Part 13
Yet there is another difficulty attends this pact of our spiritual warfare, _viz._ This is a combat to which the _Captain of our Salvation_ did not lead us on in person, and in which Christ never went before us. It is a labour of piety in which our blessed Saviour was not our pattern; nor could he be, for he had no principle of sin in his soul, nor any sinful motion in all his sensitive powers. His flesh itself, in a literal sense, was born of the spirit, and he was all spirit, all holy. _The Holy Ghost_ over-shadowed the blessed virgin; _and that holy thing that was born of Mary_, was sanctified in its original, and united to the eternal Son of God; Luke i. 35. Never had he one disorderly passion; never one vicious appetite, no criminal wish, no guilty inclination; he knew no excessive tendencies towards a lawful object, nor did he feel any inward propensity toward an unlawful one. _He took part_ of flesh and blood, indeed because _the children were partakers of it: In all things was he made like to his brethren, but without sin_, and tempted in all points, as we are, except this inward and native temptation; Heb. ii. 14, 17. and iv. 15. This part of our warfare, therefore, we have no perfect pattern for; the leader of the holy army never went through these special and sore conflicts, in which our spirits are daily engaged, even the war with corrupt nature and sinful flesh: yet he pities and sympathizes with us; for, as God, he knows our whole frame perfectly; and he knows, as man, what our flesh is, and what its sinful appetites are, so far as his holy nature will admit of this sympathy. In such a case as this, which he never experienced, yet he supplies us with such grace as is effectually suited to relieve these agonies; and the kind angel of the covenant will be at our right-hand, to strengthen the sincere combatants, that they be not overcome.
Remark V. How much do our fellow-christians deserve our pity, that labour under great difficulties, and great darkness, through the perverse humours of their flesh? through the untoward constitutions of their nature, through the peevish, or proud, or malicious, or passionate tempers of their mortal body?
Some have a more wrathful, some a more wanton mixture of blood and natural spirits; others again more melancholy in their constitution, are ready to overwhelm themselves with despair and unbelieving sorrows; they go on fighting and mourning all the day long, with many a violent contest, many a groan and struggle, many a sharp combat, and perhaps with many a wound too. They are often upon their knees for strength to subdue this ever present enemy the flesh, and can gain but little advantage; they are fighting from day to day, and their sins are so powerful still, that they think they never get nearer to the conquest: they labour and toil, pray and endeavour to obtain divine assistance, and yet are too often overcome. This is the case of many a christian who hath some strong corruption mingled with his constitution. Let us pity such and pray for them too, and not be hasty in censuring their character and their state: Bless God if your constitution be of a happier mould, and if your trials are not so great, and your temptations so heavy as theirs.
But you will say, “They sin often, and fall very foully, and dishonour religion more than you.” It may be so; but it may be they fight harder than you do, and labour with more assiduity, and exercise more grace than ever you did, and yet are more frequently overcome by sin; so strong is the constitutional iniquity in some natures, more than it is in others. Therefore while you condemn the sin, let not the poor striving mourning sinner be censured heavily as to his character, or as to his estate. It was said of a very great man of God heretofore, that he had grace enough for ten men, but not half enough for himself, because his natural constitution was so very violent and passionate.
When thou seest therefore a christian often in sorrow, confessing his follies, and continually humbled under a sense of the levity of his spirit, or the vanity of his natural temper; when he grieves, that in such and such a season, he has indulged unlawful airs, and complied too far with the vices of company, when thou observest his spirit vexed and pained inwardly, that he has indulged any criminal appetite or passion beyond what has been visible in thy own conduct; do not pride thyself in thy own purity, or disdain thy mourning brother, but say within thyself, “Perhaps he has watched and laboured more than I have done, and yet his own iniquity was too strong for him.” Think with thyself that he was wrestling with a giant, and fought hard, and was overcome; but thy own combat was but as it were with a dwarf or child, with some feebler vice that had less root in thy constitution; and therefore though thou hast laboured less, yet thou hast gained the victory. And to encourage such mourning christians, let me add, that in the future state, it is probable, the saints shall be rewarded not so much according to their actual success and victory, as according to the toil and labour of the combat.
Yet take this caution by the way too: Such persons should not think themselves innocent, because they fight harder against sin than others do; let them not think all warnings useless, nor be angry with the gentle admonitions of their friends, as though they were hard censures: for such christians have more need of warning than others, because they are more in danger. They ought to be crying out on themselves continually, _O wretched creature! who shall deliver me?_ They should beg reproofs, and say, _Let the righteous mite me, it shall be kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil that shall not break my head_: Rom. vii. 24. Psal. cxli. 5. Let my brethren watch over me, for I find I am not sufficient to be my own keeper; and let them have compassion on me, _plucking me out of the fire_, for I hate, as well as they, _the garment spotted with the flesh_; Jude, ver. 23. Thus the flesh must be brought under by constant watchfulness, prayer, and resistance, else we cannot maintain holiness and peace. Take heed therefore, O feeble and tempted christian, while thou art by prayer engaging the heavenly alliance on thy side, that thou let not thy own weapons drop, but maintain the war. The fight is to last but threescore years and ten; if thou overcome, there is the crown of life ready for thee, which Jesus the Judge shall bestow, on all the conquerors.
Remark VI. How should we rejoice in hope of that hour that shall release us from this sinful flesh; when we shall serve God in spirit without a clog, without a tempter! O with what a relish of sacred pleasure should a saint read those words in 2 Cor. v. 8. _Absent from the body, and present with the Lord_; Absent from this traitor, this vexing enemy, that we constantly carry about with us! Absent from the clog and chain of this sinful flesh, the prison wherein we are kept in darkness, and are confined from God! Absent from these eyes that have drawn our souls afar from God by various temptations? and absent from these ears by which we have been allured to transgression and defiling iniquities! Absent from those lusts and passions, from that fear and that hope, that pleasure and that pain, that love, that desire, and that anger, which are all carnal, and seated in the fleshly nature, and become the spring and occasion of so much sin to our souls in this state. _Absent from the body, and present with the Lord_: Methinks there is a heaven contained in the first part of these words, _absent from the body_; and a double happiness in the last, _present with the Lord_: present with him who hath saved our spirits through all the days of our christian conflict, and _hath given us the_ final _victory_: Present with that God, who shall eternally influence us to all holiness, who shall forever shine upon us with his own beams, and make us conformable to his own holy image: Present with that Lord and Saviour, from whom it shall not be in the power of all creatures to divert or draw us aside.
It is by our flesh in this world that we are a-kin to so many temptations, a-kin to all the objects that stand around us, to tempt us from our God; and we are ready to cry out, “O the blessed angels that were never a-kin to the flesh! O those blessed spirits, who move swift as flames to execute the will of their God, without the incumberance of flesh, without being allured by that most powerful and successful tempter! Happy beings! they know not our toils; they feel them not; they are all spirit; they are all holy! O the blessed saints in glory, that are released from their flesh, which once they had so many, and so sore combats with! Their flesh, which heretofore prisoned them, and pained them, and drew them often away from God, contrary to that heavenly bias that was put upon their souls by God the Sanctifier!”
But we rejoice in hope that our turn shall come too. There is a day of deliverance from this sinful flesh provided for us. All our times are in the hand of God; and the best time, is the time of release from this sinful companion. Let our faith say, “I read in the promises that this same happiness belongs to me, which the saints above are now possessed of: It is coming, it is coming as fast as time and the heavens can move, as fast as days and hours can remove out of the way.” Then we shall have no flesh for the world to lodge one temptation in, nor for Satan to make use of as an engine of his malice, to batter the constancy and duty of our souls; then we shall be freed from all those methods of injury to our spirits, which we receive now by means of the flesh.
Thus at the day of our death is derived a glorious liberty, and thence we date our joys; but our joys rise high indeed, if our faith can but look a little farther, and take a prospect of that day, when our flesh shall be raised in perfect holiness, and our spirits completely holy, shall be rejoined to it; then it shall be no more, true, that flesh and spirit lust against each other, and these two are contrary; for flesh and spirit shall both draw one way, both lead us towards our divine original, and the first Father of our minds, shall concur together to influence us to perfect holiness; then, when our spirits shall be like God, the first and best of Spirits; and when our flesh shall be like the flesh of the Son of God, that great pattern of a glorified body.
And this day will surely come, for our Redeemer with his body is glorified in heaven, and he sits there as a pattern of our bodies to be glorified, and a pledge to assure us of it too. O come the day when he shall change these bodies of our vileness into the form of the body of his glory! and he can easily do it, by that power whereby he can subdue all things to himself; Phil. iii. 21. Then shall our flesh and our spirit join sweetly together and each of them fulfil and enjoy their part, in the business and blessedness provided for them in regions of unknown pleasure. _Amen._
HYMN FOR SERMON IV. _Flesh and Spirit; or, the Principles of Sin and Holiness._
What vain desires, and passions vain, Attend this mortal clay! Oft have they pierc’d my soul with pain, And drawn my heart astray.
How have I wander’d from my God, And following sin and shame, In this vile world of flesh and blood Defil’d my nobler frame!
For ever blessed be thy grace That form’d my spirit new, And made it of an heaven-born race, Thy glory to pursue.
My spirit holds perpetual war, And wrestles and complains, And views the happy moment near, That shall dissolve its chains.
Cheerful in death I close my eyes, To part with ev’ry lust, And charge my flesh whene’er it rise, To leave them in the dust.
How would my purer spirit fear To put this body on, If its old tempting powers were there, Nor lusts, nor passions gone!
SERMON V. _The Soul drawing near to God in prayer._ JOB xxiii. 3, 4.—O that I knew where I might find him: that I might come even to his seat; I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. THE FIRST PART.
This book of Job might, perhaps, be the first and earliest part of all the written word of God; for learned men, upon good ground, suppose that this history was elder than the days of Moses, and yet it hath many a sweet lessen of experimental religion in it, to teach the disciples of Christ; we may learn many duties and comforts from it in our day, _upon whom the ends of the world are come_. The style of it in some parts is so magnificent and solemn, in others so tender and affectionate, that we must feel something of devout passion when we read this history, if our hearts are but in a serious frame, and if our temper or circumstances of mind or body have any thing a-kin to the grief or piety of this good man.
Job had now heard long stories of accusation from his friends while he was bowed down, and groaning under the heavy providences of God; they _persecuted him whom God had smitten_, and poured in fresh sorrows upon all his wounds. I will turn aside, saith he, from man, for _miserable comforters are ye all_; and I will address myself to God, even to the God that smites me. _O that knew where I might find him!_ The stroke of the father doth not make the child fly from him, but come nearer, and bow himself before his best friend: this is the filial temper of the children of God. “_My complaint is bitter_, (saith Job, ver. 2.) because of my sorrows from the hand of God, and from the accusations and reproaches of my friends; you may think I am too lavish in my complainings and my continual cries, but I feel more than I complain of.” And therefore Job is set up as a pattern of patience; for he could say, my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
There are some of the children of God who give themselves up to a perpetual habit of complaints and groans, though no trial hath befallen them but what is common to men; they make all around them sensible of every lesser pain they feel, and being always uneasy in themselves, they take the kindest and gentlest admonition for an accusation; and while they imagine themselves in the case of Job, they resent highly every real or suspected injury: in short, they make a great part of their own sorrows themselves, and then they cry out and complain; and among their dismal complainings, they often, without reason, assume the words of Job as their own, and say, _my stroke is heavier than my groaning_. In some persons this is the temper of their natures, and in others a mere distemper of the body; but both ought to watch against it, and resist it, because it appears so much like sinful impatience and fretfulness, that it cannot be indulged without sin.
There are others, whose real afflictions are dreadful indeed, and uncommon, who seem to tire all their friends with their complaints too; but, it may be, if we knew all their variety of sorrows, and could take an intimate view of every outward and inward wound, we should acknowledge their stroke was heavier than their groaning; and especially when God is in such a measure absent from them too, that they are at a loss, as Job was, how they should come at him or converse with the heavenly Father: then their souls break out into vehement desires, _O that I knew where I might find him!_
A child of God who is wont to maintain a constant and humble correspondence with heaven, does often receive such sensible influences of instruction and comfort from the throne of grace, that he is led on sweetly in the path of daily duty, by the guiding providences of God, and by the secret directions of his Holy Spirit. He finds divine pleasure in his morning addresses to the mercy-seat, and returns to the throne in the evening with joy in his heart, and praise upon his tongue. He has something to do with the great God, in a way of humble devotion, in all his important concerns; but if God retire and withdraw from him, he feels and bemoans the divine absence, and his heart meditates grief and complaints; and when at the same time he is pressed with other burdens too, he breathes after God with a sacred impatience, and longs to know where he may find him: then says the soul, “_O if I could but come near to the seat of God, in my addresses to him, I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments._” This brings me to the doctrine, which shall be the subject of my discourse.
Observation. When a christian gets near the seat of God in prayer, he tells him all his sorrows, and pleads with him for relief.
In discoursing on this doctrine I shall consider four things.—I. How may we know when a soul gets near to God in prayer; or what is to get near the seat of God.—II. What are the particular subjects of holy converse between God and the soul.—III. Why such a soul tells God all his sorrows.—IV. How he pleads with God for relief.
_First_, How may we know when a soul gets near the seat of God in prayer?
I answer, there will be some or all these attendants of nearness to God.
I. There will be an inward sense of the several glories of God, and suitable exercises of grace in the soul. For when we get near to God, we see him, we are in his presence; he is then, as it were, before the eyes of the soul, even as the soul is at all times before the eyes of God. There will be something of such a spiritual sense of the presence of God, as we shall have when our souls are dismissed from the prison of this flesh, and see him face to face, though in a far less degree: It is something that resembles the future vision of God in the blessed world of spirits; and those souls who have had much intimacy with God in prayer, will tell you that they know, in some measure, what heaven is. The soul, when it gets near to God, even to his seat beholds several of his glories displayed there; for it is a seat of majesty, a seat of judgment, and a seat of mercy. Under these three characters is the seat of God distinguished in scripture; and because this word is part of my text, I shall therefore a little enlarge upon these heads.
When the soul gets near to God, it sees him,
1. As upon a seat of majesty. There he appears to the soul in the first notion of his divinity or godhead, as self-sufficient, and the first of beings: He appears there as the infinite ocean, the unmeasurable fountain of being, and perfection, and blessedness; and the soul, in a due exercise of grace, shrinks, as it were, into nothing before him, as a drop, or a dust, a mere atom of being. The soul is in its own eyes at that time, what it is always in the eyes of God, as nothing, and less than nothing and vanity. He appears then in the glory of his all-sufficience, as an almighty Creator, giving birth, and life, and being to all things; and the soul, in a due exercise of grace, stands before him as a dependant creature, receiving all its powers and being from him, supported every moment by him, and ready to sink into utter nothing, if God withdraw that support. Such is God, and such is the soul, when the soul draws near to God in worship.
He appears again upon his seat of majesty as a sovereign, in the glory of his infinite supremacy, and the soul sees him as the supreme of beings, owns his just sovereignty, and subjects itself afresh, and for ever to his high dominion. O with what deep humility and self-abasement doth the saint, considered merely as a creature, cast himself down at the foot of God, when he comes near to the seat of his majesty! _Behold_, saith Abraham, _I now have taken upon me to speak unto thee, I who am but dust and ashes_; Gen. xviii. 27. This is the language of a saint when got near to the seat of the majesty of God, “Before I had seen thee as such a sovereign, I was restive and stubborn: in times past I quarrelled with God because of difficult duties imposed upon me, and because of the difficult dispensations I was made to pass through; but now I behold God so infinitely my superior, that I can quarrel no more with any duty, or any difficulty; I submit to all his will: whatsoever he will have me be, that I am; whatsoever he bids me do, that I do; for it is fit he should be a sovereign, and I should be a subject. I give myself to him afresh, and for ever, that he may dispose of me according to his own will and for his own glory: I would be more regardless of myself, and more regardful of my God; it is fit he should be the ultimate end of all that I can be, and all that I can do, for he is my sovereign.”
Again, when a soul is near to God, God appears in the glory of his holiness; for the seat of his majesty is called the throne of his holiness; Ps. xlvii. 8. And then the heavens are not clean in his sight: and the soul cries out with those worshipping seraphims, _Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory_: and joins with Isaiah, the worshipping saint, in that humble language, _who is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, &c._ You see the character of a saint getting near to God, and standing before the seat of his majesty; Is. vi. 3, 4. where the angels and the prophet worship together with the deepest humility. “I have heard of thy holiness before, says the soul, and I have heard before of thy glory afar off; but now _mine eyes see it, and I abhor myself in dust and ashes_”; Job xliii. 6.