to set him to weep for that which deserves tears. If he weeps in a holy and spiritual manner, he will be secured and preserved from poisonous and hurtful tears.

(2) This is another happy effect of godly mourning: spiritual and godly mourning always does a man good and never any hurt. Worldly sorrow, says the apostle, causes death. It hurts the soul, it hurts the life, it hurts the body of a man; but spiritual sorrow, on the other side, causes life. The more a man dies this way, the more he lives; the more he weeps, the more he laughs; and the more he can weep over Jesus Christ, the lighter and gladder his heart is, and the more comfortably he spends his time. This brings him joy, this brings him peace, this brings him evidence of God’s love, this brings assurance of pardon, and so this makes way for life, and does a man no hurt at all.

(3) This spiritual and godly sorrow and mourning is a sorrow never to be repented of, as the apostle implies there. All other sorrow a man must unsorrow again. When a man has wept and blubbered, and spent a great deal of time in passionate tears, in cursed tears, in perverse tears, in vengeful, resentful tears, he must blot out these tears with new tears. He must unweep this weeping, and undo his mourning because he has mourned in this way; he has reason to repent of his sorrow. But when a man sets himself apart to weep over Christ, and sees his sins for the dishonor offered to God’s name, and his mourning is holy and spiritual mourning, he will never have cause to repent of the time so spent, although he has spent many days and hours in that work.

(4) Last of all, spiritual mourning works repentance, says the apostle: that is to say, it works reformation and amendment. It sets a man further from his sin, and brings him nearer to God and nearer to goodness. It works, partly in himself and partly in regard to others, those fruits that the apostle mentions there in the Corinthians. He says, What striving, what diligence and speed you showed, namely, to find out and to censure the incestuous person! And so this sorrow will make a man quick to find out sin, to reform and redress abuses in himself, in his house, and in his place, as far as he can.

In the second place, it gives a man a defense and apology to speak for himself, and to say, “Though I live among a polluted people of uncircumcised hearts, yet I do not join with them in their sins. I mourn for them, I censure them, I blame them,” as the Corinthians did the incestuous person. And for himself, he is able to hold up his head with comfort, and to say, “It is true I have corruptions, but here is my apology: I bewail them. It is true I have sinned in this way and that, but here is my defense: I am sorry. I found place for sin; I find place for sorrow also. I confess it, I bewail it, I repent of my sin.” Thus he clears himself.

(5) Further, spiritual sorrow works indignation against sin in a man himself and in others; a zeal against all impediments in himself and in others; the desire toward God’s ministers and word; that revenge the apostle speaks of there; and that fear of venturing oneself into similar occasions of sin for the time to come. In short, the fruits and effects of godly sorrow are exceedingly blessed and exceedingly many, and therefore in this sense, in this respect, he who mourns spiritually is a happy man.

3. He is happy in regard of the outcome and issue of his mourning, because all will end well with him, and all his tears will one day be wiped away, and joy and gladness will come in their place. Yes, he is happy in this, that spiritual mourning is always accompanied with joy: that is a happy state which tends to happiness. Things are named from the end of their motion. That is a happy state which is attended with comfort, which ends in comfort, and which will be swallowed up by it at the last. Now this is the state of the spiritual mourner. While he mourns he has comfort, and comfort because he can mourn. This does a Christian heart more good than all the good of this world, when he can get himself apart and shed tears for his sins, and bewail the miseries and the sins of the time, and take to heart the dishonor of God’s name. This, I say, more refreshes and gladdens his soul than any outward comfort in the world.

There is a laughter Solomon speaks of that makes a man sad, a carnal laughter; the heart is sad while the face laughs. So I may say the contrary: as there is sadness joined to some laughter, so there is laughter in some sadness. Carnal laughter makes a man sad while he laughs; but spiritual mourning makes a man merry when he mourns; the more he mourns, the merrier he is.

Again, as his mourning is attended with comfort for the present, so in the end it will end in comfort. There is a sorrow that will end in darkness, that wastes a man as fire and heat waste a candle, and so goes out of itself and vanishes into smoke, into nothing. There is a sorrow and grief that ends in a greater sorrow, and that empties itself into eternal misery; but this spiritual sorrow will have an end. For there will be an end of our sorrow. If it is holy sorrow, we will not mourn forever, but the tears will one day be wiped from all our eyes. It will have an end, and a happy end too. For all our sorrow will end in joy. For our garments of ashes we will have garments of light and gladness, and “everlasting joy shall be upon our heads” (Isa 35:10).

So then, whether we consider the cause of our mourning, or the fruits and effects of it, or the close and outcome of it, it is clear that every man who can mourn spiritually is in that respect in a very happy and blessed state and condition. We have now given you the point. You hear that what our Savior says is nothing but reason, though he seems to speak a paradox to flesh and blood when he says that every spiritual mourner is a happy man. Now then, my brothers and sisters, let us apply the point a little.

Use 1. If it is a happy man who mourns aright, we have reason, first, to bewail our unhappiness. Unhappy time and unhappy men, we may well say of ourselves, who depart so much from the mind and prescription of our blessed Savior. “Blessed,” says our Savior Christ, “are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt 5:4). “Woe to you,” he says, “that now laugh” (Luke 6:25). We, on the other side, say, Woe to those who mourn here; happy are those who can laugh here and be merry.

And as we depart in our judgment from our Savior, so much more do we depart in our practice from his direction and counsel. The Lord, when he gives direction that will bring joy and comfort, bids us humble ourselves, cast ourselves down, afflict ourselves, and so on (Jas 4:10). God says, Humble yourselves that you may be exalted. We on the other side say, Exalt ourselves, and we will not be humbled. God says, Throw yourselves down; we say, Make ourselves complacent. God says, Afflict yourselves, and then you will have comfort. The Lord says, Let your laughter be turned into mourning, that so you may laugh. We on the other side say, Let our mourning be turned into laughter, that so we may not mourn. And therefore when any grief, natural or spiritual, begins to breed or to grow on us, we at once betake ourselves to company, to sports and pastimes that may drown the noise of conscience, that may put out of our minds motives to spiritual grief and sorrow, and that may provoke us to carnal, or at best to natural, mirth and rejoicing.

Thus in our practice we depart entirely from Christ’s directions; more than that, we depart further still from the practice of the saints of God. We depart from the very time and season in which we live. For behold, it is a time of darkness and blackness; it is the year of God’s visitation, as the prophet speaks; it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, as Jeremiah speaks. For though we have peace at home, the church has war abroad; though we have health, yet the pestilence rages abroad. Though we have plenty, there is poverty and misery abroad in the bowels of the church in other nations.

Now then, when the time calls for mourning, and weeping, and lamentation, we depart from it entirely, and are like those in the prophecy of Isaiah. In that day, says God in Isaiah 22:12 and following, did I call for mourning and sackcloth: and behold here is slaying of oxen, and killing of sheep, and making merry, and provoking ourselves to all kind of jollity and complacency.

Further, we depart from the practice of God’s children in similar cases. They gave themselves to spiritual mourning upon due occasion. We read of Nehemiah that when he heard the church was distressed and afflicted abroad, though he himself lived in credit, and in honor, and in safety at the court, yet he turns to God in private, and there he fasts, and prays, and mourns, and there he pleads with the Lord to be merciful to Jerusalem. We read of good, honest Uriah, who refused to go to his house and to refresh himself with food and drink, for this reason: because the ark of God and the commander of the army lay in the field in tents. This was the affection and the mind of God’s servants of old: they wept with those who wept, and they mourned in the mourning and lamentation of the church.

But now, my brethren, we forget the afflictions of Joseph abroad. And, as it is said of those in Amos, We drink wine in bowls, we stretch ourselves on our beds (Amos 6:4, 6); we give ourselves to music and mirth, and we do not take to heart the distresses of the church.

So likewise for the sins of the time, we see what the saints did of old. Ezra (Ezra 9:1-5), when he heard of the sins that were committed among the people (the holy seed had mingled themselves with the cursed nations, whom the Lord had cursed), turns to prayer, and to mourning, and fasting; and there assembled to him many well-disposed men, and they trembled before the Lord, they cast themselves down, and wept in a solemn manner.

Thus the saints of God did for the sins of their time. But now, my brethren, what do we? We look on other men, and wonder that rulers and magistrates and public persons do no more. But what do we ourselves in private? My brethren, do we lay to heart our own sins, the sins of our kindred and acquaintance, of our families, the sins of our neighbors, of our towns, of the places where we dwell and have our abode? Had David lived in these days, he would have washed our streets with rivers of tears, as he speaks of himself (Ps 119:136), to have seen such pride, such impiety; to hear such oaths and blasphemies so frequent and so rife among us. We, on the other hand, my brethren, see gross sins, yes, we act and commit them; we hear cursed speeches and blasphemies and oaths, yes, we utter them, and commit abominable sins, and yet there are no rivers of tears; there is hardly a tear shed among us.

This is what we have to complain of now: that we do what we can to put off mourning and to bereave ourselves of true comfort. If this dryness and emptiness of tears came only from the temper of the body, and not from a distemper of the soul, the matter would be more bearable and more pardonable. But what shall we say for ourselves, when we have tears at command for every trifle, for every bauble, and have no tears for sin and for the dishonor of God?

If a friend crosses us, we can weep; if an unkind word is spoken, we sob and grow sullen; if a loss or a cross befalls us, we can pour ourselves out in carnal weeping and lamentation. But for the sins of our souls, for the sins of our friends, for the sins of our nation, for the unkindness that we offer to God, for the contempt that is cast upon his name, we cannot shed a tear. And if we were now ashamed of these things, the matter would be less. But, alas! we do not take it to heart that we have no hearts to mourn, and we do not labor so much as to grieve because we cannot grieve.

In our carnal, natural grief we stand and plead; we think we have reason to mourn: “I have lost such a friend and such a friend.” We think we have cause to bewail our condition because of such outward misery as befalls us. But we see no cause, no reason to weep over Christ for the sins we have committed against God.

Many times we think that carnal sorrow, which in truth is only poison, will do us good and give us a great deal of ease. When men have crossed us and disappointed us, or dealt unkindly with us, we think we will go and weep it out; and when we have cried and blubbered a while, we think that we give ease to our souls and contentment to our hearts. But when we come to spiritual mourning, which alone is mourning full of comfort, we think that it undoes us. Many a man thinks that he forfeits all his joy, all his peace, all his liberty, all his happiness, and that he will never see a merry day again in this world if he gives way to mourning for sin, to sound repentance, to works of humiliation, and to the examination of his own heart and ways. And hence it is that we do what we can to hold possession against the Spirit in sorrow and mourning.

Oh misery! Oh unhappiness of ours! When we take things in this way, when we take poison for a cordial, and cordials to be no better than poison, no wonder we have no more comfort from our tears and from our mourning. For certainly our mourning for the most part is not a blessed mourning. We mourn not for sin, but for sorrow; we mourn not for corruption, but for crosses; not because we have dealt unkindly with God, but because men deal unkindly with us. This is not a blessed mourning, and that is why we find no comfort in it.

Use 2. Well, in the next place, we have another use: to take Christ’s direction for comfort. Who would, who can be without it? Life is death without comfort. Every man’s aim is to lead a life of comfort. Mark the way that Christ chalks out: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Do you believe Christ’s word? Do you believe that he knows what he is saying? Can you rest in Christ’s testimony and in his promise? Then, if ever you will have comfort in your hearts, or in your lives, or in your deaths, begin here, begin with spiritual mourning. So that you may do this, we must show you:

1. How spiritual mourning differs and is discerned from other mourning.

2. How it is gotten.

3. How it is exercised.

1. For the first of these: spiritual mourning is known by its objects. Such as the object is, such is the faculty. Spiritual mourning has spiritual objects, either materially or formally, as they say in the schools. This spiritual mourning is occupied with spiritual goods and spiritual ills. Spiritual good is either the chief or universal good, which is God, or what is good in a subordinate way, as grace and comfort, the ordinance and worship of God. Spiritual ills are either simply ill, as sin and impiety, or painfully ill, yet with relation to sin, as a fruit of sin and as a pledge of God’s wrath and displeasure against it. We will give instances of this first.

For, first, if a man would know whether his sorrow is spiritual sorrow or not, let him see how he mourns for the absence of spiritual good things, how he mourns for the absence of God, the chief good. That is spiritual sorrow, when a man mourns because he has lost God in his graces, in his communion, and in his comforts. This was a proof that David’s sorrow was spiritual, because, as the Scripture speaks elsewhere, he lamented after the Lord and mourned after God. “My soul,” he says, “thirsteth after the living God” (Ps 42:2). He hungered after God; he was pained and pinched in his soul when he could not see God and enjoy God as he formerly did.

This was the reasoning of that idolater in Judges 18:24 and the verses following. When his idols were taken from him, he cried after them, and when a rude fellow asked him what ailed him, What ails me? he said. You have stolen away my gods, and taken away my ephod, and do you ask what ails me? What more have you left me? What he says of his false gods, a true Christian heart may conclude much more of the true God. If the true God has departed from him (stolen he cannot be), if he has departed from him, if the man has driven away God in Christ by his sinful and rude behavior, if God hides his face, if God does not communicate himself in his comforts and graces as he formerly did, this goes to his heart; this punishes him and grieves him more than anything in the world.

And so for inferior goods. A man that mourns spiritually mourns because he sees the want of good things, the want of faith, the want of grace; he finds a spiritual want, the absence of things spiritually good. A man that mourns spiritually mourns because the means of grace is taken from him, because he does not see his teachers, as the prophet says, because there is no vision; there is none to say, “How long?” as it is in Haggai 1:4: How long shall the house of God lie waste? the ways of Zion are unfrequented: the Sabbaths of the Lord are despised. He mourns because he is kept away from the house of God, where he used to taste of the fat things of God’s house, and where he used to see God in his beauty and in his glory.

So this is spiritual mourning, when a man mourns because God in his love and in his comforts leaves him, and his countenance does not shine upon him; because the word of God and the grace of God do not spread, and do not stir within him so that he can feel it, as they formerly did.

And so likewise for ills. A man that mourns spiritually mourns for spiritual ills, to find so much corruption, so much pride, so much hypocrisy, so much self-love, so much worldliness, so much wickedness in his own heart. This is his grief, as it was Paul’s. He cries, tired, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). He weeps and laments more for the corruption of his nature, for the sins in himself and in the people of God, than for persecution and disgrace, than for losses and crosses that befall him. So when a man mourns for sin, when he takes to heart the sins of his family, the sins of the state and of the church that he lives in, this is spiritual mourning.

And so also when a man mourns for outward things spiritually. Say he is poor, say he is afflicted, say he is famished, say he is persecuted, he turns all his griefs to godly grief; he apprehends God’s displeasure. In these things he apprehends and sees sin; in these he considers his crosses in their cause and in their root, in sin; and so he mourns for sin and the cause. This is spiritual mourning. Now when a man thus mourns for the absence of spiritual good things, and for the presence of spiritual ills that lie upon him and others, then he is said to mourn spiritually, and so he is a blessed man. This is all we can stay to say on the point.

Question. Now, in the next place, how shall a man go about getting this spiritual mourning?

Answer. First, he must labor to have a heart capable of grief and sorrow that is spiritual, a tender and soft heart. He must see that he has a disposition to holy mourning, able and inclined to do so when just opportunity and occasion is offered. Now how shall a man get this tender heart? Why, surely he must go to God in his means and ordinances, the God who has promised, as you heard, in the covenant, to take the stone out of our hearts, and to give us soft and fleshy hearts. This a man must do to get it.

Along with this he must be ready in the next place, when God has given him a tender heart, to stir up the graces of the Spirit that are in him, to raise up his affections and his sorrow, and to provoke himself to mourn and to lament upon due occasion. So that he may do this, he must consider:

1. A method that he must use; and then,

2. Motives to stir him up to it.

1. For method.

(1) He must have respect to the time, so that he does not let his heart lie fallow too long. In Jeremiah 4:3 it is said, “Plough up your fallow ground.” Ground, if it lies long unplowed, will require much pains to rear it and fetch it up, but if this is done often, it will be the easier. So it is with the heart of man. He must not let his heart be fallow too long, but take it to task again and again, and labor to keep the flesh tender and raw and fresh, as we may say; and then upon every occasion it will be ready to bleed and to pour itself out.

To this end a man should be exercised every day in the duty of a godly mourning. Every night reckon up the passage of that day, and say to yourself, “What sin have I committed? What have I done? What have I said? What have I seen this day? What have I heard this day, that might be matter of humiliation and grief to me?” And so work this upon the heart, that it may be turned to tears of godly sorrow.

(2) For the time, a man must be sure to take God’s time. When God calls on him, when God gives him the heart for it, and is ready to draw close and to join with him, then take the advantage. Set about godly mourning when the Lord has ransacked your heart, when the Lord has dealt with you in the ministry of his word, when he has applied himself to your soul and conscience, and detected your corruption, and shown you your sin, and has wounded your heart in public with afflictions, in private with terrors and fears. So when the nature of grief is stirred by the occasion of the word, then take the advantage of this, seize upon this for the king’s use. Set about sorrow while it is there; turn it into the right stream, into the right channel; turn it for sin, weep for sin, and not for outward losses and crosses. So much for the time.

2. There is another thing to be done for the order, and it is this: a man must be sure to give up carnal mirth and carnal mourning, if he will mourn spiritually. His carnal laughter must be turned into mourning, as James speaks (Jas 4:9); and his carnal mirth must be turned into spiritual mourning too, or else he will never come to spiritual mourning. But we cannot dwell on that. We will only touch on the motives, because the time has run out, and so conclude for this time. Consider well what the motives are to set us to work to mourn, and to mourn spiritually.

The motives are many. He that will mourn must look to these. There is one general rule for mourning, and it is this: he that will mourn spiritually must apply himself to God’s means and motives only. There are those who tell us of a course of getting sackcloth and haircloth, and I know not what, to work godly mourning. This makes men superstitious, and not humble. He that is a holy mourner will follow God’s directions; he will work upon God’s motives and reasons, and no other. And therefore he mourns because God bids him so to mourn. For the Scripture bids us look upon Christ, not as he is in pictures, but in the word, presented upon the cross, and to weep and to mourn and to bleed out our souls there for our sins committed against him, and so to look upon him whom we have pierced, and to weep for him (Zech 12:10). That is the general rule.

Now, in particular, consider these motives:

1. It is needful for us to mourn.

2. It is seasonable for us to mourn.

3. It is profitable. And,

4. It is comforting.

Of these we should have said something more at large if time and strength had given leave, but seeing both fail, we will only touch on them now, and leave them until we can pursue them further.

1. It is needful to mourn in a spiritual manner. Whoever has sin must mourn. Let him take his time and place, whether he will do it in this life or in that which is to come. Sin must have sorrow; that is a settled case. And he that will not mourn willingly shall mourn, whether he will or not, in another place. And therefore, my brethren, we see that there is a necessity laid upon us with regard to our sins.

It is needful also with regard to others, to draw them to it by our example and practice. I do not know how it comes to pass, but we have all fallen into a wondrously sleepy age, a time of careless complacency. Men bless themselves in their courses. They settle themselves complacently in a formal, ordinary kind of religion and profession, with an ordinary allotment of holy duties, when there are no powerful, hearty, sanctifying actions done in secret for our own sins and the sins of the times. Why, since all men sleep, let us be wakeful; and since others need provoking to this duty, let Christian men lead them the way. Let their faces and apparel and entertainment, and all their carriage and behavior, speak mourning and lamentation to other men.

Secondly, as it is needful with regard to others, so also it is needful with regard to ourselves too. For who does not find in himself a wondrous proneness to sin, and an aptness to take infection from others? Who does not find in himself a readiness to join with others in their sins? The way to preserve ourselves is to mourn. That will preserve us from the infection now, and from judgment hereafter. How was Lot preserved in Sodom? By hearing and seeing, they “vexed his righteous soul …” (2 Pet 2:8). While Lot mourned for their sin, he was free from sin; while he mourned for their impiety, he was free from the judgment. Because he did not partake of their wickedness, therefore he was not plagued with the wicked. If then we would not be infected by sin, if we would not be wrapped up in the common calamities and judgments, this is the course we need to take: we must fall to mourning for our own sins and for their sins.

2. As it is needful, so also it is very seasonable. The very time tends that way, as it were; the season is the time of weeping; the church of God weeps abroad. It is the time, as I told you, of Jacob’s trouble. Oh the sighs, oh the tears, oh the griefs and sorrows that cover and overwhelm the people of God in other nations and other places! The prophet David could say that his right hand should forget to play rather than he would forget Jerusalem (Ps 137:5). But I do not know how it is; what with play, and sport, and ease, and feasting, and one thing or another, we forget Jerusalem, we forget the misery of the church in other places. Well, now they pray and call upon us, from as far as Prague, as far as Heidelberg, as far as France, that we would take notice of their afflictions and of their miseries; at the least, that we would comfort them so far as to mourn for them.

As it is seasonable with regard to the afflictions of the church, so it is also with respect to the provoking of others of this nation. For sin has now grown to a fullness, to a ripeness. Oh the oaths that are sworn in one day, in one city, and in one town! Oh the lies that are uttered in one fair, in one market daily! Oh the sins that are committed by high and low of all degrees within the compass of twenty-four hours! Who is able to reckon them? And the sins that are committed with a high hand against knowledge, and against the light of the gospel, and against the express letter of the law, the word of God: should these things not cause us to mourn? They would cause a David to weep rivers of tears, and shall we not weep at all?

3. As it is seasonable, so it is profitable; for godly mourning never hurts, it always helps. Carnal sorrow leaves a man worse than it finds him. It makes him more sick and more weak than it finds him. Spiritual sorrow leaves him better. He that can pour out his heart before God, he that can go charged and loaded to heaven, with his heart full of fear and full of grief and full of sorrow, as full as it can ever hold, that man shall return back again loaded with joy and peace and comfort. Never in your life will you go before the Lord in sorrow and grief, and spend even one quarter of an hour there in tears and prayer and lamenting before the Lord, without finding your heart somewhat lightened, somewhat eased and refreshed by doing so. Well then, since it is profitable for us, let us do it.

As it is profitable for the soul, so it is for the body. This is the only means left to save ourselves. In Ezekiel 9:2, you know, one was sent with a pen and inkhorn to mark out the mourners, that they might be saved in the common plague and judgment, and that God might be gracious and merciful to them. It is the only thing now left to us. We must betake ourselves to prayer and tears and lamentation, if we would not have judgments fall upon us. This is profitable for the whole state, if there are some righteous men. If there had been only ten of these mourners in five cities of the plain, they would all have been upheld for their sakes. The righteous man upholds the land and nation; the righteous beat back the judgments. And therefore, for the common good, let us mourn.

4. Lastly, it is very comforting. It wondrously refreshes a man. This is what kills a Christian man, when he remembers, as he often does, the comforts he has had in the past when his heart was enlarged. If he could pour himself out and weep before the Lord as he once could, he would part with all the world for a heart so tender, and so soft, and so enlarged. There is no comfort compared to this in a Christian; he prizes it above all other comforts in this world. He thinks himself in a safe condition, in the best case, in a state and condition full of comfort, when he can mourn best, when he can weep and sorrow for his sins, and weep over Christ.

Well, my brethren, let us consider these things and now apply them to ourselves, and say, “O my heart, you have need to mourn, it is time for you to mourn! O my soul, it is profitable for you to mourn! O my soul, it is comforting for you to mourn! If you desire your own profit, your own ease, your own comfort and safety, if you desire life and salvation, betake yourself to this course. Gather yourself from company; go alone, and set before you the sins you have committed, how bad you have been to God, how good he has been to you, what a kind Father he has been, and what a willful child you have been. Lay these together until you have provoked yourself to some sorrow and tears.”

If we could do this, we should find more comfort than worldlings find in laughter and in their merriment and sports; we should find more comfort this way than we will in cold and comfortless weeping for crosses and lamenting for afflictions. But for that, and other uses of the point, I am compelled, whether I will or not, to defer until next time.

Sermon 2

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:4).

The lesson here comes to this: they that mourn in a holy manner are in a happy case. The proof of this doctrine is this: “they shall be comforted.” We heard the last day that he is a happy man who can mourn in a holy manner. He is happy in his judgment. A holy affection argues a holy understanding. He is happy in his heart and inward temper, for holy mourning comes from a kind of spiritual softness and tenderness. He is happy in the effect of his mourning. Holy mourning will keep out carnal and worldly sorrow. It is a sorrow that a man need never sorrow for again; it is a sorrow that tends to life and salvation. Worldly sorrow tends to death. He is happy in the outcome of his mourning, for mourning makes way for rejoicing. He that now weeps shall one day laugh. Indeed, even for the present, the more he mourns in a holy manner, the more solid and substantial is his present comfort.

It is our folly and misery both, therefore, that we so utterly mistake the matter. We give way to a sorrow that will hurt us, and keep possession against that which will do us good. We see reason, as we imagine, why we should grieve in a passionate manner; we can see no reason why we should mourn in a spiritual manner. It is our unhappiness that we can find time and leisure for taking in poison, which tends to death; we can find no fit place, no time, no opportunity for receiving a preservative that will guard and keep the heart against all poison. Of this point we have already said something too. What remains to be said of it in further uses we will gather in shortly, and touch on it in the pursuit of a new point, if we can.

We pass therefore from the doctrine here delivered, Blessed are the mourners, and come to the reason of it, “for they shall be comforted.” Let us join these together and see how they depend on each other. The point will be this:

Doctrine 1. Spiritual mourning ends in spiritual mirth. He that can mourn spiritually and holily shall undoubtedly and certainly be comforted. Holy tears are the seeds of holy joy. You see our ground in the text for this point. To clear it further, let us know that we have good security for it.

1. The promise of God; and then, 2. the experience of God’s people. These are the best proofs there can be.

First, the Lord undertakes in his promise two things concerning our comforts:

(1) That all our godly sorrow shall end in true comfort. The next is:

(2) That all our godly mournings are attended and accompanied with comfort for the present.

(1) For the first of these, you know the promise: sorrow and weeping shall fly away, and joy and gladness shall come in their place (Isa 35:10), a passage that will refer you to many more. God has made a succession of these things, as of day and night. His children’s day begins in the night and in darkness, and ends in the day. After sorrow comes comfort; after they have mourned in a holy manner their sorrow shall be taken from them, and gladness shall come in its stead (Isa 61:3). The Lord Jesus is appointed by his Father to give beauty for ashes, the garment of gladness for the garment of sackcloth and mourning. God has promised it shall be so; God has appointed Christ, and fitted him, and enabled him to fulfill this word, that so it may be.

Not to dwell on this, our mourning shall not only end in comfort, but it carries comfort along with it for the present. God has undertaken that it shall be so, speaking of the afflictions that were to come upon the nation: And my servants shall be full, but he, the wicked and hypocrite, shall be hungry: my servants shall rejoice, but he shall mourn: my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall howl for heaviness of heart (Isa 65:13). See, when afflictions come upon a nation, such afflictions as make the wicked cry and howl, then God in judgment remembers mercy for his own. They shall have matter of joy and triumph even then.

So at the beginning of Isaiah 60 he tells them, calling on his church, “Arise,” he says, “and shine; put on brightness and glory; the Lord shall be a light unto thee in darkness.” When the church is enclosed with darkness, with nothing but misery and affliction round about her, then the Lord shall shine light, that is, he shall give comfort to his church. All their mourning and sorrow, their outward afflictions, shall cause them inwardly to mourn in spirit. God will take off the garment of mourning, and put on the garment of gladness in his due time. In the meantime, he will be a light to them in the midst of darkness.

Thus God undertakes; this is the promise. Now, God promises nothing but what he purposes, and God purposes and promises no more than he will perform. Has he said it, and shall he not do it? It shall certainly come to pass. All the counsels of God shall stand; every word of God is pure. All the promises of God are “yea and amen” (2 Cor 1:20). They are certainly made good to the hearts and consciences of all God’s people through Christ. Since therefore God has said it, it shall be thus; and since Christ has said, Mourn, and you shall be comforted, we may build upon it that so it shall be.

2. To this promise of God let us add the experience of God’s people. We will speak of the church as a whole and of the particular members of the church. They have all found this true, they have reported it from their own experience, and they have passed their word for God that it shall be thus with God’s people. Thus the church is brought in speaking in Micah 7:8: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: though I be fallen, yet shall I rise”; comfort will come at the last. More than that, while I sit in darkness, the Lord for the present will be a light and comfort to me.

Thus again you know what the church says from her own experience: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Ps 126:5). There is a seed that sometimes fails and disappoints our hopes, but this seed never fails; it falls upon good ground, it will take root. If the seedtime is wet, the harvest will be dry. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy”; and in another psalm, at the latter end, “light is sown to the righteous” (Ps 97:11), and he explains what he means by light: joy to the upright in heart. So though this seed lies covered for a time, yet for all that there is light sown for the righteous, and they shall be sure to have it. Thus the church speaks and gives her word for God.

So likewise you may see it in particular Christians. David always found this. He says, “In the multitude of the thoughts of my heart, thy comforts did glad my soul” (Ps 94:19). That is, when I was perplexed in my thoughts, my thoughts were tossed and tumbled up and down in my own meditations, seeking here and there for comfort. Even then, in this distress and distraction, your comforts, your double comforts, as the word implies, these comforts refreshed and gladdened this soul.

So likewise St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:4, tells us that God comforted him in all his tribulations; and as his sorrows abounded, so his consolations overtopped and superabounded. And hence we may say, as it were, of the saints of God, what they drew from their own experience and particular case: that God comforts the abject, those that are cast down, as Paul says (2 Cor 7:6), and that saying of David, “Heaviness may continue for a night, but joy comes to the righteous in the morning” (Ps 30:5).

We see, then, that if we look to the experience of God’s people, they give testimony from their own experience to this truth, and give us to understand that true spiritual mourning shall end in true spiritual joy and comfort. If all this does not suffice, let us consider these reasons, and then we shall see that it is only reasonable that we should do so.

1. The first reason is drawn from the nature of sorrow and mourning. Sorrow is a kind of imperfect thing, as it were. It is not made for itself, but for a higher and a further end, to do service to something else, as is the case with all those that we call the declining affections. Hatred is servant to love; fear does service to confidence; and so likewise does sorrow to joy. For God has not appointed sorrow for sorrow’s sake, but to make way for joy and true comfort. The physician does not make a man sick for sickness’ sake, but for health’s sake.

Many men’s lives have been endangered by carnal joy, as well as by worldly sorrow. And those who know anything of history know that many a man has been taken away, his life leaping out of his mouth, as it were, through extraordinary laughter and carnal joy. But now, the joy of a Christian, a spiritual joy, is a safe joy. It hurts no one, but does a man good; it settles a man’s mind, it strengthens his thoughts, it perfects his wits and understanding. It gives him a sound judgment; it makes for the health of his body; it makes for the preservation of his life; it does a man good every way. There is no provocation in it, there is no danger in it.

Third, as a Christian’s joy is best in that respect, that it is the safest, so it is best in this, that it is the surest joy. For this joy is an everlasting joy. The rejoicing of the wicked is for a season, it does not last long; but the joy of the righteous is a constant joy in its root, and in its cause, and in its substance. It shall never be taken from him. Indeed, everlastingness stands at the end of both kinds of joy.

The wicked man has a joy, and there comes something after it that is everlasting; but that is everlasting shame, everlasting pain and anguish. The righteous man has some joy here, and something everlasting follows at the end of that; but that is everlasting glory, everlasting joy. It is swallowed up by eternity.

Further, the joy of the righteous is a more rational joy than the joy of the wicked, which is but brutish, as it were. A righteous man rejoices in matters that are worthy of his joy, those things that he has reason to be glad of. He rejoices that his name is written in heaven; he rejoices that Christ has taken his nature upon himself; that the Spirit of God the Comforter dwells in him in the graces of the Spirit, and the like.

But now as for the wicked man, his is an unreasonable joy; he rejoices where he has no matter or cause of joy. You often see madmen sing, and dance, and leap, and shout, and carry on. Will you call this joy? Alas! this proceeds from disorder; it is not that they have cause to be merry, but it is from disorder that they rejoice so, if you call it mirth. What Solomon says you may say of the laughter of the wicked: “it is madness” (Eccl 2:2). He laughs, and he can give no reason for it; he rejoices over what he has no reason to rejoice in; he rejoices in created things, he rejoices in himself, in his own wit, in his own worth, in his own strength. He often rejoices in his shame, in his torment, in those things that tend to his utter ruin and destruction. The righteous man, then, has the advantage of the wicked for matter of comfort and joy. He has a more solid, a safer and surer joy, a sweeter joy, a far more reasonable joy than the other has.

As the righteous man is beyond the wicked in his joy, so, in the next place, he is beyond him in his sorrow too. Our life must have comfort and sorrow. It is compounded of sweet and sour. As the year is compounded of winter and summer, and the day of day and night, so every man’s life is made up of these two. He has some fair and some foul days, some joy and some sorrow. Now as the righteous is beyond the wicked in his joy and comfort, so he is beyond him in his sorrow. First, his sorrow is far better; it is a more profitable, a more comforting sorrow than others’ is. The sorrows of the righteous are beyond the sorrows of the wicked in all their causes and in all their circumstances.

(1) The sorrow of the righteous proceeds from a better spring and fountain than the sorrow of the wicked. The sorrow of the godly comes from a sound mind, from a pure heart, from an inside that is purified from hypocrisy, from self-love, from private interests. On the other side, the sorrow of the wicked comes from disorder of the brain, from an utter mistake. He takes that to be matter of sorrow which is no matter of grief; he takes that to be matter of great grief which deserves only a few tears, and so on. Again, his sorrow comes from disorder of heart, from pride, from passion, from cursedness of heart and spirit, so that he cannot stoop. It proceeds not from love to God or to mankind, but out of self-love, and from the miry puddle and filthy spring of pride and passion and error, and the like.

(2) The sorrow of the righteous, as it has a better spring, so it is busied and taken up about better objects, about better matters. A wicked man howls and cries and carries on, many times, for a trifle, for a bauble; indeed, many times because he is disappointed and crossed in his lusts, in his base sins. The child of God finds something else to do than to weep and cry and carry on over trifles and vanities. He looks up to God, and is sorry he has displeased him. He turns his tears into the right channel, and sets them upon his sin. He weeps for spiritual losses and crosses, for public miseries and calamities, and he takes to heart such things as are worthy of a man’s sorrow, and such as will perfect the affections, as every affection is perfected by the goodness of the object it works upon.

(3) The sorrow of the righteous is better than the sorrow of the wicked in regard of the manner of their mourning. For the mourning of the righteous is a composed kind of sorrow. He mourns in silence; he weeps to the Lord; he carries it with judgment and discretion. His sorrow is a moderated sorrow; he holds it within banks and bounds. But the sorrow of the wicked is a tempestuous, a boisterous, a furious kind of mourning and lamenting. He knows no measure. It is without hope. He observes no decorum. He almost forgets who he is, what he says, what he does. His mourning is little better than frenzy or madness.

(4) Last of all, they differ much in the end and upshot of their mourning. Godly sorrow does a man good. It humbles him, as we said. It drives him from all purpose of sin, from all practice of sin; it makes him resolute against sin. On the other hand, it draws him into the presence of God; it brings him before the Lord in the ordinance of prayer, in the ordinance of fasting and humiliation. This is his sorrow, and therefore it shall end well. On the other side, the sorrow of the wicked is a kind of vexing, tormenting sorrow, a painful sorrow, a despairing sorrow; a sorrow that drives a man from God, and is mingled many times with much murmuring, sometimes with cursing, sometimes with oaths and blasphemies. This sorrow of the wicked does not have so good an issue.

There is a great difference between when a woman breeds a disease and when she breeds a child. When a woman breeds a disease, no good comes of that: there is much pain, and no ease follows; there is much sickness, and no comfort at the close. But when she breeds a child, though there is much pain, yet it repays the cost when the child is born: “She forgets her pain, because a child is born into the world” (John 16:21). So it is in the state of the godly and the wicked.

The wicked man is ever in travail, as we read in Job 15:20; he is always travailing with fear and with grief, with passion, discontent, and horror, and the like, but he never brings forth any fruit; and this travail never ends in a birth that brings comfort. But it is the opposite with the godly. He travails with pain, and with sorrow, and with fears; and some tears and sighs and groans he has for the present; but in the end there is a deliverance. He is delivered of his fears, and of his pain, and of his sorrows; and then come joy and peace, and all his tears are wiped away; and then his sorrows are forgotten, and joy comes and takes possession.

So the joy of the godly is far better than the wicked man’s joy; and the sorrow that falls upon the good and the bad is far different. Both must of necessity sorrow in this vale of misery. But the sorrow of the godly, it is a hopeful sorrow, it is a healing sorrow, it is a comforting sorrow, it is a fruitful sorrow; whereas the sorrow of the wicked is full of despair and vexation, and the further he wades in, the more danger he is in of drowning. Always the righteous begins in the night, but ends in the day. David says, “Heaviness may continue for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps 30:5). The wicked sets forth in the morning, but then there comes darkness at night; he begins merrily and happily, but then the issue is most miserable.

Well then, to close this first reason, for our instruction (we have stood on it the longer because carnal judgment will not credit this point), it is clear that the righteous man in prosperity is better off than the wicked, and in adversity better off. Hence he has occasion to rejoice.

A surgeon does not lance and sear men because he wants to put them to pain, but because he wants to give them ease. The Lord of heaven does not delight in wounding and grieving his children; he calls them to sorrow for this very purpose, that they might come to comfort. Sorrow, then, never comes to the full end it was made for; it does not obtain its perfection until it conveys a man to joy. And therefore, since it is appointed and ordained to this end by God, it is certain it shall arrive at joy, and obtain it in the end; for God does nothing in vain, he will bring all to perfection.

2. The second reason may be drawn from the nature of this spiritual comfort and joy that we speak of. For spiritual joy is very strong: “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” as he says (Neh 8:10). A strong thing is spiritual joy, and therefore it will overmatch, and overcome, and drink up, as it were, all our sorrows and fears in due time, as the sun overcomes the darkness of the night and the fogginess of the mist in the morning.

Indeed, natural joy may be overmatched by natural grief, at least by some grief, because we are more sensitive to grief than we are to those comforts: griefs infect the senses more. And because natural grief weakens nature, nature is not able to make resistance; and therefore we often say that natural grief overmatches natural comforts. Much more will carnal grief, and other grief, overcome carnal joy, because these are weaker than natural joys, having less root in nature and less subsistence in that way.

But it is not so with spiritual joy and comfort, for these have their root in God, and come from his strength; and therefore these will bear down before them all sorrow, all heartbreak, all grievance whatsoever in due time. This is a joy that cannot be taken from us. It is a joy invincible, it is a joy impregnable. No sorrow, no affliction on the outside, no grief on the inside, can strip a man of spiritual joy and comfort, if it is in any strength. So then there are two reasons why we should think that all our spiritual mourning will end in joy and comfort: because joy will swallow it up at the last, it will be too hard for it; and because, again, mourning is made only for joy. Therefore, when joy comes into place, mourning must give place.

3. A third reason may be drawn from the cause of our spiritual mourning and spiritual joy; for these are fruits that both grow from the same root. Spiritual joy and spiritual mourning come from the same fountain, from the same Spirit. The same Spirit causes us to weep over him whom we have pierced, and causes us also to rejoice in the Lord whom we have pierced: “The fruit of the Spirit is joy,” says the apostle (Gal 5:22). The same Spirit manages and guides both the one and the other. Carnal passions and affections oppose one another, they fight with one another, because they are carried on headlong, without any guide or order at all. But spiritual affections are subordinate and subservient to one another; the one labors to further and advance the other. Thus the more a man joys, the more he grieves; and the more he grieves, the more he joys. Joy melts the heart, and gives it a kindly thaw; grief, on the other side, eases the heart, and makes it cheerful and light.

4. Lastly, a reason may be drawn from the effects of godly mourning. If they are considered, it will be made clear that he who mourns spiritually shall end in comfort at the last. For this spiritual mourning, what will it do? First, it takes off the power and strength of corruption. It weakens sin, it pricks the bladder of pride, and lets out our corruption. Spiritual mourning takes a man down, it humbles him; and a humble heart is always a cheerful heart, so far as it is humbled.

Spiritual mourning, again, makes way for prayer. For spiritual mourning sends a man to God. It causes him to utter himself in petition, in confession, and in complaints to his Father; to pour himself out into the bosom of his God in speeches, in sighs and tears, in lamenting one way or another. All this tends to comfort. The more a man prays, the more comfort he has. “Pray,” says Christ, “that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). If a man will have fullness of joy, he must be frequent in prayer. Now, the more a man mourns spiritually, the more he prays; and therefore the more he is filled with true joy.

Again, this spiritual mourning is a wondrous help to faith. It is a hopeful mourning; it helps a man’s faith in the promises concerning the remission of sins. He weeps for it; he sues for his pardon in Christ’s name. It helps his faith in the promises of our Savior: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” If they “sow in tears, they shall reap in joy” (Ps 126:5). Now, the more a man’s faith and hope are furthered, the more his joy is furthered. The apostle continually says that they should rejoice in believing. The more a man believes and rests himself upon the promises, the precious promises of the word, the more his heart is ever gladdened and comforted. Now, the more he mourns, the more reason he has to believe that this furthers his faith; and therefore it advances his joy and comfort.

Let us look, then, upon the reasons that have been given, and the case is clear enough. Whoever mourns in a holy manner, that man shall certainly, sooner or later, be comforted. This mourning tends to comfort. It is made to draw it on. His joy will overtop his sorrow, and overcome all at last. Joy and mourning go together. They are branches of the same root, and therefore the more we do the one, the more we have the other. This godly mourning makes way for prayer, it makes way for faith; and therefore it makes way for comfort and consolation. This point, then, being thus cleared, let us briefly make some use of it for ourselves. The use is threefold.

Use 1. First, here is one use of instruction concerning others. Since those who mourn holily are certain to have comfort in the end, here we may learn to settle now that grand question that has been disputed so long, namely, who is the happiest man in the world? And for deciding this question, we must not go with it to Solon, to Plato, or to the philosophers, but come to a judge, the Lord Jesus. And what does he say to the point? Blessed and happy, he says, are they that mourn. His reason is, “for they shall be comforted.”

So here, then, is the test of a man whose state is blessed. The signs of a blessed estate are these two in this verse. The first is, if he mourns well; the second, if he fares well in his comfort. So that man, then, who has the best sorrow and the best joy, that man is the happiest man. Now the Christian is this man. He has the advantage of all other men, in his joy and in his sorrow; and therefore he is the only happy man in this world.

First, for his joy: happy is he, says Christ, “he shall be comforted” with those comforts that a man cannot buy too dear, though he sheds many tears for them, though he spends many nights in sighing and mourning and lamenting. Though it costs him much he cannot overrate it, he cannot overprize it. This comfort cannot be bought at too high a price. Now what is this comfort? In what is the Christian’s joy better than another man’s joy? In many respects.

(1) This joy is a more solid joy than the joy of the wicked. The wicked man rejoices in face, but not in heart; the wicked man’s joy is but a blaze, it is but a flash; his rejoicing is like the crackling of thorns under a pot, which the Holy Spirit tells us makes a blaze and is gone in an instant (Eccl 7:6). This joy is in show rather than in substance. His joy is not rooted in himself. It is not grounded upon any sure foundation, but it is rooted outside himself, in created things. A wicked man has no matter of comfort within himself, but his comforts hang upon outward things. His comfort sometimes lies in the bottom of a pot; sometimes it lies in the bottom of a dish; sometimes in the heels of a horse; sometimes in the wings of a bird; sometimes in some base lust, or in some such filthy sin.

Here lies the comfort of a wicked man; but now the comfort of the godly is not so. The joy of the righteous is a massive and a substantial joy. His afflictions indeed are light and momentary, but then his joy is everlasting, as I shall show shortly. It is a joy that has substance in it. The joy of the wicked, at the best, is only a little glazed, it is only gilded over, but it is worthless within; but the joy of the righteous is a golden joy, it is beaten gold, it is massive and substantial and precious. As we said before, the root of his joy he has in himself, he has matter of comfort in himself. There is faith and grace, there is truth. Indeed, it is not rooted in himself only, but the root of it is in heaven, in his head, in Christ. He pitches his joy upon God, and therefore his joy is such a joy as will hold out in the wetting, and will bear him through all pressures, all burdens, and all discouragements whatsoever.

(2) The joy of the righteous, as it is a more solid, so it is a more safe joy than the joy of the wicked. A carnal joy is many times prejudicial to a man’s safety; therefore we may safely conclude that the godliest man is the happiest man. He is in the best estate and condition who gives most way to godly sorrow, and who gives least way to carnal sorrow. That is one use.

Use 2. Now the next use is to the godly. First, a word of exhortation, and then a word of consolation. A word of exhortation to God’s people: since all their sorrow shall end in comfort, and is attended with comfort, God’s people should therefore lay themselves open and give way to godly sorrow as much as they possibly can.

Stop up, my brothers and sisters, all the passages, dam them up if you can, that make way for worldly sorrow and for carnal grief, for this will come only too fast upon you. But, on the other side, pull up the floodgates, and open all the passages, and give full way to spiritual mourning and to godly tears. Do this even for your own sakes. Consider that it is your happiness to mourn in a holy manner, since your Savior tells you that they are happy and blessed who so mourn. Consider that your comfort lies in your godly sorrow, as our Savior says: “blessed” are they in this, namely, in this respect, because “they shall be comforted” for their mourning.

Believe it, brothers and sisters, one day, one hour spent in godly mourning, a few tears shed over Jesus Christ and over a man’s sin, when he is in health, when he is in peace, when he has no outward cause to move him to tears and sorrow, will more satisfy the soul, and more quiet the conscience, and more relieve and refresh the heart, than all the mirth, and all the delights, and all the treasures, and all the comforts of this world will do. Why, then, if you would be comforted, mourn; if you would laugh, weep; if you would have cheerful hearts and light spirits, if you would live in comfort and die in comfort, give way to this mourning, so long as it is spiritual mourning, as much as you can.

But what, you will say, is spiritual mourning? We spoke somewhat of it the last day. Here it is in short, because I see the time will much outrun us.

(1) Labor to mourn after spiritual things and spiritual persons. That is spiritual mourning when it has spiritual objects. First, for persons.

Is it so that the Lord withdraws himself from you in his comforts, so that your soul does not feel them, does not find them, as you sometimes did before? Lament after the Lord, weep and cry after him, and say, “O unhappy man, where have I lost my peace? How have I behaved myself, that my Father will not speak to me! That he will not look at me!” And as you see a little child that has lost its mother follow after her crying, “My mother is gone, I do not know what to do,” so let God’s children do in this case. Weep and take to heart this loss of losses, when your rude, and unkind, and unholy behavior has alienated and estranged your Father from you, so that he will not look on you.

(2) Again, is it so that the Lord withdraws himself in his ordinances, so that we do not hear the voice of his word, so that we do not see our signs? “There is not a prophet among us to tell us how long” (Ps 74:9). Then let us set ourselves to mourn, as the church does in that psalm: “Lord, we see not our signs.” See how a man may be free from his misery, whatever befalls him.

(3) Again, is it so that in our mourning we see the church of God, those sorrowful-spirited people, distressed and afflicted? Let us weep for these too. Is the church of God carried into captivity? Let us cry out with the prophet of the Lord, My belly, my belly, I cannot be quiet; give me way to weep! Oh that I could shed rivers of tears! Oh that my head were a fountain of waters, that I could weep day and night for the daughter of my people! as we find in Jeremiah everywhere.

(4) Is it so that the church of God is defeated at any time by the adversaries? Let us grieve as Joshua did: rend our garments, cast ourselves down before the Lord, and say, “What shall we say, when Israel shall turn their backs and fly before their enemies?” (Josh 7:8). Is it so that the host of the living God is reproached and railed at by the Rabshakehs of this world? Take the matter to heart, as Hezekiah did. He goes before the Lord, and rends his clothes, and spreads the blasphemies before him. “Lord,” he says, “it is a day of darkness, and blackness: the children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth” (Isa 37:3).

(5) In short, is the church of God in heaviness and lamentation? Are the armies of God in the field in danger and distress? Let every man who takes himself to be a member of the church and a member of Christ take the business to heart, and weep with those who weep, and lament with those who mourn. In these days let your mirth and your peace, which are carnal, be turned into mourning and lamenting. Bear a part with the church of God, and say with that Uriah, Shall I eat and drink, and solace, when the ark of God, and the camp, and the captain of the host lies in distress, and misery in the camp? (2 Sam 11:11).

So also in spiritual matters. Is it so that we hear that sin reigns everywhere? That we hear blasphemies, that we see pride and oppression, that we are eyewitnesses, or others report to us, of the horrible injustice, the monstrous filthiness, the insufferable evils that cry mightily to heaven against our dwelling and against our nation? Let us here give way to mourning, and say with the prophet, Oh that I could weep! “Oh that my head were a fountain of tears!” (Jer 9:1) and with David, “I shed rivers of tears, because men kept not thy law” (Ps 119:136).

Thus, my brothers and sisters, let us labor to be much in spiritual mourning: to mourn for the loss and for the absence of holy things, and to mourn for the presence and confluence of sinful persons and sinful things; to mourn for the sins of our land, for the sins of the church abroad, for the sins of our neighbors. Mourn for the sins of our towns, mourn for the sins of our own families, mourn for the sins of our husbands and wives, mourn for the sins of our children, mourn for our own sins. Oh, happy is that man who can pour himself out in godly tears. The more he mourns like this, the more he shall be comforted.

2. Your mourning will be spiritual mourning if you draw your tears from a good fountain: if they come from a good source, a good spring. When a man’s zeal is a zeal for God’s glory, out of love, and mercy, and compassion to people’s souls, out of a desire for people’s salvation, his own and others’; and when he mourns out of hatred of evil and of sin, and mourns for the love of grace and goodness, this is a spiritual mourning. Mourn now, and act on these motives, and not on private motives and considerations. Let our sorrow come out of hatred of sin, and out of love to goodness, out of zeal for God’s name, out of love, mercy, and compassion to people’s souls. And this is holy and spiritual mourning.

3. Your mourning will be spiritual if it has spiritual effects. Let us look to those. Holy mourning sets a man further from sin. Holy mourning draws a man nearer to God. It makes him pray, as it is said of those in Judges 2:4-5: they wept, and the place bore the name of weepers, “Bochim”; “they wept” and offered sacrifice. Prayer and tears go together. Sacrifice and sorrow go together. Now when our mourning is such mourning that it does not make us sit in a corner in a sullen manner, but makes us bestir ourselves in praying and running to the Lord, when it makes us wrestle with God, as Jacob did, in tears and sorrow, this is holy and spiritual mourning.

This is the mourning that we describe to you from its objects, from its causes, and from its effects. This mourning is a healing mourning. It is a sweetening mourning. It is a comforting mourning. It is a hopeful mourning. It will do a man much good. Therefore give way to it to the utmost of your power, as I said before. Let every man say to himself, “I must mourn, I may mourn, and I will mourn.”

(1) I must, because God bids me, because the time calls for it. Therefore I must. Because my own need requires it, therefore I must weep. I find that I am dead, and drowsy, and sluggish, and carelessness and sleepiness will creep upon me unless I stir myself up to mourn.

(2) And then, as I must, so I may. David, and Paul, and Jeremiah could weep on spiritual occasions. So may we, if we will go to the same means, to the same God. Our nature is capable of godly sorrow. We see in them who their Father was, even God, who gave them a tender heart. He can give it to us. You know that the Spirit of God is a spirit of weeping. It is a Spirit of supplication. It will make us look to him whom we have pierced, and weep (Zech 12:10). Now Christ has promised that he who asks for this Spirit shall have it.

Let us go to the Lord, and say, “It is possible for us to have hearts so fit and tender as to shed tears for our own sins and the sins of others, as David and others before us have done. It is possible for me to do so, if I go to God and ask for such a heart.” God has promised that he will give his Spirit if we call for it. Therefore let us call, and ask the Lord to strike our rocky hearts, as Moses struck the rock, that he would cause water to gush out of them as he did out of the rock.

(3) As we may, so let us resolve that we will do it. Let us come to a resolution. “Well, I see that the time calls for it; I see that my brothers and sisters and I have need of it. I will do it, I will set about it. I will take a time when I will cast up all my reckonings between God and myself. I will take a time to unweep my former carnal sorrow. I will take some time from my carnal laughter for this.”

Take the time now, do not put it off; now is a fit time. You are accustomed to taking stock of your shops at this time of year. Then come and reckon how your estate stands, my brothers and sisters. Take stock of your shop with God; ransack your souls and see how matters stand between God and you; see whether you are going backward or forward. Mourn there, and bewail the sins that you have committed against God, and the sins of the time. One day spent in this manner between God and your soul will do you more good than all the feastings and merriments and all the sports that you meet with at this time. That is for the second use.

Use 3. Now there follows a third. Here is a word of comfort to those who mourn: comfort with regard to the whole church, and comfort with regard to the particular members of the church.

For the whole church, here is comfort for the people of God in affliction. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble, says Jeremiah, but he shall come out (Jer 30:7). He has a time of trouble, but he shall be delivered; he shall have a time of comfort. He is weak, but then his Redeemer is strong. Jacob has strong friends and strong means. All that is in heaven is for Jacob, for the church, I mean; all the saints on earth pray, and these prayers are not in vain. Comfort will come out of them at the last. Fear not, then, O worm Jacob, says the prophet, fear not; though you are as a worm, do not be afraid (Isa 41:14).

Objection. Oh, but Jacob’s grief is more than his fear.

Answer. Why should the people of God grieve? Do they grieve because the enemies exult over them? Let them answer the enemies in the words of the church: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemies: for though I be fallen, yet shall I rise again; and while I sit in darkness, God shall be a light to me” (Mic 7:8). Do they grieve because they are in darkness, and are surrounded with many sorrows and distresses? Hear what the Lord says: Arise, and shine; put on glory; I will cause light to shine in darkness (Isa 60:1). And another place says, “O thou tossed and afflicted with tempest, I will make thee walls of carbuncles” (Isa 54:11). They were formerly of ordinary stone; now they shall be made of precious stones. The Lord will make the conclusion of his children a happy conclusion. Mark the righteous: the end of his life is peace; and so the end of every particular temptation, of every particular affliction, is peace. All shall end well with him. It shall be well on his side.

Here, then, is comfort for the church. The church of God is afflicted, but she shall be comforted. She is despised, but she shall be honored and magnified, and her enemies shall lick the dust of her feet. The church of God is opposed and hard pressed, but her Redeemer is mighty, and her hoofs are made of brass and her feet of iron, to trample to dust and powder all the enemies that rise up against her. She is in the everlasting arms, as Moses speaks of the almighty God in Deuteronomy 33:27. She finds rest there; she finds peace and comfort. In the greatest miseries, this is comfort for the church. The Lord will comfort her and her mourners too: “He will comfort Sion and her mourners” (Isa 57:18). All Zion, the church of God, shall be comforted; all the friends of the church who mourn in her mourning, and who take to heart her sorrows and desolation, shall be comforted too. All who mourn with her shall be comforted. This is comfort for the church in general.

Now, for every Christian, for every member in particular, here is comfort. Are we, my brothers and sisters, such as do mourn, and mourn spiritually? Do we mourn for the breach of God’s Sabbath? For the contempt of his word? For the abuse of his sacraments? For the contempt of his name? Do we mourn for the church that is under captivity, under the sword? Do we mourn that Christians are under temptations, under misery, under afflictions? Do we mourn because the work of grace goes on no better in the hearts of God’s people and in our own hearts? Do we mourn for our sins, and for the sins of our brothers and sisters, especially those who profess religion? Is this the matter of our sorrow, my brothers and sisters? Here is comfort: you shall be comforted. The Lord has passed his word that it shall be so.

All these tears are registered and put into the bottle of God. He keeps them as a precious water, and not a tear shall be forgotten. All this is seed sown. If we sow in tears, we shall reap in joy. As harvest follows seedtime, so joy follows tears. It shall be so. “There is light sown for the righteous” (Ps 97:11). It may be under the clods, it may be buried for a time, it may seem lost, but it will sprout at the last, and a crop will come out of it.

Well, here is comfort. All the sorrows of the godly man, all his griefs, all his sighs, all his needs, all his heartbreaks, if all these turn to spiritual mourning, shall all turn to his advantage and comfort in the end. Indeed, his sorrow has comfort along with it even now, and the more he sorrows, the more he rejoices, and the more true comfort he still has. The more a man can weep over Christ, the more bitterly he can weep, the sweeter Christ will taste to him. The more grief and sorrow he brings to the word and to the ordinances of God, the more true sweetness he finds in the word and carries from the word. And the more he can bewail himself before the Lord in his needs, in his bankruptcy in grace, the more he is advanced and enlarged to comfort and joy by the Lord.

But as for the wicked, woe to him; for “in laughter his heart is sad,” says the text (Prov 14:13). He laughs with his face, but his heart mourns. On the other side, happy is the spiritual mourner; in his mourning his heart laughs, as it were. He has matter for joy in sorrow, as the wicked has matter for mourning in mirth. Woe to the wicked, for all his joy shall end in sorrow; the end of that mirth is sadness in spirit, says Solomon. But happy is the holy mourner. All his tears shall be wiped away; all his sorrows, all his griefs, all his fears shall end in comfort and consolation at the last.

Objection. Oh, but how shall I know that my mourning is spiritual mourning? I very much suspect it on this score. And why? First of all, my sorrow begins in the flesh. I never mourned, I never went to God in prayer and fasting, or any exercise of religion, until God tamed me and took me down with crosses and afflictions. Then, when he laid a load on me, I went to it, and not before.

Answer. Well, my brothers and sisters, it may be so: your sorrow may begin in the flesh; but if it ends in the Spirit, all is well. It may be that a Christian’s sorrow was first occasioned by crosses, by worldly sorrow and worldly considerations. But if he puts his sorrow to good use, and turns it to holy sorrow, if he turns the stream into the right channel, if he sets his grief, his indignation, his tears upon sin, all shall end well at the last, though the beginning was not so good.

Objection. Yes, but some will say, “My sorrow is more for outward things than for spiritual matters. I grieve when I am sick, but it is for pain more than for sin. I mourn when I am poor, but it is because I am poor in purse, because I am poor in estate, rather than because of my spiritual needs; and so for other matters too.”

Answer. My brothers and sisters, this is easily granted. There is no threshing floor here without chaff as well as wheat. There is no precious mine here so rich that it does not have some dross as well as good gold, as well as good metal. So it is with a Christian. There is a mixture of flesh and spirit. They both run in the same channel, and they run within the veins of the same soul and spirit, as it were. The question, therefore, is not whether there is any fleshly sorrow, any carnal sorrow, grief, and mourning, but whether there is any holy and spiritual sorrow. How much there is of the one is not the point, but whether there is any of the other. And if it is so, if you can shed some tears, vent some sighs and groans to God in spiritual respects, for spiritual losses, for spiritual evils, it is spiritual sorrow. Here is matter for comfort: there is that much spiritual comfort, that much spiritual joy belonging to you.

Objection. But how shall I know that my mourning is spiritual mourning, when I cannot mourn for sin? I have an abundance of tears for losses, and for crosses, and for unkindnesses; but I am dry, and barren, and tearless when it comes to matters of sin and offense and trespass against God. Is this well, that a man should have tears at command for outward losses and crosses, and not shed a tear in prayer and in repentance for sin?

Answer. No, my brothers and sisters, it is not well. But what shall we do to amend this? Surely, go to God and confess how it is; complain of yourself, and ask him to amend it; and if we condemn ourselves, God is ready to receive us.

Objection. Yes, but the children of God are more plentiful in tears for sin than for outward things.

Answer. Yes, in what sense? Not with regard to the bulk, but with regard to the worth, with regard to the value of their tears. One tear spent for sin is worth rivers of tears for outward matters. With regard to the price and excellency, it is more, because God accepts a man’s endeavor and desire in this kind, and he looks at what his desire, and intention, and endeavor are. They are more also with regard to our esteem, in that we would gladly weep more for sin than for other matters. Otherwise, the children of God are many times more plentiful in tears for the loss of children, as David was for Absalom, or for some cross that befalls them, as at Ziklag he wept so much that he could weep no more, than for sin against God; and yet they would weep most for that. They think that a matter of the greatest sorrow, and they desire to be more plentiful in tears for it, and then God accepts it, according to what a man would do, and not according to what he cannot do, and what he does not have.

Objection. Further, it will be said, “How shall I know my sorrow to be spiritual sorrow?” I answer in a word:

Answer 1. Look to the object, that it is universal. So in spiritual things, he who is spiritually sorry mourns for the lack of goodness wherever he sees it, whether in himself or in others, indeed, even in his enemies. David says that sorrow seized on him because his adversaries kept not the law of God (Ps 119:53). Spiritual mourning makes a man sorry for painful evils that fall on his brothers and sisters as well as on himself, and on himself as well as on them. Do we mourn for other people’s faults as well as for our own? Do we mourn that our enemies go too far and disgrace themselves, as well, though not so much, as if our friends had done it? If our sorrow is universal, then it is spiritual.

Answer 2. Our sorrow will be spiritual and holy if it is accompanied with prayer, for holy mourning makes way for prayer. Sometimes a man is so surprised and overwhelmed, as David says, that he is not able to speak a word; yet even so there may be a real mental prayer. His eyes may be toward heaven; he may sigh, and groan, and lament, and bemoan his own condition, that he cannot speak and pour himself out in prayer to God as he would do and as he should do.

Now, if our sorrow is such sorrow that it sends us to God, that it brings us to our knees, that it makes us either speak or chatter, as Hezekiah did, that it makes a man mourn and groan as the dove does, as he says of himself; if it is such sorrow as this, it is spiritual sorrow. You know that it is said of Jacob that he wrestled with the angel with tears, and pleaded with him in supplication (Hos 12:4). Tears and supplication went together. He begged hard and cried hard; he hung on him, and would not let him go without a blessing.

Answer 3. Again, it is spiritual sorrow when it is accompanied with thankfulness. A carnal man, when he is pinched and twinged and does not know which way to turn, will be glad to cry, when he sees there is no other refuge in the world, but either he must cry or sink. But a man who is a spiritual mourner will be thankful as well as prayerful. This is a comforting kind of mourning. There is hope in it, there is sweetness and comfort in it. The man who can mourn in this way blesses God that he can mourn, that God has given him time and leisure to set himself apart and provoke himself to mourn. He blesses God that God has given him a word that can work on him, that God has given him friends to deal faithfully with him, that God has applied this word to his heart, that it has wounded him and made him bleed. He is thankful for the mercy, and thinks it a great promotion when he can shed tears, when his heart yields under the stroke of the word of God and of the hand of God that is upon him.

Indeed, he is thankful whatever it costs him. The child of God, when he sees that his heart is enlarged to weep over Christ for his sins, does not care how dearly he pays for this sorrow, for this mourning. Though he loses some of his estate, some of his credit with men, though he loses some of his wealth, some of his comforts, some of his friends, yet notwithstanding, if he can weep and mourn, he thinks he has a good bargain, a good purchase. Though God afflicts him, though he pains him, though he crosses him and casts him down, yet if he sees that his heart can weep for his sin, that he can lament after the Lord and take his corruptions to heart, this man can rejoice in this condition. He can bless God’s name, who has given him a heart to mourn spiritually, though he pays dearly for it in outward losses and outward smart.

Now, then, if you have such a mourning as this, if you mourn for spiritual things, and you so mourn that your mourning fits you for prayer and makes way for praise and thanksgiving, then take comfort in your mourning, and know that it will end well. After night will come a day; after darkness there will come light; after seedtime there shall be a harvest, and you shall have a crop. The more you mourn, the more you shall rejoice. Blessed are they that mourn for themselves and for others. Blessed are they; they shall be comforted. They are comforted, and they will be more comforted afterward. So says the mouth that cannot lie. It is the speech of Christ himself. Thus we have done with the point, and can proceed no further at this time.

Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman, named Martha, received him into her house … (Luke 10:38-40).

This history stands complete in itself. Christ, having finished his business elsewhere, went from place to place to do good, for that was his whole aim and office. And now divine providence and holy love direct him to these two women, who had formerly entertained him in their hearts and now entertain him in their house. Yet he feasted them more liberally than they could feast him. And yet they were so intent on entertaining him that in a manner they fall out over it. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet, knowing his custom, that his lips always dropped down sweet-smelling myrrh in his gracious words (Song 5:13); and therefore she forgot all other things. But to come to some observations.

First, from the coming of Christ to these women observe that where God has begun grace, he will not discontinue it, but will go on perfecting it until the day of the Lord, continually directing things by his providence for the good of such people, and sending his servants the prophets to that end. For God’s providence extends to the least things, even to the hairs of our head and to sparrows (Matt 10:29).

The use of this is to teach us to endeavor to be fruitful in communion one with another, if we profess to be led by the same Spirit that Christ is guided by. The lips of the righteous are pleasant, and their tongues are refined silver. Sometimes the sin of man makes instruction unseasonable, and it is a pity to cast pearls to swine (Matt 7:6). And many times people are deluded by a vain despair of doing any good by their speech, when no doubt, if they would only trust in God in performing such duties, their exhortations or admonitions would take more effect than they look for, as often happens; for there is naturally in man a desire of good and profit. Sometimes a spirit of dryness possesses good people. Christ had the fullness of the Spirit without measure; others have it according to their measure. And so, through a multitude of occasions and affairs, they are overcome with a dryness, so that they can distill no grace as they should.

Against these things we should study and consider beforehand what occasions we are most likely to meet with, and study conversation fit for such occasions, by which we may best profit. Study for sufficiency, that we may be like full clouds, or like breasts that pain themselves with fullness until they are eased of their milk.

Second, lament over our deadness, and beg for a spiritual influence that may make us willing.

Third, let all take Christ’s example for a pattern, to draw others to heaven and to be always busy in our calling.

Fourth, we should also imitate Mary: be wise to draw from others, when they are not disposed to speak freely. The wise man says that he is a fool who does not regard the price in the hand of the wise. There is no one who does not excel in one gift or another. It is part of the honor due to such people to take notice of them and to make use of them, and it is unthankfulness to let such persons go without regard for those gifts. No doubt many are dead, and their gifts with them, gifts which, had people been wise, might have saved others much labor and greatly increased knowledge, if they had been displayed to others.

Furthermore, it is said that Mary sat at Jesus’s feet, implying her composed and settled demeanor, which helps toward a quiet mind and an attentive heart; “but the eyes of a fool are in the corners of the world” (Prov 17:24), which hinders attention.

But Martha was troubled about serving. Notice, as in this good woman so in many of her sex, goodness troubled by passion. She chides Mary. The grounds of this in her lay in a mistaking of Christ’s disposition, for she thought he looked for much entertainment. But in this she was much deceived, for Christ came to feast them, not to feast with them. And for this she is gently rebuked by Christ, as if he would have told her that it concerned the glory of God more nearly to receive and take notice of his outpoured mercies; and God requires this rather than the performance of any outward duty of love to him. But now to the words.

“And Jesus answered, and said unto her, Martha, Martha” (Luke 10:41).

These and the following words contain, first, a reproof of Martha; second, an instruction of her; third, a justification of Mary, with the reason for it. In the reproof of Martha, consider how he addresses her, and in that address observe the doubling of her name, “Martha, Martha.” It implies the love that Christ bore her. He calls her gently by her own name. Christ saw in her good mixed with ill, and therefore he is not overly sharp or bitter with her. It also implies seriousness, and therefore Christ doubles her name, even as Pharaoh’s dreams were doubled. Two things aiming at one end show that the matter is sure. And as “Lord, Lord” in prayer shows vehemence, so he reproved Martha for her inconsiderateness, and by this brought her to ponder more seriously what she was doing. And Christ’s example should be a rule to us, namely, in our reproofs to imitate him who had all the qualities of a good reprover.

1. We should be sure to reprove out of love to the person, otherwise the proud nature of man will not endure it.

2. It must be done in wisdom: first consider, then speak; otherwise shame will return on us, and the other person will be hardened.

3. It must be with liberty of speech. We must conceal nothing, and Christ was so disposed. In him was the fountain of love and the treasures of wisdom; indeed, he was wisdom itself, and he took liberty of speech. Though he was entertained, he does not therefore sell his liberty. And though we say that he who receives a benefit sells his liberty, it was not so with Christ. There are some who, if they entertain a minister, think this binds the minister to silence, and that they are not to be told of anything seen amiss in them. And therefore it was St. Paul’s wisdom not to take the offered kindness of the Corinthians (2 Cor 12:14 and following), lest he should be bound to them.

These things should be precedents for us, that we should be friends with people on no other terms than to speak what is for their good. For there are some proud persons who think no one a friend but a flatterer. Let us beware of being basely bound to such people; for Balak will bind Balaam with gifts, if he can win him over to his will no other way. And it is reasonable that we should maintain this liberty of speech, for friends suffer disgrace for the folly of their friends. Whoever keeps company with adulterers will be defamed, and therefore it is reasonable that a person should have liberty of speech to reprove such people.

“Thou art careful and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41).

Not that Christ dislikes household business and hospitality. But by this Christ shows his pity for her troublesome cares and distractions, which might have been gotten through with far less burden to her. And so he took this occasion to heal her error in judgment, for she thought Christ came to be feasted when he came to feast them. He also meant to free her from that hard opinion she was beginning to hold toward Mary her sister, whom she thought either negligent or proud in not helping her.

It is therefore a ground to be assumed that hospitality becomes both men and women. It is a part of that calling God commits to us, and it is commended to us by the example of Abraham and by its outcome, that he thereby entertained angels in his house (Heb 13:2). And in this place it is implied under the words “care” and “trouble,” as if he had said, You are troubling yourself too much, and more than there is any need. And so he gives us this lesson:

Doctrine. In things that are lawful, excess is easy in holy persons. For what is more lawful than a calling? What is more commendable than hospitality? Yet in this Martha is too much troubled.

The reason is that there is little or no fear of sin, and where there is least fear there is most error, and complacency breeds neglect. And therefore this is the common plea for excess in recreations and clothing: “Is it not lawful?” Yes, who denies it? But is there not a middle way? Indeed, even in their calling there may be excess here, for measure must be observed in these things, and that no doubt is the reason.

And again, in lawful things a defect in any one circumstance makes the thing ill, though in itself it is ever so good. And therefore the reformation of the state is good, but not by private persons. So here hospitality is good, but not when we should be hearing Christ speak. A good action requires not only that its nature be good, but that it be well done in every circumstance; for among many circumstances, the failing of one makes it faulty.

Use. And therefore we should keep a principal watch over our affections, and that in lawful things, for good meanings do not always justify actions. Christ was crucified and the martyrs burned, and those who did it thought they did God good service; and will this excuse them? Peter had a good intent when he would have persuaded Christ against going to Jerusalem, yet he received no better thanks than “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matt 16:23). Therefore let us look well to all our actions, however lawful they may be in the matter. That is not enough; they must also be lawfully done, according to the rule of the word of God, otherwise it is sin to the doer, whatever the intent may be.

In the next place, observe from the translation of the words, which more exactly runs thus, “Thou troublest thyself,” that it is true that we often bring upon ourselves more trouble than God lays on us. Those who have lived any long time, if they thoughtfully consider their past labors, will find that they may thank themselves for most of it. And in truth, without God’s Spirit, we are self-tormentors, and our error in this kind is double. For either we pull too great burdens on ourselves, or, when they have been laid on us, we make them too grievous to be borne, by our careless laying them on ourselves or by our awkward and unseemly way of carrying them, as it is with ordinary burdens. Those who are skillful can carry a burden with a great deal less pain than another who lacks skill, though that other may be the stronger.

Second, another reason for this lies in our perverse, peevish natures. An unmortified nature is like a sore: everything pierces it to the quick, besides the fact that it vexes itself.

Third, this is caused partly by too much passion in us, and partly by lack of judgment, and by ignorance or not remembering the end and outcome of these troubles. Where these causes are, there cannot but be such effects. In the darkness everything scares us.

Use 1. Therefore let us beware of this infirmity and never excuse it, saying, “No one need care about me; I trouble no one but myself.” For you sin against God, and you are a sinner against the sixth commandment by self-murder, in troubling yourself as well as by troubling others.

Use 2. Let us not be overly troubled at troubles. Poor souls are much troubled this way. If they find only a little dullness of spirit, they conclude that they lack grace and are none of God’s children.

Do not censure yourselves, and do not vex yourselves. It made Jonah almost quarrel with God, and patient Job complain of his mother, of the day, of the night. Alas! What hurt did they do him? And if we see others in this condition of censuring, vexing, or troubling themselves, do not censure them rashly. The children of God are not always alike, nor always in tune. For a calm mind is a grace that God gives according to his good will and pleasure, and it ebbs and flows as he pleases.

But to proceed. In the next place, observe that the things of this life, meeting with a nature not mortified, are apt to trouble it. The reason is that they are inferior in themselves, empty and vain, giving no contentment but bringing vexation. They are also subject to change, and therefore not able to give contentment to the soul, which is of a higher nature and more constantly enduring, and therefore requires comforts and contentments suited to it. Since these things cannot afford this, when they fail, as they always do, the soul is vexed and offended.

For the use of this, we should take notice of the nature of these things, and beware of troubling ourselves about the things of this life. For it divides and weakens the soul. The dividing of a river must weaken the force of its streams; and so Cyrus diverted the streams of the Euphrates, and thereby took Babylon. And the soul, though it is strong when intent on one thing, is much weakened when turned to many things, and its forces are scattered. And therefore we should meddle only with things that concern us, and only so far with them as is fitting.

“But one thing is needful” (Luke 10:42).

Christ not only reproves; he also instructs. He shows the disease and the remedy, to show his love, and that his mind was not to gall or vex, but to heal and make peace. And this he does by way of information, telling her that these affairs are full of trouble and not necessary, and that therefore she was not to spend herself in them, but to turn to that one thing which is necessary, which is to commune with God in the use of all sanctified means of grace. It is necessary to come out of our natural condition and to be settled further into communion with God. And because holy means discover our misery, open a remedy, and work grace in us to lay hold on Christ, it is therefore necessary also to attend on the means.

Question. But it may be asked: What, are not food and drink, clothes and government in a commonwealth, are not these necessary? What are callings for? Indeed, this whole life is a life of necessities. How then is there only one thing necessary?

Answer. It is true that these things are necessary in their compass and sphere, for this present life. But this life itself is nothing without a better being, and we had better not exist at all than exist and not be translated hereafter to a better life. And therefore Christ applies himself to these means, as to that which conducts us to that better life, which alone is absolutely necessary.

Objection. But, it may be urged, are not Christ’s righteousness, faith, and God’s Spirit more than one thing? And yet are they not all necessary?

Answer. Though they are diverse, yet they all run to one end. Even as many links make one chain, so all these tend to make a person one thing, that is, a Christian. And therefore a wise soul considers them as one thing and runs over them all at one view. It considers the word and the Spirit as that which, by working faith in it, brings it to Christ, who brings it to eternal glory. And therefore it does not hear merely to hear, but to be renewed inwardly, and so to have communion with Christ and to attain salvation. And therefore the word is called the kingdom of God, the word of reconciliation, of grace, of the kingdom, for by it we are conducted there. And therefore those who neglected the gospel, which was the power of God to eternal life, are said to neglect eternal life (Acts 13:46).

And therefore, if we are ever to profit by holy means, consider them as chained to salvation. Hear the word, and with it receive the Spirit, and with it faith, with it Christ, with him heaven and happiness. This is the one necessary thing; others are only accessory, and so we should esteem them.

What is skill in reasoning, if we are not able to recognize the subtle sophistry of Satan? And to what purpose is skill in healing sickness of the body, if we have a soul sick to death? Languages are only the shell of knowledge. What good will deep skill in the law do us, if we are not able to make our title to salvation sure? What profit is there in ending controversies, if we are not able to answer Satan’s accusations and the quarrels he picks with us? And the reason is that all these are only for this life, short and uncertain. It would make the best of us ashamed, if we would only consider how little we live to God or to our own comfort, knowing many irrelevant things and yet ignorant of this our only main thing, and dying before we live as we should. But to avoid this, let us carefully observe these directions.

1. Consider in everything what reference it has to this one thing, what reference it has to grace and glory. So long as we neglect this, the devil does not care what we have, where we go, or what company we are in; it is all one to him.

2. Let us conduct ourselves in proportion to the necessity of the things we are to be busied about, some of which are more necessary and some less, according as they have more or less good in them. Cut off those that cannot stand with this one main thing, for the sake of other things that are necessarily required for our well-being in this life, such as our daily bread, our callings in these matters, and the like.

3. Take heed of faithless cares, and beg wisdom to dispatch business so that our affairs do not prejudice the main thing, and always look to how they aim at the main end. As travelers and warriors unburden themselves of things less necessary, so let us take heed of entangling ourselves in the cares of this life (2 Tim 2:4). The covetous man labors for riches, others for pleasures, that they may live sensually. Yet in these they can never reach the degree of happiness that brutish creatures do, which have them without care and enjoy them without fear. But for a Christian this is the whole, “to fear God and keep his commandments” (Eccl 12:13).

4. In all business we should observe what the main end is, and labor to direct our affairs to that main end. In baptism, the one thing there is the covenant; in funerals, the one thing is a work of charity, to commit the dead body to the ground. Yet in these and similar things, all the time is taken up in ceremonious preparations. In our buildings and dwellings we look for good air, good soil, good neighbors, but where is the main thing? Who asks, “What minister do we have? What means of salvation?” Tush! This does not enter their thoughts, and so they invert God’s order. In the same way, in bringing up children, men look to teach them to read and to be fit for the course of life they intend them to follow, and how to leave them enough to make them rich and great. But who desires and endeavors to have the image of God engraved on their hearts, and to provide an eternal inheritance for them?

5. Every morning we should consider what is most necessary for the day. Have we renewed our covenant with God and renewed our repentance? Have we armed ourselves by prayer against all occasions of temptation, and provided to avoid such as are likely to meet us? Alas, how few trouble themselves this way! “What shall we eat, drink, how shall we spend the time?” These things take up the minds of most: how to uphold a short, troublesome life. And yet all their care cannot add one inch to their stature or change the color of a hair. “But seek thou the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” this one thing, “and all other shall be added” (Matt 6:33).

“And Mary hath chosen the better part” (Luke 10:42), and yet those who choose it are censured, as we see by Mary’s example. It is the lot of God’s children sometimes to undergo, for their zeal, the censures of those who are good. So David’s brothers censured David: “We know the pride of thine heart; thou art come down to see the battle” (1 Sam 17:28). But let us be comforted, for as it often happens that we suffer rebuke with Mary, so we shall have Christ to justify us as she had.

Use. Therefore let us resolve with St. Paul not to care about the censure of man, but remember that day when God will justify those who are his. Here we pass on in a hidden, eclipsed glory, but the time will come when we shall be approved, and then it will appear what we are. Let us learn innocence, so that though we undergo their censure we may not justly deserve it. Then, whatever men may think of us, we should be encouraged to bear it, because our witness is in heaven, in our own hearts, and in the hearts and spirits of good men.

But to proceed: Christ takes Mary’s part, and justifies Mary’s choice as the best. In handling this we will lay down, in the first place, some grounds that I will go upon.

1. There is a diversity of parts and a diversity of ranks of good things. Of these some concern this life, some concern the other life, and of each of these God gives to some more, to others less. Some have the goods of this life in plenty; others are endowed with the gifts fitting them for a better life. And thus God sets forth his free rule over all creatures, and his free liberty to dispose of them as he thinks best. And God exercises his children in the use of all sorts of things, and in discerning things that differ.

2. There is a spirit of discretion planted in man, to discern the difference of things, and he is enabled to do this by the word especially, for man does not have this wisdom of himself.

3. The best things in our minds must claim the chief choice and first place, in approving them, then testing them, and lastly choosing them. The good part meant here is grace and glory. This is what Mary chose: to hear Christ speak for the strengthening of the graces in her, and that by this she might assure her salvation to herself.

And grace is good because it makes us good. Outward things are snares and make us worse, but grace commends us to God. All other things are temporal, and death buries them, but grace and glory are equal in extent to our souls, extending to all eternity. Grace and its fruits are our own; all other things are not ours. Grace brings us to the greatest good, and advances us to the true nobility of sons and heirs of God, and grace makes us truly wise. It makes us wise to salvation; it makes us truly rich with such riches as we cannot lose. Grace is so good that it makes evil things good, so that afflictions with the word and grace are better than all the pleasures in Pharaoh’s court in Moses’s esteem (Heb 11:25).

Since this is so, let us be stirred up by this example of Mary; and to that end:

1. Let us beg the Spirit of revelation to open our eyes to see the high prize of our calling and its happiness, and to get a sense and taste of its pleasures, that we may judge by our own experience. For the lowliest Christian knows from experience that this is the good part. And this is what the apostle prays for, that the Philippians may approve the things that are excellent (Phil 1:10). The word signifies, in all sense and feeling, to approve the things that are excellent, or that differ.

2. Let us endeavor to balance things, by laying and comparing them together. For comparison gives luster, and so we shall see the difference and the excellence of some things above others, and the sooner be able to choose. So David did, and the effect of it was this: “I have seen an end of all created perfection, but thy commandments are exceeding broad or large” (Ps 119:96).

3. Labor for spiritual discretion to discern particulars. This is, as it were, the steward of all actions, teaching what to cut off and what to add. In all the particular affairs of this life it tells what time and what place fit best, what company, what life, what way is best.

4. And when we have done this, proceed and make this choice. If we do not choose it, but only stumble upon it, as it were, it is no thanks to us, even though that is the fashion nowadays. Men read the word and go to church. Why? Not because they have, by balancing and the spirit of discretion, made choice of this as the best part, but because they were brought up in it, and went along with company, and custom has drawn them to it. They happen upon good duties, it may be, against their wills. And this is the reason for those many apostates who fall away to embrace this present world, as Demas did (2 Tim 4:10); for not being grounded, they must of necessity waver in temptation.

5. In the next place, when we have made this choice, we must resolve with a deliberate resolution to stand by this choice. It is not enough to make an offer, or to haggle over the price, as we say; we must come resolved to buy, to choose. So David: “I have chosen the way of truth, and have stuck to thy statutes” (Ps 119:30-31); and again, “I have said” (that is, resolved within myself) “that I would keep thy words” (Ps 119:57).

For the will rules in our souls. If we are good, our will is good. There are many wicked men who understand and are persuaded what is best, but for want of this resolution and will they never make this determined choice; and many rail at good men and persecute them. Let such men know that God will not take men by chance. If they choose the worst part, they must expect to reap the fruit of their choice. Assuredly God will not bring anyone to heaven except those who have chosen it here as the best part before they die. And therefore it does not matter what the world thinks or says. Let us take up that notable resolution of Joshua: “I and my house will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15).

If we go alone it is no shame to us, but to those who should accompany us. Let them mock us and call us singular. If there is any way to heaven, the narrowest and hardest and least frequented is the right way. Let them take the delightful, frequented, broad way. Let us with Mary choose the better part. Though our choice is singular, it is Mary’s choice. And take this as a sign that we are on the right way with Mary: if with her we always desire more and more growth in grace and knowledge, and never think that we know enough, that we are good enough, or faithful enough, and diligent enough in our ways.

6. In the next place, let us come often and sit at Christ’s feet, as Mary here came to the ministry. “He that heareth you heareth me,” says Christ (Luke 10:16). Live under a powerful, plain ministry.

7. Lastly, labor to draw others on to this choice, and with all the more earnest endeavor the more we have been a means of drawing them to evil in the past. This will seal up all the rest, being a sure sign of our perfect and sincere choice.

“Which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

The best things are commended to us in various ways, and here that good part is commended by its continuance: it shall be ours forever. The means indeed shall end, for that time must come when Christ shall be all in all, but the fruit of them shall continue forever in eternal glory. For by this we have an interest in the covenant and in the promises, which are assured to us forever, and the marriage between Christ and his church is an everlasting knot. We are an immortal seed. The image of God in our souls lasts forever and cannot be blotted out.

Secondly, our choosing this good part is an evidence that God has chosen us; and once chosen, ever chosen. Our actions are only reflections of his. He chose us, loved us, knows us, and therefore we choose, love, and know him. And these, being the gifts of God to us, are without repentance on his part.

And who can take this part from us? God will not, for he is unchangeable. Enemies cannot, for, as Christ said, “My Father is greater than all” (John 10:29), and Christ is Lord of hell and death. What shall separate us? Not life nor death, principalities nor powers (Rom 8:35, 38). Nothing will be able to separate us. By grace we are kept to salvation, “and by the power of God” (1 Pet 1:5), so that we shall not depart from him (Jer 32:40). The peace of God preserves us (Phil 4:7), and this should comfort us and establish us. We may lose wealth, friends, honors, and health by death. Those who have this “good part” cannot lose it in all the changes that can possibly happen.

This also may justify a Christian in his labors. They are for the best part, which is everlasting, that which will accompany him in death. The wicked men of this world labor and spend themselves in getting what, as far as they know, they may be forced to part with the next hour. They vex themselves with care in getting, with care in keeping, and with vexing grief in parting from it.

In the next place, this should content those who are poor and despised in this world. If they have chosen this good part, they have what will make them lovely in God’s eyes, and no man will be able to take these riches from them. And hereafter their enemies shall be ashamed, when they see these poor, despised ones reigning with Christ as princes a thousand years for evermore, and when they see those who were the rich men here howling in perpetual misery.

And therefore the consideration of this should encourage us to set ourselves upon the best things, and give our consciences no liberty to rest until we have found that we have made this good choice. Let us give our souls no rest until we have made a habitation for the God of Jacob in our hearts.

In death we all look for comfort. Is that the time, then, to look for a choice? No. Men may show a desire to repent, but few do it in earnest. They send for ministers then, but it is in fear. Few such ever die with comfort. However God in his mercy may dispose of them, it must not be so. If we look for comfort in death, we should get oil in our lamps now, get the means of salvation now; let us bear the expense of it, and spare no cost or labor. It will repay our cost, and we shall find it so. Let us use prayer privately, by ourselves and with our families, and not care for the jesting of men. He who shall judge the “quick and the dead” will justify us in that day, and will give us that good part that shall never be taken from us.

But how shall we know whether we have chosen this good part? I answer, we may gather several signs from what has been said.

1. Our affections and esteem will testify what is of greatest esteem with us and holds the highest place in our hearts. That thing we have chosen. And therefore, if we love the means of grace chiefly, if we can say with David that we love God’s testimonies above silver and gold (Ps 19:10), and marvel at their value (oh, how wonderful are your commandments! how sweet! how I love your law!), and if we count the feet of the messengers of peace beautiful and the communion of saints sweet, this is a sign that we have made this choice.

Otherwise, if we think basely of the ministry, and of the saints as vile persons fit for scorn, when they are precious in God’s eyes (Ps 116:15), then whatever we say, we are proud, empty, and vain persons. Peter was of another mind (John 6:68). And let men not think that because Christ is in heaven they do not go from him when they turn from the word, for Christ says, “He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me” (Luke 10:16). And because he would honor his ministers’ and apostles’ doctrine, he accompanied it with a larger portion of his Spirit working effectually than his own immediate ministry, as appears by the multitudes whom his apostles converted at one sermon.

2. In the next place, let us examine ourselves whether we are willing to part with anything for the means of salvation. For if we love anything and choose it, then rather than part with that we will part with anything. If we love the pearl, we will sell all to gain it. How far this is from the temper of some, who will sell the pearl, sell the word, sell the care of the souls of men, to men of corrupt life for filthy lucre.

3. If we have made this choice, we will have confidence to justify it against all detractors. Michal’s scorn cannot put David out of love with his dancing before the ark of God: “I will be more vile than thus,” he said (2 Sam 6:22). In vain we think to scorn usurers out of their trade. No. They find it is sweet. Their purse comforts them against all scorns. So it is with the child of God. Let men scorn, censure, and rebuke; God’s children comfort themselves, as Job did, that their witness is on high (Job 16:19), and that keeps them from caring about men’s censure.

4. In the next place, it is a sign if we find that when all things fail us, we retire to this as our stay, that our good part shall not be taken away, nor ever will fail. So David: “My flesh and heart fail, but thou, Lord, art my portion for ever” (Ps 73:26). And it is a sign if we make the same use of it that David did: “It is good for me to draw near to God” (Ps 73:28). We are like a man robbed of all his money who, if his jewels are saved, solaces himself in them.

And if, like Hezekiah, we can appeal to God as witness of our sincerity, “Lord, remember how I have lived, how I have served thee in uprightness” (Isa 38:3), then we shall find that the comfort of this will never be taken away from us. Otherwise, if we cannot thus appeal to God, we may call and cry to him, but he will give us only a comfortless answer: “Go to the gods which you have chosen” (Judg 10:14). Let the world help you, he will say, let pleasures and riches deliver you; you would not choose me while I gave you all blessings of life and health; now, “Go, ye cursed” (Matt 25:41).

And again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls … (Matt 13:45-46).

St. Paul expresses in the Epistle to the Philippians what this parable typifies. There he teaches that all is dung in comparison of Christ (Phil 3:8). Here the Spirit teaches that all must be parted with to gain this pearl spoken of in this place; and as with St. Paul, so with Christ: his thoughts were all heavenly. He came from heaven, and while he was on earth, his thoughts and speeches showed where he came from. All his discourse is of heaven, sometimes in plain doctrine, at other times in parables. This chapter makes that manifest, comparing the kingdom of heaven to a sower (Matt 13:24); to a grain of mustard seed (Matt 13:31); to leaven (Matt 13:33); to a hidden treasure (Matt 13:44); and in these two verses to a merchant of pearls, beginning the verse with the word “again,” to show that he was still insisting on the former matter.

His love for mankind admits of no weariness in repeating and often pressing the same things. He does this to work a strong impression in our minds, knowing that these things are above our understanding and that we are naturally indisposed to them. And it should teach us not to be weary of hearing the same things, as St. Paul also admonishes us, in telling us it is safe for us (Phil 3:1), even though in itself it is tedious to the minister. And indeed it is the unhappiness of ministers to be often pressing the same thing; and yet they must not neglect it, seeing that Christ stooped so low as to take up this duty, for the benefit of our souls.

In the next place observe that Christ teaches by parables, helping the soul by the body and the understanding by the senses. He teaches us, out of objects of our senses, to raise up our souls to divine meditations, so that the soul is indebted to the body as well as the body to the soul, though not in so eminent a measure.

But it may be questioned: Are not parables hard to understand? I answer, It is true that if they are not unfolded they are hard; but once they are made plain, they are of excellent use. They are like the cloud, full of light toward the Israelites, to give them light, but toward the Egyptians a cloud of darkness. And carnal men are earthly in heavenly matters; and, on the contrary, those who are spiritually minded are heavenly disposed in earthly matters.

And it teaches us our duty, namely, to be of a holy disposition in the use of these outward things. For created things have a double use, one for the good of the body, another for the good of the soul, as in Romans 1:20 and following. The Godhead is so manifest in the creature that this alone is sufficient to leave us without excuse. And therefore, as we daily use them, so our souls, by way of meditation, should make them a ladder to ascend on high.

But as for the parable itself, we will first expound its terms and then pass to the observations.

And, first, by the “kingdom of heaven” is meant sometimes the company of men who are under Christ’s government, who acknowledge him as their king; as we say it is not the walls that make the city, but the body of men united and governed by one law, custom, and privilege. But here it may well be taken for the blessed estate that belongs to such people, together with the means that bring them to this estate, and the prerogatives annexed to it, such as peace, joy, grace, and the like. But most especially it may be taken for the glorious estate of a Christian, begun here and perfected hereafter; for where this is supposed, it supposes also the means and prerogatives spoken of before.

And therefore, if we ever think to come to heaven, it must be begun here in this kingdom of grace. And hence it is that the word is sometimes called the “kingdom of heaven”; for Christ will rule here by his Spirit in those who think to reign with him hereafter. And it should also comfort those who find in themselves the first-fruits of this kingdom, for they shall assuredly have the harvest at length. Do not fear trials or troubles; grace once begun, though as a grain “of mustard seed,” will not stop growing till it ends in glory.

And yet it must be supposed that our conduct here must be as if we were in heaven; our thoughts must suit our standing. We are kings; our thoughts must be high. And take heed how we undervalue the gospel. If we neglect it, we neglect the kingdom of heaven; if we despise it, we also refuse and despise grace, and so disclaim all title to heaven.

It is further said that it is with this “kingdom” as with a merchantman who seeks pearls. This merchant is every Christian. Our life is a continual trading of something and taking something else in exchange, and taking such things as are better than the things we part with; otherwise our trade will soon be at an end, and we shall be not a whit the better. And therefore the Christian, like a good merchant, trades for pearls.

A Christian life therefore is a life of trading, a venturing life, and therefore a life of danger. The Christian is always, as it were, in danger of death, as the merchant is at sea, yet always sure that his God will not forsake him. God will assist him and defend him from the rocks of Satan’s temptations and accusations, and terror of conscience, and despair on the one side, and from the alluring waves of the world on the other side, so that he does not fall into that dangerous whirlpool.

His life is also a life of labor, laboring in his particular calling with faithfulness, always having an eye on his other calling. And thus, by a holy use of the things here below, his mind is always climbing up the hill, to see the end of all his labor and to aim at it in all his thoughts, words, and deeds.

And as it is a life of labor, so it is not fruitless. It is not for pearls of honor, pleasure, or profit. The Scripture counts these as nothing but dirt and thorns, although in our childish esteem we count them goodly jewels, when they are indeed nothing but counterfeit glass.

Yet there is a sort of higher spirits who do indeed seek a pearl, having purposes to serve God. But in seeking they meet with counterfeits, with false teachers, who make glorious shows yet indeed are nothing but charlatans, who show and sell them much counterfeit pearl, and thereby seduce them from the right way.

But those to whom God intends good, he informs by his Spirit that this is not the true orient pearl; and this they find by experience. It does not quiet their hearts or their consciences; it gives them no comfort. Briefly, it does them no good; indeed, it hinders them. And this makes them cast about anew for other treasure, like the woman of Samaria, a Messiah that will show them all things (John 4:25); and at length they meet with this rich and precious pearl. And thus Augustine, a Manichee at first, fell to doubting his state, and at length met with God indeed, whom he had formerly sought in vain.

To proceed: this merchant seeks, then finds, then sells all, to get the pearl that he has thus found. Here we will show what this pearl is.

First, therefore, by this pearl is meant Christ Jesus, with all his graces and prerogatives communicated to us by the means of his ordinances. Christ is the great pearl; all the rest are pearls, but no otherwise than as they lead us to Christ, the peerless pearl. Now, we know that pearls are bred in shellfish, from a celestial moisture or dew; and like this was Christ, formed by heavenly influence in the womb of the Virgin. And as pearls, though formed in the water, are yet originally from the heavens, so the graces of God’s Spirit are from heaven, though placed in earthly hearts.

And again, as pearls, though here below, are yet like the heavens in clearness, so Christians, by this gracious influence from this pearl Christ Jesus, though they live here on earth, are more like heaven than the earth where they are bred. And so too is Christ. Though he took the flesh of man upon him, yet he has the luster of the Godhead, and in him all the attributes of God plentifully shine.

Again, a pearl is of great value and worth; and so is Christ, one Christ of infinite value, and therefore he became a ransom for many millions who were in bondage. So the whole church has an interest in him, and every particular Christian has such a part in him that, if only one man had been in the world to be saved by him, Christ must have died for him. He was given by God to purchase our redemption; and not only to purchase our deliverance, but also to make us acceptable, and to fill us with other things that are good in him. We have all that we stand in need of here and hereafter; all our grace and comfort arise from him. In him are hidden the treasures of wisdom and counsel; “and from his fulness we all receive grace for grace” (John 1:16).

Furthermore, it is such a pearl as frees us from all evil; indeed, it is powerful to turn all evil to the greatest good. It makes life out of death; it makes joy out of affliction; it makes the devil, our enemy, a means of hastening us to heaven.

Lastly, this pearl makes us good. Like the philosopher’s stone, it turns everything into gold. So this makes us God’s jewels; and our High Priest now in heaven bears us in his breast, as the precious stones that were in Aaron’s breastplate. It makes us kings and priests to God, and a spouse fitting for him our Husband. It adorns us with all graces, it makes all things ours, and it entitles us to heaven, which we lost in our fall. Christ, then, is this pearl.

But now, in the second place, let us see how we may come by this pearl. We must therefore know that this pearl may be had, and we must have hope of it, or else there is no venturing for it. And therefore God, to prevent all excuse, offers this pearl in his word. The pearl is sent from heaven to come to us. The ministry lays open the riches of Christ, to make us long after him. He desires us to be good to our own souls, to receive the pearl thus offered. He entreats us to be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:20): “Oh that my people would hear” (Ps 81:13); “O Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered thee, as a hen gathereth her chickens!” (Luke 13:34). What more can we have? We see it is no hopeless matter, and therefore it may be had. The ministry, however vile in the account of men, has yet made men rich: “Yet making many rich” (2 Cor 6:10).

In the next place, what must we part with? We see in this text that the merchant parts with all, and so we must give all that we have. And if we have nothing, then we must give ourselves, and God will give us ourselves again, but far better than we were when we gave ourselves to him.

But what? someone may say. Does God require that we should really forsake all? I answer, not as the papists do, who vow voluntary beggary.

1. But we should part with the esteem of all things. We may keep them and use them, for God gave us these things to that end; but yet let us so use them as though we did not use them. Let them not have our chief affections, nor the chief seats in our hearts.

2. We are to part with all things in this way, that we must have a heart prepared to part with all, if we cannot enjoy them and this pearl too. If the question is whether we would rather have this world than Christ, we must resolve to part with father, mother, lands, yes, with our own selves, rather than with Christ. Without him honor shall be no honor, and pleasure no pleasure. To us all things should be dung and dross in comparison of Christ; indeed, “the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared with that glory we shall have” (Rom 8:18). So there is no proportion between them.

3. We must so part with these things that we are ready to sell all without constraint, to honor Christ in his poor members; to sell all for ointment for Christ’s feet; to part with anything so that we may stand for Christ.

Especially we must part with all sins. He who retains any one sin can never get this pearl. He who keeps in his heart but one beloved pleasure or profit of this life, let him read, pray, hear, and profess ever so much, the devil has him fast by the leg or by the wing, and as surely as if the whole man were in his hands. For the devil will willingly allow a man to go to and use any good exercises, knowing that they add to a man’s damnation, so long as he retains a secret delight in and liking for any lust, however small it may be.

And further, we must not part with sin only. For every sin has some good or other for its object, as covetousness has riches, ambition has honor, and the like. We must therefore “sell all,” part with our affections, with all their branches and objects, if they will not stand with Christ; part with honor, riches, yes, our own lives, for they are far inferior to this precious pearl. Beware of reserving this one thing, this Zoar or that Rimmon, as Ananias and Sapphira did. For who would not have Christ, if he might have pleasure, or profit, or honor with him? No, Christ will have all; and therefore this is the first lesson in Christ’s school: to deny ourselves, our reputation, the conceit of our own wisdom.

In the next place, let us see what the gain of this trade will be. We shall think ourselves no losers. We shall have Christ, and with him all things. What we give to him he will return back, if those things are fitting for us, and with them he will give us grace to use them, teaching us to be in want and to abound. And when we have come to give all for this pearl (though indeed we have nothing here at all except in our own esteem), Christ will be worth all to us. Witness Moses, who chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than the pleasures of Pharaoh’s court (Heb 11:25 and following).

And therefore Christ promises in this life a return of a hundredfold, which consists in abundance of comfort to our full satisfaction and contentment. All the world cannot give this, and it is this that makes all things here to be “vexation of spirit.” And therefore David, when he was a king, counted the testimonies of God better than gold (Ps 19:10); and St. Paul counted these things here, notwithstanding his many privileges, to be dross, and dung, and loss in comparison of Christ (Phil 3:8).

And it rests on God’s honor not to make us losers when we trade with him. If we part with riches, pleasures, and honors, life, the world, we shall have better riches, better and more enduring pleasures and honors, eternal life, and “a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet 3:13), if we part with these for conscience’ sake.

From this we may learn who are the true rich men: even the Christian, who has abiding riches that will continue with him as long as his soul continues, and such riches as make us good and acceptable in God’s esteem. These will stand us in stead in our extremities, supporting us and commending us to God, and in death they do not forsake us, but go with us to heaven. But a worldling “walks in a vain shadow, and disquiets himself in vain” (Ps 39:6), in heaping to himself riches and pleasures that he must part with. For he can carry nothing with him when he dies except a load of sins, which he commits in gathering this worldly trash. All this fine clothing he must put off when he goes to his long home.

See, in the next place, who is the real fool. Is it not the one who in his judgment prefers tokens before gold, and the baubles of this present life before that enduring substance in the heavens? We condemn Adam, Esau, and Judas for their foolish choice, when, alas! there is no worldling who is not as bad as the worst of them, if not worse, if worse may be. Are there not many who sell Christ for less than thirty pieces? Are there not many who cast him away for nothing? What does the common swearer and blasphemer do but sell Christ, or rather cast away him and all hope of happiness, for a mere presumptuous daring of God? And the best worldling sells Christ for a mere thing of nothing, a toy, a pleasure of sin, or a little profit. Such strongholds has the king of this world in the hearts of its children.

But how shall we know when we have this pearl? We should examine our hearts, what we could part with for Christ. Many who make a profession of Christ in this life show that they desire nothing but a bare title of profession. For their hearts tell them that they could never yet find it in their heart to deny pleasure or profit, no, not anything, for Christ’s sake; and yet they are fully persuaded that they must surely have this pearl. No, no! Christ is not to be had, nor is he to be kept, on such poor easy terms. Men “cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matt 6:24).

Secondly, if we have this pearl, we shall have a wonderful admiration at the excellency of its value: “How beautiful are thy dwelling places” (Ps 84:1); “Oh how do I love thy law” (Ps 119:97); “Joy unspeakable” (1 Pet 1:8); and “Marvellous light” (1 Pet 2:9). What does the worldling say? “Oh, this or that marvelously rich man, fine estate, stately house, ancient family!” Are these things for a Christian to wonder at, who lays claim to glory in the highest heavens? No. Worldly regards fall down where heaven is exalted. When Paul is a convert, “those things that were formerly gain to him, he counteth loss for Christ” (Phil 3:7).

Thirdly, whoever has this pearl, it works in him a wonderful joy above all worldly joy whatever, above the joy of harvest (Isa 9:3). Zacchaeus and the eunuch rejoiced; yes, in adversities this joy does not forsake us. It made St. Paul sing in prison. But men will say, “Who are more heavy and dejected than Christians?” I answer that God’s Spirit does not always appear in joy, but sometimes in mourning for the want of the assistance of God’s Spirit, which is an evidence of a taste of and an interest in the blessed estate of regeneration.

In the last place, if we have this pearl, our affections and speech will be busied evermore about it, and our whole course of life will show that we have it.

In the next place, if we have this pearl, how shall we use it to our greatest advantage? First, therefore, let us be as laborious in keeping it as Satan is laborious in striving to deprive us of it. And to that end we are to watch over our special and particular corruptions, and then most especially when the devil offers us a good; for we may be sure it is to deprive us of a better good. He gives an apple, but he looks to deprive us of a paradise. There was never yet a man who escaped from him a gainer; and therefore in such temptations, examine his offers by the light of sanctified reason, and we shall find that he always offers us loss.

In the next place, let us see that we preserve the vessels of our souls in purity, so that we may be fit for the pearl that must be set in gold.

And in the next place, let us make use of Christ and our interest in him. If we are in bonds under sin, offer Christ to God: “O Lord, Christ, whom you gave me, is the righteousness that you cannot but accept, since his righteousness is infinite and you have made it mine. I am a beggar in myself, but you have made Christ all in all to me, to the end that you may esteem us all in all to you.” Oh how quiet and peaceable is the soul that is in this state! “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob? who is like to thee, O Israel!” (Num 24:5; Deut 33:29). Saved by the Lord, happy are you!

In lesser temptations, such as afflictions, or death, that king of terrors, if that should seize on us, then consider: What do we lose? Nothing but what we must one day leave of necessity. If we have then labored formerly for this invaluable jewel, we are then nearest to it; our salvation is then nearest, even at that instant while we are laboring. Are we enjoying our treasure? Shall we not be as desirous of the rich things that grace affords us as we are of the riches of this life? If the promises of such things quicken us, how much more the things themselves.

If we are troubled with losses, what do we lose? Not our pearl, not grace, not our God, in whom there is always fullness of content. If he fills us with content, it is more than all this vain counterfeit world can afford us. What if we are robbed of pins, so long as we keep our jewels and hidden treasure?

Are we troubled with solicitations of Satan? Are we subject to being drawn away by evil company? We should reject such things with scorn, and say, “‘Avoid, Satan!’ Your offers are loss to me; loss of peace, loss of comfort.” The pleasures of sin are only for a season; godliness is profitable to all; indeed, it is above all other riches. The time will come when nothing besides it will comfort us; indeed, all other things will charge us with a greater account, and load us with bitterness at the latter end.

Let us therefore learn to be good stewards for our souls. What is the glory of our nation? Is it not that we have mines of this invaluable riches, that we have ministers to draw out of this deep well and to reveal this precious water of life to all, and that we may buy without money? Therefore let us take heed how we trifle away these privileges. The time will come when we shall lack them, and then wisdom will laugh at us if we have not been wise to lay up durable riches.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask them? (Matt 7:7-11).

I hope it will not offend anyone here present, and it may profit some, if I briefly repeat what I have spoken in another place on this text. The whole of it contains an exhortation to prayer, Christ’s exhortation to Christ’s hearers. The parts are two.

1. The exhortation strictly taken, pointing out the duty.

2. The motives and arguments enforcing it.

In brief, the nail and the hammer.

The duty is laid down in these words, “ask,” “seek,” “knock,” all of them whetting our dullness. From this we may see that pressing these things in this manner implies diligence. We should set about the duty eagerly, yes, with an earnest desire of obtaining our suit, as we do with those we have occasion to speak with, whom we importune by every means for a prompt answer. Our Lord here would have us make haste in this way, using all means and diligence to obtain our suit.

The motives are:

1. Ordinate, directly urging the duty.

2. Subordinate, standing as helps and supports to it.

The ordinate motives are these: “Ask, and receive; seek, and find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The argument is taken from a threefold promise, matching the threefold urging of the duty. In sum, it is the success they will have, that they shall obtain what they ask.

The subordinate arguments follow the former, and they are of two sorts, simple or by comparison. The simple argument is in these words: “For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” This simple argument is drawn, as it were, from the common experience of others, as if our Lord had said, Since it is found by sure and certain experience that everyone who asks receives, why should you not also, if you ask, expect to succeed as well as others?

Lastly, there is set down an argument of comparison, from the lesser to the greater, from fathers on earth, who are endowed with a little of that pity and mercy whose greater fountain and ocean is in God. From this the inference is that if earthly and evil parents will be ready to hear their children and give good things to them, how much more will our good and heavenly Father be ready to hear and grant our requests, that is, give good things to such as ask in faith? This is the sum.

From the exhortation, note that the duty of prayer is a common task, so that every Christian who would be so called in deed and not in name only must be a man of prayer. Then, in the next place, from the exhortation and the reason laid together, note that the potent means by which we will be best enabled to receive from God what we desire and what we need is prayer.

There might be many proofs of this, though there is no need of them. Many uses of it were delivered then, and the last and main one was that we should learn to make more reckoning of our prayers than we have formerly done. We reckon our estates in bonds and bills, and in what we have in stock beyond the seas, as well as in what we have in our possession. In the same way we should reckon in our spiritual wealth not only what we have and feel, but also that stock of prayer we long ago adventured to a far country, as merchants do with what they have adventured to the East Indies. We should do so all the more because these ventures may fail in whole or in part, and so that stock may perish; but the adventure and return of this stock of prayer is most certain to increase further. If we reckon in this way, we will be sure of a quicker and speedier return. From this we came to a knotty and great objection.

Objection. Do all men who pray have this assurance of being heard, seeing that Christ’s promise is so sure and firm?

Answer. There are indeed a great many Christians full of complaints and discouragements on this point. “Oh,” some say, “I have prayed thus and thus long, and I am worse and worse. I have prayed and am not heard. Better to leave it all, since I am none the better for it.”

I answer that though our Lord speaks so confidently, yet God’s charter must be interpreted according to God’s meaning, with such conditions and limitations as he has revealed to us in his word; and though these are not named here, they must still be understood. We are undone, every mother’s son of us, if we lose any part of that charter Christ has made by thinking we can count on no certain return of our prayers sent to our heavenly country. For it remains always sure, “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”

For the better answering of the objection, two things are to be considered:

1. Conditions on our part.

2. Limitations on God’s part.

1. The first thing in the conditions on our part concerns the person who must pray. He must be a free citizen in the state of faith and repentance. An outlawed man can put up no petitions with any assurance of success. St. John says, “This is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14). The will of God is that he who prays be a qualified man; and so all the promises of God are made, at least, to such as hunger and thirst and desire to be in Christ.

Faithless, godless, careless men are outlawed, as we see in Psalm 50:15-17. The promise is, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me”; and then at once he makes a stop: “But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my word behind thee.”

Objection. Here some may object that even many heathens have been heard in their prayers who were not qualified in this way.

Answer. To this I answer that it is not out of the privilege of this great charter here that such people are heard, but out of his common goodness to all. By it he would draw even the most rebellious to admire his divine, abundant mercies, yes, and even teach us that if such people prevail in this way, much more shall we, being within the covenant.

2. Our prayers must be made to God alone.

3. They must pass under the seal of the Mediator. For though all Christians may claim a part in the charter, yet the title must be pleaded in the Mediator’s name only. No Mediator for you, no hearing.

4. Concerning the things prayed for, they must also be lawful in kind, not excepted beforehand, nor forbidden under any general or particular limitations. Not everything we desire is rightly asked, for some of it may cross his nature and will. Some things also are bad for us and forbidden by general and special decree, such as exemption from afflictions and from sufferings with him. If God does not hear us in this, Christ does not forfeit his word; we forfeit our prayers.

5. We must have a right end in prayer, as the apostle says in James 4:3: “You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts.” If the end is wicked, the prayer is confiscated.

6. The time. There are certain seasons and times in which the Lord will be found. So in Daniel 9:2, when Daniel knew the time of the captivity was nearly expired, then he prayed for the return of the people. If we wait and seek in season, we may obtain; but otherwise we may take a nap and have the door knocked against our heads. Since, then, there is a time that the Lord will be found, as the prophet says (Isa 55:6), I would not have us let our time slip by. Now, when there is a stirring of the Spirit, let us take the opportunity, lest we miss it when we will have most need of it.

7. There is the manner, under which I include the order of the things asked and desired. If we want to succeed in temporal things, we must first seek spiritual ones, says our Savior: “But seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt 6:33). If we fail in this, we may knock long before we have entrance. To come to God and seek oil and wine and the like, and meanwhile to neglect the oil of grace, what a disorder this is!

If you are crossed in this case, it is not because he would put you off without hearing you, but because he would teach you a better way to succeed. For when we eat our meat in disorder we fail to digest it, and for the most part buy our experience at a dear rate. In the same way God many times beats his dearest children and puts off their prayers for a long time, so that he may teach them in due order what is first and principally to be desired. All these things the person praying must carefully look to if he would succeed in his suit.

Further, we have to observe in prayer:

1. The qualities.

2. The companions.

3. The attendants of prayer.

1. The qualities of prayer.

(1) That it be the prayer of faith: faith not only generally and confusedly in the Godhead, but distinctly in the persons, in the redemption purchased, and in the hearing of your petitions, as one having an interest in him. “Believe and it shall be given thee.”

(2) Humility: that a man go to God with a knowledge and a sense of his own insufficiency to help himself. No man may come to God except on his knees. I do not speak of the bowing of the knee, but of the heart. It is written, “God will hear the desires of the humble” (Ps 10:17). In misery, affliction, sense of our need and the like, we should assure ourselves that we will be heard.

(3) The heat and fervency of prayer. Our God, who is a “consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), does not endure a cold prayer. The heart must be lifted up, as with Hannah, whose heart spoke to the Lord (1 Sam 1:13). And St. James says, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas 5:16). On the contrary, a cold prayer has only a cold answer. That man is only a mocker of prayer who would have God hear him when he does not hear himself.

2. The companions of prayer.

(1) Charity, which extends itself toward all men, and a brotherly love toward the saints, joined with graciousness in ourselves. It has two things in it, giving and forgiving. He who would have mercy must show mercy. Rich men may do the one, and all men may do the other, but the other is harder: to forgive. He who is able to give and to relieve others as their need requires, and yet will not, let him not wonder if God denies his suit. So too, he who will not forgive others, let him not look to be forgiven. “Blessed is he,” says the Scripture, “that judgeth wisely of the poor, the Lord shall deliver him in the day of trouble” (Ps 41:1). If you ask and do not succeed, do not marvel in this case. You have denied him in his own members when they asked of you, and therefore it is just of him to deny you.

(2) Thankfulness for benefits and blessings received and enjoyed, with forgiveness of the old debts; thanksgiving before we beg for more mercies. For this reason we do not succeed in our suits: because we forget him, he forgets us.

3. The attendants of prayer.

(1) Perseverance, called “watching with prayer,” as we see our Lord teaches us by the example of the importunate widow and the unjust judge. By this he intimates, for our comfort, how much more certainly, in the like case, we may assure ourselves of success with him who is the most just judge of the world, and goodness itself.

So he who would be sure to have this promise, “Ask and ye shall have, seek and ye shall find,” made good to him must make a trade of prayer, not asking two or three times and so being done, but he must still ask, and so obtain. As he desires constancy in holding out in our suits, so he would have us ask constantly without fainting. And as he will give fittingly at the best time, so he shows that we will always be set to work in begging, as his mercy will be in giving.

(2) Diligence in the means. We tempt him when we ask for what we do not labor for. As we pray, so our endeavors must second our devotion. For to ask for maintenance and not put our hands to the work is like knocking at the door and yet pulling the door toward us so that it does not open. In this case, if we pray for grace and neglect the spring from which it comes, how can we then succeed? It was a rule in ancient times, “Lay your hand on the plow, and then pray.” No man in old times might pray without plowing, nor plow without praying.

(3) Expectation, waiting, perseverance in hope, until God hears us. The reason is that the Lord, who has promised the thing, has not limited the time. In this we may see what patience brings forth, as the prophet’s experience is: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me, and heard my cry” (Ps 40:1). And in another place he says, “It is good for man both to wait, and trust in the Lord” (Lam 3:26). So too he says, “because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation” (Rev 3:10).

This waiting gives us an interest in him, when we are so earnest that we will not go away until we speak with him. When a man knows that someone he desires to speak with is in a certain house and will come out, he waits at the door and will not go away until he speaks with him. So, if we were earnest, and had faith and assurance that God would come, we would stand still at the door until he came, and not be gone and faint at every light occasion. All of us fail in this, that we do not wait constantly at the door of grace until we obtain.

Gross sins, indeed, cause a man to faint, so that he dares not look God in the face except with much ado. But if we strive and labor to hold out, God accepts the sincerity, though the measure is small, when we cannot do as we would. But there may be gross failings of this kind: we fall into the old bias of our sins and so leave off knocking, or we are quickly weary if we do not obtain at once, as though we might set him the time. If, I say, in this case, like the raven sent out of the ark, our prayers return no more, and we faint and sink comfortless in desolation, anguish and sorrow of mind, let us not blame our Savior, whose promise is firm and inviolable without change. If we would learn to mend our prayers and wait, we would hear more from him.

All these are limitations on our part.

2. The limitations on God’s part.

In general, we must be wary that our misunderstanding of providence does not make us fail. First, all such things are excepted as God cannot give to our prayers without crossing some part of his revealed will, or some secret government and providence of his. We would not willingly cross that if we knew it, but would rather submit ourselves to it, as Christ did in his agony: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt 26:39).

I say, then, God will give in such a way as does not cross himself in anything. There are some things God cannot grant (I speak with reverence) unless he forfeits his word. A man prays and says, “Lord, forgive me my sins,” without a desire to leave them or a resolution of a new course of life, but goes on, swears and sins again. God cannot in this case hear such a man, because it is against his word to hear sinners so long as they love the sin with delight and without remorse. The prophet says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps 66:18). Therefore, since God cannot lie, repent, or deny himself, such a man cannot be heard.

Again, take a man idle in his calling. Though he prays much and often to prosper in it, God, if he makes his word good, will not grant his suit. As he has said, “the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Prov 10:4), so, on the contrary, he has said in other places, that the sluggard shall be clothed with rags; that his soul shall desire, and have nothing; that because he will not plough in the cold, therefore he shall beg in harvest (Prov 20:4). And you, O sluggard, do you think, then, that you will obtain anything without taking pains?

So in another kind, the Jews told Christ to come down from the cross and save himself, if he were the Son of God. And all the while, for that very same reason, because he was the Son of God and had undertaken and promised to finish the work of our redemption then, he might not come down from the cross and save himself from that hour.

Further, when a man blesses himself in sin, as in Deuteronomy 29:19, saying in his heart that he shall have peace, walking in the imagination of his heart, adding drunkenness to thirst, God has passed his word that he will not spare such a man, but his wrath will smoke against him, and all the curses written in the book of God will lie upon him. In this case, where a man continues and delights in sin, God cannot hear such a prayer unless he forgets his word. Understand this, man: God could never be held by such prayers as cross his will and the manner of his government, yes, such prayers as he has so often protested against in his word.

Secondly, in the things asked, he means that they should be good for us in lawfulness of circumstances, namely:

1. The quality of the same good things.

2. The time.

3. The means.

4. The manner.

5. The measure.

1. For the first, the quality. We know the main promise made to the faithful, that “all things work together for good unto them that love God” (Rom 8:28). Therefore, what cannot be for your good is not intended and will never be given, if God loves you. See also in my text that the last part of Christ’s last argument is the same in effect: “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask them?”

The physician knows better than the patient what is good for him. So I say that for this reason many things are profitably denied us which could not suitably be granted without harm. We see that fathers will keep knives, burning sticks and all such sharp and dangerous things from their children, not because they do not love them, but because they love them so much. Therefore they will keep from them all hurtful things.

2. For the time. God gives us his note of promise, but he will pay at his pleasure. There is a time, but when, that is concealed; not that it is uncertain to God, but it is hidden from you. So in Psalm 86:7, he will hear, but it is in the time of trouble; yes, of great trouble and sorrow, between the cup and the lip, as the proverb says.

It was Abraham’s experience: “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (Gen 22:14). All things were ready there for a sacrifice. The wood was laid, the fire was ready, Isaac was bound, the hand and knife were lifted up to kill and cut in pieces the only son, the son of the promise. But in an instant came a stop unlooked for. That mercy being so great, it was then made an instance for us forever, that even in the most desperate cases we should not despair, but hope against hope, as he did.

Now, there are various reasons why the Lord delays in this way to help and hear us.

(1) That our faith and dependence on him might be the better tried. Though this experience is sore, yet we must be courageous, since the outcome is joyful. Though it is bitter, yet the victory obtained is great. We may see this in the woman of Canaan, a good suitor with a good suit; yet how our Lord puts her off a long time, so that he might open the faith of this woman to others and make her a precedent for us forever (Matt 15:21-28).

(2) Sometimes it is done to humble men, as in Judges 20. In a good quarrel, having a good cause, we know what befell them. See what need we have of prayer to do all things aright. They consult with God what to do; they receive encouragement from him to go on, and yet are overthrown. The second time they weep and mourn, and are beaten again. In such a case it seems strange to be overcome. Well, the third time they weep and fast and are humbled before God for their own sins, before they seek revenge for other men’s, and then they prevail. Thus “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (Jas 4:6).

Until we are nothing in our own eyes, he never comes with comfortable deliverance, until we come to that pinch in which we cry, “Up, ‘Lord, how long …’” As Paul says of himself, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God which quickeneth the dead” (2 Cor 1:9). The Lord brought him out of all hope of life, so that he might be humbled and learn to know where alone life, help and comfort are to be found in all extremities.

(3) To quicken our appetite. God puts us off the longer, and we, being unwise, think he does it to put us off forever. In this way of working the Lord, in a manner, fishes for us. The fisherman, we know, draws back the hook when he finds the fish is about to bite, so that the fish may follow. So God sometimes draws back from our suits, not to make us give up, but so that we may press him all the more.

The experience of this, once found, is very sweet, though smarting in the beginning, as we may see in the spouse. She slept, and lost Christ by her sluggishness (Song 5:2). She made some idle excuses for not opening to him. Well, what came of it? When she would have opened to her best beloved, her hands dropped myrrh. All her affection was not gone, for he had left enough with her to keep her in love with him, but her beloved had withdrawn himself. Well, there is yet more. In her search for him the watchmen beat her, wounded her, took away her veil.

Here she pays worthily for her sloth. She had all sweet words given her to open to Christ: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.” But when she put him off, as I have shown, he departs and leaves her in pursuit of him. And why does he go away? Partly to chastise her neglect of him, to whom she should have gone out and opened with all cheerfulness and diligence; and partly to quicken her desires, as we see it fell out in Song of Songs 5:8, where she charges the daughters of Jerusalem that if they find her beloved, they tell him that she is sick of love.

(4) He delays and puts off our suits to enhance the price of the things he gives. For what comes lightly, for the most part, as the proverb says, goes lightly; but what we come by with difficulty, that we highly prize and hold in esteem. We see this in the chief captain (Acts 22:28). When Paul had pleaded that he was a Roman, he replied, “With a great sum obtained I this freedom.” He bought it at a dear rate, and therefore he valued it highly.

So if the things of God did not cost us sighs, tears, weepings, lamentations, watchings, strivings, earnest longings and many prayers, we would think them easy, to be had at our pleasure, and so would despise them, scorn them, or let them pass as lightly as they came. Therefore, to enhance the price, God keeps them off until the bell rings, so that we may know the rich value of these his commodities. All this is for the time.

3. The third circumstance is the means and way. Here is all the strife. God would have it his way, and we would have it our way. “Oh,” says Naaman, “Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper” (2 Kgs 5:11). But the Lord will not be tied to the means.

When we see God and fit means for bringing about such and such a thing, if we then grow complacent in them and think, This is good, this is surely the way, this will do it, here we fail, because we see that alone, and do not principally and first of all see and seek God. And therefore in this case, because of our idolatrous conceit in lifting the means up beyond their places, God is many times forced to dash the means in pieces and help us by some other way, of all others least expected.

We may see how God ordered the matter in Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 27:22). God gave him his own life and the lives of all who were in the ship with him, but with that the ship must perish. A strange manner of deliverance! How then should they be saved, this being in all appearance the only means of safety? By the wreck of the ship God performed his promise. Some by swimming, the rest on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, all got to land. And even so, I say, we many times escape on boards and broken pieces of a ship. I mean those means we least thought of or least trusted, so that we should not set up for ourselves so many gods before us.

Again, we may remember Genesis 39. When Joseph was advanced into the house of Potiphar, a great man and a prince of the state, he might have thought he was now likely to rise, and that the accomplishment of his dreams was fairly on its way to success. But this did not prove to be the means. Potiphar becomes his enemy and has him cast into a dungeon. Well, next a butler is made his friend by the expounding of his dream, and now Joseph had good hope that the butler would be a means of his release. No doubt he also prayed for good success, but God would not bless it, because he will not have our means, and what we rest upon to succeed. But at last God’s means brings him out: Pharaoh dreams and is troubled, and then the butler remembers. So came his honor.

In France, there was a time when their persecution was great and their fears many. Then they trusted in the king of Navarre: Oh, what great matters he would do! But he failed them at their need. God indeed repaid him in full for disappointing the prayers and hopes of his people. Why did God allow this? We may imagine this as a main cause: lest they should exalt the means too much, and say, The king of Navarre, the king of Navarre, the prince of Condé has done this. God dismissed them, and set up another means of his praise.

Likewise in Judges 7, Gideon’s army is brought down from thirty-two thousand to ten thousand, and yet the Lord says they are too many; he will save Israel by three hundred only. Why? “Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, ‘My own hand hath saved me.’” He knows how ready we are to attribute and sacrifice the fat of the offering to man, and to set up the means, forgetting him, the author and fountain of all the good things we enjoy.

In all this and the like is verified what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:27: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; and base things and naught, and things that are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence”; but all the praise be of him, and to him.

These are the reasons why God so often answers our prayers by those means we do not trust. If we send in a message at one door, what if we go around to another for an answer? Let him appoint the means, and your deliverance will be all the more speedy and comforting. Many go long without comfort for this reason, that they appoint for themselves such and such means of it. In afflictions you will hear some say, “Oh, if I might speak with such and such a man, I would be satisfied; he would ease my mind.” Meanwhile, along with this, there is a sinful neglect of the ministry of other men nearer at hand, whose help we are bound to seek. In this excessive doting on the means, if we do not profit and our prayers remain unanswered, let us blame ourselves in this case, for we have prescribed to him how to do his own work.

4. The fourth circumstance is the limitation of the manner of granting. We must make distinctions here.

(1) God will not be tied to the manner. Sometimes when we ask, God gives just what we ask for, as when Hannah prayed to the Lord for a son (1 Sam 1:11) and was heard, receiving Samuel. If not, then the Lord may answer us in value, though not in kind, giving us as good as we have desired. It is all the same. If someone pays us a sum in silver, do we ask him why it is not in gold?

Moses desired to see the land of Canaan. God did not bring him there, but he still showed it to him from the top of Mount Nebo (Deut 32), from where he saw more of it, in all probability, than he could have seen from any place in the land. He had his desire in value, though not in kind.

So too in 2 Corinthians 12:7, which alludes to Judges 2:3, where it is said that the Canaanites would be as thorns in their sides. A thorn in the flesh, called the messenger of Satan, was sent to buffet St. Paul. He prayed against it and prayed again (for nothing grieves the child of God more than to be humbled and buffeted with base temptations), but it was not removed. God’s answer was, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Paul had it in value, though not in kind.

So many times our prayers are heard when we least think it or perceive it, and the good we desire is done to us, as it were, against our will. As apothecaries and surgeons are accustomed to deal with us, so God often deals with people. When the plaster smarts, they cry out to have it taken off, when all the while, by holding it on, the cure is being done. And so it is with us. We cry out to God to take away this pain, to pull away such a plaster, such a corrosive from us. Why? “Oh,” they say, “so that we may serve him better and give him more obedience.” Yet in truth, by holding you to it, and by binding this cross fast upon you, as it were, God is working that very same thing in you.

(2) Again, in prayer, you will hear many complaints from some: “Oh, that I had more life! Oh, that I had more sense and feeling! Oh, that this lumpish heaviness were removed!” Yet in truth, holding them off and delaying them in this suit is the highway to helping them to their suit.

(3) Finally, when God does not hear us in any of the foregoing ways, he still shows in effect that we sometimes have far better things than we desired. As we see, his promise is, “For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver …” (Isa 60:17). Thus, many times when we pray for brass, iron, wood, and stones, we have gold, silver, brass, and iron in their place. For when people labor in prayer and do not receive the very things they have willed and asked for, God makes it up better another way.

A man perhaps suffers poverty, loss, or shipwreck at sea, and is now driven nearer to God by prayer. He has a more plentiful measure of the Spirit poured upon him, and now learns to depend on God and to know what true riches are. If this man could value grace, he is a hundred times richer than before, having his eyes open to see far off into things invisible.

In this case, a man may come to complain, “I have prayed in this way and for this long, yet my prayers are not heard; this cross and that cross still lie heavy upon me.” But look whether you have gained patience and can see that God has sent this upon you. Look whether God has by this driven you off and weaned you from the world, and has let the oil of grace into your heart, so that now you are a new man, with your way of life more in heaven than ever. If so, remember in this that your prayers are not lost but paid double, and I hope there is no cause to complain when the payment is so good.

Thus all God’s promises, like ever-flowing rivers that end in the sea, end in heaven, and to bring us there is the aim of all the comforts, promises, threatenings, and crosses.

To all these I might also add this: sometimes our prayers are not heard for others, and yet the reflection of the good we wish them comes back upon ourselves, so that our prayers are not lost. We may see this in the mission of the apostles (Matt 10:13). They are told, in whatever house they come to, to salute it, and if the house is worthy, that their peace be upon it. If there is a son of peace there, that peace is to be upon him; otherwise, our Lord says, “let your peace return to you.”

5. The last circumstance is the measure of proportion. He has set forth to no one any proportion of the things promised. To one he gives five talents, to another only one. Must everyone have as much faith, hope, love, humility, honor, riches, and other qualities as others? Where then is that order which God has appointed, to give the greatest and most eminent graces to those he has fitted for the greatest works and places?

He does not give you as much grace as another, because he does not have as much work for you to do as he has for that person to do toward others, or because there are not such great trials and temptations appointed for you to grapple with as there are for that other person. It is a wonder to see how restless a great many are when they see others outstrip them in grace. They think nothing of what they have. If only they could pray as well as so-and-so, then all would be well.

But I say to you, content yourself if you have any portion of grace, and be thankful for it. If God will open his hand in the use of the means and give you an increase, receive it joyfully. But do not fret with yourself or quarrel with him. If he keeps you at your small measure, it will serve your turn to salvation as well as the greatest, if he will give you no more. It is just as it was in the gathering of manna, where the one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little had no lack at the measuring (Exod 16). So the one who has the most grace will be brought only to heaven by it, and your small measure will lead you there also.

Do not say, “Oh, I will never get there unless I have such and such a measure of grace and can do as so-and-so does.” What if your God will have you content with a little? His allowance will suffice; the least measure will bring us home. If in this case you pray long and he does not hear you, blame yourself, for striving in this way to carve your own portion, not content with your allowance.

So there is a measure in the dispensing of things, as I touched on before. He hears us as we go on in a course and trade of prayer; his grant includes a continual trading. As rain does not come all at once but by degrees, so that we might always depend on him for more, so God will give grace only little by little, so that all through the course of our life we will still have cause to depend on him and pray for increase.

Thus, and in many other ways, our Lord’s promise is most sure. It stands always good: “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” If the fault is not in ourselves, prayer will bring down a blessing at one time or another, and we will find the effect and fruit of it.

Now I come to the reasons, which are two. First, “every one that asketh receiveth”; as if he were saying, “For the Lord excludes no one who does not disqualify himself.” This promise, we must understand, is not a thing chained to some office, as most promises are, but it is like the Lord’s common land. All must and may pray, and are heard, always keeping in reserve the exceptions given earlier.

The second is taken from fatherly compassion, and so it raises us up to God, in and from whom these small streams we have flow; for he is much more abundantly merciful than any tender compassion that may be in us.

But chiefly I would have you consider how here in this place our Lord presses this matter again and again, assuring us that we will be heard in our prayer. He does it deliberately, as it were, to hold up our heads above water, which on this our weary journey are so ready to sink. One would have thought this a very large charter: “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” And yet he knew the difficulty of it as well as the necessity, that it is a hard and great task to pray aright in faith, and yet a thing absolutely needful. Therefore he follows it up and presses it home with several supporting arguments, which, God willing, we will come to in their places.

First, we must consider the necessity of faith in prayer. For whoever comes to God must believe that he is a “rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb 11:6). And St. James shows us that whoever asks must ask in faith, or else we do not succeed (Jas 1:6). Thus Jehoshaphat encouraged his fearful army to believe in God, but first he was encouraged himself. It was told him, and he told them, that they would not need to fear; God was on their side, and he would fight for them. And yet after this, Jehoshaphat showed how they must come by this deliverance: “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (2 Chr 20:20).

Brothers and sisters, it is true that the glory of God is put into our hands, as it were, to extend it in obedience to every precept we are commanded to observe, so that others, seeing our good works, may glorify our heavenly Father (Matt 5:16). But most of all we glorify him and set forth his praises in believing, because by this we set our seal to the truth of all the rest. On the contrary, if we do not believe him, it is the greatest dishonor and disgrace there can be; yes, John says, “Such a one hath made God a liar” (1 John 5:10).

Will you see an instance of how heinous this sin was in one of the best saints, in whom frailty was no doubt permitted for our comfort? In Numbers 20:10-12, Moses was told to speak to the rock, so that water might come out for that murmuring multitude. But in anger he struck it twice, uttering these words: “Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch ye water out of this rock?” It was as though, if it did not come, he was excused; and if it came, well, there it was. But for this, as we know, he was not allowed to enter the land of Canaan.

We must trade in faith in all our actions, or we will suffer loss in all. On the contrary, if we go on in this, we will have mercy upon mercy. We read in Acts 14:9 that Paul, as he preached at Lystra, saw a helpless cripple looking at him steadfastly, saw in him faith to be healed, and at once made him stand up and cured him. This faith was no doubt bred in him by the Spirit of God, but the special means of it was his attending on the word preached. This attention, this prizing and valuing of the word, is a short way to faith.

On the contrary, people’s unbelief, as it were, bars the way against themselves, so that the power of the Spirit is not so lively in working among them. As we see, Christ says of those he lived among that because of their unbelief he could not do any great works among them. Their unbelief, as it were, hindered him and in a manner bound his hands, since they were incapable of such works.

See what a necessity there is of faith in prayer, and how loathsome that stain of unbelief is! If our faith falls, everything falls to the ground; if this abides, all goes well. Therefore, as in war men accept one another’s bonds and promises without further sealed securities, so do with your God. Take his bond, and go boldly to him. Believe his promise. There is a necessity of it; your life depends on doing so.

Secondly, the difficulty of prayer with faith. Our Lord saw that there was no work more difficult to do, and therefore he presses it so with arguments.

I take the causes of the difficulty of prayer to be these:

(1) Because our profaneness and natural corruptions show themselves most in this action. From this come those many and frequent complaints of our deadness, dullness, and hardness of heart in prayer, and of that world of things which violently and suddenly, we know not from where, thrust themselves into our minds. The devil helps as well and thrusts them on, inflaming our corruptions.

(2) Besides, this puts us down and out of heart from praying with assurance of being heard. The conscience of guiltiness stabs our prayers. In this combat, the Egyptian or the Israelite must die. If a man lets himself loose to some gross sin, he will be sure to find it in his prayer, sometimes to terrify him, sometimes to deaden his spirits and weaken his faith. Yes, at best he will be found not to pray with any life. So Mr. Perkins tells us of a man who had stolen a sheep and who, for all this, though he went on in his devotions, found no rest until he had confessed it; until then the beast was always in his way.

Yes, more: what checks and reproaches are then in the heart, sent close home by the accusing conscience! “What! Will you go to God and think to be heard? You, so wretched and profane a creature; you who have so often broken your vows and promises; you who know so much of your master’s will and do so little; you who have sinned against conscience and knowledge; you who are so soiled and defiled with wallowing in the mire of sin?”

Thus, though a man has prayed earnestly and often, it is no easy matter to wash off the stain of sin and quiet the conscience. As after a storm at sea, though the tempest is gone, there is not an immediate calm, but a rolling and tossing of the waves up and down for a long while after, so to believe that God will hear our prayers, and that he has done away all our sins out of his sight, is not done immediately. There is a rolling and a stain of sin that will toss up and down for a long time after our prayers are done.

Will you see the proof of this in one of the best saints, who was tossed like this for our comfort? The prophet David, after his great sin, and after he had confessed it, had an absolution pronounced to him by the prophet Nathan: “The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die” (2 Sam 12:13). What could be more, and what now could hinder his joy? “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered” (Ps 32:1).

But still you see how the waves roll and are troubled, though the storm is over. See in Psalm 51 how vexed he is! How earnestly he prays for mercy: that his iniquities might be blotted out; that his sin might be cleansed; that he might hear the voice of joy and gladness; that the bones which he had broken might rejoice; that God would not cast him from his presence, nor take his Spirit from him; that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation.

What was the cause of all this stir?

The filthiness of sin laid bare, the Majesty offended, the punishment due, the scandal that came to others, to the dishonor of God by the one who offended, together with the odious stain and filth which that sin left behind on the soul: all this was such that the freshness and continued smarting of the wound did not allow him thoroughly to grasp and bring home the consolation.

As we see, if a wound is raw, though soothing oil is brought to it, and though it is applied with a light hand (which is commendable in that art), yet when it is touched it still smarts because of that rawness. So it is when the conscience is wounded and the sore is still raw, when sin appears like a monster in its true colors, the punishment due is apprehended, and its bitter belches are still rising. The comforts of God may be like soothing oil applied by the hand of the skillful surgeon to allay and cure the wound. Yet the comforts are not digested, nor able so soon to expel the former impressions; the Spirit is only raw in such people, and the conscience of their own unworthiness is great. So no comfort can fasten, and many fears remain in them for a long time.

(3) Because there is a marvelous ignorance in us of the nature and dealing of God. It is not that we can be altogether ignorant of him, who is so glorious in all his creatures, filling heaven and earth with the majesty of his glory, yes, and is so good to us. But as it is one thing to give rules of war and another to practice the rules, so it is one thing to speak bravely of God, and another to practice the things we know and speak of.

For when we need to ask and beg of God those great and rich mercies to salvation which should support and help us in all storms, diving into the use and depth of his attributes, instead we draw for ourselves a narrow, cut-down measure and false image of God, judging him not as he is, but as we conceive him to be, like one of us. We see the Lord reprove this in Isaiah 55:7, where God says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” And then it follows: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9).

Is there sense in this? Do you ask what the sense is? It is as if he were saying, in allusion to your senseless, ignorant objections: “What man could pass over this and that! What father could pass over such offenses in his child! How then can I look for pardon from God?” To this he answers, “Do not measure my working by cutting it down to the proportion of any creature, or of anything in his imagination, unless, I say, he has had his light from God; for my mercy outstrips all your notions.” This is why our prayers are weak and cold: because we make false images of God. But I will meet with this point shortly, so I let it pass.

(4) Because we take a delay for a denial, and so are discouraged. If we are not heard immediately, we throw down our armor and run away, or sit still, astonished, and so disable ourselves.

(5) The hardness and difficulty of the things we pray for hinders our prayers. So when Christ came to Lazarus’s grave (John 11:38) and called for the stone to be taken away, that he might raise him up, Martha cried out, “Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days.” This hinders our prayers, when we cry out, “It is too late,” or, “The thing is so great, how can it be done?” She was reproved, you know, and so must we be in this case.

We have another instance in 2 Kings 7. After Elisha had prophesied of the sudden plenty that would be in the gate of Samaria after so great a famine, a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the prophet, “Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” He had an answer suited to his unbelief, and he lived to see his unbelief punished, being trodden underfoot by the people in the gate as they went out to the forsaken camp of the Syrians.

So, I say, these and similar things stand in our way, because they seem hard to do. In the East India ventures, there was a time when men were quick and ready to buy other men’s shares because the returns were good; but when the business seemed to be going backward, many were just as busy selling their shares again. So we seem to go backward rather than forward in our prayers because of the difficulty of the things we pray for. We are ready to leave everything and sell our venture.

(6) Lastly, the sixth impediment is Satan’s opposition to our prayers, which he labors by every means to interrupt. For it is vital to him to bestir himself to quench our faith if he can, because faith gives vigor, force, and life to prayer. It does not trouble the devil to hear a thousand Our Fathers and Hail Marys said without faith. If a man does not know what he says, or does not care whether he prays or not, it is all the same to the devil, if there is no faith in the prayer.

Satan knows that if faith does not lay hold on God, God does not lay hold on us. Therefore his policy is to deal with us as Scanderbeg is reported to have dealt with his enemies in battle, always aiming at the general; or rather like that stratagem of the king of Syria (2 Chr 18:30), to fight neither against great nor small, but against the king of Israel. So Satan’s special charge is to fight against faith and prayer; they are the special man.

This subtle and cruel dealing of his toward us is much like the tyranny Pharaoh used toward the children of Israel in Egypt (Exod 1:13-22). He put them into extreme, toiling servitude to make brick; then he commanded that the children be killed; and when none of these succeeded to his mind, he determined to kill them all.

So, many times before prayer, the devil puts people to make brick, by filling their hearts with many cares or temptations, or by their own sins, deadness, dullness, hardness of heart, or other things to be done, with a world of discouraging and confused thoughts of God, of his mercy, justice, and the like; and all this to keep a person from prayer.

But the mercy of God may help a man through these difficulties, so that because of the command of God, the knowledge he has of God’s will, and his own necessities, he will still break through everything and go to prayer in spite of all impediments. Then, in the next place, Satan labors to make us kill the children in the birth. That is, our weaknesses and our many wants and imperfections in prayer should be as fuel to our prayers, and inducements to make us hold on, and in reverence contain ourselves, still begging and waiting at the throne of grace for what we want or desire; but he turns them into horrors, fears, and flying away from God.

Yet this may not serve his turn. Our God may allure and draw us into his presence again, and we may resolve to pray, though with many tremblings, fears, and weaknesses, because we do not know where to flee from his presence. Then, when our prayers are done and we have striven as well as we are able, he persuades us to despair: that our prayers are not heard and are worthless, that our persons are abominable, that God does not love us, and that since Christ keeps turning us away without comfort, we will therefore never have any, and so on.

The uses are these:

1. Against the profaneness of such persons who make a mock of prayer. But some may object that there are none such. I wish there were not. But we know there are too many of this strain. I do not speak of prayer established by law. No one will, no one dares meddle with that; it is dangerous. But as for praying in houses, it is strange to see the profaneness in this kind. You will have some say, “Look now at these hypocrites; see what a stir they make!” And the one who constantly keeps some form of prayer in his own house, though it may be done only coldly, still cannot escape, but is branded with the name of Puritan, when perhaps, of all others, he least deserves it. But I will pass by this.

2. The second use is for reproof to such as think it an easy matter to pray. Ask a beggar wandering through the country how he thinks to come to heaven, and he will answer, “By my good prayers.” So with the dissolute and profane man: ask him how he thinks to come to heaven, and he will say, “By my good prayers.” I confess, if you mean saying a prayer, it is easy. But to pray aright, to pour out your heart and soul before God, to believe he hears and will come to help you, to pray in faith, to rend your heart before him, to lay hold of those things in him which are for your humiliation and consolation, to wrestle with him and strive for a blessing, to hope above hope, and, being delayed, to wait for him till he comes: this is exceedingly hard to do.

What then, profane man, have you not heard what is written? “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication …” (Zech 12:10). So, have you not read what is written? “Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble, thou wilt prepare their hearts …” (Ps 10:17). Have you not read what is written? “Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom 8:26). And do you, a lump of flesh wallowing in your sin, think to prevail immediately in prayer?

Those who are most forward in this way, thinking little of prayer and talking of it so, are often most at a loss in sore and hard trials. So you will find that fencers who make the bravest flourishes when they play with blunted swords are put most to their shifts when they come to sharp ones. So, if such a one as I speak of falls into distress, he cannot draw out his sword; it rusts in the scabbard. It is a wonder to see grave and wise men come so far short of this that in the sorrows and discomforts of themselves or others they cannot pray. A minister must be sent for to say something to them; they cannot pray themselves.

I do not deny that God’s dear children may be driven to this need on various occasions of sickness, sorrows, and temptations, to crave the help of others, that they may be humbled. Nor do I deny that book prayers may be good and profitable, and that there is a good and holy use of them, in which all our necessities may be included, if they are well and rightly penned. But for all this, it is a shame for men to be so ignorant that they cannot tell their mind to God in prayer and plead for themselves and others in necessity, being more unfit to pray than David was to march in Saul’s armor.

3. The third use is for comfort. To whom? To those who are good in prayer, and yet are disheartened by their prayers. I would have such people see how Jacob wrestled, wept, and prevailed with God in prayer. In some sort we must be content to go away limping; there will be defects and imperfections in our best prayers, do what we can. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and will be so; “and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

You will find those who are fullest of grace complaining the most, like rich men who whine most when their bags are fullest. You will find them complaining, “Lord, help me, I cannot pray; what shall I do? It is all to no purpose; better to leave off than go on in such a merely formal course. I am worse and worse. Surely, if I could pray as I ought, I would fare better.” But I ask you, how is that? Do you not pray at all? “Yes,” they will say, “I pray, but I do not pray as I should, with faith, fervency, constancy, and feeling. I faint, and am discouraged in my journey.”

Hear me. You see a man going under a great burden, and perhaps so sinking under it that he must stoop and rest often; and yet you pity him, and you think that for all this he is carrying the burden, though he rests himself. So it may be with you in prayer, since it is one of the hardest tasks in the world to pray with faith and feeling. If in this you find stops and failings, do not be discouraged; you see what a hard thing it is to go upright under so great a burden. Yet do not lose heart, though you must sit down by the way; but know that your striving and endeavor will bring you through at the last.

The bringing forth of a right prayer through so many oppositions is in a manner like the bringing forth of a child, in which there is much pain, anguish, and sorrow, so that we would rather do anything else; but when the child is born, then there is joy. Though you are astonished at the remembrance of the throes of prayer, be comforted in this: the work is done, and you have made your prayers known. The outcome, at one time or another, will bring you comfort.

4. The fourth use is for advice. If the Lord has at any time given us liberty in this way, so that our hearts have been opened and enlarged, our faith strengthened, our eyes cleared, our consciences eased, and our confessions have been large, bless God for this, and reckon it a most singular mercy. We all fail here for lack of thanksgiving. We can complain of our wants, strivings, deadness, and senseless hardness: “Oh my wants! Oh my ignorance! Oh my blockishness! Oh my hardness of heart! Oh my unbelief!” But when our request is granted, where is our thanksgiving? If you bring forth a right prayer, let God have a sacrifice. It is a great matter.

5. A fifth use is for exhortation, to set about prayer as a work of great difficulty. We must learn to whet and sharpen our tools first. As the prophet David made prayers out of his meditations in this way, so we must prepare matter before we pray. As the blood runs to the veins from the liver, made of the best and purest food concocted and digested, so we should prepare and digest fit matter, and not set about prayer rashly and unprepared, as some think they may.

Hear me: what will men not do in great and important matters to bring them about? So it greatly concerns you to consider what may humble you, what may raise you, what may encourage you and draw you on before your God, so that in your distress you may make a right and proper use of the nature of God, and of all the excellent things to be considered in him. When we set about it slightly, it is no marvel if our return of consolation is of the same stamp.

So in our general prayers we should have a fellow-feeling to set our desires on edge, but especially if we would be men of prayer. Christ would have our faith set to work, so that it might fly to heaven, to fetch from there whatever is good for us. Now in this case it is a marvelous skill to manure our faith, as men manure the root of a tree to make it fruitful. I confess that something else must be done to the body of the tree, such as the pruning and lopping of the branches, which is the increasing and scouring of our hope and love, with other graces, by the Spirit. And as the Spirit has an office in the branches, so he also descends into the root and helps us there; so that the root of all prayer is the Spirit, but the root to you is faith.

Now by what means should this be done, this manuring of our faith?

In war they use a double help for their further security and strength:

1. The main helps;

2. The auxiliary helps.

So it is with our faith. The helps are various.

(1) To labor to know and make clear our title to God, as a Father, which is implied here: “How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matt 7:11). Two main things belong to this. First, we must consider the right by which we come to this title. It is only by faith in the Son of God, as it is in John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” Nothing can make them become the sons of God but faith in the Son of God.

To make this clear, it must be by the sign as well as by the cause. The apostle tells us, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6).

Do you think yourself now in a blessed estate? Are you one of the sons of God (for all his children are sons and daughters by adoption)? Do you say you are one of his sons and daughters? And do you say you believe, being one with Christ, and so are justified by him? Take this with you as well: then he has “sent forth the Spirit of his Son” into your heart, to cleanse and sanctify you. “And hereby,” says the apostle, “we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:24). If we lay claim to justification and omit sanctification, if there is no Spirit, we have no title of sons; for we know the same apostle says, “Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him; neither can he sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9).

(2) Next, to be careful to keep the evidences of our adoption always in repair. I mean that we should keep the graces which build us up to this as fresh and flourishing as may be, so that we may read them clearly in the time of trial. A man in the country who lays up his deeds and writings in the smoke may find them so eaten and darkened that when he should use them they cannot be read. So I fear many of our evidences are smoky, and so blotted that in our need we cannot read them. Our care has not been to lay them up safe and keep them in repair, and so it comes to pass that now we are at a loss in those things which belong to our peace.

(3) Lastly, as it is in Colossians 3:17, “Whatsoever we do in word or in deed, we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” We do no honor to God except through Christ; and so in the particular matter of our prayers we have the less joy, living in discouragements, not giving the beginning of all to him and to the riches of his grace. Because we have nothing of our own to put in, on which we may build and rely, we go away heartless and discouraged, as though we ought not to be so bad, and something ought to be in us to procure his mercy. All this while we have never sufficiently seen our nakedness: that there is nothing in us, and that we must be covered altogether and wholly in his presence, so that no filthiness may be uncovered.

We read in Exodus 28:42 that the high priest, going about his sacrifice, must have on his linen breeches, from the loins even to the thighs, so that he might not bear iniquity and die, uncovering his nakedness. What! Such a high priest? So holy, so gloriously attired, so covered with rich robes? Yet he will die for all this if he lacks his linen breeches. I fear many of us come to God in this way, not having soundly seen our own nakedness, and where alone all our comfort is to be found.

The apostle says, “Therefore let no man glory in men: for all things are yours” (1 Cor 3:21), that is, with the limitations given before, to do us good. “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, things present or things to come, all are yours” (1 Cor 3:22). But a man’s title must be in Christ, for it follows, “And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:23). So the apostle’s argument is, “He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). If Christ is once given to you, Christ is more than heaven, and earth, and all; if he is given, God will deny you nothing.

The auxiliary helps are like foreign soil laid on barren ground, marl, lime, and the like, which make it fruitful. And here consider these things.

(1) The general graciousness of God to all his creatures. This is a great help, that he feeds the young ravens; yes, as it is in Matthew 6:26, that he feeds all the fowls of the air. From his general goodness the inference is, “Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” (Matt 6:30). The consideration of his graciousness to all the sons of men, and especially to many evil men when they have called on him (and God has shown us many instances of their being heard), should make us not hold back, but hope to fare well. And in this we should also consider the graciousness of God in receiving great sinners to mercy, of which the prophet, in wonder, speaks in this way: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy” (Mic 7:18).

I fear many wrong themselves in this, because they set up before them a false image of God. If one should see a picture of God before him, as the papists make him, like an old man with a cloak and a staff, and a great many around him falling down before him, while he frowns on some, beats others, and kicks others away, what an absurd thing we would think this! What difference is there between a false picture and a false image of God in your heart? When you cannot conceive of him except as terrible and incensed against you, be assured that you do not prostrate yourself before him with right thoughts, if, being a sinner, you think he will strike you down.

(2) His all-sufficiency and omnipotence, being in heaven above and overruling all, who is excellent in knowledge, wonderful in working, all-sufficient to save, and powerful to put down the mighty from their seats and to exalt the humble. He is beyond all fathers. They see but a little, they are not always present, they are not always able to help when they would; but he sees you at all times, is ever present, and is able to help you in all distresses. He is greater than all in breadth, in depth, in height, in length, in mercy, in power, as being in heaven above all; fathers are not so. These are two special helps.

(3) The promises, the faithfulness of God. Consider the precedents of them in former times, to yourself or to others. David was in great and sore distress, yet he says, “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times” (Ps 77:5). And in another place the church pleads, “Our fathers trusted in thee, and were delivered” (Ps 22:4), and so from this raises a ground of confidence.

In this way the prophet David reasons the matter with Saul, when he was to go out and fight with that great and terrible Philistine: “Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock; and I went out after him, and delivered it out of his mouth; and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them” (1 Sam 17:34). The danger was now the same; therefore, having the like faith and protection, he looks for the like deliverance.

So look at what experience you have had of what God has done for you, and make your advantage of it. Remember also how even good men, where they have been bountiful, delight to give more and more still. Though it is not always so with men, yet it is always so with God; if once he has heard you in mercy, he will hear you always.

(4) The last and principal one for this purpose is that which lies in the text, the first main reason, which now fitly offers itself: the universality of the grant. This is like common land, in which every commoner has a stake, some more and some less, yet all have a stake, whether less or more. Princes have masters of requests, who as grand officers have access to them at all times and are their familiars, and yet every man may deliver a petition to the king. Abraham, we know, was a holy man and the friend of God; there are others inferior. St. James directs those who are sick to send for the elders of the church, that they may pray over them (Jas 5:14). Thus though not all are officers, yet all men have a universality of the grant: “Every one that asketh, receiveth” (Matt 7:8).

Some may object here, “What is that to me? I am not in the covenant.” I answer, if you are an outlaw, get yourself in as soon as you can; but if you are one who is not outlawed, then you have a title in the common, so do what you can in carrying yourself as a commoner. Let us remember that in the common cause we need to be ready with our help, as we would be glad of help in the same case. In this let us ask ourselves, What have we done for others with our prayers? What for the church at home and abroad? It will lie heavy upon us if we omit to help them now with our prayers in their need.

In the city, when men have been entered as freemen, they customarily pay their dues, scot and lot. So in Christianity, if we are entered as freemen, where is our scot and lot? Where are our prayers offered up for the king, for our country, for religion, against masses, the sins of the time, the judgments threatened, and the like?

Here some may object and say, “Alas! I am a poor servant, I cannot pray, let others pray who can; I am a poor ignorant man,” and other such things.

I answer, What if you are! You are a citizen in Christianity; you must pay scot and lot. How do men strive with their landlords for their commons? They will raise a mutiny, do anything, keep something on the land for possession’s sake rather than lose it, if it were only to keep one poor cow on it. So, whatever you are, maintain your title in this common; do something for it.

The last argument is taken from the lesser to the greater, from fathers on earth, declaring that if so much mercy, pity, and affection may be, and is, in them toward their children, how much more pity, love, mercy, and the like may we expect from our heavenly Father. I will go over only a few of these things, and so make an end. I will not dispute all things, how fathers do and should act toward their children, but will limit myself within the compass of two examples only:

1. Of a good father to an ill son.

2. Of a good father to a good son.

1. The first shall be that of 2 Samuel 18:33. Absalom had rebelled against his father, cast him out of the kingdom, abused his concubines, and was in pursuit of him for his life. Yet when that battle was lost in which his son died, and the victory was now on his own side, how the king mourned, as though all had been lost! And though he was a king of great spirit, yet this made way for his passion, so that he went up and down weeping and crying, “O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son!” Oh the love of a father to his son!

2. The second is that of Jacob. When he thought Joseph had been dead, it is said that he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his death many days. This sorrow was so great that when all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, he refused to be comforted, but said, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning” (Gen 37:35). So in Genesis 44:30, when Benjamin was likely to have been kept prisoner by Joseph behind the rest, with what earnest affection Judah pleads for his release in many ways! Among these the chief was that Jacob’s life was bound up in the life of his children.

Now, it is to be considered that though fathers are thus good, yet some may fail. But the point is, they know how to be good, and ordinarily are so, unless it is when some, like monsters, prove unnatural in the distemper of temptation, necessity, or some other sinister way. This dear affection the Lord excellently shows us: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, but I will never forget thee” (Isa 49:15).

A father may prove unnatural to a son in a fit of temptation and distemper, as Saul, who threw a javelin at his son Jonathan. Sometimes necessity will cause unnaturalness, as in those women who agreed to boil their sons, one of them complaining to the king that she had done so, but the other would not (2 Kgs 6:28). A miserable complaint and most woeful misery, to hear of a woman who had buried her son in her own bowels! But this is rare and not usual. So a father may forget himself, and go beyond all affection in jealousy, as that Turk who had someone strangle his own son out of a notion that he was too well beloved by his subjects. Thus on many similar occasions parents may become churlish and unnatural to their children; but still this stands firm: they know at least how to be kind to them. Our Lord would have us learn from this that he can do much more, and far surpasses them all in whatever kindness can or may be in them.

See this last help to stay up our hands, that is, that little picture of the great God in the dearness of affection which he has placed in parents. If you are a father or a mother, you know it; but no one can know it except a father or a mother. Also, have you not seen what affection may be in a son toward his father? As we read of the son of Croesus, who was mute, yet when he saw the murderers come in, ready to kill his father, violence of affection suddenly burst out of him into these words, as the story shows: “Oh, spare my father!” If so much may be in a son toward you, how much more may be in your God for you?

Now for all this, you are afraid of your imperfections, weaknesses, and manifold infirmities, that these will keep good things from you; and therefore you cry out, “Oh, my prayers are lost, they are to no purpose! Oh, my sins, weaknesses, and infirmities, these stop the way to my prayers!” What, man! Have you a son, and perhaps he marries without your permission, or does you some other ill turn which grieves and vexes your spirit? And this child, perhaps, comes home to you wounded, with blood about his ears, and so falls down before you, freely confessing his wandering and misdemeanors, and prays for your favor and forgiveness. Tell me, would you not embrace him and cry out, “Oh my son, my son!” and all the rest should be forgotten and forgiven?

What then, O man, do you think of your God, when you say you can have no comfort in prayer? You beast, what will you make of your God? What! Is he a God of cruelty, anger, and revenge only? No, no; in this case you are feigning to yourself false and abominable notions of God, and from there the returns of your comforts answer to your wretched fancies.

But if ever he has turned your heart to him and dealt graciously with you, or has drawn you to him by his graciousness and kind dealing with others, or if you find in yourself how much you can pass by in your child, though there are many great faults and omissions, make your advantage of this and go to your God. Whatever your case is, you will find him still more exceedingly merciful, as the church does (Mic 7:9), and therefore she comes to triumph: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again …” (Mic 7:18).

We are all much to blame in this, even those who have the greatest measures of grace, that we do not make right use of the nature of God. Sometimes melancholy, temptation, and lack of judgment are causes of our error, in which our understanding, fancy, and other powers of the soul are disordered until light comes in to dispel these clouds. It is strange to think that when we were enemies to God, with our backs to him in our natural blindness, and running from him in sin, he should then receive us, and that now, with our faces toward him in the state of reconciliation, he should stab us.

To conclude, if it is such a hard thing to pray so as to obtain, if we need such and so many helps to lift and hold up our very hands, which are ready to fall down, may the Lord teach us to know our faults, and tell us what is yet further to be done, that we may learn to wrestle with God and prevail in prayer! If we have been at fault in times past, let us mend; and among other things, now when the ark is likely to be in danger, let us not prove injurious to God by forsaking his cause.

Hear me: has God now brought the church in various places into such dangers, yes, and some great ones also, surrounded with fears and crosses, and shall we now prove so injurious to God as to retreat from them (or at least leave them without the benefit of our help and prayers)? Was it counted such a foul offense to cause Uriah to be left in danger in the foremost rank, and then to command that the troops should retreat; and shall we not now be much more at fault to leave them in this danger? Let us aid them, then, with our prayers, until God, who is wonderful in working and excellent in power, brings light from this darkness. We do not know what the outcome may be; but in the meantime, if we pray, this always remains sure, that if we ask, we shall receive. Our Lord has said it; it is so, it must be so.