Part 24
A true christian does not live upon the creatures, but upon the infinite and almighty Creator: upon God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Created beings were never designed to be his life and his happiness; they are too mean and coarse a fare for a christian to feed upon, in order to support his best life: He converses with them indeed, and transacts many affairs that relate to them in this lower world: While he dwells in flesh and blood, his heavenly Father has appointed these to be a great part of his business; but he does not make them his portion and his life. They possess but the lower degrees of his affection: He rejoices in the possession of them, as though he rejoiced not; and he weeps for the loss of them, as though he wept not: He enjoys the dearest comforts of life, as though he had them not; and buys with such a holy indifference, as though he were not to possess; 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. for the fashion of them passes away: But the food of his life is infinite and immortal. It is no wonder that a man of this world lets loose all the powers of his soul in the pursuit and enjoyment of creatures, for they are his portion and his life. But it is quite otherwise with a christian: he has a nobler original, and sustains a higher character: His divine life must have divine food to support it.
Let our thoughts take a turn to some bare common, or to the side of a wood, and visit the humble christian there; we shall find him cheerful, perhaps, at his dinner of herbs, with all the circumstances of meanness around him: But what a glorious life he leads in that straw-cottage, and poor obscurity! The great and gay world shut him out from them with disdain: He lives, as it were, hidden in a cave of the earth; but the godhead dwells with him there. The high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, comes down to dwell with the humble and contrite soul; Is. lvii. 15. God, who is the spring of life, comes down to communicate fresh supplies of this life continually. _He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God_; 1 John iv. 16. He is not alone, for the Father is with him; John xvi. 32. The Father and the Son come and manifest themselves unto him, within the walls of that hovel, in so divine a manner, as they never do to the men of this world, in their robes and palaces: John xiv. 22, 23. And that he may have the honour of the presence of the blessed Trinity, his _body is the temple of the Holy Ghost_; 1 Cor. iii. 16. and vi. 19. O! the wonderful condescensions of divine grace, and the surprizing honours that are done to a humble saint! How is this habitation graced! Heaven is there, for God and Christ are there; and who knows what heavenly guards surround him! what flights of attending angels? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent down to minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation? Heb. i. 14. But our Lord Jesus Christ is now unseen, God and angels are unseen; the christian’s company belong to the invisible world: He lives a hidden, but a divine life; his life is hid with Christ in God.
IId Instruction. See how it comes to pass that christians are capable of doing such wonders, at which the world stands amazed. The spring of their life is almighty; it is hid in God. It is by this divine strength they subdue their sinful natures, their stubborn appetites, and their old corrupt affections: It is by the power of God, derived through Jesus Christ, they bend the powers of their souls unto a conformity to all the laws of God and grace; and they yield their bodies as instruments to the same holy service, while the world wonders at them, that they should fight against their own nature, and be able to overcome it too.
And as they deny themselves in all the alluring instances of sinful pleasure, under the influence of almighty grace, so they endure sufferings, in the sharpest degree, from the hands of God, without murmuring. And when they have laboured night and day, and performed surprizing services for God in the world, they are yet contented to submit to smarting and heavy trials from the hands of their heavenly Father, without being angry at their God: they know he loves them, and he designs all things shall work together for their good.
Besides all this, they bear dreadful persecutions, cruel mockings, and scourings, and tortures, from the hands of men, and go through all the sorrows of martyrdom. What noble instances and miracles of this kind did the primitive age furnish us with, so that their tormentors were amazed? They saw not the secret springs of divine life which supported them; they knew not the grace of God and the power of Christ, by which the christians were upheld in all their labours and their sufferings. The spring of their life was almighty, but it was hidden from the eyes of men: It was concealed and reserved with Christ in God.
Read the labours and the sufferings of St. Paul; 2 Cor. xi. 23. “In stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths often: He was beaten with rods, he was stoned, he suffered shipwreck, in perpetual perils by land and sea, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings and fastings, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.” One would think his bones were iron, and his flesh were brass. He was invisibly supported by Christ the spring of his life. Read his wondrous virtues and self-denial; Phil. iv. 11, 12, 13. I know how to be abased and how to abound; I can be full, and be hungry; I can possess plenty, and I can suffer want: I can do all things through Christ strengthening me. This was the fountain of his life and strength. I acknowledge, says he, in another place, that I am nothing, I have no sufficiency of myself to think so much as one good thought: But all my sufficiency is of God, in whom my life is hid; 2 Cor. iii. 5. And with what a devout zeal does he ascribe his life to Christ, in that glorious amassment of spiritual paradoxes! Gal. ii. 20. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live: yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Therefore I can be delivered to death daily for Jesus Christ’s sake; troubled and perplexed, and yet not in despair; be cast down, and not be destroyed; because I believe that the life of Jesus must be made manifest in my mortal flesh, and he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you; 2 Cor. iv. 14.
IIId Instruction. See whither a dead sinner must go to attain spiritual and eternal life, and whither a decaying dying christian must go for the recruit of his fainting life too; it is to God by Jesus Christ, for it is all hidden with Christ in God.
In vain shall a man who is dead in trespasses and sins, toil and labour, and hope to attain life any other way. God is the spring of all life, and he has trusted it to the hands of Jesus Christ: _I am the way, the truth and the life_, says our Saviour; John xiv. 6. No man can have life without coming to the living Father; and no man cometh to the Father but by me. Seneca and Plato, with their moral lectures, and the writings of human philosophy, may give a man new garments, may make his outward life appear much better than before; they may teach him, in some measure to govern his passions too, and subdue some of the fleshly appetites; but they cannot raise him to the love of God, to the hatred of every sin, to the well grounded hopes of the favour of God, the blessed expectation of a holy immortality, and a preparation for heaven. They cannot give the man a new life: He must be born again of the Spirit of Christ, or he can never become a living christian.
And in vain would the poor backsliding christian, with his withering decaying graces, recruit and renew his divine life, without applying himself afresh to Jesus Christ: While he forgets Christ, he must go on to wither and decay still. There is nothing in earth or heaven can supply the utter absence of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the stream of spiritual life ebbs or runs low, it is not to be quickened, recovered, and increased, but by new supplies from the fountain which is on high. Remember, O degenerate christian, remember whence it was you derived your first life, when you were once dead in trespasses and sins; fly to the Saviour by new exercises of faith and dependance, mourning, in all humility, for your unwatchful walking, and your absence from the Lord. Commit your soul afresh to his care, exert your utmost powers, and beg of him renewed instances of the living Spirit, that the face of your soul may be like a watered garden, and the beauty of the divine life may be recovered again.
IVth Instruction. See the reason why a lively christian desires and delights to be so much, and so often, where God and Christ are; for his life is with them.
This was the divine temper and practice of the saints under a much darker dispensation than what we enjoy. How does the holy soul of David pant and long for the presence of God! and he brings even his animal nature, the very ferments of his flesh and blood, into his devotions; Ps. lxiii. 1. _My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee._ Ps. lxxxiv. 2. _My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God._ In all the various and fervent language of sacred passion and transport, he breathes after God, who is the strength of his life and his salvation; Ps. xxvii. 1. The Jewish saints cleaved to the Lord, _for he was their life, and the length of their days_; Deut. xxx. 20.
And what sweet delight does St. Paul take in mentioning the very name of Christ? How does he dwell upon it in long sentences, and loves to repeat the blessed sound! How often does he rejoice in the hope of dwelling with him hereafter, and persuades the Colossians, in this context, to be much with him here; ver. 1. If ye are risen with Christ, and have derived a quickening virtue from him to work a divine life in you, let your affections ascend above, where Christ your life is.
Is not a man, whose very soul and life is wrapped up in honour and ambition, desirous ever to be near the court! His life flourishes under the sunshine of the prince’s eye, and therefore he would fain dwell there. Does not the covetous wretch love to be near his hoards of gold or silver? He has put up his life in his bag, among his treasures, and he is not willing to be far distant, nor long separated from them. Whatever a man lives upon, he would willingly be ever near it, that so he may have the pleasure of feeding upon what is his greatest delight, and be refreshed and nourished by that which he feels to support him. Now, what honour is to the ambitious, what money is to the covetous, what all the various delights of sense are to the men of carnal pleasure; that is God to the saint, that is Christ Jesus to the christian; and therefore he is ever desirous of such further manifestations of God and Christ, that may invigorate his spiritual life, and give him the pleasing relish of living. Then a man feels that he lives, when he is near to the spring of his life, and derives fresh supplies from it every moment.
Thence it is, that in every distress or danger, the saints fly to God for refuge and relief: He is their great _hiding place_; Ps. xxxii. 7. And Christ Jesus is represented in prophecy under the same character; Is. xxxii. 2. This man, in whom the _Godhead dwells bodily_, shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest. The name of God in Christ, _is a strong tower; the righteous run into it_, to hide themselves, _and are safe_; Prov. xviii. 10. Their life is in God, in the keeping of Christ, and they can defy deaths and dangers, when their faith is strong, and their thoughts are fixed above.
They know the meaning of that tender and divine language; Is. xxvi. 20. _Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be over-past._ In a time of public terror, and spreading desolation, they retire to their secret places of converse with God, and are secured, at least from the terror, if not from the destruction too. When the arrows of death fly thick around them by day, and the pestilence walks through the streets in darkness, when a thousand fall at their side, and ten thousand at their right-hand, they make the Lord their refuge, even the Most High their habitation, and dwelt at ease in his secret place. He covers them from evil, or he gives them courage, so that they are not afraid: They place themselves under the protection of his name; they find shelter in his attributes: These are their secret chambers; they hide within the curtains of his covenant, they wrap their souls, as it were, in a sheet, or rather in[23] a volume of promises; that ancient volume that has secured the saints in all ages; and though death be near them, they know that their better life is safe: He gives his angels charge over them, to keep them on earth, or to bear them up to heaven, where their life is; Ps. xci. 11, 12.
Thence it comes to pass that we see christians, searching after God in ordinances, and seeking for the Lord Jesus Christ in sermons, in prayers, in the closet, and in the sanctuary; for they live upon him. A holy soul pursues after the presence of his God, and his Saviour, with the same zeal of affection and fervent desire, that the men of this world indulge in their pursuit of created good: _My soul followeth hard after thee_; Ps. lxiii. 8. Carnal persons are contented to be absent from God, for he is not their life: They can satisfy themselves with a shew of religion, without the power of it; and with empty forms of ordinances, without Christ in them, because they are not born again, their life is not spiritual. The sinner lives upon visible creatures, and these awaken his warmest affections. A saint lives upon hidden and invisible things, upon the hopes of futurity, and upon the glories that are concealed in the promises: He lives upon the righteousness and the intercession of Jesus his Mediator, upon the strength and grace of Christ, who is his head in heaven; upon the word, the promise, and the all-sufficiency of a God; and therefore these are objects of his meditation and his desire.
I proceed now to the three inferences for our consolation.
1st Consolation. If our life be hidden with God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, then it is in safe hands. The wisdom and mercy of God have joined together, to appoint, shall I say, such a secret repository for our spiritual life, that it might be for ever secure. What can we have, or what can we desire more for the safety of our best life, than that God himself should undertake to reserve it in himself for us, and appoint his own eternal Son, in our nature, to be the great Trustee and Surety, for his exhibition of it in every proper season?
Our original life was hid in the first Adam; it was intrusted with man, poor, feeble, inconstant man, and he lost it: He was of _the earth_, _earthy_, and our life with him goes down to the dust. Our new life is intrusted with Christ; it is hidden in God, who is almighty and unchangeable; and therefore it can never be lost. The second Adam is _the Lord from heaven_, a quickening Spirit; 1 Cor. xv. 45, &c. And _he that believeth on him, though he were dead in_ nature, _yet shall he live_ by grace, for _Christ is the resurrection and the life_: And if he be once made spiritually alive by Christ, he shall live for ever. This is the language of Christ himself; John xi. 25, 26.
What an unreasonable thing is it then for a christian to fear what men or devils can do against him, for they cannot hurt his best life! It is above the reach of all the assaults of earth or hell. Our Lord Jesus teaches us not to be afraid of them who only can kill the body; for the soul is not in their reach; nor is it possible for them to prevent the body from partaking of its share, in the glorious life appointed for a christian at the great rising-day.
We see here upon what firm grounds the doctrine of a christian’s perseverance is built, Christ is his life, _Jesus, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever_. The all-sufficient God, and his eternal Son, have undertaken for the security of it; John x. 28, 29, 30. _I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one._ God hath sworn by his holiness, that the seed of Christ shall endure for ever; Ps. lxxxix. 35, 36. and that his loving-kindness shall not be utterly taken away from his own children: And our Lord Jesus Christ doth little less than swear to the perseverance of his disciples, when he says; John xiv. 19. _Because I live, ye shall live also_: for, as I live, is the oath of God.
Why art thou cast down, O believer, and why is thy soul disquieted within thee? Hope in God thy life, for thou shalt yet praise him, how many and great soever thine adversaries are, and how difficult soever thy path and duty may be, and how loud soever thy foes threaten thy destruction. There may be many things in thy travels through this world, that may hurt or hinder the growth of thy spiritual life, and may for a season interpose, as it were, between thee and thy God: but neither life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall ever separate thee entirely from him, whose love is secured in Jesus Christ; Rom. viii. 38, 39. The disciples were much to blame, that they were overwhelmed with terror in the midst of the storm, while Jesus Christ was with them in the same ship; and ye should chide your own souls, when you feel yourselves under such unbelieving fears as our Lord Jesus Christ chid in his fearful followers: “O ye of little faith, wherefore did ye doubt?”
2nd Consolation. What a comfortable thought must it be to a poor feeble christian, that God and Christ know all the state of his spiritual life? for it is hid with them. Though the life of a saint has a cloud upon it, though it is entirely hidden from men, and sometimes too much hidden from himself too, yet the Father and the Saviour know every circumstance of it, how low it is, how feeble, what daily obstacles it meets with, what hourly enemies assault it. Christ our Lord well knows when our life is in danger, and what are the necessary supplies.
This is very encouraging to a poor trembling believer, when he hardly knows how to address the throne of grace himself in such a manner, as to represent all his wants, and all his spiritual sorrows and difficulties to God in prayer; but our Lord Jesus Christ, who is a compassionate high-priest, who is our Head, and near a-kin to us his members, is perfectly acquainted with our state: And the christian, mourning under the decays of grace, can look up to Christ with hope, he can mingle new exercises of faith and dependance, among his sighs and groans, and commit his case afresh to Jesus his Saviour, with a humble and a holy acquiescence in him. Christ himself, who is the believer’s life, must know and will take care of all affairs which relate to his spiritual and eternal welfare.
It is a matter of sweet consolation too, when a humble christian, who walks carefully before God, is reproached by the world for a deceiver and a hypocrite, that he can appeal to God, with whom his life is hid, and say, “My record is on high; though my friends, or my enemies, may scorn or deride me, yet he knoweth the way that I take, and the secret exercises of my hidden life: He knows my longings and breathings of soul after him, and that nothing but his love can satisfy me: He knows my diligence and my holy labour to please him: He knows the wrestlings and the conflicts that I go through hourly, to maintain my close walking with my God: He knows that I live, though it is but a feeble life; and the charges of the world against me are false and malicious.” It is with a relish of holy pleasure that the christian sometimes, in secret, appeals to our Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter did, and says, _Lord, thou who knowest all things, knowest that I love thee_, John xxi. 17.
IIId Consolation. It is a matter of unspeakable comfort to a christian, that the most terrible things to a sinner, are become the greatest blessings to a saint: And these are death and judgment. What can be more dreadful to those who know not God than those two words are; for they put an eternal end to all their present pleasures, and to all their hopes. But what greater happiness can a saint wish or hope for, than death and judgment will put him in possession of? The one carries his soul upward where his life is, that is, to God and Christ in heaven; the other brings his life down to earth, where his body is, for Christ shall then come to raise his dust from the grave.