Category Archives: Romans

A comparison of Plutarch and Paul

15 Tuesday Sep 2020

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The brilliant moralist and essayist Plutarch (born AD 49 and thus his life overlapped with St Paul who died around 65/66 AD) raised an issue concerning a good ruler – which was also a concern of Paul: the law written on the heart. But they came to rather different conclusions on the matter:

Who then shall have power to govern a prince? The law, without doubt; which (as Pindar saith) is the king of mortal and immortal beings; which is not written without in books nor engraven on wood or stone, but is a clear reason imprinted in the heart, always residing and watching therein, and never suffering the mind to be without government. The king of Persia indeed commanded one of his lords that lay in the same chamber to attend him every morning, and to sound these words in his ears: Arise, O king! and take care of those affairs and duties that Oromasdes requires of thee. But a wise and prudent. prince hath such a monitor within his breast as always prompts and admonishes him to the same effect.

The law on the heart is a peculiar attribute of a good ruler. The law restrains the prince: it is knowledge which governs the governor. If the knowledge is present will effectively direct reason.

Paul raises the same issue of the law written on the heart in his letter to the Roman Church:

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Rom2.12-16

The law is present upon every heart. But the law does exactly govern although it does judge. The law sets up as tribunal and gives a judgment. This judgment of the law proves the law has been written on every human heart. It also acts a warning of the greater judgment to come.

This law is different than Plutarch’s version because it belongs to all – but more importantly it gives judgment but does not convey the power to conform:

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Rom3.19-20

This perhaps demonstrates the fundamental similarity and distinction between a worthy moralist such as Plutarch and Paul.

In the Bible the fault is far deeper than knowledge. Reason also does not restrain desire; and twisted desire brings madness:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Rom1.28

The prophet Jeremiah in a vivid section describes sin against known law so:

23 How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done- a restless young camel running here and there,

24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.

Jer2.23-24

And so the Christian can not rely upon education alone because the fault is worse than ignorance.

I think history demonstrates that even the wisest rulers have made spectacularly poor decisions when driven by foolish desire. And thus the judgment for depth of treatment and accuracy of human nature go to Paul.

The Squirrel! Theory of Anxiety Management

20 Wednesday May 2020

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Distraction as a Means of Relief

A 2005 series of studies published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that perhaps people deal with threats by thinking about something else. This is essentially the Squirrel! Theory of stress management. That is perhaps too glib a summary and certainly not academic, I think it is fair.

The article, itself, is remarkably dense and considers a number of seemingly disparate concepts. The idea initially under consideration is the fact that people – particularly under some threat – exaggerate the extent to which others hold their personal views on any number of subjects.

They first note three major theories for this observed condition: (1) It might generate social support; you get others to like you. (2) Cognitive closure: there’s nothing to think about here, everyone has the same opinion. (3) Since threats undermine confidence in myself, exaggerating social consensus makes me feel better about myself.

They then went about threatening college students to see whether the third theory proved itself. They focused upon “defensively proud individuals”. While there are variants in the way in which this is expressed, “The common theme is that they all involve an explicit focus on an ostensible self-strength, which appears to mask vulnerability. Thus we see the three forms as manifestation of a latent defensive pride construct and, in the present research, expect them to be related to arrogant self-righteousness in the face of threats.” Ian McGregor et al., “Defensive Pride and Consensus: Strength in Imaginary Numbers,” Journal of Psychology and Social Psychology 89, no. 6 (2005): 978-96.
In the first study they gave two groups of psychology students a section to read on statistics. One paper was impenetrable; the other a simple explain of the importance of statistics. They were both told that the paper was something everyone knew (a “popular tool”). For those with the difficult page, the effect would be “you’re stupid.” They then asked them questions on moral issues such as abortion and capital punishment. Those who were humiliated by the researchers over estimated the number of people who held their particular views on the various issues.
A second study asked two groups of students to either vividly describe themselves in a frightening circumstance or a comfortable and securable place. They were then asked the moral questions. The frightened students again over-estimated the number of people who held their personal views on moral issues.
A third study threatened all of the students; but following the threat some students received praise. The students were then given two articles supposed written by a student who visited the United States from a foreign country. One version praised the US; one version complained and condemned. Being praised after being threatened resulted in less negative evaluation of the condemning “foreigner.”
A fourth study was conducted to determine whether the exaggeration of consensus was from “reflected glory” of the group or mere consensus with a group.
In the end, the researchers were left with the observation that under stress people can alleviate that stress by being affirmed personally or by imagining the whole world is on their side.
They then compared their findings to a number of other studies, and in particular to the results of terror management theory. But whereas terror management theory suggests that the defensive nature of such consensus under threat was ultimately as a means of protecting one against the fear of death, the various findings of terror management – and other studies – is we can only think about one thing at a time.

We propose that all of these findings can be economically explained from a thought-control perspective According to Wegner (1992), thought suppression begins with the search for distracting thoughts. The “distractor search brings a series of thoughts to mind until one is selected that absorbs attention,” at which point, “attention is drawn from the controlled distractor search to the absorbing distractor itself.” (991)

Since thoughts about oneself are easily available, they can act as useful “distractors” when faced with fearful conditions. The researchers suggest various neurological bases for this conclusion. But in the end, it means that one way to deal with anxiety is to distract yourself.
From a persuasion perspective, it might seem that fear will be an effective means of persuasion with coupled with consensus: First you introduce a disturbing matter then you offer up your product or service wrapped up in a consensus: Everyone loves X!
But the research is a bit more-tricky: If the affirmative is on a ground too closely related to the threat, it “fails to quell the threat because they [the affirmations] remind the participants of the threat.”
In their research, the authors of these studies argued that affirmations and consensus functioned the same way by distracting the one under anxiety. Thus, what applies to consensus would apply to affirmations.
But there is another possibility here: A product or service which resolves the threat (rather than merely distract from thinking about the threat) might be sufficient even if the threat and the consensus-approved product concern exactly the same thing.
In conflict, distraction is well known as a means of deflating a threat.
A final element of the article struck a theological note which the authors may not have considered:

PWe propose that threatened people may have turned to consensus in the present research for the same reason [diminish ruminations about threats]. Imagining widespread agreement with one’s own convictions may be self-soothing because self-righteousness is an appealing fantasy that can capture attention, make threats seem more remote, and allow them to fade from salience. (987)

Although the quoted language contains the clause “capture the attention”, the argument is not in distraction but in diffusion. The threat against me is not real, but I am righteous. But how could my righteousness have anything to do with the reality of a threat? The connection here is not apparent in the article.

In Romans 1, Paul makes a sustained argument from verse 18-31. It begins with the proposition that human beings know ourselves to be under judgment, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness.” In turn, human beings act to suppress subjective knowledge of that threat. The act of suppression then leads to a number of perversions and distortions of the human being in a whole catalogue of insanity and sin. The argument concludes with the observation that human beings not only do these unrighteous things, “they give hearty approval” to those who practice the same things.

Under the most profound existential threat, human beings respond with a forced consensus. However, the argument made in the quotation above, and by Paul, is not that the consensus acts to distract us; rather it acts to deny the fact of the threat. The more people who believe a thing, the more “objective” it in fact is. If all of us deny or believe some X then it is true. The threat is thus believed into non-existence.

Schopenhauer on Happiness, 4: A Comparison with St. Paul

26 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Happiness, Philosophy, Romans, Uncategorized

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He goes onto define happiness in terms of the absence of pain rather than obtaining pleasure:

To estimate a man’s condition in regard to happiness, it is necessary to ask, not what things please him, but what things trouble him; and the more trivial these things are in themselves, the happier the man will be. To be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off; for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt.

Now this is a seemingly paradoxical statement, but it makes some sense. If one is starving to death, trivial things will not matter. To even take notice of trivial inconvenience is evidence of privilege. If I am starving, I will not much care if something is out of place: I will care about obtaining food. When one comes to their death bed, even bill collectors are irrelevant.

This observation is true, but I don’t see how that is really conducive to any sort of happiness. I would think one should draw the opposite conclusion, especially from Schopenhauer’s ready pessimism. Seeing that we are all soon to die, and everything will decay, why ignore all trivialities and look at them now as we will look at them upon our death bed. We will soon enough be dead, so why sweat anything at the present?

In the opposite direction, he counsels we should set out happiness very few:

Care should be taken not to build the happiness of life upon a broad foundation–not to require a great many things in order to be happy. For happiness on such a foundation is the most easily undermined; it offers many more opportunities for accidents; and accidents are always happening.

Paul makes an argument which has a similar structure:

1 Timothy 6:6–10 (ESV)

 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

The similarity lies in the realization that we will die and this world is uncertain. Therefore, we should expect to obtain very little from this life. Indeed, an overarching desire to have happiness fixed upon the fleeting things of this world will lead to ruin and sorrow.

But Paul couches the argument in a different context. Schopenhauer sees life as transitory, but there is no sense of redemption of the transitory. Paul sets content on very little within the context of godliness. The Christian hope is not that this world in its present cursed form will be made permanent, but rather that the world will be remade:

Romans 8:18 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for “glory” is a word which has the sense of “heavy” or substantial. Paul is writing to the Romans in Greek (and he next raises the issue of the vanity of the creation), but the concept of glory developed in the OT would affect his thinking.

And so to compare and contrast Schopenhauer and Paul: They both see life as resting on vanity; the world will decay and we will die. But realize that the things of this world cannot be trusted. The difference is that Schopenhauer sees the decay the as the end. There is not any real point in this world except perhaps to be made sadder and wiser:

Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of Fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness; they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight; and, in the end, they can say, with Petrarch, that all they care for is to learn:–

When we are actually doing some great deed, or creating some immortal work, we are not conscious of it as such; we think only of satisfying present aims, of fulfilling the intentions we happen to have at the time, of doing the right thing at the moment. It is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand

But it is hard to say that there is anything good in this wisdom:

Ecclesiastes 2:12–17 (ESV)

 12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

Wisdom is very little worth if the only thing it can do is make me aware that I will die and all things are pointless. Merely managing my sorrows and disappointments may give me some equanimity; or it may just be boring. How do you measure the relative “happiness” of a life spent avoiding pain (Schopenhauer), plunging into pleasure and pain (Shelley). That seems more a matter of taste and temperament than better or worse.

It is at this point, the Christian view is profoundly different. Yes, the world is vain; we will die: the creation, after all, is under a curse. Therefore, let us be content with food and clothing in this world; and – here is the distinction – and hope for redemption:

Romans 8:19–25 (ESV)

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Schopenhauer can at most help one whistle past the graveyard. It is a sort of sour grapes philosophy. You’ll just make me sad, anyway.

The Christian answer however takes an equally steel-eyed view of the world and its pain and says that it will be transformed. The answer matches perfectly to the loss. That is either the mark of its truth or its utter fraudulence. The resurrection is the perfect answer to death. Death is a horror turned inside-out.

(There is another issue here: how can any future answer to individual horrors of this life? How can disease which ravages a child, or slavery, or abuse be answered for?  Too often the answer sounds like, Let me beat you senseless, but I’ll make it okay by giving you some money afterwards. That is not the right answer; nor is it the promise of glory. But that is for another time.)

Two Sermons by John Howe (Romans 6:13): The Affections for Coming to God

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

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Having set forth the intellectual elements of yielding to God, Howe know comes to the affective aspects of coming. Coming to God in both thought and affection. There is a tendency for one sort of Christian to know the right things, but be stiff or lacking in their affections; a cold orthodoxy. There is an opposite tendency to be reverent in emotion, but without any direction. They desire to love God, they just don’t know much about God. These two camps tend to denigrate the other. Howe rightly shows that we must have right thoughts and right affects. 

The first element of affection is consent, “It must be done with a fulness of consent; and herein it chiefly consists. When the soul says, “Lord, I am now most entirely willing to be thine,” this is your yielding yourselves. And hereby the covenant is struck between God and you; which consists in the expressed consent of the parties covenanting in the matters about which the covenant is.” In fact, the other aspects of affection largely fill-out what Howe means by “fulness of consent.”

He calls this covenant a “conjugal” covenant, a marriage. 

He makes an important observation here: “But then you must take notice that this is to be done with a full consent, which that is said to be which determines you, though it be not absolutely perfect.” Note that: the nature of the consent to yield is an action which “determines you” — it is what you will be: “You may be said to yield yourselves to God, with a full consent, when you live afterwards as one devoted to him.”

Next, the yielding must involve “life” — it is a true, vital act. But it is not done in one’s own power, “Do it as feeling life to spring in your souls towards God in your yielding yourselves to him. What! will you offer God a carcass? not the “living sacrifice,” which you see is required, Rom. 12:1. Beg earnestly for his own Spirit of life and power, that may enable you to offer up a living soul to the living God.” [That is a great line, would you offer God a carcass?]

The yielding must be done in faith. Notice carefully how he defines faith: not as a bare intellectual apprehension, and not as a vague feeling, but as a very definite act of the will in dependence, “There must be faith in your yielding yourselves; for it is a committing, or entrusting yourselves to God, with the expectation of being saved, and made happy by him.”

The full consent to this conjugal covenant, made in life and faith must be made in love, “Another ingredient into this yielding of yourselves must be love. As faith, in your yielding yourselves to God, aims at your own welfare and salvation; so love, in doing it, intends his service, and all the duty to him you are capable of doing him.” He explains that as coming to God as a “devoted servant.”

It is done with humility, “With great reverence and humility. For, consider to whom you are tendering yourself; to the “high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity;” to him that hath heaven for his throne, and earth for his footstool; and in comparison of whom all the inhabitants of the world are but as grasshoppers, and the nations of the earth as the drop of a bucket, and the dust of the balance, &c.” 

He then finishes the manner of coming with a pair of emotions which we do not often  pair, joy and solemnity; or gladness tends toward frivolity and our solemnity to being glum; but Howe requires both. 

First, joy: “And yet it surely ought to be with great joy and gladness of heart, that he hath expressed himself willing to accept such as you, and that he hath made you willing to yield yourselves. The very thought should make your heart leap and spring within you, that he should ever have bespoken such as we are to yield ourselves to him, when he might have neglected us, and let us wander endlessly, without ever looking after us more.” Note that this strain of joy comes after humility. Humility is necessary because we too easily think God should hear us and forgive us. But Howe rightly underscores, God was under no obligation to show goodness to us; therefore, we should come to him in joy. 

Finally, solemnity:  Note what you are doing, “You should do it with solemnity.* For, have you ever had a business of greater importance to transact in all your days? If you were to dispose of an estate, or a child, would you not have all things be as express, and clear, as may be? And would not they insist to have it so, with whom you deal in any such affair? And is there not a solemnity belonging to all such transactions, especially if you were to dispose of yourself, as in the conjugal covenant? though that is to be but for this short, uncertain time of life: so as that the relation you enter into today, may be by death dissolved and broken off again to-morrow. How much more explicit, clear, and solemn, should this your covenanting with God in Christ be, wherein you are to make over your soul to him, and for eternity? You are to become his, under the bond of an everlasting covenant.”

What would this look like:

Do so then. Fall before his throne; prostrate yourself at his footstool; and having chosen your fit season, when nothing may interrupt you; and having shut up yourself with him, pour out your soul to him; tell him you are now come on purpose to offer yourselves to him as his own. O that you would not let this night pass without doing so! Tell him you have too long neglected him, and forgotten to whom you belonged; humbly beseech him for his pardon, and that he will now accept of you, for your Redeemer’s sake, as being through his grace resolved never to live so great a stranger to him, or be such a wanderer from him more. And when you have done so, remember the time; let it be with you a noted memorable day, as you would be sure to keep the day in memory when you became such a one’s servant or tenant, or your marriage-day. Renew this your agreement with God often, but forget it never. Perhaps some may say, “But what needs all this?” were we not once devoted and given up to God in baptism? and is not that sufficient? To what purpose should we do again a thing that hath once been so solemnly done?

Two Sermons by John Howe, Romans 6:13; A thoughtful assent

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

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Continued from this post

The second, third and fourth elements of such yielding concerning the degree of intellectual assent which must be given in any true yielding: deliberation, judgment and “fulness of consent”.

Deliberation: 

It must be done with great deliberation; not as the mere effect of a sudden fright. What is done in a rash haste, may be as soon undone. Leisurely consider, and take the whole compass of the case; weigh with yourselves the mentioned grounds upon which you are to yield yourselves, and the ends you are to do it for, that things may be set right between him and you, that you may return into your own natural place and station, that you may be again stated in that subordination to your sovereign Lord which fitly belongs to you; that he may have his right which he claims, and you the mercy which you need. Here is place for much consideration.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 397.  A point noted previously, Howe’s call to repentance is not the purely emotional call of a “revivalist” or “evangelist”: you are pressed to come (and he will press); but you are not called without due consideration.  In speaking like this, Howe has the model of the Lord:

28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:28–33 (ESV).

Judgment: One must consider the case until he has reached a conclusion, a judgment. God calls you to yield; consider the matter carefully and do not come or depart until you have reached a judgment. Howe cites to:

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

2 Corinthians 5:14–15(ESV). The word for concluded is the verb krinein, to pass judgment upon. The yielding there to the control of Christ is the result a judgment.

Fulness of consent: At this point Howe speaks of making a deliberate covenant with God. The idea here is taken from the law. A contract is formed by a “meeting of the minds”. One cannot accidentally form a contract (or at least that is the ideal!).  You know what you are doing and “hereby a covenant is struck between God and you.” It is not idle movement, it is not “thinking about it.” The yielding sought by Romans 6:13 is an understanding consent to the call of God.

In the next, we will come to the affections and attitudes which must characterize the one who yields to God. In the end, we will see that Howe is setting out the elements of true faith: head, heart, hands (if you will).

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 3. How we are to consider God in relation to us.

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

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This is the third post in this series

Howe will argue that we must “yield” ourselves to God. Therefore, he next underscores aspects of God’s relationship to us which would necessitate such a yielding.  Thus, he notes that God is our Creator and Sustainer. Our very existence depends upon God, he “who renews your life unto you every moment.”

This matter of being our Creator and Sustainer will imply certain aspects which pinch our flesh.

Since God is our Creator and Sustainer, he holds additional relationship to us. He is our Owner. In recognizing such we add nothing to God’s rights:

Your yielding yourselves adds nothing to his rights in you; you therein recognize and acknowledge the right he had in you before; but it add to you a capacity and qualification, both by the tenor of his Gospel-covenant, and in the nature of the thing, for such nobler uses as wither wise you cannot service.

Recognizing his right in us, makes us more serviceable, but it is nothing other than what we owe. If we refuse this acknowledgement, we are no better than “brutes and devils”.

God is also our Teacher:

There is another sort of teaching, which if you yield yourselves to him as your great Instructor, he will vouchsafe unto you. The things you know not, and which it is necessary you should know, he will teach you, i. e. such things as are of real necessity to your true and final welfare, not which only serve to please your fancy, or gratify your curiosity; for his teaching respects an appointed, certain end, suitable to his wisdom and mercy, and to the calamity and danger of your state. The teaching requisite for perishing sinners, was, what they might do to be saved. And when we have cast about in our thoughts never so much, we have no way to take but to yield ourselves to God, who will then be our most undeceiving Guide. To whom it belongs to save us at last, to him only it can belong to lead us in the way to that blessed end.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 386. This teaching of God is not new revelation. Rather, God makes the existing revelation effective, it becomes teaching we receive from him:

He will so teach you, as to make you teach yourselves, put an abiding word into you, that shall talk with you when you sit in your houses, and walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, and whereby you shall be enabled to commune with your own hearts upon your beds while others sleep; and revolve, or roll over in your minds, dictates of life.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 390. His teaching will not leave you unchanged.

Third, since God is our Creator and Sustainer, God is our Sovereign Ruler:

Though teaching and ruling may be diversely conceived of, they cannot be separate in this case. The nobler and final part of God’s teaching you, is teaching you your duty; what you are to practise and do. And so when he teaches you, he commands you too; and leaves it not arbitrary to you whether you will be directed by him or no. What is his by former right, and by after-consent, and self-resignation, shall it not be governed by him, if it be a subject capable of laws and government, as such consent shows it to be? Your yielding yourselves to God is not a homage but a mockery, if you do it not with a resolution to receive the law from his mouth: and that whereinsoever he commands, you will to your uttermost obey. But in this and the other things that follow, my limits constrain me unto more brevity. Only let not this apprehension of God be frightful; yea, let it be amiable to you, as in itself it is, and cannot but be to you, if you consider the loveliness of his government, the kind design of it, and how suitable it is to the kindest design; that it is a government first and principally over minds, purposely intended to reduce them to a holy and peaceful order, wherein it cannot but continue them, when that kingdom comes to be settled there, which stands in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and all the laws whereof are summed up in love; being such also as in the keeping whereof there is great reward.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 392.

Finally, we must consider God as our Benefactor. Now, we often think of a benefactor as someone who does us good by our own sights and according to our own inclination. God is a greater benefactor, because he government and his goodness to us are one. He does us good by being our teacher and sovereign:

The very business of his government is in the first place to alter the temper of your minds; for, continuing carnal, they neither are subject to the law of God, nor can be, as the same place tells you. Therefore if his government take place in you, and you become subject, you become spiritual, the “law of the Spirit of life” having now the possession and the power of you. Nor was it possible he should ever be an effectual Benefactor to you, without being thus an over-powering Ruler; so do these things run into one another. To let you have your own will, and follow your carnal inclination, and cherish and favour you in this course, were to gratify you to your ruin, and concur with you to your being for ever miserable; which you may see plainly if you will understand wherein your true felicity and blessedness must consist, or consider what was intimated concerning it, in the proposal of this head; that he is to be your Benefactor, in being to you himself your supreme and only satisfying Good. He never doth you good effectually and to purpose, till he overcome your carnal inclination.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 393.

Finally, we must consider ourselves in this transaction: If God is our Creator, Sustainer, Owner, Teacher, Sovereign and Benefactor, who are we? We are his creatures, but sadly creatures who are apostate and unfit for communion with God; and yet, under the Gospel, we are “sinners invited and called back to God.”

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 2. Some Notes Concerning the Nature of God as His is in Himself

26 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in John Howe, Romans, Theology, Uncategorized

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This is the second post in this series on John Howe’s sermons on Roman 6:13. The prior sermon may be here

Having noted that much depends upon how we consider of “God” to whom we must yield, Howe briefly considers the nature of God as God is to himself. In this, Howe emphasizes the independence and self-existence of God, “You must conceive him to be an eternal, self-subsisting Spirit, not sprung up into being from another, as our souls are: but who, from the excellency of his own being, was necessarily of and from himself; comprehending originally and eternally in himself the fulness of life and being.”

God is independent of all creation for his existence; yet, all existence and all that is in it is contingent upon God:

You must conceive of God therefore as comprehending originally in his own being, which is most peculiar to himself, a power to produce all whatsoever being, excellency, and perfection, is to be found in all the whole creation; for there can be nothing which either is not, or arises not from, what was of itself: and therefore that he is an absolutely, universally, and infinitely perfect Being; and therefore that life, knowledge, wisdom, power, goodness, holiness, justice, truth, and whatsoever other conceivable excellencies, do all in highest perfection belong, as necessary attributes, unchangeably, and without possibility of diminution, unto him, and all which his own word (agreeably to the plain reason of things) doth in multitudes of places ascribe to him, as you that are acquainted with the Bible cannot but know. You must therefore conceive of him, as the ALL in ALL! So great, so excellent, so glorious a ONE he is, to whom you are to surrender and yield yourselves!

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 383. Thus, our yielding to this God is not something strange; but rather something inherent in the nature of our relationship to him (as will be discussed in the next section of the discourse).

Howe then makes an interesting note concerning the nature of God as One and Three-in-One:

And that we so far conceive of them as three, as to apprehend some things spoken of one, that are not to be affirmed of another of them, is so plain, of so great consequence, and the whole frame of practical religion so much depends thereon, and even this transaction of yielding up ourselves, (which must be introductive and fundamental to all the rest,) that it is by no means to be neglected in our daily course, and least of all in this solemn business, as will more appear anon. In the meantime, set this ever blessed, glorious God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, before your eyes, as to whom (thus in himself considered) you are now to yield yourselves.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 384.

This explicitly Trinitarian understanding of God is something missing from much contemporary theology and preaching. Indeed, asking a Christian (often, sadly, even a Christian teacher or preacher), why a Trinitarian understanding matters. In this respect to his emphasis on the Trinity, Howe reminds one of John Owen’s Discourse Concerning Communion With God.

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 1. Do you have right those of God?

22 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by in John Howe, Romans, Theology, Uncategorized

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John Howe preached two sermons on Romans 6:13, “Yield yourselves to God”. From this he derives two basic questions: 1. How or under what notions we are to consider God and ourselves in this matter:2. What our yielding ourselves to him, so considered, must include.

This is a great secret to good exposition: pay attention to the parts of a text and ask the question: What does this mean? When presented with a word like “truth” or “love” or “God” or “yield” we think assume we know what is meant. But it is precisely that assumption which is troublesome.

It is precisely at this point that Howe begins. He points out that we fail to properly understand … God.

But do you now know with whom you have to do? Too many have the name of GOD, that great and awful name, in their mouth or ear, and have no correspondent thought in their mind; it passes with them as a transient sound, as soon over as another common word of no greater length, and leaves no impression. Perhaps there is less in their minds to answer it, than most other words which men use in common discourse.

For they have usually distinct thoughts of the things they speak of; otherwise they would neither understand one another nor themselves, but might speak of a horse, and mean a sheep; or be thought to mean so. And it would no more move a man, or impress his mind, to hear or mention a jest, than a matter of life and death.

But the holy and reverend name of GOD is often so slightly mentioned, as in common oaths, or in idle talk is so merely taken in vain, that if they were on the sudden stopped, and asked what they thought on, or had in their mind, when they mentioned that word, and were to make a true answer, they cannot say they thought of any thing: as if the name of GOD, the All! were the name of nothing! Otherwise, had they thought what that great name signifies, either they had not mentioned it, or the mention of it had struck their hearts, and even overwhelmed their very souls!

I could tell you what awe and observance hath been wont to be expressed in reference to that sacred name, among a people that were called by it; and surely the very sound of that name, ought ever to shake all the powers of our souls, and presently form them to reverence and adoration. Shall we think it fit to play or trifle with it, as is the common wont?

My friends, shall we now do so, when we are called upon to yield ourselves to God? Labour to hear and think, and act intelligently, and as those that have the understandings of men. And now especially in this solemn transaction, endeavour to render GOD great to yourselves: enlarge your minds, that as far as possible and needful, they may take in the entire notion of him.

 

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 382.