Category Archives: Sanctifictation

Richard Sibbes Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.1 (Why Poetry in the Bible)

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Richard Sibbes, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Song of Solomon, Uncategorized

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Geitrams på vollen i Grythengen

(Photo by Øyvind Holmstad)

The second volume of Richard Sibbes collected works contains a series of 20 sermons on Canticles, better know as the Song of Solomon. The title of this work is called “Bowels Opened”, which is rather unfortunate to our ears. It means the depth of compassion which was believed to be in the gut. A Greek word for compassion or mercy was “σπλάγχνον”, which means the gut or heart (I have no idea what the word would be in modern Greek).

While these sermons are textual (they are based upon the text), they wouldn’t sound much like a modern expository sermon. Sibbes reads the text in an allegorical manner, but I’m not precisely sure that allegory really covers his understanding. 

He takes a text, draws a generally allegorical reading — and then he proceeds to consider the way in which a image or theme is developed in Scripture.

For instance the first sermon begins by developing this text:

‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits,’ Cant. 4:16.

He first draws out a general basis for the allegory, Christ and the Church. And then he asks questions about the “wind” and the Spirit. He meditates upon the garden and spices. He considers the pleasant fruits. The structure is different than what one would learn at a seminary which would still hold to the Gospel which Sibbes preached and which still held Scripture to be inerrant and sufficient, as Sibbes did.

What is quite remarkable in this methodology, is the profundity of Sibbes’ understanding and exegesis. Although he has a generally allegorical reading, he never wanders off into nonsense or speculation. 

And while I am not completely comfortable with an allegorical reading of the text (this being my own admitted prejudice here), I do believe that there is a deep structure between divine and human love — because human love in marriage between a man and woman was given as a basis upon which we could begin to understand divine love.  And while there is certainly no identity between the two loves, there is an analogy which makes the one comprehensible in terms of the other.

Another thing about Sibbes’ sermons must be noted: the sheer volume of insight and beauty he mines and reveals. Spurgeon’s comment on Sibbes is certainly true, “Sibbes never wastes the student’s time, he scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”

Sibbes begins his discussion of Canticles with the general observation that the book concerns the most profound love between Christ and the Church. He deals with the obvious topic of a prurient reading of the text (as was infamous done by a preacher of some note who has taken up shop in a new city and of whom I will nothing more to say).

He then comes to the purpose of the book of Canticles. Why was this discourse written in a such a beautiful manner? Why doesn’t the Scripture just tell us plainly that Christ loves the Church, rather than give us this drama and poetry? The purpose of the Spirit inspiring the text 

is by stooping low to us, to take advantage to raise us higher unto him, that by taking advantage of the sweetest passage of our life, marriage, and the most delightful affection, love, in the sweetest manner of expression, by a song, he might carry up the soul to things of a heavenly nature. We see in summer that one heat weakens another; and a great light being near a little one, draws away and obscures the flame of the other. So it is when the affections are taken up higher to their fit object; they die unto all earthly things, whilst that heavenly flame consumes and wastes all base affections and earthly desires. Amongst other ways of mortification, there be two remarkable—

    1. By embittering all earthly things unto us, whereby the affections are deaded* to them.
    2. By shewing more noble, excellent, and fit objects, that the soul, issuing more largely and strongly into them, may be diverted, and so by degrees die unto other things. The Holy Spirit hath chosen this way in this song, by elevating and raising our affections and love, to take it off from other things, that so it might run in its right channel. It is pity that a sweet stream should not rather run into a garden than into a puddle. What a shame is it that man, having in him such excellent affections as love, joy, delight, should cleave to dirty, base things, that are worse than himself, so becoming debased like them! Therefore the Spirit of God, out of mercy and pity to man, would raise up his affections, by taking comparison from earthly things, leading to higher matters, that only deserve love, joy, delight, and admiration. Let God’s stooping to us occasion our rising up unto him.
  • That is, ‘deadened.’—G.

 Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet And Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 5–6.

And so ends the introduction to this sermon.

The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Outline and Study Guide), Direction 1

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Walter Marshall, 1628-1680, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Direction One: That we may acceptably perform the duties of holiness and righteousness required in the law, our first work is to learn the powerful and effectual means by which we may attain to so great an end. This direction may serve instead of a preface, to prepare the understanding and attention of the reader for those that follow.

 

OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTER

 

  1. The “Great End” is Holiness.

 

  1. This is a manner of life which comports with the moral law of God.

 

  1. Definition

 

  1. The Ten Commandments

 

  1. Or the love of God and neighbor

 

  1. “It consists not only in external works of piety and charity, but in the holy thoughts, imaginations and affections of the soul, and chiefly in love, from whence all other good works must flow, or else they are not acceptable to God; not only in refraining the execution of sinful lusts, but in longing and delighting to do the will of God and in a cheerful obedience to God, without repining, fretting, grudging at any duty, as if it were a grievous yoke and burden to you.”

 

  1. This universal obedience is our goal — but during this time of imperfection — it will be fully achieved.

 

  1. God will be “gracious and understanding” during our time of imperfection.

 

  1. It will be a state we will attain in the age to come.

 

  1. Consider the beauty of holiness.

 

  1. What could greater than to love God.

 

  1. These duties are the end for which we were created.

 

  1. These duties are renewed in us in sanctification and will be our end in glorification.

 

  1. These are not arbitrary duties, but rather are “holy, just and good”. (Rom. 7:12)

 

  1. Therefore they are called natural religion, and the law that requires them is called the natural law and also the moral law; because the manners of all men, infidels as well as Christians, ought to be conformed to it and, if they had been fully comformable, they would not have come short of eternal happiness (Matt. 5:19; Luke 10:27, 28), under the penalty of the wrath of God for the violation of it.

 

  1. We must come to know the means to attain this end.

 

  1. This knowledge is necessary

 

  1. Some falsely think they merely need to know “what to do” and then do it. This misses the mark

 

  1. They have an inadequate understanding of holiness, as if it were itself merely a means to an end.

 

  1. Such people also wrongly think that it is something easy to attain.

 

  1. At this point he makes an apt criticism of much preaching which thinks itself quite “strong” and “biblical”: “Yea, many that are accounted powerful preachers spend all their zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate practice of the law, without any discovery of the effectual means of performance – as if the works of righteousness were like those servile employments that need no skill and artifice at all, but industry and activity.” These preachers are great at making people feel guilty (because it takes no great skill to proclaim the law and point to our flaws; not even Paul “attained”).

 

  1. Here notes eight considerations:

 

  1. We lack the ability to rightly perform the demands of the law. ” If we believe it to be true, we cannot rationally encourage ourselves to attempt a holy practice, until we are acquainted with some powerful and effectual means to enable us to do it.”

 

  1. A consciousness of one’s own guilt before God is not sufficient to achieve holiness.

 

  1. A heathen can have knowledge of his guilt before God without knowing how to attain holiness. The means of attaining holiness come only from supernatural revelation.

 

  1. “Sanctification, by which our hearts and lives are conformed to the law, is a grace of God communicated to us by means, as well as justification, and by means of teaching, and learning something that we cannot see without the Word (Acts 26:17, 18).”

 

  1. The Scriptures alone provide the knowledge of the means of sanctification. 2 Tim. 3:16-17. If God has been good enough to give us such instruction, then we must receive it rightly.

 

  1. We can know our deficits by means of nature, but we cannot know the way of sanctification without revelation. ” The learning of it requires double work; because we must unlearn many of our former deeply- rooted notions and become fools, that we may be wise.”

 

  1. Without knowing the means of sanctification as set forth in the Scripture, we can be easily led into false doctrines. Unless know the means for sanctification given by God, we will led astray.

 

  1. In short, we will have no success in sanctification, unless we follow in the way appointed by God.

 

  1. A final note on the errors which befall those who do not learn the way appointed by God:

 

The heathens generally fell short of an acceptable performance of those duties of the law which they knew, because of their ignorance in this point: (i) Many Christians content themselves with external performances, because they never knew how they might attain to spiritual service. (ii) And many reject the way of holiness as austere and unpleasant, because they did not know how to cut off a right hand, or pluck out a right eye, without intolerable pain; whereas they would find ‘the ways of wisdom’ (if they knew them) ‘to be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths to be peace’ (Prov. 3:17). This occasions the putting off repentance from time to time, as an uncouth thing. (iii) Many others set on the practice of holiness with a fervent zeal, and run very fast; but do not tread a step in the right way; and, finding themselves frequently disappointed and overcome by their lusts, they at last give over the work and turn to wallow again in the mire – which has occasioned several treatises, to show how far a reprobate may go in the way of religion, by which many weak saints are discouraged, accounting that these reprobates have gone farther than themselves; whereas most of them never knew the right way, nor trod one step right in it, for, ‘there are few that find it’ (Matt. 7:14). (iv) Some of the more ignorant zealots do inhumanly macerate their bodies with fasting and other austerities, to kill their lusts; and, when they see their lusts are still too hard for them, they fall into despair and are driven, by horror of conscience, to make away with themselves wickedly, to the scandal of religion.

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 

  1. Do you think worth your time and effort to seek holiness?

 

  1. What is the value of holiness? See, e.g., 1 Thess. 4:7; Heb. 12:14; 1 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 3:11.

 

  1. What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

 

  1. What does it mean to love your neighbor as your-self?

 

  1. Read through the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Do you see that Jesus’s teaching describes you?

 

  1. Have you ever attempted to seek after holiness? What did you did you do? How well did it work?

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LIV

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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The prior post in this series may be found here

MEDITATION LIV
Upon Health of Body & Peace of Conscience

It was a high and eminent testimony given by St. John the Elder to Gaius in the prayer that he made for him, with an earnest the he might prosper and be in health, even as his soul prospered. (3 John 2) It is a crown that I could heartily desire might be deservedly set upon the head of everyone that is called by the honorable name of Christian; than I doubt not, but those reproaches which are daily cast upon them would fall as far short of them as stones that thrown at the Sun; and those scandals at which those who are without do stumble would be removed, and they also won by their own conversation [conduct/manner of life] to the obedience of faith.

But alas, I must invert the apostle’s wish, and I will wish true prosperity to the saints themselves; and pray that their souls may prosper and be in health as their bodies prosper: so unequal is the welfare for the most part that is between the one and the other. Where may I find the man? Or, who can tell me what is his name whose care and observance has so far prevailed as to make his soul an equal plight [agreement: he has agreed with his soul to take care of it to the same degree he has agreed to take care of his body] with his body; and to keep one as free from lusts as the other from diseases?

Whoever thought it necessary that pension should be given to orators to dissuade men from running into infected houses [a house where people were suffering from the plague]? Or to be out of love with moral poisons? Is not the least jealousy and suspicion of such things an argument enough to secure themselves against managers that may fall out?

But is there not need to admonish and warm the best and holiest of men that they abstain from fleshly lusts which war against these soul? Is it not requisite to bid the most watchful to take heed of lethargy when the Wise Virgins fall aside [Matt. 25:1, et seq.]? Did not Christ himself caution his disciples against having their hearts at any time over-charge with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life [Luke 8:14 & 12:37]?

And yet the meanest [lowly, not-noble] of their condition might seem to exempt them from such snares?

From whence then is ti that the welfare of the body should be mores studiously endeavored by all than the well-being of the soul in peace and serenity is almost by any? Is it not from the strength of fleshy principles which abide in the best and darken oft times the eye of understanding that it cannot right apprehend its concernments?

If there were but a clear insight into that blessedness into which peace of conscience does estate a believer, it could not be but that, it being laid in the balance with the health of the body, it should as far overweigh it as a full bucket a single drop, or as the vintage of a particular wine [to a] cluster [of grapes].

True it is that health of the body is a salt of all outward blessing which without it have no relish or flavor; neither riches nor honors nor delights for the belly or back, can yield the least pleasure where this is wanting; so the the enjoyment of it alone may be set against many other wants [things which are lacking]. And better it is to enjoy health without other additional comforts than to posses them under a load of infirmities.

And yet I may still say, What is the chaff to the wheat. Though it be the greatest outward good that God bestows in this life, it is nothing to that peace which passes understanding. Sickness destroys it [the body]; age enfeebles it; and extremities embitter it. But is the excellency of this divine peace that works joy in tribulation, that supports in bodily languish, and creates confidence in death.

Who is it that can throw forth the gauntlet, and bid defiance to the armies of trials, to persecutions, distress, famine, nakedness, perils, and sword [Rom. 8:35], but he whose heart is established with this peace (the ground of which is God’s free love; the price of which is Christ’s satisfaction [atoning death on the cross]; and the worker of which is the Holy Spirit; and the subject of which is a good conscience).

This was that that filled Simeon’s heart with joy and made him to beg a dimission [permission to depart] of his Savior [Luke 2:29] whom his eye had seen, his arms embraced and his soul trusted in. What a strange thing it is then that there should be so few merchant men that seek this godly pearl, which is far above all treasures of the earth, that are either hid in it or extracted from it?

Many say, Who will show us any good. [Ps. 4:6a]. But is David only that prays, Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon us. [Ps. 4:6b] Others, like the scattered Israelites in Egypt go up and down gathering straw and stubble [Ex. 5:12]; when he, like an Israelite indeed, in the wilderness of this world, seeks mana which his spirit gathers up and seeds upon with delight and cries, Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increase. [Ps. 4:7]

It is the love of God shed abroad in the heart [Rom. 5:5] that doubles the sweetness of prosperity and sweetens also the bitterness of affliction: A wonder only therefore it is, not that few should seek but a much greater that any in this world should live without it.

Can any live well with the King’s favor, either in court or kingdom? And yet there are many places wherein such persons may lie hid in his dominions, when the utmost ends of the earth cannot secure the against God’s frowns. But if any be so profligate as Cleopatra-like to dissolve this jewel of peace in his lusts, and to drink down, in one prodigious draught that which exceeds the world in its price, and yet think they can live well enough without it; let them consider how they will do to die without it.

Sweet it is in life, but will be more sweet in death. It is not then the sunshine of his creatures but the Savior-shine that refresh them. It is not the wine that can cheer the heart, but the blood of sprinkling that will pacify it. [Heb. 10:22]

The more perpendicular death comes to be over our head, the lesser will the shadow of all earthly comforts grow and proves useless, either to assuage the pains of it or to mitigate the fears of it.

What is a fragrant posey put into the hands of a malefactor [here a condemned criminal] who is in the sight of the place of execution, and his friends bidding him to smell on it? Or, what is the delivering to him a sealed conveyance that entitles him to great revenues who has only minutes to live?

But, O what excess of joy does fill and overflow such a poor man’s heart when a pardon form his Prince comes happily in to prevent the stroke of death and to assure him both of life and estate?

This indeed is health and marrow to the bones.

And is it not thus to a dying sinner, who expects in a few moments to be swallowed up by those flames of wrath, the heat of which already scorches his conscience and cause agonies and terrors which embitter all the comforts of life and extract cries from him that are like the yelling of the damned: I am undone, without hope of recovery! Eternity itself will as soon end as my misery: God will forever hold me as his enemy, and with his own breath will enliven those coals that must be heaped upon me.

Of what value now would one smile of God’s face be to such a person? How joyfully would the softest whisper of the Spirit be that speaks any hope of pardon or peace. Would not one drop of this sovereign balm of God’s favor, let fall upon the conscience, heal and ease more than a river of all other delights whatsoever?

Think therefore upon it, O Christians, so as not any longer through your own default to be without the sense of blessing in your heart; that so in file as well as in death you may be filled with this Peace of God which passes understanding. [Phil. 4:7]

If prayer will obtain it, beg every day a good look form Him, the light of whose countenance is the only health of yours. If a holy and humble walking will preserve it, be more careful of doing anything to lose your peace than to endanger your health; remember that peace is so much better than health, as the soul is better than the body.

But grant, Holy Father
However others may neglect or defer to seek peace with Thee
And from thee
Yet I may now find thy peace in me
By thy pardoning all my iniquities
And may be found of thee in peace without spot
And blameless in the great day.

Who is the “Old Man” in Romans 6? (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized

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Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1538

In his sermon on Romans 6:5,6, Dr. Lloyd-Jones considers the issue of what is meant by the “old man” who has been crucified. He rejects one common understanding  that the old man is “the carnal nature and all its propensities”. Rather, the old man “the man that I used to be in Adam” (Rom. 6, p. 62). “As a Christian I am no longer in Adam; I am in Christ….It is not my carnal, sinful nature. That is still here, but the old man has gone, he has been crucified.” (Rom. 6, p. 63).

That is why those who are in Christ are no longer under condemnation. Rom. 8:1. The condemned man has been crucified; I am someone else.

And here is the implication:

We are never called to crucify our old man. Why? Because it has already happened — the old man was crucified with Christ on the Cross…nowhere does the Scripture call upon you to get rid of your old man, for the obvious reason that he is already gone….What you and I are called upon to do is to cease to live as if were were still in Adam. Understand that the “old man” is not there The only way to stop living as if he were still there is to realize that he is not there. That is the New Testament method of sanctification. the whole trouble with us, says the New Testament, is that we do not realize what we are, that we still go on thinking we are the old man and go on trying to do things to the old man. That has already been done; the old man was crucified with Christ.

Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Direction II.A

29 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, Mortification, Puritan, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized

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(The prior post in this series may be found here.

In this section Marshall deals with the question of motivation, “we must have an inclination and propensity in our hearts” to do what God requires. There are two reasons for this. First, we will not act without the inclination. Second, the law of God itself requires love — and actual desire. It is not bare conduct which satisfies the will of God.

He begins by noting that this work of sanctification is too difficult to attain to without a satisfactory motivation:

And shall we dare to rush into the battle against all the powers of darkness, all worldly terrors and allurements, and our own inbred domineering corruptions, without considering whether we have sufficient spiritual furniture to stand in the evil day?

There are four “endowments” which Marshall lists as necessary. The first is “an inclination and propensity of the heart to the duties of the law”.  This first element is the primary category. The remaining three elements matter as these support the desire to act:

[The duty required is not bare instinctual conduct” but such a one as it meet for intelligent creatures, whereby they are, by the conduct of reason, prone and bent to approve and choose their duty, and averse to the practice of sin. And therefore, I have intimated that the three other endowments [a new natures, confidence in the eternal state, and confidence they we will persevere] are subservient to this as the chief of all, which is are sufficient to make a rationale propensity.

Marshall here sets out a theory of human motivation: A human being will not fulfill the law of God (love of God and love of neighbor) unless he has a new nature, a “hope of heaven” and certainty that the hope is real for him.

Hope functions like magnetic north for a compass needle: Hope draws the attention and orders the conduct. We must have some hope and reasonable assurance to undertake any task. One will promise to come to see another because he has hope that it will be possible to make the trek and has sufficient reason to undertake the work. But no one (who is sane) would promise to be around the world in 30 seconds, or to travel back in time. Therefore, we need hope and we need those supernatural helps (a new nature and faith to lay hold upon what is promised to the new nature) to increase in holiness.

Next we will look at Marshall’s discussion of “inclination and propensity”.

Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Direction I

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Mortification, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized

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Marshall’s book, published in 1692 (12 years after his death), sets out 14 directions on the doctrine of sanctification and its relationship to justification. It is publication with an introduction by Joel Beeke, published by Reformation Heritage Books.

Direction I: That we may acceptably perform the duties of holiness and righteousness required by the law, our first work is to learn the powerful and effectual means whereby we may attain to so great an end.

Marshall begins with the proposition that Christians are required to holiness: we are saved to holiness The question is how, what is the means by which we attain to such holiness?

He notes that if we take seriously the doctrine of original sin, we must recognize that we in ourselves lack the ability to attain to such holiness. And he rebukes those who merely insist upon holiness as if it merely required effort and self-will:

Yea, many that are accounted powerful preachers, spend all their zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate practice of the law, without any discovery [disclosure] of the effectual means of performance: as if the works of righteousness were like those servile employments that need no skill and artifice at all, but industry and activity.

The means for sanctification is a grace communicated by God to us — it cannot be known without God’s disclosure. The means appointed by God are the Scriptures received by faith: “God hath given, in the holy scriptures by his inspiration, plentiful instruction in righteousness, that we may be thoroughly furnished for every good work….[W]e cannot apply ourselves ourselves to the practice of holiness, with hope of success, except we have some faith concerning divine assistance, which we have no ground to expect, if we use not such means as God has appointed to work by.”

Thomas Manton on helps to obedience

15 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Obedience, Psalms, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Thomas Manton

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Thou has commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. Ps. 119:4

In this fifth sermon on the 119th Psalm, Manton begins by providing a help to obedience. There would be no need to speak of obedience, if it were “natural” to use. What then keeps us from obedience? Manton begins here:

Doctrine 1: To gain the heart to full obedience, it is good to consider the authority of God in his word.

Manson makes three points: the first two concern our benefit in obedience; the third, the necessity of obedience.

Our profit:  Obedience to God’s commands is both reasonable and profitable: our good lies in in obedience:

First, it is reasonable to obey God. “If we were left at our liberty, we should take up the ways of God rather than any other: Rom. vii. 12, “The commandment is holy, just, and good.”

Second, it is to our benefit to obey God, both in this life — and more even more so at the judgment. Obedience, “will bring in a full reward for the future.”

God commands:

The next motive is that of the text, to urge the command of God. It is a course enjoined and imposed upon us by our sovereign lawgiver. It is not in our choice, as if it were an indifferent thing whether we will walk in the laws of God or not, but of absolute necessity, unless we renounce the authority of God.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 39.

He then supports this point with three considerations:

First, God is not our equal: He is our creator, therefore he has the right to command. He is our judge and therefore has the power to enforce his commands by punishment or reward.

Second, God has not suggested but commanded:

Unless you mean to renounce the sovereign majesty of God, and put him besides the throne, and break out into open rebellion against him, you must do what he hath commanded: 1 Tim. 1:9, ‘Charge them that be rich in the world,’ &c., not only advise but charge them. And Titus 2:15, ‘These things exhort, and rebuke with all authority.’ God will have the creatures know that he expects this duty and homage from them.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 40.

Third, God has given us precise directions that must be followed, “precepts”.

Christians, if we had the awe of God’s authority upon our hearts, what kind of persons would we be at all times, in all places, and in all company? what a check would this be to a proud thought, a light word, or a passionate speech?—what exactness would we study in our conversations, had we but serious thoughts of the sovereign majesty of God, and of his authority forbidding these things in the word!

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

At this point, Manton stops and considers the various hesitations, doubts, questions or weaknesses which could beset his hearers. He asks, Why should I consider the authority of God? This is a key point of the best preaching: it does not merely drop information before the hearer, but it helps the hearer process in the information. The preacher anticipates questions, uncovers motives, et cetera.

The very best preaching and the very best counseling are the same: helping another to understand, to digest, to live in accordance with God’s will.

1  We take God without the seriousness deserved: it shows in how we live:

Because then the heart would not be so loose, off and on in point of duty; when a thing is counted arbitrary (as generally we count so of strictness), the heart hangs off more from God. When we press men to pray in secret, to be full of good works, to meditate of God, to examine conscience, to redeem time, to be watchful, they think these be counsels of perfection, not rules of duty, enforced by the positive command of God; therefore are men so slight and careless in them. But now, when a man hath learned to urge a naughty heart with the authority of God, and charge them in the name of God, he lies more under the awe of duty. Hath God said I must search and try my ways, and shall I live in a constant neglect of it?

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

2  Obedience requires appropriate fear: disobedience comes from taking the commands of God too lightly:

The heart is never right until we be brought to fear a commandment more than any inconveniencies whatsoever. To a wicked man there seems to be nothing so light as a command, and therefore he breaks through against checks of conscience. But a man that hath the awe of God upon him, when mindful of God’s authority, he fears a command

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

3 If God has commanded the duty, then God will make obedience possible. We need not doubt our ability, because God stands behind the obedience. If someone thinks they will fail, they almost certainly will:

Many times we are doubtful of success, and so our hands are weakened thereby. We forbear duty, because we do not know what will come of it. Now, a sense of God’s authority and command doth fortify the heart against these discouragements

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

4  The purpose or profit behind some commands are not immediately obvious. Why should God command that I not eat from this tree? Why should God command such and such a morality, a behavior? Why should God command faith? We do not need to quibble at God’s reasons when we know that it is God who commands.

5  God does not need our bare behavior. When God commands us he is seeking the  voluntary submission of our will to his:

Obedience is never right but when it is done out of a conscience of God’s authority, intuitu voluntatis. The bare sight of God’s will should be reason enough to a gracious heart. It is the will of God; it is his command, So it is often urged: 1 Thes. 4:3, the apostle bids them follow holiness, ‘for this is the will of God, your sanctification.’ And servants should be faithful in their burdensome and hard labours; 1 Peter 2:15, ‘For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.’ And 1 Thes. 5:18, ‘In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’ That is argument enough to a godly Christian, that God hath signified his will and good pleasure, though the duty were never so cross to his own desires and interests. They obey simply for the commandment sake, without any other reason and inducement.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 42.

Thomas Manton: How does the sin of a believer differ?

09 Friday Jun 2017

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Having explained that a “blessed man” is not perfectly holy, Manton next takes up the related question: If a believer is not perfect, then how does a believer differ? Or as he puts, “”Wherein doth grace now discover itself, where is the difference?”

He lists six ways in which true grace in a believer’s life causes the believer to differ:

First,

In that they cannot fall into those iniquities wherein there is an absolute contrariety to grace, as hatred of God, total apostasy, so they cannot sin the sin unto death, 1 John 5:16.

The believer may become entangled in this world, but he will not reject his Savior.

Second, “They do not sin with a whole heart.” He demonstrates this from Psalm 119:176,

176  I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,

for I do not forget your commandments.

There is this contradiction in the psalmist: he does stray but does not forgo and forget the commandments of God. It is not a complete plunging into rebellion.

This is observed in the next two elements: frequency and duration:

Third, “It is not their course; not constant, easy, and frequent.”

Fourth, “When they fall they do not rest in sin.”

This is not perfection. But, the believer is bothered by sin: it is not comfortable: it is not a place to rest. The believer in sin cannot have the rest of others, because he is not at home in sin. “They may fall into the dirt, but they do not lie and wallow there like swine in the mire.”

Fifth, “Their falls are sanctified. When they have smarted under sin, they grow more watchful and more circumspect. A child of God may have the worse in prælio, in the battle, but not in bello, in the war.” It is an interesting thing that believers who have fallen into sin are oddly safest from sin, because sin when recognized brings humility and humility is the enemy of sin.

Sixth, the manner and course of life:

Grace discovers itself by the constant endeavours which they make against sin. What is the constant course a Christian takes? They groan under the relics of sin; it is their burden that they have such an evil nature, Rom. 7:24.

 

In all of these things we see the same principle: Grace produces a disgust with sin and a desire for God. This desire may waiver in the moment, but it will return in the main. If you shake a compass, the needle will flutter, but it will return to true north (as Manton says).

It thus paradoxically the one who is most troubled by sin, who sees the most sin in his life that most likely the child of God.

Richard Sibbes: God is a Relationship

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Richard Sibbes, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized, Worship

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But you will say, How shall we know that this covenant belongeth to us? that we are such as we may say, God is our God?
I answer, first—to lay this for a ground—you must know that to be a God is a relation. Whosoever God is a God to, he persuadeth them by his Spirit that he is a God to. The same Spirit that persuadeth them that there is a God, that Spirit telleth them that God is their God, and works a qualification and disposition in them, as that they may know that they are in covenant with such a gracious God. The Spirit as it revealeth to them the love of God, and that he is theirs, so the Spirit enableth them to claim him for their God, to give up themselves to him as to their God.

Richard Sibbes, “The Faithful Covenanter” in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 6 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1863), 8.

This is a profound bit of theology and needs some thought to be understood.

Consider first, “you must know that to be a God is a relation”. We too easily abstract God: God is a being with a set of attributes. Another sort of one has an idea of a celestial butler, the god of moral therapeutic deism:

As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about ones self.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” (As Dr. Mohler summarized Smith’s findings.)

Or some other god. But consider what Sibbes is saying: The “God” part of our understanding of God is relational. For instance, Moses speaks to Pharaoh of the “LORD our God.” There is a particular person(s) who is our God. Since He is God, we have a particular relationship toward him.

The abstract God is a powerful being, but we have little relationship to him. He have created us, but he may also have forgotten us: he is not God to us. The Therapeutic god is no God at all. He is a powerful helper, but he is not a God to anyone. That is why the Christian confession is that Christ is Lord.

The remainder of Sibbes’ discussion speaks about how God himself, God the Spirit, brings the human being into a right relation to God. God is there for everyone, but not everyone is God-worshipper relationship with God (indeed, one can think of sanctification as merely the process of turning human beings into right worshipers).

Whosoever God is a God to,
1) he persuadeth them by his Spirit that he is a God to.
2) The same Spirit that persuadeth them that there is a God,
3) that Spirit telleth them that God is their God,
4) and works a qualification and disposition in them,
5) as that they may know that they are in covenant with such a gracious God.
6) The Spirit as it revealeth to them the love of God, and that he is theirs,
7) so the Spirit enableth them to claim him for their God,
8) to give up themselves to him as to their God

Each of these elements makes plain what is in the relationship of “God”. There is a God. This God stands in some sort of relationship to the human being. The human being is in a covenantal relationship to this God. The human being’s affections, thoughts, dispositions, actions are brought into a correspondence to the covenant (that is also known as sanctification: note that sanctification is not merely morally appropriate behavior, although it is not less). Counseling/preaching is the process of using the Word of God (assisted by the Spirit of God) to bring about this relational process.

The Spiritual Chymist: Meditation XLIII, Upon Time and Eternity

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by in Eschatology, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance?

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(Eugene Delacroix, Lion Rending Apart a Corpse)

The two estates of this and the other world are measured by time and by eternity as their just and proper measures, there being nothing in this world which is not as transient as time, nor in the other which is not as fixed and lasting as eternity. How inexpressibly then must be the good and evil, the happiness in the misery of those two estates differ from each other? [How different must good and evil, happiness and misery be in those two worlds].

What is the duration of all earthly greatness in respect of the stability heavenly glory, but as a flash of lightning to a standing sun in the firmament; or is a spark ascending from the furnace to a never setting star? What are the most fiery trials of this life, either for intention [intensity] or length, onto the everlasting burnings and torchings of hell; but as the soft and gentle heat of a blushing face, onto the constant flames and torments of the bowels?

What are racks, stone, colic, strangury [a slow painful discharge of urine], convulsions, heaped together in an extreme horror, but as the simple grudgings of an ague to the desperate rage and anguish which the least bite of that worm that dies not [Mark 9:48] creates in the lowest faculty of the soul?

There are additions to things which are limited and diminuent [lessening] terms of that to which they are annexed and contain in them (as logicians speak) oppositum in oppsito one opposition in another. He that says, a dead man or a painted lion, by saying more, says less than if he had said but a man, or a lion only, without any such additions; it is all one in effect as if he had said no man, no lion. For a dead man is not a man, neither is a painted lion a lion. Such are the additions of time, which [when] put to good or evil, express less then if nothing had been added.

He that says, happiness for a season, or sorrow for a time, says less than if he instead happiness or sorrow only: for perfect happiness or sorrow cannot be circumscribed in the narrow limits of time, no more than immensity in the points of a space. What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance? Or what is sorrow that endures only for a time, but an evil supported by hope? But add eternity to good or evil, it makes the good to be infinitely better and and the evil to be infinitely worse.

Can I then do less than wonder that men, who carry eternal souls in their bosoms, such as are kin to Seraphim’s, yea, advanced to the participation of the divine nature, that are the immediate subjects of endless well or bless, should yet so live, Ac fi esset omnis eternitatas, as if Eternity were a fable; as if they had neither God to serve nor souls to save? May I not say, Be astonished O heavens at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate as the Lord himself did at Israel’s folly?

What greater stupidity can there be, than this which most are guilty of, to busy themselves, like Martha, about perishing trifles, and to neglect the one thing which is necessary? To be thoughtful of things below, and seldom think of Heaven, till death summon them to leave Earth? To make salvation the by-work [incidental, unimportant task] of their lives, and fulfilling of the appetites of the flesh their chiefest task and care?

Were it not a strange thing if a man, who is to be judged on the morrow, and to receive the sentence either of a cruel death or of a rich and honorable estate, could not keep in mind the concernments of the next approaching day, without tying some scarlet thread up on his finger as a significant ceremony to remember him? Or the writing of some caveats up on the posts of the prison, which might hint on to him what danger his life is in?

Is it not more strange that the weighty matters of eternal life or eternal death should not by their own greatness press the heart of man unto a constant remembrance of them, especially when he knows not what a day may bring forth?

Can a miscarriage of such a person be other than dreadful, when their follies as well as their pains show makes them to gnash their teeth and to curse themselves for the neglect of that great salvation which has been often tendered them in the Gospel? When they shall feel everlastingly what they could never be persuaded for to fear? When they shall be convinced that at a far cheaper rate they might have been Saints in Heaven rather than salamanders in hell?

Oh that I could therefore awaken and excite all those whom the present enjoyments of the world serve as opium to cast them into a deep sleep and will happily be angry with those that seek to raise them out of it, though they keep them from perishing in it.

How can I do better then in St. Chyrsostom’s expressions to this purpose: suppose a man, says he, much desirous of sleep and in his perfect mind, had an offer made of one night sweet rest up on the condition to be punished 100 years for it, would he accept of his sleep up on such terms?

Now, do they (who would be loath to be reputed fools) do far worse, that for the short fruition of a transient delights, hazard a double eternity, the loss of an eternity of blessedness and the sustaining of an eternity of miseries? For what other proportion can all earthly things bear to heavenly, in respect of the duration, and a few beatings of the pulse or twinklings of the eye onto myriads of ages?

Be then timely wise ye wordings in a frequent consideration of your eternal being, that you may not pass away your life and a dream of happiness and awake in the horror of a begun eternity in misery. Say onto yourself, are we not in the world the child conceived is in the womb, not to abide there but to come out in a due time to a more full and free life?

Why then do we fondly think of building tabernacles here? Why do we so please ourselves in our present condition, as to be wholly regardless of our future? Is not death such a combat as we never entering to but once, and therein are either saved or slain eternally?

Do we think that our glory shall ascend after us and screen us from God’s fiery indignation? Will our riches purchase heaven or bribe hell? Will the first born of our body be accepted for this sin of our soul? What is it that makes our cares and fears so preposterous, are we anxious for tomorrow and thoughtless of eternity? We fear the grave and mock at hell, we dread the lightning, and slight the thunderbolt.

O methinks such pungent interrogations should startle the most secure if they would but put conscience up on an answer and not, like Pilate, only asked the question and then go their way. It is men’s living by sense that is the stone of stumbling upon which they ruin themselves: some surfeit and overcharge themselves with sensual delights, as that their intellectuals are wholly lost to all acts of reason; others who have jealousies concerning their future estates, are more willing to venture what the issue will be, then undergo an impartial trial; they fear more what sentence conscience will pass, and the condemnation that God will inflict.

Few there be that put time and eternity in the balance, and weigh them one against the other, or consider that life, is a vapor, a wind, a span, at most, which the further it is stretched, the more painful it is. And that eternity is a bottomless gulf which no line can fathom, no time can reach, no tongue can express. It is a duration always present, a being always in being, an everlasting now; it swallows up all revolution of ages, as Pharaoh’s lean kine did you eat up the fat, which when they had eaten them up, you could not be known that they had eaten them, but were still as at the beginning.

What strange thing can we imagine that in its duration would not be affected? A tear let fall from the damned once in 10,000 years would fill the earth with far more water than it was covered with in the Deluge. A dust taken from the mountains, and even parts of the world, were in that like intervals level of the universe [the slow accumulation of dust throughout the entire world would eventually fill in every canyon and ocean], and turn into a plain, and yet there would be still an eternity behind.

Never, never, is the killing word that breaks the heart of all these hopeless prisoners that library in the flames of hell. Suppositions and possibilities which I tremble to think of, if they might be but turned into promises on to them of the termination of their anguish and torment, O how would their hearts revive within them and how thankful he would they acknowledge God’s goodness onto them.

Oh glorious Lord, who art the Ancient of Days,
the Rock of Ages,
the Father of Eternity,
teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto true wisdom,
that I may walk in the way of life which is above to the wise,
and depart from hell beneath.