George Swinnock, The Christian Man’s Calling, 1.9a

06 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in George Swinock, Worship, Worship

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George Swinnock, Regulative Principle, Regulatory Principle, The Christian Man's Calling, Worship

CHAPTER IX

The complaint continued, that this calling is so much neglected, when superstition and sin are embraced and diligently followed

Swinnock has been addressing the issue: if men are not busy making godliness their calling, then what are they busy to do? The first issue, which was addressed in a previous post noted that we are busy to acquire stuff: “wealth and earthly things.” In this chapter he says that we are also busy after superstition and third plain “wickedness”.

[II. THREE ASPECTS

This complaint is urged with a threefold consideration.]

B. Men make superstition their religion

By superstition, Swinnock primarily means false religious practices and beliefs. He is not aiming primarily at carrying a rabbit’s foot for luck as he is in worshipping idols or tormenting one’s own body.

1. What is the basic manner in which superstition is exercised? By inventing religious practice.

Of use here is the notice that Swinnock being the reformed tradition, holds to the regulative or the regulatory principle when it comes to worship: worship is only what the Bible specifies. This is stated in the Belgic Confession as follows:

Art. VII

We believe that these Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation, is sufficiently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an Apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures; nay, though it were an angel from, heaven, as the Apostle Paul saith. For since it is forbidden to add unto or take away any thing from the Word of God, it doth thereby evidently appear that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in al respects. Neither may we compare any writings of men, though ever so holy, with those divine Scriptures; nor ought we to compare custom, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times or persons, or councils, decrees, or statutes, with the truth of God, for the truth is above all: for all men are of themselves liars, and more vain than vanity itself. Therefore we reject with all our hearts whatsoever doth not agree with this infallible rule, which the Apostles have taught us, saying, Try the spirits whether they are of God; likewise, If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house.

Art. XXXV

Therefore, we reject all mixtures and damnable inventions, which men have added unto and blended with the Sacraments, as profanations of them, and affirm that we ought to rest satisfied with the ordinance which Christ and his Apostles have taught us, and that we must speak of them in the same manner as they have spoken.

Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882), 389, 431.

Secondly, How do men make superstition and idolatry their business?

Notice that he makes superstition an equivalent of idolatry:

“All worshipping, honoring, or service invented by the brain of man in the relgion of God without his own express commandment is idolatry….All honoring or service of God whereunto is added wicked opinion is abomination.” (John Knox, quoted from Between Wittenberg and Geneva, Kolb & Trueman, p. 224)

a. Men are zealous for their own traditions.

Though they are careless about divine institutions, yet they are zealous for human traditions. How zealous were the pharisees for the inventions of their elders! they called them Mashlamathath, completions or perfections, esteeming them both helpful to the observation of the law of God, and also to the perfection of it.

b. The psychological motivation for false worship

i. They think it will please God.

Superstitious persons do naturally think that their postures, gestures, ceremonies, and additions, do render the worship of God more comely and more complete; but truly such embrace a cloud instead of Juno, worship the shadow of Christ, whilst the prince himself goeth unsaluted.

ii. They think it will make much of their own effort.

Men are exceeding prone to, and earnest for, such vain and false ways and worship, partly because it is pleasing to corrupt spirits, who naturally love a fair show in the flesh; a pompous holiness suits best with a proud heart; partly because these traditions were received from their ancestors; and as Austin observed in his time, men were resolved, right or wrong, to be followers of their fathers.

This second point is critical for understanding Swinnock’s overall theology: the grace of God saves the unsavable: Not even repentance is the basis of salvation. In terms of the order of salvation, “God calls us, produces regeneration in us, so that we respond with repentance, faith, and obedience.”

But we have an inherent need to be the causative agent in our salvation: We have a natural desire to make our relationship to God hinge upon what we decide and do. Swinnock is arguing that the desire to be the principal agent of our salvation leads us into idolatry.

iii. An example from Cicero

Suitable to which, Cicero said, I will never forsake that way of divine service which I have received from my forefathers, for any man’s pleasure, or by any man’s persuasion; no, not though Christ himself died to redeem them from their ‘vain conversations, received by tradition from their fathers,’ 1 Pet. 1:18, 19. Hence, though they are so backward where God commands, yet they are forward when men command.

2. The intensity of those who engage in false worship.

The story of Micah is found in Judges 17-18. Laban chases down his household gods in Genesis 31. Gideon tears an altar of Baal which brings the wrath of the village down upon him in Judges 6. His point is that people will drive themselves to extremes in false worship.

What an outcry doth Micah make for his idol! What a privy search doth Laban make for his image! Gideon must die for throwing down the altar of Baal.

a. An observation on the intensity.

Having provided an example of how false worship drives men, Swinnock provides an observation. This is useful as a technique: give an example and explain what the example illustrates. The image of being scalded by the boil of their zeal is striking.

How earnest are many for priests, tapers, altars, sacrifices, days, meats, consecrations, the holy of holies, crossings and cringings! In these their zeal is hot, boiling over to the scalding of themselves and others.

Though this fervency is aptly compared to a ship without ballast, overtired with sails, which in a storm casts away all aboard her, they disesteem their estates and possessions in comparison of idolatry and superstition. Such persons are not only liberal, but lavish.

b. More biblical examples

Jeroboam will be at great cost for his idols; they must be not iron or brazen, no, not silver, but golden calves; not gilded over, but massy, molten gold. ‘They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god, and they fall down and worship it,’ Isa. 46:6. The Israelites will spare their jewels for their idols, Exod. 32:3. Micah’s mother, to make molten and graven images, will lay out eleven hundred shekels of silver, Judges 17:2, 3.

3. Polemic

At this point, Swinnock sets his sights on Roman Catholics, “Indians of Ceylon”, Muslims, and returns to Jesuits. This style of apologetics or preaching is not much in fashion in our day. It is interesting to consider the context in which he is making this argument. Armed conflicts over religion were still not over in Europe, particularly since religion and politics were intimately intwined. The War of the Spanish Succession which enveloped all of Western Europe was still in the future. The American armistice whereby we give civil space to one-another was still in the future (although Cromwell did bring a certain measure of toleration).

It is difficult for us to hear this section in the way in which would have sounded to Swinnock.

In addition, we must also understand that Swinnock’s vehemence on this matters was because he is contending this is an absolute matter of life and death. If you saw a friend take up a bottle of poison falsely believing it to be medicine, you would stringently warn him and seek to dissuade him.

So, the question we should ask is the persuasiveness of such arguments. In the case of Swinnock, there is very little chance that any of his readers would be likely to become Hindu or Muslim. However, the question of Roman Catholicism, or more particularly “high church” Anglicanism would be a matter of possible concern.

The papists are so prodigal,—though it is the less wonder in them, because they hold such actions meritorious of salvation, (and what would not a man give or do to be saved?)—that not only their churches, but even cloisters, are stuck and stuffed with costly, pearly presents to their supposed saints.

The Indians in the isle of Ceylon, having a consecrated ape’s tooth got from them, offered an incredible mass of treasure to recover it. How many zealots, that will hardly give a penny to the relief of a poor Christian, throw away pounds for the maintenance of superstition!

They slight their relations to further their idolatrous devotion. The superstitious Jews would sacrifice their children to Moloch, 2 Kings 17:17. The Carthaginians at one time,¹ (after they had received an overthrow by Agathocles,) sacrificed two hundred of their prime nobility to appease their incensed deity. Good God! whither is man fallen, to be more cruel than a beast to the children of his own body! What slavery is it to serve Satan, and what liberty to serve thee!

Nay, they will sacrifice not only their estates and children, but their lives and all their outward comforts, to superstition. How did the worshippers of Baal cut and lance themselves! Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that smote him, 2 Chron. 28:23; so fervent he was that he chose rather in the service of false gods to be scourged, than in the service of the true God to be saved.²

Among the Mohammedans are a sect called the dervises,³ whose sharp and strict penances exceed those of the papists; they live on the tops of hills, solitary, for contemplation; fast, till nature be almost decayed; have no clothes but to cover their nakedness; wear such massy fetters of iron upon their legs that they can scarce stir, and yet go as fast as they can with them many miles, to visit the sepulchres of their deluded saints. The Turks willingly lay down their lives in their wars to propagate their religion, which their prophet hath taught them must be done, non disputando, sed pugnando, not by disputing with, but by destroying others.

When he returns to Roman Catholics in the peson of this “unhappy Jesuit,” we cannot miss that someone advocating Roman Catholicism was not seen as advancing personal liberty of conscience, but rather advocating for overthrow of the crown.

The unhappy Jesuit, though his religion be a heap of formalities, as the Turks’ a bundle of fooleries, is yet so zealous for it, that Campian could impudently, in a letter to Queen Elizabeth’s council, affirm, that as long as there was one Jesuit left for Tyburn, they had vowed never to desist endeavours to set up their religion in this nation. Oh devout ungodliness, or ungodly devotion! how few take such pains to go to heaven, as many do to go to hell!

4. A final plea to leave off false worship

In this final section, Swinnock makes a more emotional appeal than logic argument (albeit this is not illogical). Seeing that he is seeking to induce emotion, he proceeds by figures of expansion, using repetition, alliteration.

He does this by three examples: First, he laments how men destroy their bodies in false worship. Second, he laments those who undertake needless tasks, such as pilgrimages, for the salvation of their soul.

The following paragraph has been broken down into clauses to more easily see the structures:

Alas!

what sorrow doth this call for

and command!

that men should be so hot and fiery in will-worship,

in false worship,

wasting their wealth,

cutting and carving their bodies

as if they were made only to be their slaves,

and themselves to be the tyrants over them,

laying out so much cost,

and exercising so much cruelty,

for that which is worse than nothing,

for that which will not only not profit them,

but extremely and eternally prejudice them;

notice how he breaks up the movement when he comes to Christ.

and in the interim

the easy yoke of Christ is scorned,

the power of godliness slighted,

which might be minded with much more mildness and mercy to their outward and inward man. [note the alliteration in his last clause]

The needless tasks men undertake:

It was a good meditation of a fore-quoted author, Those that travel in long pilgrimages to the Holy Land, what a number of weary paces they measure! what a number of hard lodgings and known dangers they pass! and at last, when they are come within view of their journey’s end, what a large tribute they pay at the Pisan Castle to the Turks! and when they are come thither, what see they but the bare sepulchre wherein their Saviour lay, and the earth that he trod upon, to the increase of a carnal devotion!

As he did with the example of those who torment their body, he ends with a counter. Following the lament, he holds an offer of peace to be found in true worship.

What labour should I willingly undertake in my journey to the true land of promise, the celestial Jerusalem, where I shall see and enjoy my Saviour himself! What tribute of pain or death should I refuse to pay for my entrance, not into his sepulchre, but his palace of glory, and that not to look upon, but to possess it?

¹ Diodor. Sic.

² Verberari a dæmone mallebat quam a Deo coronari.—Mendoz. in 1 Sam. 8

³ Purch. Pilgrim., p. 1478.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 35.4

03 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Joy, Sanctification, Sanctifictation

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Dross, Edward Taylor, joy, Meditation 35, poem, Poetry, Sanctification

Stanza Six

Oh, that the sweets of all these windings, spout

Might, and these influences strait and cross

Upon my soul, to make thy shine break out

That Grace might in get and get out my dross!

My soul up locked then in this clod of dust

Would lock up in’t all heavenly joys most just.

Summary: While the expression become a bit tangled in places, this stanza is a prayer that God would work out all the contrary and difficult means of providence for God’s glory, the poet’s sanctification, and ultimate joy.

This is major theme of Christian theology and was a particular note among the Puritans: Trial, Sanctification, Joy.

aluminum dross processing machine - YouTube

Note

The principal allusion which stands behind this stanza seems to be 1 Peter:

1 Peter 1:3–9 (AV)

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

⁶Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: ⁷That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: ⁸Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: ⁹Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

The elements of this passage which appear in the stanza are as follows:

That Grace might in get and get out my dross

There are difficult and contrary aspects to life:

all these windings, spout

Might, and these influences strait and cross

Upon my soul, to make thy shine break out

Peter: ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations

The purpose of trials is sanctification:

That Grace might in get and get out my dross!

Peter: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

The particular image of God removing “dross” is found in

Proverbs 25:4 (AV)

4 Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.

Isaiah 1:25 (AV)

And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross.

The image of “dross” refers to the process of purifying melt. The “dross” is the impurity mixed with the ore.

This concept is a commonplace in Puritan theology: As Thomas Watson writes, “But how shall we attain to heart-purity?..[By] fire, Acts 2:3. Fire is of a purifying nature; it doth refine and cleanse metals; it separates the dross from the gold; the Spirit of God in the heart doth refine and sanctify it; it burns up the dross of sin.”

Thomas Watson: “The goldsmith loves his gold when it is in the furnace, and so does God love his children when he places them in the crucible of affliction; it is only to separate the dross, not to consume the gold. “Whom he loveth, he loveth to the end.”

The end is joy:

Oh, that the sweets of all

My soul up locked then in this clod of dust

Would lock up in’t all heavenly joys most just.

Jonathan Edwards, the son of Taylor’s fellow pastor, was to write in Religious Affections in a manner quite consistent with Taylor’s sixth stanza: God brings trial to bring about sanctification which ends in joy:

It has been abundantly found to be true in fact, by the experience of the Christian church; that Christ commonly gives, by his Spirit, the greatest, and most joyful evidences to his saints, of their sonship, in those effectual exercises of grace, under trials, which have been spoken of; as is manifest in the full assurance, and unspeakable joys of many of the martyrs. Agreeable to that, 1 Pet. 4:14: “If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory, and of God resteth upon you.” And that in Rom. 5:2–3: “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and glory in tribulations.” And agreeable to what the apostle Paul often declares of what he experienced in his trials. And when the apostle Peter, in my text, speaks of the “joy unspeakable, and full of glory,” which the Christians to whom he wrote, experienced; he has respect to what they found under persecution, as appears by the context. Christ’s thus manifesting himself, as the friend and Saviour of his saints, cleaving to him under trials, seems to have been represented of old, by his coming and manifesting himself, to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the furnace

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, Revised edition., vol. 2, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 454.

Particular clauses:

Oh, that the sweets of all these windings: The sweet end of all the various trials, the “windings” of life.

Spout/Might, I will admit this phrase is obscure. I take it mean something like a waterspout, or a pouring out of something strong and, here, dangerous. But it is not clear to me.

these influences strait and cross

Upon my soul, Strait: narrow, difficult. Cross, painful, contrary.

to make thy shine break out: Here “shine” is a synonym for “glory” or light. Taylor uses the image of light frequently to refer to God.

That Grace might in get and get out my dross!: The prayer here is that the transformative grace of God would enter his soul expel the sinful dross, the impurity in his heart.

My soul up locked then in this clod of dust

Would lock up in’t all heavenly joys most just.

He here transforms the Platonic/Neo-platonic idea of the body being a bare trap for the soul. The soul is in a clod of dust, for the body will die, and return to dust. But here something happens: into this body is locked-up heavenly joy. The concept of heavenly joy being locked up also comes from the passage in 1 Peter quoted above: ^{4 “}To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵Who are kept by the power of God” The words “reserved” and “kept” are fairly strong terms in the Greek. In particular, the word “kept” has the idea of an actual military guard. These joys are indeed “lock up” safely.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.2 (the two parts of repentance)

25 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Repentance, Richard Sibbes

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Repentance, Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner

An examination of the promises made in repentance. Sibbes will identify two: a leaving off, and a taking on. Although mentioned here, it is the pattern also found in Ephesians 4: The thief does not merely need to leave off stealing; he also must get a job and give. Owen explains mortification as abounding in the grace contrary to the sin. Thus, the remedy for greed is thankfulness.

After this their solemn covenant and promise of yielding praise to God, that if he would forgive all their sins, and do good to them, then he should have the best they could do to him again: praise here is a promise of new obedience, which hath two branches,

1. A renunciation of the ill courses they took before.

‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’

2. Then there is a positive duty implied in these words, ‘For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’

I admit, I find Sibbes’ argument that positive duty is implied in the second clause difficult to follow. He is going to provide an explanation in the paragraph below. But the explanation actually supports a different proposition: The reason why I will not trust in Assyria is that such trust is ill-founded and unneeded. I can trust you. Even the weakest, the fatherless can find trust in you.

Whereof, the one springs from the other; ‘Asshur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’ Whence comes all these? ‘For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’ Thou shalt be our rock, our trust, our confidence for ever. What will follow upon this? ‘Asshur shall not save us any longer; we will not ride upon horses,’ &c. For we have pitched and placed our confidence better; on him in whom ‘the fatherless findeth mercy.’

‘Asshur shall not save us.’ The confidence which this people had placed partly in Asshur, their friends and associates, and partly in their own strength at home, now promising repentance, they renounce all such confidence in Asshur, horses and idols. ‘Asshur shall not save us,’ &c.

He gives some consideration to the proposition that the people should not trust in Assyria. He begins by noting that the prophets note the running back and forth between Egypt and Assyria, hoping that one would save the from the other:

First, for this, ‘Asshur shall not save us,’ that is, the Assyrians, whom they had on the one side, and the Egyptians on the other: it being, as we see in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, ordinary with God’s people, in any distress, to have recourse to the Assyrians, or Egyptians, as if God had not been sufficient to be their rock and their shield. We see how often the Lord complains of this manner of dealing. ‘Woe unto them that go down into Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many,’ &c., Isa. 30:2, and 31:1. The prophets, and so this prophet, are very full of such complaints: it being one of the chief arguments he presseth, their falseness in this, that in any fear or peril, they ran to the shelter of other nations, especially these two, Egypt and Assyria, as you have it, ‘Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind; he daily increaseth lies and desolation, and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt,’ Hosea 12:1, that is, balm, who had this privilege above all other nations, to abound in precious balms; which balm and oil they carried into Egypt, to win their favour against the Assyrians. Sometimes they relied on the one, and sometimes on the other, the story and causes whereof were too tedious to relate.

He then draws a conclusion: We will continue to trust in the untrustworthy creature until a supernatural help comes to set out trust upon the trustworthy Creator:

Wherefore I come to the useful points arising hence. ‘Asshur shall not save us.’

1. That man, naturally, is prone to put confidence in the creature.

2. That the creature is insufficient and unable to yield us this prop to uphold our confidence.

3. That God’s people, when they are endowed with light supernatural to discern and be convinced hereof, are of that mind to say, ‘Asshur shall not save us.’

Having made theses observations, he goes onto explicate these propositions in three “doctrines”: Our repentance must include prayer and praise. (2) Our repentance must be directed to the sin to which we are “addicted.” (3) It is our nature to trust present creaturely things. But, these things cannot help us.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.1 (thankfulness)

24 Thursday Jun 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Richard Sibbes, Thankfulness

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Praise, Richard Sibbes, thankfulness, The Backsliding Sinner

This third sermon begins with a short exhortation and instruction on praise.

The words, as we heard heretofore, contain a most sweet and excellent form of returning unto God, for miserable, lost, and forlorn sinners; wherein so far God discovers his willingness to have his people return unto him, that he dictates unto them a form of prayer, ‘Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away iniquity.’

‘And do good to us,’ or do graciously to us; for there is no good to us till sin be removed. Though God be goodness itself, there is no provoking or meriting cause of mercy in us. But he finds cause from his own gracious nature and bowels of mercy to pity his poor people and servants. It is his nature to shew mercy, as the fire to burn, a spring to run, the sun to shine. Therefore, it is easily done. As the prophet speaks, ‘Who is a God like unto thee?’ Micah 7:18.

Notes:

for miserable, lost, and forlorn sinners: This repetition is not the bare repetition of synonyms. While repetition of a synonym can, in certain circumstances be useful, it most often simply a lack of thought trying to present itself as rhetorical power. Here, the words are not strictly repetitions: Miserable is here an objective statement on the badness of their circumstance: they are objects of pity. Lost is another objective statement but emphasis the reason why they are miserable. Forlorn speaks to the emotional state of these lost sinners.

Wherein so far God discovers his willingness to have his people return unto him, that he dictates unto them a form of prayer: This is an inference which Sibbes obtains from the text, although it is not anywhere directly stated. It is based upon a broader understanding which Sibbes has of God as one of infinite mercy and grace toward his children.

Wherein we see how detestation of sin must be as general as the desire of pardon, and that none heartily pray to God to ‘take away all iniquity’ who have not grace truly to hate all iniquity. This inference is based upon the “all”. We are called upon to pray, not take away this particular sin, but let me keep the other. Rather, we must pray to be freed from all sin.

Where we come to speak of the re-stipulation, ‘So will we render the calves of our lips.’ Where God’s favour shines, there will be a reflection. Love is not idle, but a working thing. It must render or die. And what doth it render? Divers sacrifices of the New Testament, which I spake of; that of a broken heart; of Christ offered to the Father, to stand betwixt God’s wrath and us; ourselves as a living sacrifice; alms-deeds and praise, which must be with the whole inward powers of the soul.

Notes:

re-stipulation Restating the agreement.

Where God’s favour shines, there will be a reflection: This is a fundamental principle of sanctification: Human beings function as mirrors to the glory of God. As that glory shines upon us, we become conformed to that glory. 2 Cor. 3:18. Therefore, if one is indeed beholding the glory of God in Christ by faith, it should be demonstrable in a transformation of the one gazing. This would be the place of good works. Good works do not merit the love and grace of God. But the love and grace of God produce good works in the human being.

The seed in the ground can do nothing to compel the sun to shine or rain to fall. The plant does not grow to beckon the sun. Rather, the sun and rain produce growth in the seed.

Love is not idle, but a working thing. It must render or die. Sibbes is not saying that love is not an affection. He does not say that we do not have a subjective sense of being one who loves. What he is saying is that this affection produces action: What does love do? It gives. For God so loved the world He gave. Likewise, if we love God we will give.

And what doth it render? Divers sacrifices of the New Testament, which I spake of; In the previous sermon, Sibbes wrote of what we give by means of sacrifice.

‘Praise is not comely in the mouth of a fool,’ saith the wise man, nor of a wicked man. Saith God to such, ‘What hast thou to do to take my words in thy mouth, since thou hatest to be reformed, and hast cast my words behind thee?’ Ps. 50:16, 17. There are a company who are ordinary swearers and filthy speakers. For them to praise God, James tells them that these contrary streams cannot flow out of a good heart, James 3:10, 11. Oh, no; God requires not the praise of such fools.

Oh, no; God requires not the praise of such fools. Sibbes develops this argument from two divergent passages. First, a rebuke of God in Psalm 50. Second, an observation of James. These sort of connections can only be made by enormous familiarity and meditation of upon the Bible.

The point is that God does not need the sound of human beings praising. Rather, true praise must be something other than bare words. Prayer is not magical invocation.

When he doth encourage us by his favours and blessings, and enlarge our spirits, then we are in a right temper to bless him. Let us not lose the occasion.

I gave you also some directions how to praise God, and to stir up yourselves to this most excellent duty, which I will not insist on now, but add a little unto that I then delivered, which is, that we must watch all advantages of praising God from our dispositions. ‘Is any merry? Let him sing,’ saith James, 5:13. Oh! It is a great point of wisdom to take advantages with the stream of our temper to praise God. When he doth encourage us by his favours and blessings, and enlarge our spirits, then we are in a right temper to bless him. Let us not lose the occasion. This is one branch of redeeming of time, to observe what state and temper of soul we are in, and to take advantage from thence.

Is any man in heaviness? He is fit to mourn for sin. Let him take the opportunity of that temper. Is any disposed to cheerfulness? Let him sacrifice that marrow, oil, and sweetness of spirit to God. We see the poor birds in the spring-time, when those little spirits they have are cherished with the sunbeams, how they express it in singing. So when God warms us with his favours, let him have the praise of all.

Notes

This is one branch of redeeming of time, to observe what state and temper of soul we are in, and to take advantage from thence. This is the key thought of the paragraph. Rather, than provide instruction on how exactly to praise, Sibbes makes the practical observation of when we can praise. His proposition is that in every emotional state we find ourselves, there is a manner in which we can praise God.

Therefore, when we have received a good thing, be thankful and cheerful. But even if we are in a difficulty place, our mourning can be the proper response. “It is a great point of wisdom to take advantages with the stream of our temper to praise God.” This point of wisdom is routinely lost in our worship. We have such a truncated understanding of human beings and worship that often a forced exuberance is the only permissible mode.

And here I cannot but take up a lamentation of the horrible ingratitude of men, who are so far from taking advantage by God’s blessings to praise him, that they fight like rebels against him with his own favours. Those tongues which he hath given them for his glory, they abuse to pierce him with blasphemy; and those other benefits of his, lent them to honour him with, they turn to his dishonour; like children who importunately ask for divers things, which, when they have, they throw them to the dog. So favours they will have, which, when they have obtained, they give them to the devil; unto whom they sacrifice their strength and cheerfulness, and cannot be merry, unless they be mad and sinful. Are these things to be tolerated in these days of light? How few shall we find, who, in a temper of mirth, turn it the right way?

Notes:

This paragraph is a warning. There are some people who cannot rightly conceive of how to be happy for the good things which God has given and done without turning that happiness into sinful revelry. They “cannot be merry, unless they be mad and sinful.”

This is “the horrible ingratitude of men.” They take God’s blessing and then sin against God.

Is Sibbes speaking of believers? He does not specify, but I imagine yes and no. This would be appropriate in an age when church attendance was (nearly) universal on Sunday. Thus, the congregation would always be mixed. Unbelievers receive good things from God: the sun and rain are given to all. (Matt. 5:45) Thus, the common grace of God benefits all, but is not rightly praised by all. (Rom. 1:21)

Believers too can misuse good gifts and can take ease as an excuse to sin.

Now Sibbes provides a series of 5 encouragements to praise:

1. But to add some encouragements to incite us to praise God unto the former, I beseech you let this be one, that we honour God by it. It is a well-pleasing sacrifice to him. If we would study to please him, we cannot do it better than by praising him.

Note: We willing give praise to all sorts of things which are far less valuable and far less worthy of praise. But at the very least God is worthy of our praise. (Ps. 104) If we desire to please God, we must start with praising God.

As a practical matter, if more our thoughts were turned toward the praise of God,it would result in a transformation of how we live. I have never met someone who was overly zealous in a desire to praise God.

2. And it is a gainful trading with God. For in bestowing his seed, where he finds there is improvement in a good soil, with such a sanctified disposition as to bless him upon all occasions, that there comes not a good thought, a good motion in the mind, but we bless God who hath injected such a good thought in our heart; there, I say, God delights to shower down more and more blessings, making us fruitful in every good work to the praise of his name. Sometimes we shall have holy and gracious persons make a law that no good or holy motion shall come into their hearts, which they will not be thankful for. Oh! when God seeth a heart so excellently disposed, how doth it enrich the soul! It is a gainful trade. As we delight to bestow our seed in soils of great increase, which yield sixty and an hundredfold, if possible, so God delights in a disposition inclined to bless him upon all occasions, on whom he multiplies his favours.

Note: By “gainful trading” Sibbes is playing upon the metaphor of someone who sells and buys. He then mixes this metaphor with farming: God plants a seed of something worthy of praise. The sanctified ground responds by raising up praise: this encourages more blessing (hence, the trade).

Notice how careful Sibbes describes this: as we have a good thought, a good motion of the soul, the respond should be thank and praise God for it. It is a continuous application of the soul to the circumstance. This is a sort of Christian mindfulness.

3. And then, in itself, it is a most noble act of religion, it being a more base thing to be always begging of God; but it argueth a more noble, raised, and elevated spirit, to be disposed to praise God. And it is an argument of less self-love and respect, being therefore more gainful to us. Yea, it is a more noble and royal disposition, fit for spiritual kings and priests thus to sacrifice.

Note: This comes as a sort of encouragement rebuke. If all of our prayer is asking, it shows that we are self-consumed. We want what we want. But a more “royal disposition” (from 1 Peter 2) is to give sacrifice in the form of praise. This is not a rebuke to pray for our needs. But is a rebuke if we simply conceive of God as someone who is supposed to give me something when I want it.

4. Again, indeed, we have more cause to praise God than to pray; having many things to praise him for, which we never prayed for. Who ever prayed for his election, care of parents in our infancy, their affection to us, care to breed and train us to years of discretion, besides those many favours daily heaped upon us, above all that we are able to think or speak? Therefore, praise being a more large sacrifice than prayer, we ought to be abundant in it.

For those that begin not heaven upon earth, of which this praise is a main function, they shall never come to heaven, after they are taken from the earth; for there is no heavenly action, but it is begun upon earth, especially this main one, of joining with angels, seraphim, and cherubim, in lauding God. Shall they praise him on our behalf, and shall not we for our own? We see the choir of angels, when Christ was born, sang, ‘Glory be to God on high, on earth peace, and goodwill towards men,’ Luke 2:14. What was this for? Because Christ the Saviour of the world was born; whereby they shew that we have more benefit, by it than they. Therefore, if we would ever join with them in heaven, let us join with them upon earth. For this is one of the great privileges mentioned by the author to the Hebrews, unto which we be come to, ‘communion with the spirits of just men made perfect, and to the company of innumerable angels,’ Heb. 12:22, 23. We cannot better shew that we are come to that blessed estate and society spoken of, than by praising God.

Notes: He makes two arguments here.

First, “we have more cause to praise God than to pray; having many things to praise him for, which we never prayed for.” We might be tempted to be thankful for those things which asked for and received. But what we fail to realize is that God has been constantly providing us with good things –even without asking. We have endless reasons to be thankful. Therefore, we have more cause to praise than petition.

Second, the heavenly beings are busy praising God for the good things God has done for us. Christ was not given to redeem angels, and yet angels praise God Christ. If we are ever to be part of that heavenly choir, it will be that we have joined it on earth.

5. And lastly, if we be much in praising God, we shall be much in joy, which easeth misery. For a man can never be miserable that can be joyful; and a man is always joyful when he is thankful. When one is joyful and cheerful, what misery can lie upon him? Therefore, it is a wondrous help in misery to stir up the heart to this spiritual sacrifice of thanksgiving by all arguments, means, and occasions.

Note: This is an observation about human psychology: Thankfulness makes one happy. We cannot be thankful and discontent. And we cannot but be happy if we are thankful. Thus, praising God in thankfulness is a means to transform and stir up our hearts to joy.

if we be much in praising God, we shall be much in joy, which easeth misery. For a man can never be miserable that can be joyful; and a man is always joyful when he is thankful. When one is joyful and cheerful, what misery can lie upon him?

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 2.7

05 Saturday Jun 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Praise, Richard Sibbes, Thankfulness

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Assurance, Heaven, Praise, Richard Sibbes, Sacrifice, thankfulness

V. “Doct. That God’s children at all times have their sacrifices.”

Even though Christ has come and the temple sacrifices of animals and grain have been superseded, it does not mean there are no sacrifice remains for Christians. Sibbes lists five: a broken heart, “offering Christ to God,” offering a mortified life as a living sacrifice, giving alms, and praise. When it comes to praise, he will offer further elaboration.

A. Even though Christ has come we must still offer sacrifice

There is indeed one kind of sacrificing determined and finished by the coming of Christ, who was the last sacrifice of propitiation for our sins.

He specifically rejects the concept of the mass as a continuing sacrifice. The sacrifice commemorated in the Supper was the sacrifice under which which has ended.

The more to blame those who yet maintain a daily sacrifice, not of laud and praise, but of cozening and deluding the world, in saying mass for the sins of the quick and the dead; all such sacrifices being finished and closed up in him, our blessed Saviour; who, ‘by one sacrifice,’ as the apostle speaks, ‘hath perfected them that are sanctified,’ Heb. 10:14, 7:27; and that, ‘by one sacrifice, when he offered up himself,’ Heb. 10:12; when all the Jewish sacrifices ended. Since which, all ours are but a commemoration of Christ’s last sacrifice, as the fathers say: the Lord’s supper, with the rest, which remain still; and the sacrifice of praise, with a few others, I desire to name.

But there are other sacrifices:

1. First, The sacrifice of a broken heart, whereof David speaks, Ps. 51:17; which sacrifice of a wounded, broken heart, by the knife of repentance, pleaseth God wondrously well.

2. And then, a broken heart that offers Christ to God every day; who, though he were offered once for all, yet our believing in him, and daily presenting his atonement made for us, is a new offering of him. Christ is crucified and sacrificed for thee as oft as thou believest in Christ crucified.

I guess we best understand this as the application of faith to a broken heart: it is to plead Christ’s death again without claiming that we are in fact re-sacrificing Christ.

Now, upon all occasions we manifest our belief in Christ, to wash and bathe ourselves in his blood, who justifieth the ungodly. So that, upon a fresh sight of sin, with contrition for it, he continually justifieth us. Thus, when we believe, we offer him to God daily; a broken heart first, and then Christ with a broken heart.

There is also the sacrifice of the presenting our lives to service:

3. And then when we believe in Christ, we offer and sacrifice ourselves to God; in which respect we must, as it were, be killed ere we be offered. For we may not offer ourselves as we are in our lusts, but as mortified and killed by repentance. Then we offer ourselves to God as a reasonable and living sacrifice, when we offer ourselves wholly unto him, wit, understanding, judgment, affections, and endeavour; as Paul saith of the Macedonians, ‘they gave themselves to God first, and then their goods,’ 2 Cor. 8:5.

In sum, it is that sacrifice Paul speaks of, ‘to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,’ &c., Rom. 12:1. For a Christian who believeth in the Lord Jesus is not his own, but sacrificeth himself to him that was sacrificed for him. As Christ is given to us, so he that believes in Christ gives himself back again to Christ.

This sacrifice is the measure and proof of our salvation:

Hereby a man may know if he be a true Christian, and that Christ is his, if he yields up himself to God. For ‘Christ died and rose again,’ saith the apostle, ‘that he might be Lord both of quick and dead,’ Rom. 14:9. ‘Therefore,’ saith he, ‘whether we live or die, we are not our own,’ Rom. 14:8.

Each time we suffer due to the fact that our life given up to God is conflict with the flow of this world, we are in a state of sacrifice:

What we do or suffer in the world, in all we are sacrificed. So saith a sanctified soul, My wit, my will, my life, my good, my affections are thine; of thee I received them, and I resign all to thee as a sacrifice. Thus the martyrs, to seal the truth, as a sacrifice, yielded up their blood.

In an anti-antinomian turn, Sibbes who is much of the freedom of God’s grace notes that nature of grace received is to create thankfulness which is expressed in a manner of life. This is an interesting idea: Obedience is rendered as an act of thankfulness toward God.

He that hath not obtained of himself so much as to yield himself to God, he knows not what the gospel means. For Christian religion is not only to believe in Christ for forgiveness of sin; but the same faith which takes this great benefit, renders back ourselves in lieu of thankfulness.

He presses and explicates the point:

So that, whatsoever we have, after we believe, we give all back again. Lord, I have my life, my will, my wit, and all from thee; and to thee I return all back again. For when I gave myself to believe in thy dear Son, I yielded myself and all I have to thee; and now, having nothing but by thy gift, if thou wilt have all I will return all unto thee again; if thou wilt have my life, my goods, my liberty, thou shalt have them.

Here he notes that true faith is not merely a cognitive assent to a fact “not altogether in believing in this or that”. Faith transforms the entire life, faith is such a thing:

This is the state of a Christian who hath denied himself. For we cannot believe as we should unless we deny ourselves. Christianity is not altogether in believing this and that; but the faith which moves me to believe forgiveness of sins, carries us also unto God to yield all back again to him.

Love for those whom cannot repay:

4. More especially, among the sacrifices of the New Testament are alms, as, ‘To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased,’ Heb. 13:16.

The sacrifice of prase:

5. And among the rest, the sacrifice of praise, which is in the same chapter, verse 15. First, he saith, By him, that is, by Christ, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips: which is but an exposition of this place, which, because it is especially here intended, I will a little enlarge myself in.

B. What is meant by “calves of our lips”

This idiom is at first quite difficult: calves and lips are not concordant ideas. But the use of “calf” as a metonymy for “sacrifice” leads to some sense:

He first gives an outline of how he will develop the idea: giving glory and giving thanks. One is extolling God, the other is an effusion of love for the thing received.

The ‘calves of our lips’ implies two things: Not only thankfulness to God, but glorifying of God, in setting out his praise. Otherwise to thank God for his goodness to us, or for what we hope to receive, without glorifying of him, is nothing at all worth.

1. What it means to glorify God

For in glorifying there are two things.

a. “A supposition of excellency.” For that cannot be glorified, which hath no excellency in it. Glory in sublimity hath alway excellency attending it. And

b. “The manifestation of this glory.”

Now, when all the excellencies of God, as they are, are discovered and set out, his wisdom, mercy, power, goodness, all-sufficiency, &c., then we glorify him. To praise God for his favours to us, and accordingly to glorify him, is ‘the calves of our lips;’ but especially to praise him. Whence the point is—

c. “That the yielding of praise to God is a wondrous acceptable sacrifice.”

Which is instead of all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, than which the greatest can do no more, nor the least less; for it is the sacrifice and fruit of the lips.

But to open it.

i. The speech which glorifies God has its value in the fact it springs from the understanding:

It is not the sound of the words, but the resolution of the heart which makes the speech God-glorifying.

It is not merely the sacrifice of our lips; for the praise we yield to God, it must be begotten in the heart. Hereupon the word, λογὸς [logos], speech, signifieth both reason and speech, there being one word in the learned language for both.

Reason is communicated as speech:

Because speech is nothing but that stream which issues from the spring of reason and understanding:

therefore, in thanksgiving there must not be a lip-labour only, but a thanksgiving from the lips, first begotten in the heart, coming from the inward man, as the prophet saith, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name,’ Ps. 103:1.

We know what and why we praise:

Praise must come from a sound judgment of the worth of the thing we praise for.

Praise must rise from true affection:

It must come from an affection which desires that God may have the glory, by the powers of the whole inward man, which is a hard matter, to rouse up ourselves to praise God with all the powers of our soul, ‘all that is within me, praise his holy name,’ Ps. 103:1.

In sum: There goeth judgment, resolution of the will, strength of affections, and all with it.

ii. Praise comes from the heart and then flows out into action:

Praise is an act of integrity: It begins with a true understanding and love, expressing itself in word and in conduct:

And then again, besides this, ‘the calves of our lips’ carries us to work. The oral thanksgiving must be justified by our works and deeds; or else our actions will give our tongue the lie, that we praise him with the one, but deny him in the other. This is a solecism, as if one should look to the earth, and cry, O ye heavens! So when we say, God be praised, when yet our life speaks the contrary, it is a dishonouring of God. So the praise of our lips must be made good and justified by our life, actions, and conversation. This we must suppose for the full understanding of the words, ‘We will render,’ from our hearts, ‘the calves of our lips;’ which we must make good in our lives and conversations, ever to set forth thy praise in our whole life.

C. Why this phrase?

Quest. But why doth the prophet especially mention lips, ‘the calves of our lips,’ which are our words?

Ans. 1. Partly, because Christ, who is the Word, delights in our words.

2. Because our tongue is our glory, and that whereby we glorify God.

3. And especially because our tongue is that which excites others, being a trumpet of praise, ordained of God for this purpose. Therefore, ‘the calves of our lips;’ partly, because it stirs up ourselves and others, and partly, because God delights in words, especially of his own dictating.

D. How can become the person who gives such true praise?

To come then to speak more fully of praise and thanksgiving, let us consider what a sweet, excellent, and prevailing duty this is, which the church, to bind God, promiseth unto him, ‘the calves of our lips.’ I will not be long in the point, but only come to some helps how we may come to do it.

1. We must be broken and humbled to give praise: We must think little of ourselves. He makes an important point here concerning thankfulness. A thankful person begins with an understanding of his lack of some-thing and his unworthiness to receive something. We pay money at the market and take away my apple, I am not thankful to the cashier for letting me take my apple, I have paid for it. But if that same person out of kindness gave me that apple without money, an apple I had not earned or deserved, I would be thankful:

First, this praising of God must be from an humble, broken heart. The humble soul that sees itself not worthy of any favour, and confesseth sin before God, is alway a thankful soul. ‘Take away our iniquity, and then do good to us.’ We are empty ourselves. Then will ‘we render thee the calves of our lips.’

Proof of the point

What made David so thankful a man? He was an humble man; and so Jacob, what abased him so in his own eyes? His humility: ‘Lord, I am less than the least of thy mercies,’ Gen. 32:10.

He that thinks himself unworthy of anything, will be thankful for everything; and he who thinks himself unworthy of any blessing, will be contented with the least.

Exhortation: Notice how Sibbes is continually raising application as it is appropriate. To be thankful: which is the thing sought, we first must contemplate our unworthiness. The point here is not self-centered loathing, but a realization that we do not deserve good so that we may be thankful of the good.

Therefore, let us work our hearts to humility, in consideration of our sinfulness, vileness, and unworthiness, which will make us thankful: especially of the best blessings, when we consider their greatness, and our unworthiness of them.

Here he makes a point which coheres with something I see in the Iliad (which I am currently completing), a book of extraordinarily proud men. Thankfulness is almost non-existent. The word “thank” only appears 10 times in Butler’s translation, as an ironic concept, as a means for a god to deceive someone into a committing a crime, as a basis for pride (no one thanks me for my fighting).

I wonder if our emphasis on self-esteem has contributed to unhappiness by making us unthankful: and also creating a basis for constant disappointment and frustration (I have not received what I deserved).

Another note, the broken-hearted humility is humility toward God.

A proud man can never be thankful. Therefore, that religion which teacheth pride, cannot be a thankful religion.

Popery is compounded of spiritual pride: merit of congruity, before conversion; merit of condignity, and desert of heaven, after; free will, and the like, to puff up nature. What a religion is this! Must we light a candle before the devil? Is not nature proud enough, but we must light a candle to it? To be spiritually proud is worst of all.

2. Thankfulness is paired with an evaluation of the greatness and goodness of God. The Christian who “humbles” himself can conceal pride in that humility if it is not paired with an understanding of the goodndess and greatness of God. Without this there will never be thankfulness; and there will not be true humility

And with our own unworthiness, add this: a consideration of the greatness of the thing we bless God for; setting as high a price upon it as we can, by considering what and how miserable we were without it.

He is going to raise the doctrine of Hell. The doctrine is routinely unfashionable and is often considered reprehensible. But here Sibbes asks us to consider it so that we may be thankful. Here is the misery we have earned (and that is the point which is unpalatable, perhaps you could deserve Hell, but I could not), and yet we are spared. If you narrowly avoided being killed in a fire, you would thank the fireman.

He will bless God joyfully for pardon of sin, who sees how miserable he were without it, in misery next to devils, ready to drop into hell every moment. And the more excellent we are, so much the more accursed, without the forgiveness of sins.

For the soul, by reason of the largeness thereof, is so much the more capable and comprehensible of misery; as the devils are more capable than we, therefore are most accursed. Oh, this will make us bless God for the pardon of sin!

Consider all of the good things we have received. In particular be thankful that we can see or hear or touch.

And likewise, let us set a price upon all God’s blessings, considering what we were without our senses, speech, meat, drink, rest, &c. O beloved!

we forget to praise God sufficiently for our senses.

This little spark of reason in us is an excellent thing; grace is founded upon it. If we were without reason, what were we? If we wanted sight, hearing, speech, rest, and other daily blessings, how uncomfortable were our lives! This consideration will add and set a price to their worth, and make us thankful, to consider our misery without them.

Sadly, we don’t know how many good things we have until we do not have them:

But, such is our corruption, that favours are more known by the want, than by the enjoying of them. When too late, we many times find how dark and uncomfortable we are without them; then smarting the more soundly, because in time we did not sufficiently prize, and were thankful for them.

Let us, then, be stirred up to give God his due beforehand, to begin heaven upon earth; for we are so much in heaven already, as we abound and are conversant in thanksgiving upon earth.

3. If we have a good assurance that we are right before God, we will be thankful

And then, labour to get further and further assurance that we are God’s children, beloved of him.

Assurance will work in two ways: it will make me conscious of what I have – and what is coming. It will make me thankful.

This will make us thankful both for what we have and hope for.

Proof of the point by considering the opposite:

It lets out the life-blood of thankfulness, to teach doubting or falling from grace.

Why does God tell us of the good which is laid up for us? To make us hopeful and thus thankful:

What is the end, I beseech you, why the glory to come is revealed before the time? That we shall be sons and daughters, kings and queens, heirs and co-heirs with Christ, and [that] ‘all that he hath is ours?’ Rom. 8:17. Is not this knowledge revealed beforehand, that our praise and thanksgiving should beforehand be suitable to this revelation, being set with Christ in heavenly places already. Whence comes those strong phrases? ‘We are raised with Christ; sit with him in heavenly places,’ Eph. 2:6; ‘are translated from death to life,’ Col. 1:13; ‘transformed into his image;’ ‘partakers of the divine nature,’ &c., 2 Pet. 1:4.

Faith begets thankfulness. Doubting robs us of blessing. This is an important aspect of faith: it the means by which one person receives love and joy and hope from another: if I distrust you, I can never receive love from you.

If anything that can come betwixt our believing, and our sitting there, could disappoint us thereof, or unsettle us, it may as well put Christ out of heaven, for we sit with him. If we yield to the uncomfortable popish doctrine of doubting, we cannot be heartily thankful for blessings; for still there will rise in the soul surmises, I know not whether God favour me or not: it may be, I am only fatted for the day of slaughter; God gives me outward things to damn me, and make me the more inexcusable.

And if we doubt we will not give God the praise he deserves. How could one be thainkful with, maybe you’ll do me good?

What a cooler of praise is this, to be ever doubting, and to have no assurance of God’s favour! But when upon good evidence, which cannot deceive, we have somewhat wrought in us, distinct from the greater number of worldlings, God’s stamp set upon us; having evidences of the state of grace, by conformity to Christ, and walking humbly by the rule of the word in all God’s ways: then we may heartily be thankful, yea, and we shall break forth in thanksgiving; this being an estate of peace, and ‘joy unspeakable and glorious,’ 1 Pet. 1:8, wherein we take everything as an evidence of God’s love.

He restates the proposition:

Thus the assurance of our being in the state of grace makes us thankful for everything.

He restates the contrary: Notice the tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. Particularly when delivering an oral message, repetition is critical to retention and understanding.

So by the contrary, being not in some measure assured of God’s love in Christ, we cannot be thankful for everything. For it will always come in our mind, I know not how I have these things, and what account I shall give for them.

He repeats the exhortation: Be assured of what you will receive for this will fill your heart with thankfulness:

Therefore,

[two reasons]

[1]even for the honour of God,

[2]and that we may praise him the more cheerfully,

[exhortation]

let us labour to have further and further evidences of the state of grace,

[this leads to]

to make us thankful both for things present and to come,

seeing faith takes to trust things to come, as if it had them in possession.

[Our faith is well-grounded]

Whereby we are assured of this, that we shall come to heaven, as sure as if we were there already. This makes us praise God beforehand for all favours; as blessed Peter begins his epistle, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,’ &c., 1 Pet. 1:3, 4.

A final encouragement:

As soon as we are newborn, we are begotten to a kingdom and an inheritance. Therefore, assurance that we are God’s children will make us thankful for grace present, and that to come, as if we were in heaven already. We begin then the employment of heaven in thanksgiving here, to praise God beforehand with cherubims and angels. Let us, then, be stirred up to give God his due beforehand, to begin heaven upon earth; for we are so much in heaven already, as we abound and are conversant in thanksgiving upon earth.

What is a human being, if you extirpate love?

04 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Love, Psychology, Uncategorized

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astorge, Extirpate, love, Nietzsche, Psychology, Psychopath

In The Criminal Psychopath, Jurimetrics. 2011 Summer; 51: 355–397, Kiehl and Hoffman provide a thorough summary of the history, diagnosis, and treatment of the psychopath, particularly with a view to amount of crime committed by this relatively small proportion of the population.

It raises the interesting issue of the degree to which the condition is the result of a brain disorder and the interaction with this brain in its environment. There is apparently some evidence that the condition has a genetic component, and perhaps it is a peculiarly vulnerable brain in connection with the “right” environment which leads to the exhibition of utter moral inability. Plainly performing standard experiments by tormenting and mistreating children in rigorously similar manners to see whether the condition can be induced regularly would be evil. Therefore, one needs to consider proxies, such as the condition shows some responsiveness to treatment if the treatment early enough in life.

That there is correspondence between the condition and certain brain function is interesting: But note that the information cited shows the functioning of the brain: their brains function differently. When faced with moral situations the parts of their brain which were involved differed from “you and me.” But what does that exactly prove? The argument that the brain is causing this condition actually contains a hidden premise: that all thought must begin from the brain, not pass through the brain.

For a moment take a different body part: the psychopath and the mother with her child both use their hands, but the use is strikingly different. No one believes that the mother hand causes her sweet caress.

Reddit Turned an MIT AI Into a Psychopath. What Is It Doing to Your Brain? | Inc.com

Now a mother with broken hands could not caress in the same manner. The status of her hand both limits and permits certain behavior, but it does not cause her behavior.

But when it comes to the brain, it is easy to believe that the brain is causative. This is because the functioning of rest of the body relies heavily upon the functioning of the brain. In particular, the use of the brain in thought could imply that the brain is directing the thought.

But need that be so? If one adds as an element of the human being a mind, it is no difficulty to concluded that the minds of two different men would use their brains in a different manner: just as the psychopath murders and the doctor heals with the hand.

If we posit that information flows from the body toward the mind and the mind toward the body, effects can move in both directions. (The precise nature of mind and body is not the issue. Although at present I am very intrigued by Dembski’s Being as Communion (information is the ultimate base, not matter) and Thomas’ hylomorphism which seems to resolve Descartes’ hard cleavage interaction problem.) Thus certain types of brains would have effects without being the univocal cause.

Another element in the article which intrigued me was “His very disconnectedness is his mask. We cannot see him because we assume all humans have the connections that bind us, and because the psychopath’s very lack of those connections allows him to mimic them.” The psychopath, to use the Ancient Greek term, is a-storge: he lacks human connections. The fact of storge among other humans creates the framework which the psychopath exploits: “One explanation is that being exposed to the frailties of normal people in group therapeutic settings gives psychopaths a stock of information that makes them better at manipulating those normal people. As one psychopath put it, ‘These programs are like a finishing school. They teach you how to put the squeeze on people.'”

They bear a resemblance to Nietzsche’s Nobility who know themselves better than all others and are willing to command and exploit. They also exhibit the final end of depravity in Romans 1.

What should think of them. The authors were hopeful there were ways to get the psychopaths to slow down a bit on their crime spree of life. But there really wasn’t any element of hope.

“As one psychotherapist wrote, his psychopaths in treatment ‘have no desire to change, … have no concept of the future, resent all authorities (including therapists), view the patient role as … being in a position of inferiority, and deem therapy a joke and therapists as objects to be conned, threatened, seduced, or used.'”

That reference to the “future” stuck out. It is not merely that they have no concept of future punishment, they have no mechanism for hope. Perhaps they can move by hungers, I want this-then-that, but would be based upon a present hunger. I might plan to fulfill my hunger, but not be different.

Authorities obviously are merely impediments to be beaten or seduced. That is easy enough. But without the future, without hope. That again is a state described in Paul as the depth of lostness, “having no hope without God in the world.”

Now we come to this character: no authority, no hope, no future. Such a man is ultimately depraved.

It is the cognitive capacity of a man without love: because love is built around the future. Love does not exult in oneself, but puts another first. Love becomes a sort of authority for the other’s good becomes paramount.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 2.7 (A vow of praise)

26 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Praise, Richard Sibbes, Worship, Worship

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glory, Glory of God, Means, praises, Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, Vow, Vows, Worship

2. A Vow of Praise

Now, this promise which the church makes here of praise, is a kind of vow, ‘So will we render,’ &c. To bind one’s-self is a kind of vow.

a. The Purpose of the Vow

Here Sibbes argues in the form of a chiasm. The elements of the argument, reordered, are as follows: The purpose, the end of all things is the glory of God. Human beings fulfill their purpose by giving glory to God. All other things likewise exist for this ultimate end. It is likewise the end of God that God be glorified: God is “moved” by our giving him glory. When we bind ourselves by a vow to give God glory, by giving him thanks, we make an argument which will “prevail with God” (as is explicitly stated in the next paragraph.

This presents a question of the impassibility of God: There is a false understanding of God being impassible which thinks that God must an unresponsive stone, perhaps a pure intellect with the emotional range of a computer. If God has any responsiveness whatsoever to humanity, then God cannot be impassible. This false understanding of impassibility then sets up a false dichotomy, which must contend that since God is shown repeatedly in Scripture to be relational with humanity (God shows wrath, God is love, et cetera), then God must not be impassible.

This doctrine is difficult, primarily I believe, because we start our conception of God with a false conception. A full discussion of this doctrine lies well-beyond this comment on Sibbes’ sermon. However, we can take a quick look, first, at how Sibbes understood the term, and then how of his contemporaries used the term.

He uses the term in reference to our glorified resurrection bodies, “Says he, the body is sown in corruption, but raised in incorruption. Then no more mortality, nor tribulation, nor any sense of sorrow. Some interpreters have thought good to express this by the word impassible, signifying an impossibility of feeling any more hunger, cold, thirst, sorrow, and the like; in brief, not capable of suffering any more; for at first, sin brought in corruption, but then all sin being abolished, corruption, and all things thereunto belonging, must needs cease.” Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 7 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1864), 500–501.

In a related manner, he uses it in reference to Adam (here the word “unpassable”) and in relation to Incarnation: “This should sweeten all our afflictions, that we are dying with Christ, whereby Christ hath communion with us, and whereby we are fitted for communion with Christ; as put case we have sickness or trouble, &c. Christ took upon him flesh, but what? As it was in Adam unpassible?* Christ took upon him our passible nature, as subject to suffer cold, and hunger, and pain, of weariness, and it is fit our bodies should be conformable to the body of Christ, ‘for we are predestinate to be conformed to Christ,’ Rom. 8:29, and therefore when we are put to pain in our callings, or troubled for good consciences, and thereby wear out our bodies, it is but as Christ’s body was used. He took a body that he might suffer, and going about doing good, and be put to hardship. Therefore, if we be put to hardship, it is no more than our Lord Jesus Christ did. And therefore those that be so delicate that will take no pains, endure no sickness, the wind must not blow upon them, the sun must not shine upon them, they love no saving goodness, nothing of the Spirit of Christ, who out of love took our nature upon him, obnoxious to all pain and labour; though not infirmities of our particular persons, yet of our nature. He took upon him our miserable nature, our passible nature, and then he hath our nature in heaven.”

Richard Sibbes, Tvol. 4, p. 408.

In a similar vein to Sibbes, Jonathan Edwards uses it as a reference to the divine nature, in contrast to the state of the Incarnation, “If Christ had remained only in the divine nature, he would not have been in a capacity to have purchased our salvation, not from any imperfection of the divine nature, but by reason of its absolute and infinite perfection. For Christ merely as God was not capable either of that obedience or suffering that was needful. The divine nature is not capable of suffering, for it is impassable and infinitely above all suffering; neither is it capable of obedience to that law that was given to man. ’Tis as impossible that one that is only God should obey the law that was given to man as ’tis that he should suffer man’s punishment.” Jonathan Edwards, “Sermon Fourteen,” in A History of the Work of Redemption, ed. John F. Wilson and John E. Smith, vol. 9, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1989), 295–296.

Charnock uses it to refer to the capacity to be adversely affected by the creation, to suffer, “As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair; it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glory of it be diminished by the injuries of men; but as it signifies a willingness to defer, and an unwillingness to pour forth his wrath upon sinful creatures, he moderates his provoked justice, and forbears to revenge the injuries he daily meets with in the world. He suffers no grief by men’s wronging him, but he restrains his arm from punishing them according to their merits.” Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson; G. Herbert, 1864–1866), 504.

Finally, Thomas Watson uses it in parallel with “impenetrable” and says plainly, the wicked cannot hurt God, “If God be a spirit, then he is impassible,—he is not capable of being hurt. Wicked men set up their banners, and bend their forces against God; they are said to fight against God, Acts 5:39. But what will this fighting avail? What hurt can they do to the Deity? God is a spirit, and therefore cannot receive any hurtful impression; wicked men may imagine evil against the Lord, Nahum 1:9., “What do ye imagine against the Lord?” But God, being a spirit, is impenetrable. The wicked may eclipse his glory, but cannot touch his essence. God can hurt his enemies, but they cannot hurt him. Julian might throw up his dagger into the air against heaven, but could not touch the Deity. God is a spirit, invisible.” Thomas Watson, The Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, Comprising His Celebrated Body of Divinity, in a Series of Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, and Various Sermons and Treatises (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1855), 35.

But saying that God cannot be injured by the creation, does not mean that God is unknowledgeable concerning, nor that God will not act with respect to the creation. That God has said he will hear is an act of promise by God. When Sibbes says that God is “bound” by a vow of thankfulness, it cannot mean that God is unwillingly subjected to the power of the Creature. If the Creature had control over the Creator, then God would be passible.

The nature of the binding is explained in the next paragraph where it says such a vow of praise “prevails” with God: it is a prayer which God has said he will hear. As it says in Ephesians 1:6, God has covenanted and graciously provided for blessed the descendants of Adam “to the praise of his glorious grace.”

The paragraph has been broken out into clauses so that the building up of the argument can be seen more clearly.

Here is the proposition which he will develop:

The church therefore binds herself, that she may bind God; for binding herself by vow to thankfulness, she thereby binds God;

Here he states that God is “moved” – but not in way of suffering:

who is moved with nothing we can do so much as with setting forth of his praise, which was his end in all the creation, the setting forth of his glory.

[There is] nothing we can do so much as with setting forth of his praise, which was his end in all the creation, the setting forth of his glory.

This explains the rationale upon which he can state that God is moved: God created the cosmos for his glory: that is the end of all things. Thus, when God receives glory from the creation, he is merely receiving the end of what he did in the first instance:

The end of the new creature is the end of all things both in nature and grace; the end whereof is God’s glory, from whence all things come and wherein all things end: as we say of a circle, all things begin and end in it.

He summarizes the rationale in a sentence:

All other things are for man, and man for God’s glory.

There is a mountain of theology in that sentence. One thing to briefly note is how this very sentence runs wildly contrary to non-Christian understandings of the world. It revolts against any understanding which detracts from God’s glory. It revolts against any understanding which denigrates humanity to a level of the remainder of the creation: there is a distinct hierarchy here.

When the soul can say, ‘Lord, this shall be for thy honour, to set forth thy praise,’ it binds God.

Hence, that they might move God to yield to their prayers, they bind themselves by a kind of vow.

Do thus, O Lord, and thou shalt not lose by it, thou shalt have praise; ‘so will we render thee the calves of our lips.’

b. The use of vows

This is a topic which I don’t know I have ever heard a sermon preached upon. Perhaps there was a brief mention here and there – with caveat that this is being noted merely to explain this ancient custom. But a sermon which ever encouraged a vow by a living saint, that I do not recall.

But here, Sibbes explains that we do vow and that we should consciously make certain vows to God:

So promises and vows of praise are alleged as an argument to prevail with God, for the obtaining of that the church begs for: ‘So will we render,’ &c. Not to enter into the commonplace of vows, only thus much I say, that there is a good use of them, to vow and promise thankfulness when we would obtain blessings from God. That which a promise is to men, that a vow is to God; and usually they go together in Scripture, as it is said of David, that ‘he vowed unto God, and sware unto the mighty God of Jacob,’ Ps. 132:2. So we have all in baptism vowed a vow. So that it is good to renew our vows often, especially that of new obedience; and in this particular to vow unto him that we will praise him, and strive that his glory be no loser by us.

He then sets forth two reasons we should vow: We are forgetful; we are inconstant.

i. We should vow, because we forget

Take the time to look through Deuteronomy and search for the uses of the words: ‘forget’ and ‘remember’. Over and again, Moses warns them, “Lest you forget” and fall into sin. Therefore, “remember”. The same danger faces us today:

1. It is good thus to vow, if it were but to excite and quicken our dullness and forgetfulness of our general vow; to put us in mind of our duty, the more to oblige us to God and refresh our memories. This bond, that having promised, now I must do it, provokes the soul to it. As it helps the memory, so it quickens the affections.

ii. We should vow, because we are inconstant:

2. Besides, as by nature we are forgetful, so we are inconstant; in which respect it is a tie to our inconstant and unsteady natures.

He makes a point here about conscience: A well-informed conscience has an effect upon us. To vow is to make our relationship with God a matter of conscious conscience. Our inconstancy and forgetfulness make it necessary for us to use means. The use of means is not sinful, but rather a recognition of our status as creatures.

For there are none who have the Spirit of God at all, with any tenderness of heart, but will thus think: I have vowed to God. If it be a heinous thing to break with men, what is it wittingly and willingly to break with the great God? A vow is a kind of oath. This is the sacrifice of fools, to come to God, and yet neither to make good our vows, nor endeavour to do it.

Sibbes here makes an application to the congregation before him, based upon the fact that they had already taken communion. It has been my experience that communion comes at the end of the service and the mediation upon communion comes only before it is received. Here is says, you have taken and this is what this now imposes upon you:

Let us consider therefore what we have done in this case. By permission of authority, there was a fast lately, when we all renewed our vows (we mocked God else), [and] received the communion. Will God be mocked, think you? No; but howsoever man may forget, God will not, but will come upon us for non-payment of our vows and covenants.

He then expands the point and makes a broader application: What else have you done with God? What prayers, what promises?

Lay we it to heart therefore what covenants we have made with God of late. And then, for the time to come, be not discouraged if you have been faulty in it. There is a general vow, wherein, though we have failed (if we be his children, and break not with God in the main, cleaving to him in purpose of heart, occasionally renewing our purposes and covenants), yet let not Satan discourage us for our unfaithfulness therein.

And what if you have failed:

But be ashamed of it, watch more, look better to it for the time to come, and make use of the gracious covenant; and, upon recovery, say with the church, ‘So will we render the calves of our lips.’

Look carefully at how Sibbes makes this point: (1) see your sin and feel the remorse for your sin; (2) repent and look forward; (3) make gracious use of the covenant: God has not rejected. The covenant of grace is still in place. God sits upon a throne of grace for those, like you, who have sinned. You are qualified to receive grace because you need grace and you seek grace. (4) Therefore, give thanks. Our stumbling should become the occasion of our renewing our pilgrimage.

He now presses the point by first a reference to the sacrificial system of Israel:

It was the custom under the Jewish policy, you know, to offer sacrifices of all sorts. But the Spirit of God speaks here of the church of the Jews under the New Testament; especially what they should be after their conversion, having reference to the Jews in Christ’s time, and to the believing Jews in all times, implying thus much; howsoever, not legal sacrifices of calves, bullocks, sheep, and lambs, yet the ‘calves of the lips,’ which God likes better, are acceptable to him.

He moves this to the Church:

And it likewise implies some humiliation of the church.

He then leads the congregation in a prayer on this point: Note that the final application of this point is not: go and do this later. Sibbes does it right then with them. He prays and teaches them how and what to pray:

Lord, whatsoever else we could offer unto thee, it is thine own, though it were the beasts upon a thousand mountains; but this, by thy grace, we can do, to ‘praise thee,’ Ps. 50:23. For God must open and circumcise our lips and hearts before we can offer him the ‘calves of our lips.’ Thus much the poorest creature in the world may say to God, Lord, ‘I will render thee the calves of my lips.’ Other things I have not. This I have by thy gracious Spirit, a heart somewhat touched by the sense of thy favour. Therefore ‘I will render thee the calves of my lips;’ that is, praise, as the apostle hath it, ‘By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name,’ Heb. 13:15. ‘So will we render thee the calves of our lips.’

New Creatures in an Old Creation

25 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Mortification, Uncategorized

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Biblical Counsleing, Identity, Mortification, New Creation

All human beings are born into the wrong world. As we look more closely and consider the particulars, we see we are born into the wrong time and the wrong place; the wrong city and the wrong century. Sometimes it seems we are born into the wrong family and are born with the wrong skin.

This is the trouble of the Fall: We were created for a Garden, but we were born into a wilderness. We created with dominion over creation, to keep and care; but we are born under domination, in world of dominion run amuck. We were created royalty and live as serfs. We were created to live forever and born with a body programmed to fail. Everywhere, the cosmos may have space for us to live, but at the same moment contains snares which catch and kill. Even the sun and the water present danger as we need them both.

If the trouble were merely external, perhaps we could bear it with equanimity. But we are born subject to irrational, deceitful desires:

This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Ecclesiastes 9:3 (ESV)

There is the default to human existence. You need do nothing to achieve madness, or sorrow, or death. As Ms. Dickinson wryly wrote:

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me

It takes no effort to die.

There is no solution to this trouble within the scope of this creation. The brokenness of the creation cannot be mended from the inside. It as if one is an ancient wooden ship in the heart of the sea while the hurricane roars and the planks break and the water charges in. How will you mend the breach? You cannot come to shore and prepare the wood and patch the break. You will be able to make planks from water as you will be able to remedy the world.

The One who has cursed the whole is greater than all the creation besides. The certainty of the end will not be moved.

And us, we cannot look to us to escape this doom. The insanity of my heart will never be repaired by my insane heart. The efforts of your insanity will not cure me. How will the mad ever cure the mad?

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad,” said Alice.

“You must be, said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

And the enemy Death stands as the absolute bar. It will not be avoided. Even if someone managed to drag their corpse 1,000 years into the future, Death would still be waiting. At 1,000 years more, Death would have been there first.

And what of those 2,000 years? Will the depraved heart be avoided? Will time finally make you good and wise? Will you rise above the common lot of humanity?

Since no one here gets out alive, the only solution must be to somehow find a door out. The Creation being under a curse; the sentence in stone, irreversible. As Thomas Brooks wrote centuries ago, “This world at last shall be burnt for a witch.”

No remedy could come from ourselves, we being too weak, too contingent, too mad. The remedy of God is not spare the present evil, but to rescue us from the same:

³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Galatians 1:3–4 (ESV). We receive papers to become citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). We are made “new creatures” and are reconciled to God in this new identity:

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17–21 (ESV). And we, as new creations, reconciled to God, bearing the righteousness of Christ await the New Creation, the New Heavens and the New Earth where sin, sorrow, death have been forever put away. “Behold,” says God “I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)

And yet, despite such good news, a difficulty remains. We are rescued, but not yet. We are bound for the Promised Land, and we are living in the wilderness. We are made new creatures, but at present hold an earnest expectation of our full inheritance. A now which tarries over a “little while” (and O how that “little while” can seem), we are grieved with various trials.

We are going to the New Creation, but we are present in the Old. The scent of death still clings to everything we possess. The Creation is doomed and everywhere shows signs of groaning, as it too awaits its redemption.

That is a trouble indeed, but it is not the worst trouble we face in our new status. We are new creations, and yet seemingly not. It can seem more that we have awakened to a heightened sense of trouble, rather than having been delivered. As Thomas Manton wrote, “We are not yet out of gunshot till we come to the end of our race, and are conquerors over all opposition.” (Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 20 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 79.)

Think of this more carefully. We are plainly said to be set free from sin:

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Romans 6:5–10 (ESV) Here he says that we have been set free from sin. And in just another few sentences he will write, “For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14) We look to John’s first letter and read, “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3)

And it seems by logic that being a New Creature, I should look the part. And yet, John also writes, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8). If we have no sin upon salvation, then why the detailed instructions to all the churches? Why are we told that if we confess our sins, we will be cleansed?

Perhaps we need to stop and consider the utter depth and persistence of sin. Someone may consider themselves to be freed from sin. Have you avoided even the thought of lust or anger? Can you say that you have loved God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? And what of enemies? Do you love them. Do you pray for them? Do you bless them? And have you done this utter humility without the tinge of pride? Has all been for God’s glory, alone?

You see, sin sticks more closely to the new creature than may have at first seemed possible. This is why the Scripture records sin even in the best of saints. Luther in his first Thesis wrote, “The whole life of believers should be repentance.”

How then has this serpent managed to find his way into the life of the New Creature? Where does this monster make its den? Paul says it clings to us as flesh. And what could be nearer than flesh? James shows the danger in our own desire:

¹⁴But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

James 1:14–15 (ESV) And so, Paul writes to the Romans whom he said were freed from sin to murder sin:

¹²So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:12–13 (ESV). This whole thing becomes seemingly more confused. How will this take place? There are myriad of issues and errors which can arise as we contemplate this instruction. But there is one which I particularly wish to consider: We cannot put sin to death without a change of identity.

Let us ignore for a moment the many things which are present in this command and look carefully at this element: The death of sin is not merely the death of this or that desire, this or that behavior. It is not as if a perfect being will be revealed if I merely scrub off the mud.

Sin is far more dangerous and damaging than that. To be this New Creature means something far more profound that teaching me manners and buying me new clothes. It means becoming someone else — and yet to become whom I was created to be. It means to shed sin and shame in a manner for more fundamental than can easily be understood.

The Scripture uses words life-death, resurrection and burial, renewal. Look at these seemingly simple words:

⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Colossians 3:9–10 (ESV)

You could read this and see the old self is put off, the new self is put on, I now just need to tidy-up. But look more carefully at verse 10: to be the New Self is to be in the process of transformation. The New Self in possession today is not the end but the beginning. The mortification of sin, the forgetting those things which lie behind and pressing on, is a process of becoming something else.

If you come to grips with this idea, it is disorienting. Perhaps we think of the person who has led a dramatically chaotic life who comes to Christ, gets a job, and gives to others and marries and raises children. Certainly, there is a radical-change, and we all appreciate it and give God glory for such a thing.

But what I am saying here is that the depth of the change is far deeper than giving up the most damaging of overt behaviors. We must give up an idol of self which is more fundamental in our thinking than we easily understand.

We give up this self, we crucify this self – not in the self-abnegation of mysticism, but in the utter transformation of new life in light of the Resurrection of Christ.

I have seen that one reason mortification is so impossible and some much good counsel goes to waste and so many believers struggle dejectedly with sin is that we seek to mortify sin without mortifying self; we seek to remain ourselves and merely shed our sin. But we are called to become something new.

Go back to that language of New Creation. It is not a promise that we will be ourselves with a ticket to the Promised Land. It is a promise that we are and will become something which we were not before.

And so rather than simply seek to hammer away at persistent sin by resistance, we are called up to become someone for whom such sins are unthinkable. Sin should be as strange to us as cuddling a porcupine or drinking lava.

How then is this new identity – because it is nothing less than a new identity – formed?

George Swinnock, The Christian Man’s Calling 1.8a

18 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in George Swinnock, George Swinock, Spiritual Disciplines

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George Swinnock, godliness, Laziness, Preaching, Rhetoric, The Christian Man's Calling

CHAPTER VIII

A complaint that this trade is so dead, and the world’s trade so quick [lively]

The use which I shall make of this doctrine, shall be either by way of complaint or counsel.

Lament Over the Neglect of Godliness:

First, By way of lamentation.

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE LAMENT

If godliness ought to be every one’s principal business, How sadly should it be lamented that this calling is so exceedingly neglected!

A. Compare the efforts in trade to effort in godliness

This argument is first laid-out in an A₁-B₁-A₂-B₂structure: Commerce, Christ – Commerce, Christ. This provides a basis for the lamentation: we are so taken with making money and so neglectful of the things of God.

1. The Loss of Trade

What one man is there of many that doth follow this trade, and exercise himself to godliness? Men generally cry out, trading is dead, their particular callings are gone; they make no considerable returns, they stand in their shops all the day idle.

But may not God rather complain, the holy heavenly trade is decayed and dead; general callings are left and lost; why stand ye all the day idle, and refuse to work in my vineyard?

2. The Abundance of Earthly Trade Contrasted with the Dearth of Heavenly Trade

This return to commerce is interesting: In the first example, he addresses those who lack work. In the second, he addresses those who have abundant work. This is not a contradiction: one always desires more work – even if things are going well at the moment. But here it serves his argument is follows: Are you complaining about no work, then think of the heavenly trade which goes missing. Look at how diligent you are going after worldly trade, when heavenly trade go missing.

The structure of this paragraph is well done: There are three parallel introductory clauses built around alliteration followed by a contrasting four short clauses. The move from alliteration to known also creates another element of contrast. This is extraordinarily fine writing.

a. The Devil has Droves

i. While the devil has whole droves to do his drudgery,

the flesh [has] vast flocks to flatter its fancies,

and the world many millions to admire and adore its vanities,

ii. ‘The ways of Zion mourn,

they are unoccupied,

none come to the solemn feasts,

all her gates are desolated.’

b. The Lawyer’s Closet

i. While the lawyer’s closet is filled with clients for counsel about their estates,

the physician’s chamber with patients about their bodily health,

and the tradesman’s shop crowded with customers,

ii. Jesus Christ is left alone;

though he offereth wares which are of infinite worth,

and stretcheth out his hand all the day long,

yet no man regardeth.

B. We fail in this effort, because we love the wrong things.

Swinnock does not state this matter in terms of love, but does so by means of illustrations.

1. Too Much Trouble

It is reportedof some Spaniards that live near the place where is store of fish, that they will rather go without them than take the pains to catch them. Heaven and happiness, Saviour and salvation, are near men, they are brought to their very doors; and yet men will rather lose than labour for them, rather go sleeping to hell, than sweating to heaven. ‘All seek their own, and none the things of Jesus Christ.’

2. It is of no use to me

Offer a crust to a dog and he will catch at it, offer him a crown and he will contemn it; offer these men the crusts of vanity, and how greedily are they embraced, while the crown of glory is most unworthily despised; like beastly swine, they trample this pearl under their feet, and love to wallow in the mire.

C. Answering an Objection

This is an important aspect of making any argument wherein only one person is speaking. When preaching, the auditors has no ability to interrupt and ask a question. Therefore, the preacher (or teacher) should anticipate objections and provide an answer. Spurgeon did this particular skill by combining this work with the introductory phrase “Someone here will be thinking” or “Someone will say”.

This objection is “Maybe you are overstating the case and there actually are many who do this – but you just haven’t noticed”.

But possibly you may say that there are many that make religion their business, only they are so near me that (according to the rule of optics, which requires a due distance between the faculty and the object) I cannot behold them; they abound in every country, parish, family; all are Christians, and make the worship of God their main work.

1. Answer: the real thing is rare.

I must answer as he did when he saw the vast army of Antiochus, There are many men, but few soldiers; many mouths, but few hands: there are many nominal, but few real Christians; many that flourish like fencers, beating only the air, but few that fight in earnest the good fight of faith.

a. They provide only outward show.

Godliness hath many complimental servants, that will give her the cap and the knee, a few good words and outward ceremonies; but godliness hath few faithful friends, that make her the mistress of their affections, that give her the command of their hearts, and that wait upon her, and walk with her all the day long.

b. They have no real love or relationship

Pretenders to her service are indeed like the sand of the sea, numerous; but practitioners or faithful servants are like the pearl of the sea, rare and precious; many court her, but few marry her; for indeed men generally deal with godliness as the Germans with the Italians, or the Dutch with the Spaniards, hold a fair outward correspondency, enough to serve for mutual trade and traffic, but enter not into a near familiarity; they have no great intimacy with godliness; it is rather a stranger to them, whom now and then they bestow a visit on for fashion sake, than an indweller or constant inhabitant.

2. An illustration and diagnosis

This answer begins with an illustration, which is then followed by the argument. This sort of illustration to assertion contains within it an unstated premise: that laziness (not rest, but actual failure to work) is dangerous and defective. He does this by means of using a soldier who wished not to soldier. This would unvirtuous because he would not be what was suitable to his position. Likewise, the Christian who will not seek godliness is also unvirtuous.

Lepidus Major, a loose Roman, when his comrades were exercising themselves in the camp, would lay himself down to sleep in the shade, and cry out, Utinam hoc esset laborare, Would this were all the duty I were to do.

Such soldiers are many who pretend to fight under Christ’s banner; when they should be watching their souls, and warring with Satan and sin, they are sleeping and snoring, as if that were the way to work out their salvations.

Reader, I must acquaint thee with the physician’s rule, that Spontaneæ lassitudines morbos loquuntur, Weariness without some apparent cause is a sign of a diseased body; so thy laziness doth speak a very unsound soul.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 1.2

30 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Hosea, Repentance, Richard Sibbes

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Prayer, Repentance, Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner

The structure of the remaining argument in this sermon runs as follows:

Proposition: You must stop before you can return. What then is it to stop?

A. What are the basic elements of stopping?

1. There are three general elements of stopping

a. Examination

b. Humiliation

c. Resolution

2. How do I know if I have begun the work of repentance?

a. What is the “frame” of your mind?

b. Has you conduct changed?

c. With whom are you “associated”/

d. Do you treasure heavenly things?

Proposition: Many fail in this task, because they do not turn toward God.

A. Implied issue, why would someone turn to God

1. Some fail to return because they think God is being unjust toward them.

2. Some do not see the blessing of turning to God.

3. Some may fear that they will not gain the blessing of returning to God.

Proposition: Pray for Repentance

An objection answered.

Conclusion:

A. A rebuke for those who do not repent.

B. The blame of those who do not repent.

C. Consolation to those who will repent.

To make this stop, then (which is always before returning).

1. There must be examination and consideration whither our ways tend.

What are the reasons to cease a life of sin (as Sibbes writes, “stopping considerations”)?

There be stopping considerations, which both waken a man and likewise put rubs in his way; if a man, upon examination, find his ways displeasing unto God, disagreeing from the rule, and consider what will be the end and issue of them (nothing but death and damnation), and withal consider of the day of judgment, the hour of death, the all-seeing eye of God, and the like.

Sibbes here restates the “stopping considerations” by making reference to the arguments made earlier in Hosea: God has been good to Israel, despite their sin. God will also bring judgment on an erring Israel to bring it to repentance:

So the consideration of a man’s own ways, and of God’s ways towards him, partly when God meets him with goodness;—I have hitherto been a vile wretch, and God hath been good to me, and spared me;—and partly when God stops a wicked man’s ways with thorns, meets him with crosses and afflictions. These will work upon an ingenious* spirit, to make him have better thoughts and deeper considerations of true happiness, and the way unto it. God puts into the heart of a man, whom he intends to save, serious and sad considerations, what estate he is in, whither his course leads; and withal he lets them feel some displeasure of his, towards them, in those ways, by his ways towards them; whereupon they make a stop.

We must have the right affections to turn: a loathing of sin and a desire for reconciliation:

2. There must be humiliation, with displeasure against ourselves, judging and taking revenge of ourselves, working and reflecting on our hearts, taking shame to ourselves for our ways and courses; and withal, there must concur some hope of mercy. For so long as there is hue and cry, as we say, after a traitor, he returns not, but flies still and hastes away; but offer a pardon, and he returneth. So, unless there be hope of pardon, to draw a man again to God, as the prodigal was moved to return by hope of mercy and favour from his father, Luke 15:18, we will not, we dare not else return.

We must the will to return:

3. There must be a resolution to overcome impediments. For when a man thinks or resolves to turn to God, Satan will stir up all his instruments, and labour to kill Christ in his infancy, and to quench good while it is in the purpose only. The dragon stood watching for the birth of the child, Rev. 12:4; so doth Satan observe the birth of every good resolution and purpose, so far as he can know them, to destroy them.

How will I know if I have ceased in sin? What is it to stop and return? Four points.

Use. Let it be thought of by us in all our distresses, and in whatsoever other evidences of God’s anger, whether this means have been taken up by us. It will be thus known.

In these things note that the fruit of repentance, the evidence and outworking of it is “good works”. The good works are not performed so that one may obtain pardon, but they come about as the natural outgrowth of true repentance. We could consider this under the parallel consideration that we are justified by faith in Christ not on the basis of works; but that our faith such faith leads necessarily to good works. Faith without works is dead.

[1.] Turning is a change of the posture of the body; so is this of the frame of the mind. By this we know a man is in a state of turning. The look of his intentions, purposes, the whole bent of his soul is set another way, even upon God; and his word is the star of direction towards which he bends all his thoughts.

[2.] His present actions, also, be contrary to his former. There is not only a change of the disposition of his soul, ‘Behold all things are become new;’ not some things, but all; not only ‘new,’ but with a ‘behold’ new, 2 Cor. 5:17. This change undoubtedly sheweth that there is a true conversion and unfeigned.

[3.] By our association. He that turns to God, turns presently to the company of God’s people. Together with the change of his nature and course of life, there is a change of company; that is, of such as we make choice of for amity and friendship, Isa. 11:10, seq. Other company, by reason of our callings, and occasionally, may be frequented.

This is an interesting point: If we are truly turned from sin that our relationship to all things will be different. While it is not cited here by Sibbes, the argument of Paul in Philippians three seems apt: I forget what is behind, and I press on to what lies ahead: my goal is beyond here and now.

[4.] It is a sign that one is not only turned, but hath gone backwards from sin a great way, when the things of heaven only are great things in his eyes. For, as the further a man goeth from a place, the lesser the things behind him seem, so the greater the things before, he being nearer to them. The more sublime and high thoughts a man hath of the ways of God, and the meaner thoughts of the world and worldly matters he esteemed so highly of in the days of his vanity, the more he is turned unto God.

Note the insistence: it is not beginning but ending the piligrim which is decisive:

This returning is further enforced, saying, ‘Return unto the Lord thy God.’

It is very emphatical and significant in the original. Return, usque ad Jehovam, even to Jehovah, as though he should say, Do not only begin to return towards Jehovah, but so return as you never cease coming till you come to Jehovah.

‘Even unto the Lord thy God.’

Proposition: Many fail in this task, because they do not turn toward God. Four points: (a) the example of the prodigal son; (b) the example of Pentecost; (c ) the offer of Christ; and (d) we must be turned to Christ if we are ever to leave off sin.

It is not enough to make a stop, and forbear the practising of our former sins; but we must come home, even unto the Lord our God, to be pardoned and healed of him.

a. The prodigal son had been never a whit the better to see his sin and misery, and to be grieved for his wicked life past, unless he had come unto his father for pardon and comfort, Luke 15:20.

b. And when those were pricked in their hearts at Peter’s sermon, asking Peter ‘what they should do?’ he exhorted them, ‘To repent, every one to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and so they should receive the Holy Ghost,’ Acts 2:38.

c. And when Christ invites all those who ‘are weary and heavy laden to come unto him,’ Mat. 11:28, he bids them not now be further humbled and grieved for their sins, but by faith to come unto him to be healed, and so they should find rest and peace to their souls.

d. It is not sufficient for a wounded man to be sorry for his brawling and fighting, and to say, he will fight no more; but he must come to the surgeon to have his wounds stopped, dressed, and healed, or else it may cost him his life. So it is not enough to be humbled and grieved for sin, and to resolve against it. We shall relapse again, do what we can, unless we come under the wing of Christ, to be healed by his blood.

A. Implied issue, why would someone turn to God

Use. Many think they have repented, and are deceived upon this false ground. They are and have been grieved for their sins and offences; are determined to leave and forsake them, and that is all they do. They never lay hold on Christ, and come home to God.

‘For thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.’

Here divers points might be insisted on.

1. That where there is a falling into sin, there will be a falling into misery and judgment.

This is made good in the experience of all times, ages, persons, and states. Still the more sinful any were, the more fearful judgments fell upon them; and as soon as any man came into a sinful state, he entered into a declining state; as Jacob said of his son Reuben, who had defiled his bed, ‘Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed,’ Gen. 49:4. So sin still debaseth a man. So much sin, so much loss of excellency.

The use hereof is,

Some may not turn to Christ, because they do not believe God has been fair to them.

First, against those that complain of their troubles and miseries, as though God and men had dealt hardly with them; whereas their own ways, indeed, have brought all these evils upon them, Lam. 3:39.

We are not adequate judges of God’s conduct. God is wiser than we are and always does right:

God is a sufficient, wise, and holy disposer and orderer of all the ways of men, and rewarder of good and evil doings. God being wise and just in his disposing of all things, it must needs follow, that it shall go well with those that are good; as the prophet speaks, ‘Say unto the just, that it shall be well with them, for the reward of their works shall be given them,’ Isa. 3:10. And if it fall out otherwise than well with men, the blame must be laid on their own sin. As the church confesseth, and therefore resolveth, ‘I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me; he will bring me forth in the light, and I shall see his righteousness,’ Micah 7:9. If Adam sin, he shall find a hell in a paradise. If Paul return, and return to God, he shall find a heaven in a dungeon.

Some do not repent, because they do not realize the damage of unrepentant sin.

Secondly, It should move us therefore to seek unto God by unfeigned repentance, to have our sins taken away and pardoned; or else, however we may change our plagues, yet they shall not be taken away; nay, we shall still, like Pharoah, change for the worst; who, though he had his judgments changed, yet sin, the cause, remaining, he was never a whit the better, but the worse, for changing, until his final ruin came.

‘The wages of sin is death,’ Rom. 6:23. Sin will cry till it hath its wages. Where iniquity is, there cannot but be falling into judgment.

Therefore they are cruel to their own souls that walk in evil ways; for undoubtedly God will turn their own ways upon their own heads.

We should not therefore envy any man, be he what he will, who goeth on in ill courses, seeing some judgment is owing him first or last, unless he stop the current of God’s wrath by repentance. God, in much mercy, hath set up a court in our hearts to this end, that, if we judge ourselves in this inferior court, we may escape, and not be brought up into the higher.

If first they be judged rightly in the inferior court, then there needs no review. But otherwise, if we by repentance take not up the matter, sin must be judged somewhere, either in the tribunal of the heart and conscience, or else afterwards there must be a reckoning for it.

Some do not repent, because they do not believe that they will obtain the blessing of repentance.

Thirdly, Hence we learn, since the cause of every man’s misery is his own sin, that therefore all the power of the world, and of hell, cannot keep a man in misery, nor hinder him from comfort and happiness, if he will part with his sins by true and unfeigned repentance.

To prove this point he begins with the most notorious King of Judah: Manasseh.

As we know, Manasseh, as soon as he put away sin, the Lord had mercy upon him, and turned his captivity, 2 Chron. 33:12, 13. So the people of Israel, in the Judges. Look how often they were humbled and returned to God, still he forgave them all their sins. As soon as they put away sin, God and they met again. So that, if we come to Christ by true repentance, neither sin nor punishment can cleave to us, Ps. 106:43, 44; 107:1, 9.

What could possibly cause someone to not see the goodness of God in repentance? Because sin makes one blind:

‘Thou hast fallen,’ &c. Fallen blindly, as it were. Thou couldst not see which way thou wentest, or to what end thy courses did tend. Therefore thou art come into misery before thou knowest where thou art. A sinner is blind, ‘The god of this world hath put out his eyes,’ 2 Cor. 4:4. They see not their way, nor foresee their success. The devil is ever for our falling. That we fall into sin, and then fall into misery, and so fall into despair, and into hell, this pleaseth him. ‘Cast thyself down,’ saith he to Christ, Mat. 4:6. ‘Down with it, down with it,’ saith Edom, Ps. 137:7. Hell is beneath. The devil drives all that way.

Proposition: Pray for Repentance

Use. Take heed of sin! take heed of blindness! Ponder the path of your feet! keep your thoughts heavenward! stop the beginnings, the first stumblings! pray to God to make our way plain before us, and not to lead us into temptation!

He derives a command to pray from the clause, “take words with you.”

‘Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him,’ &c., ver. 2.

These Israelites were but a rude people, and had not so good means to thrive in grace as Judah had. Therefore he prompts them here with such words as they might use to God in their returning.

This instruction to pray is a gracious act of God:

‘Take with you words,’ whereby we see how gracious God is unto us in using such helps for our recovery, and pitying us more than we pity ourselves. Is not this a sufficient warrant and invitation to return, when the party offended, who is the superior, desires, entreats, and sues unto the offending, guilty inferior, to be reconciled?’ 2 Cor. 5:5.

God not merely gives instruction in prayer, but he also gives help to pray:

But this is not all. He further sheweth his willingness in teaching us, who are ignorant of the way, in what manner and with what expressions we should return to the Lord. He giveth us not only words, and tells us what we shall say, but also giveth his Spirit so effectually therewith, as that they shall not be lifeless and dead words, but ‘with unexpressible sighs and groans unto God,’ Rom. 8:26, who heareth the requests of his own Spirit. Christ likewise teacheth us how to pray. We have words dictated, and a spirit of prayer poured upon us; as if a great person should dictate and frame a petition for one who were afraid to speak unto him. Such is God’s graciousness; and so ready is he in Jesus Christ to receive sinners unto mercy.

Our prayer of repentance is our offering to God:

‘Take unto you words.’ None were to appear empty before the Lord at Jerusalem, but were to bring something. So it is with us. We must not appear empty before our God. If we can bring nothing else, let us bring words; yea, though broken words, yet if out of a broken and contrite heart, it will be a sacrifice acceptable.

Since God has prescribed the remedy of prayer, it must be effective:

This same taking of words or petitions, in all our troubles and afflictions, must needs be a special remedy, it being of God’s own prescription, who is so infinite in knowledge and skill.

Having made these observations, he draws the following conclusion:

Whence we observe, that

They who would have help and comfort against all sins and sorrows, must come to God with words of prayer.

He gives five examples to prove the point: (a) Jonah, (b) the prodigal son, (c) Hezekiah, (d) Jehoshaphat, (e) Elijah

As we see in Jonah’s case, in a matchless distress, words were inforcive [That is, ‘prevailing, or invested with a power of enforcing.’] and did him more good than all the world besides could. For after that he had been humbled, and prayed out of the whale’s belly, the whale was forced to cast him out again, Jonah 2:10.

So the prodigal son being undone, having neither credit nor coin, but all in a manner against him, yet he had words left him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants,’ Luke 15:18, seq. After which, his father had compassion on him.

(b) And good Hezekiah, being desperately sick of a desperate disease, yet when he set his faith a-work, and took with him words, which comfort only now was left unto him, we know how after he had turned his face towards the wall, and prayed with words, God not only healed him of that dangerous disease, but also wrought a great miracle for his sake, causing the sun to come back ten degrees, Isa. 38:2, 8.

(c) Thus, when life seemed impossible, yet words, prayers, and tears prevailed with God. Jehoshaphat, also, going to war with Ahab, against God’s commandment, and in the battle, being encompassed with enemies, yet had words with him ready, and after prayer found deliverance, 1 Kings 22:32.

(d) Elijah, likewise, after a great drowth and famine, when rain had been three years wanting, and all in a manner out of frame for a long time, ‘took with him words,’ James 5:18; and God sent rain abundantly upon the earth again.

(e) The reason is, because prayer sets God on work; and God, who is able and willing to go through with his works, sets all the creatures on work, Hos. 2:21, 22. As we heard of Elijah, when he prayed for rain, the creatures were set a-work to effect it, 1 Kings 18:45, seq.

He then addresses an objection someone might have to the examples: The implied issue is “what if I repent too late?” I have heard evangelistic sermons which say there is a fit time of repentance, and that if you do not repent right now a future repentance may be ineffective. Sibbes rejects that argument: a true repentance is always timely.

Obj. Where it may be objected, Oh, but rain might come too late in that hot country, where all the roots and herbs might be withered and dried up in three years’ space.

Ans. Yet all was well again. The land brought forth her increase as formerly. For faithful prayer never comes too late, because God can never come too late. If our prayers come to him, we shall find him come to us. Jehoshaphat, we read, was in great distress when three kings came against him; yet when he went to God by unfeigned and hearty fasting and prayer, God heard him, fought for him, and destroyed all his enemies, 2 Chron. 20:3. seq. The Scripture sheweth, also, how after Hezekiah’s prayer against Sennacherib’s blasphemies and threatenings, the Lord sent forth his angel, and destroyed in one night a hundred fourscore and five thousand of the Assyrians, 2 Chron. 32:21, seq.

Conclusion:

Use 1. This is, first, for reproof of those who, in their distresses, set their wit, wealth, friends, and all a-work, but never set God a-work,

Ponder anew, what the Almighty can do, If with his love he befriend thee. Examples from Hezekiah and Asa:

as Hezekiah did in Sennacherib’s case. The first time he turned him off to his cost, with enduring a heavy taxation, and yet was never a whit the better for it, 2 Kings 18:15, seq.; for Sennacherib came shortly after and besieged Jerusalem, until Hezekiah had humbled himself and prayed; and then God chased all away and destroyed them. He had better have done so at first, and so saved his money and pains, too.

The like weakness we have a proof of in Asa, who, when a greater army came against him of ten hundred thousand men, laid about him, prayed and trusted in God, and so was delivered, with the destruction of his enemies, 2 Chron. 14:11, yet in a lesser danger, 2 Chron. 16:2, against Baasha, king of Israel, distrusted God, and sent out the treasures of the house of God and of his own house unto Benhadad, king of Syria, to have help of him, by a diverting war against Baasha, king of Israel, which his plot, though it prospered, yet was he reproved by the prophet Hanani, and wars thenceforth denounced against him, 2 Chron. 16:7. This Asa, notwithstanding this experiment, afterwards sought unto the physician, before he sought unto God, 2 Chron. 16:12.

To note repent is blameworthy:

Use 2. Secondly. This blameth that barrenness and want of words to go unto God, which, for want of hearts, we often find in ourselves. It were a strange thing to see a wife have words enough for her maids and servants, and yet not to be able to speak to her husband. We all profess to be the spouse of Christ. What a strange thing, then, is it to be full when we speak to men, yet be so empty and want words to speak to him!

Can’t we at least have the words of a beggar?

A beggar, we know, wants no words, nay, he aboundeth with variety of expressions; and what makes him thus fruitful in words? His necessity, and, in part, his hope of obtaining.

These two make beggars so earnest. So would it be with us. If we found sufficiently our great need of Christ, and therewith had hope, it would embolden us so to go to God in Christ, that we should not want words. But we want this hope, and the feeling of our necessities, which makes us so barren in prayer.

Prepare thyself, therefore, to prayer, by getting unto thee a true sense of thy need, acquaintance with God, and hope to obtain, and it will make thee fervent in prayer, and copious in thy requests.

Finally a consolation and encouragement: a prayer of true repentance will be heard and honored.

* That is, ‘ingenuous.’—G.