Category Archives: Praise

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 2.7

05 Saturday Jun 2021

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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Even though Christ has come and the temple sacrifices of animals and grain have been superseded, it does not mean there are no sacrifice remains for Christians.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.

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

26 Wednesday May 2021

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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.’ 

The Spiritual Chymist, Upon the Payment of a Pepper-Corn

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in Glory, Praise, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe, Worship, Worship

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MEDITATION XXXVIII
Upon the Payment of a Pepper-corn

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(Photo courtesy of John Lodder)

Logicians have a maxim, Relations sunt minimas entitatis & maxime efficace: relations are the smallest entity, and of the greatest efficacy: the truth which may appear in the payment of a single peppercorn, that freeholders pay their landlord, they do it not with any hope or intent to enrich him; but to acknowledge that they hold all from him. To affect the one it is not have to mean about you, get a preservers the Lord’s right fully as a greater rent, and aggravates the tenant’s folly to withhold more then if the demand had been higher.

What Naaman’s servant spoke on to him, If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, wash and be clean?

The condition which meet bounty happily has so easy had been by the same hand and power restraints to a more costly and ample homage ought it not to have been performed? How much more when nothing is required but what may how inexcusable then must the ingratitude of those men be, receiving all their blessings from God, withhold a peppercorn of praise and honor for him, which is the only thing that they can pay or that he expects? To cast the least mite into his treasury, which may add to its richest, is beyond the line if men or angels, for if it could admit to increase [if the praise could make God’s existing merit and treasure larger than it is at present], the abundance of it were not infinite: but to adore its fullness and to acknowledge that from it they derived theirs is the duty of all the partake of it.

This is the only homage that those Stars of the Morning and Sons of God who behold his face do given in heaven, and this it is which the children of men should give on earth. But alas! From how few are those sacred dues tendered to God, though all be his debtors? Does not the rich man when well flows in on him like a river forget that only the Lord gives him power to get riches? And sacrifice onto his neck, and burn incense onto his drag? Is it not the sin that God charges all Israel with, that they rejoice in the thing of nought, and say have we not taken horns to us by our own strength?

Yea, does he not expressly say that he will not get his glory onto another? Shall any man then take it onto himself? And yet what stolen bread is so sweet to any taste as the secret nimmings and purloinings of God’s glory our onto the palate of most? If any design be effected, they think that their wisdom has brought about; if any difficulties be removed, they ascribed it to their industry; if success and victory due build upon their sword, it is their own arm and right hand that has obtained it. O how great is that pride and on thankfulness which reigns in the hearts of men who affect to rob God, rather than to honor can’t, and she denied him to be the author of what they possess, than to acknowledge the tenure that they hold in capite [a holding immediately from the king; English law].

Stealing from men may be acquitted again with single or double, with fourfold or sevenfold restitution: but the filching from God’s glory can never be answered. For who can give anything to him which he has not received? Others may steal of necessity, to satisfy hungry; but such [as do not praise God] violate out of pride and wantonness the Exchequer of Heaven, and shall never escape undetected or unpunished.

Consider therefore this all you who are ready to kiss your own hands for every blessing that comes upon you, to what danger you expose yourselves, while you rob God – whose name is Jealous, who will vindicate the glory of neglected goodness in the severe triumphs of his impartial justice. It is Bernard’s expression Uti datis, ut innatis est maxima superbia, to use God’s gifts as things inbred in us is the highest arrogance. And what less merit than the very condemnation of the Devil – whose first sin (as some divines [theologians] conceive) was an affection of independent happiness, without any respect or habitude to God. I cannot wonder that the blackness of his sin and the dreadfulness of his Fall should not make all to fear the least shadow and semblance of such a crime in themselves as must bring upon them the like ruin.

Look upon him you proud ones and tremble, who are abettors of Nature against Grace, and resolve the salvation of man ultimately in to the freedom of the will rather than into the efficacy of God’s grace. [The one ] who in the work of conversion make the grace of God to have only the work of a midwife, to help the child into the world but not be the parent and sole author of it. Is not this to cross the great design of the Gospel, which is to exalt and honor God and Christ? That he that glorieth might glory in the Lord? And is not every tittle of the Gospel as dear to God as every tittle of the Law? Can then any diminish aught from it and be guiltless?

Oh fear then to take the least due from God who has threatened to take his part out of the Book of Life and out of the holy City and from the things which are written in the Book of God.

Non test devotions dedisse probe totum, sed fraudis retinuisse vel minimum, It is not devotion, says Prosper rightly against his Collator, to acknowledge almost all from God, but accursed theft to ascribe though but a very little to ourselves.

Lord, therefore, whatever others do
Keep me humble,
That as I receive all from thee,
So I may render that tribute of praise which thou expects from me
Both cheerfully and faithfully;
And though it can add nothing to thy perfection,
No more than my beholding and admiring the Sun’s light can increase it
Yet let me say, as Holy David did,
Not unto us, O Lord,
Not unto us,
But unto thy name be the glory
For thy mercy
And for thy truth’s sake.

Edward Taylor, A King Indeed.2

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Christology, Edward Taylor, Literature, Praise

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What is this throne all glory? Crown all gay?
Crown of all brightest shine of glory’s wealth?
This is a lisp of non-sense. I should say,
He is the throne and crown of glory ‘tself.
Should sun beams come to gild his glory they
Would be as ’twere to gild the sun with clay.

Jesus in his glory is portrayed as crowned. For example, Revelation 14:14:
“Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.”

Matthew Bridges’s hymn begins:

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

“Lisp of non-sense”: speaking like a child. An interesting use of this phrase, which may have been known to Taylor, would be Calvin’s well-known (in theological circles) statement about God “lisping”:

“Indeed, that they dared abuse certain testimonies of Scripture was due to base ignorance; just as the error itself sprang from execrable madness. The Anthropomorphites, also, who imagined a corporeal God from the fact that Scripture often ascribes to him a mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are easily refuted. For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to “lisp” in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness.”
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.13.1.

The idea of God’s glory and being the source and measure of glory is a frequent theme in Scripture. For example, Psalm 24:8-10:

8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah

“Gild the sun with clay”: gilding would diminish His beauty and glory.

The phrase reminds one of Shakespeare’s play, King John Act 4, scene 2 where Salisbury says:

Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Edward Taylor, A King Indeed.1

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Christology, Edward Taylor, Literature, Praise

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A king, a king, a king indeed, a king

Writh up in glory! Glory’s glorious throne

Is glorified by him, presented him.

And all the crowns of glory are his own.

A king, wise, just, gracious, magnificent.

Kings unto him are whistles; indigent.

“Writh up in glory”: twisted up, thus composed in glory.

Scansion: The accent on the second line “writh” draws attention to the command.

The fifth line piles up accents in such a manner as to slow the progress of the line and thus give emphasis to each aspect of God’s character -‘ , ‘, ‘, ‘-, ‘—

The reference given for this poem is Revelation 19:6, “On his robe and on his thigh is written King of kings and Lord of lords.” The scene is the Second Coming of Christ to defeat his enemies, avenge his people, and establish his visible rule:

11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
The greatness of God compared to all created things is a common theme of Scripture. Isaiah 40 reads, for example:

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?
14 Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

The glory of God is the sum of his character, his “name”. When Moses asks for a revelation of God’s glory, God responds by stating His name:

5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Exodus 33:5-8.

Wisdom and justice are attributed also to God’s rule:

to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. Romans 16:27

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. Hebrews 1:8

Thinking of “Happy Songs” in Church

13 Friday Jun 2014

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Brueggemann notes that Psalms come in three types: Psalms of orientation, disorientation & reorientation” (notably, the Cross of Christ is the great disorienting/reorienting event in history). Psalms of orientation affirm the goodness of God’s created order, a truth which inheres despite the corrupting effects of sin and the fall.

Thus, there is a right reason to sing songs & Psalms of orientation even after Genesis 3. However, as he notes, often the motivation for such songs & Psalms does not come from an affirmation of God’s goodness but rather our own cultural comfort:

Such a “mismatch” between our life experience of disorientation and our faith speech of orientation could be a great evangelical “nevertheless” (as in Habakkuk 3:18). Such a counter-statement insists that God does in any case govern, rule, and order, regardless of how the data seem to appear. And therefore, songs of torah, wisdom, creations, and retribution speak truly, even if the world is experienced as otherwise. It is possible that the church uses the psalms of orientation in this way.

But at best, this is only partly true. It is my judgment that this action of the church is less a defiance guided by faith and founded in the good news, and much more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life. The reason for such relentless affirmation of orientation seems to come, not from faith, but from the wishful optimism of our culture. Such a denial and cover-up, which I take it to be, is an odd inclination for passionate Bible users, given the large number of psalms that are songs of lament, protest, and complaint about the incoherence that is experienced in the world. At least it is clear that a church that goes on singing “happy songs” in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does.

Spirituality of the Psalms, 27

Edward Taylor, Raptures of Glory.7

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Glory, Literature, Praise

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Having seen the beauty of Christ and the coldness of his heart, Taylor prays that God would stir-up his heart. In this eighth stanza, Taylor uses an image which has no particular place in the Bible, but which would make sense of Taylor’s circumstances. His notebooks date the poem November 1685, in the midst of the Little Ice Age. You can almost feel the frozen poet trying to warm his body as he looks out on the winter snow and ice.

The stanza asks God to row golden oars to warm his heart. He seeks a flame which will melt the frozen lake [of his affections]. He calls God’s love the sun — which Taylor saw all too little in cold November.

Lord may thy priestly golden oars but make
A rowing in my lumpish heart, thou’lt see
My chilly numbed affections charm, and break
Out in rapid flame of love to thee.
Yea, they unto thyself will fly in flocks
When thy warm sun my frozen lake unlocks.

The next stanza requires some knowledge of the High Priest’s clothing. In Exodus 28, God sets out garments for the High Priest. He was required to wear a vestment decorated with precious stones. The names of the tribes of Israel were written on the stones, so that when Aaron (the first High Priest) came before The Lord, he would “bear their names before the Lord”:

9 You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel,
10 six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth.
11 As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel. You shall enclose them in settings of gold filigree.
12 And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD on his two shoulders for remembrance.

Jesus, under the New Covenant, is final High Priest:

1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. Hebrews 8:1-2

His name is to be buried in the “pearly rocks” — the jewels upon the ephod. This is a reference to the doctrine that one who comes to true saving faith is counted by God as crucified with Christ (buried) and now alive with Christ:

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:3-4

Be thou my High Priest, Lord; and let my name
Lie in some grave dug in these pearly rocks
Upon thy ephod’s shoulders piece, like flame
Or graved in thy breat plate-gem: brave knops.
Thou’lt then me bear before thy Father’s throne
Rolled up in folds of glory of thine own.

The last stanza picks up another image of the eschatological hope of the Christian. First, he uses the image of a crown, which is a picture of the rewards to be received by those find in Christ (see, e.g., 1 Peter 5:4). He then addresses the glorious praise of those who see Christ in the end:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, Hebrews 12:22

And:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.
8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”
11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. Revelation 5:6-14

One of these gems, I beg, Lord, that so well
Begrace thy breast plat, and thy ephod clever
To stud my crown therewith: or let me dwell
Among the their sparkling, glancing shades forever.
I’st then be decked in glory bright to sing
With angels Hallelujah to my King.

Paul Baynes, Brief Directions Unto a Godly life, Chapter Fourteen, Prayer

14 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Confession, Ministry, Paul Baynes, Praise, Prayer, Richard Sibbes

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The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/paul-baynes-brief-directions-unto-a-godly-life-chapter-thirteen-spiritual-armor/

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PRAYER

Now to comes to those helps either by ourselves alone or other also (for the other kind shall have another place) there are prayer and reading.

Prayer is calling upon God according to his will. It has two parts, thanksgiving amd request. Whereunto is added to be confession of sins.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is that part of prayer in which we be comforted by some benefit, which in favor God bestows upon us, [and] are drawn to love and praise and show forth fruits thereof. In this direction there to be observed three things, and three motives onto them.

The first motivation is knowledge and due consideration of some particular benefit received or promised us. 1 Samuel 25:32, Genesis 24:27, Luke 17:15. Without these three can be no true and hearty thanks giving, howsoever and words there be a protestation for fashion’s sake.

The second is joy and gladness of heart, for the benefit which we think up or call to mind. Psalm 126:1-2. Except we find sweetness in the mercies, no duty of thanks can include sort be performed by them.

The third is a persuasion that the benefit for which we give thanks comes to us from God’s fatherly love. This is a far greater cause of gladness the benefit itself. Psalm 116:5

The Duty of Thanksgiving

The first duty is the continuance of our love to God. Psalm 126:1.

The second is a desire to set forth his glory and in words to profess and confess his goodness. For if we love the Lord, we cannot but be carried with this fervent desire to advance and magnify. Psalm 116:12, Psalm 111.

The third is a further preceding in obedience and walk worthy of his kindness. This is one if it be lacking from the rest, makes them all lame and main goodness odious to God as the mortlings which were offered to him and sacrifices. Deuteronomy 6:10 — 11, Psalm 50:16.

If in this manner we should frame ourselves to thankfulness, it must needs be a mighty and forcible means to mollify the hard heart and to hold under the sturdy corruptions of it[1]. So they may be subject to God, yea even went strong provocations to draw up to the contrary.
Confession

Thus much for Thanksgiving. Now for confession. Confession is an acknowledgment of ourselves to be guilty and worthily to deserve God’s wrath for our grievous offenses; together with a free and humble bewailing of them before God. [As for sins which are unknown, we confess them generally.] But those which we do know (according to the nature of them) particularly.

To the right practice of this, there are four things required:

The first, that we feel our sins odious and burdensome to us.

Secondly, that we accuse ourselves of them to God.

Thirdly, that we stand at his mercy, having deserved condemnation.

Fourthly, that we abase ourselves thereby, and so are weakened and our pride abated.

All these are in the confession of David, Psalm 51; of Daniel in Daniel 9; of the prodigal son in Luke 15:7.

Now this confession being from time to time often made onto God, will not suffer us to go far and live long in any sin. [Instead] hunt it out, before it be warm and nestled in us[2]. And therefore it must needs be of great force to strengthen us in a godly life.

Request

The last part of prayer is request. It is that part of prayer wherein we earnestly pour out our suits onto God, in contrition of heart, according to his will, with comfortable hope that through Christ we shall be heard, and therefore forsaking the sin which might hinder our suit.

The Duty of Requesting

In this duty also there are four things to be observed.

First, that we show this contrition of heart, by being pressed with feeling of our wants [that is what we lack, our], unworthiness, miserable estate, and manifold miseries, earnestly desiring to be pardoned and eased. 1 Samuel 1:15. Luke 18:3.

If this be so (as will soon follow upon right confession), we shall neither pray in lip labor which God abhors[3]; nor think ourselves too good to wait upon God’s leisure, if at first he grant not a request, but continue them as he commands.

But we ask only those things which we have a word for, and in such sort as he has promised them[4]. 1 John 5:14.

That we quicken ourselves[5] to come in faith and confidence in ofttimes to come cheerfully to this duty. James 6:1. John 16:24.

The Fruits of Requesting

Now to the end that we may come with cheerful the light onto this duty, let us consider the fruits which are especially three.

First, that by prayer we are made in a sort acquainted and familiar with God, and know his mind and will, and how he is affected to us, being admitted to speak to him. James 4:8, John 15:26, Revelation 3:10.

Secondly, that ot gives life to God’s graces in us, which before lay half dead. As we may see an example of Esther.

Thirdly, it reaches out to us in our greatest need, the good things and gifts of God which our-selves desire. Matthew 7:7.

A Final Note
The fourth and last property of prayer is that we bring not with us the sins which will turn away the ears of God from hearing us. Such are any sins not repented of, but laid in, secretly at the least, and not renounced. Proverbs 28:19, Psalm 7:4.

These are the parts of prayer which if they be reverently and humbly at joined together, as they ought, accompanied with the aforementioned properties; if we be fallen, they will raise us up; if we be heavy, they will comfort us; if we be dull, they will quicken us; they are a present remedy to the oppressed heart, preserver of the godly life, a giver of strength to the weak, a special means to make a man live in every estate wherein God has set him. Therefore prayer must needs be a strong and mighty help to the godly life for if we pray well, and keep ourselves in case fit to perform this duty, we shall not need fear in our life teeny great annoyance.

 

 

[1] To mollify a hard heart would be to make a hard heart soft. To hold under corruptions would be resist and force out corruptions.

[2] Discover and expose your own sins before you become comfortable with your sins.

[3] Bare outward formality, conduct without a true corresponding frame of heart, is condemned by God. Isaiah 1:12-14. The Puritans repeatedly condemned such formality. They rather commended “heart religion” (to use the phrase of John Wesley from the next century). “God requires the heart; and religion is most in managing and tuning the affections, for they are the wind that carries the soul to every duty. A man is like the dead sea without affections.” “The Spiritual Favorite”, by Richard Sibbes in vol. 6 of the collected works, page 97.

[4] Our prayers must be such as accord with the revelation of God in Scripture.

[5] Strengthen and make ourselves more alive.

Edward Taylor, Rapture of Love.6

24 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by in Desire, Edward Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Literature, Meditation, Praise

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Frost bitten love, frozen affections! Blush:

What icy crystal mountain lodge in you?

What wingless wishes, hopes pinfeathered, tush!

Sore hooft desires hereof do in you spring?

Oh hard black kernel at the core! Not pant?

Encastled in a heart of adamant!

 

What strange congealed heart have I when I

Under such beauty like the sun

Able to make frozen affection fly,

And icicles of frostbit love to run.

Yea, and desires locked in a heart of steel

Or adamant, break prison, nothing feel.

 

Wingless: ungrown

Pinfeathered: undeveloped

Hooft: hast?

Not pant? Don’t you desire?

 

 

In these two stanzas, the poet turns to his own heart and notes that even though he sees such beauty in Christ, he does not respond as he should. The necessity of true and right response of the affection was a point underscored by the son of Taylor’s friend, himself a theologian of some repute:

And in the text, the Apostle observes how true religion operated in the Christians he wrote to, under their persecutions, whereby these benefits of persecution appeared in them; or what manner of operation of true religion, in them, it was, whereby their religion, under persecution, was manifested to be true religion, and eminently appeared in the genuine beauty and amiableness of true religion, and also appeared to be increased and purified, and so was like to be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And there were two kinds of operation, or exercise of true religion, in them, under their sufferings, that the Apostle takes notice of in the text, wherein these benefits appeared.

  1.  Love to Christ; “Whom having not seen, ye love.” The world was ready to wonder, what strange principle it was, that influenced them to expose themselves to so great sufferings, to forsake the things that were seen, and renounce all that was dear and pleasant, which was the object of sense: they seemed to the men of the world about them, as though they were beside themselves, and to act as though they hated themselves; there was nothing in their view, that could induce them thus to suffer, and support them under, and carry them through such trials. But although there was nothing that was seen, nothing that the world saw, or that the Christians themselves ever saw with their bodily eyes, that thus influenced and supported ’em; yet they had a supernatural principle of love to something unseen; they loved Jesus Christ, for they saw him spiritually, whom the world saw not, and whom they themselves had never seen with bodily eyes.

2. Joy in Christ. Though their outward sufferings were very grievous, yet their inward spiritual joys were greater than their sufferings, and these supported them, and enabled them to suffer with cheerfulness.

— 95 —

There are two things which the Apostle takes notice of in the text concerning this joy. (1) The manner in which it rises, the way in which Christ, though unseen, is the foundation of it, viz. by faith; which is the evidence of things not seen; “In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice.” (2) The nature of this joy; “unspeakable and full of glory.” “Unspeakable” in the kind of it; very different from worldly joys, and carnal delights; of a vastly more pure, sublime and heavenly nature, being something supernatural, and truly divine, and so ineffably excellent; the sublimity, and exquisite sweetness of which, there were no words to set forth. Unspeakable also in degree; it pleasing God to give ’em this holy joy, with a liberal hand, and in large measure, in their state of persecution.

Their joy was “full of glory”: although the joy was unspeakable, and no words were sufficient to describe it; yet something might be said of it, and no words more fit to represent its excellency, than these, that it was “full of glory”; or, as it is in the original, “glorified joy.” In rejoicing with this joy, their minds were filled, as it were, with a glorious brightness, and their natures exalted and perfected: it was a most worthy, noble rejoicing, that did not corrupt and debase the mind, as many carnal joys do; but did greatly beautify and dignify it: it was a prelibation of the joy of heaven, that raised their minds to a degree of heavenly blessedness: it filled their minds with the light of God’s glory, and made ’em themselves to shine with some communication of that glory.

Hence the proposition or doctrine, that I would raise from these words is this,

DOCTRINE. True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.

We see that the Apostle, in observing and remarking the operations and exercises of religion, in the Christians he wrote to, wherein their religion appeared to be true and of the right kind, when it had its greatest trial of what sort it was, being tried by persecution as gold is tried in the fire, and when their religion not only proved true, but was most pure, and cleansed from its dross and mixtures of that which was not true, and when religion appeared in them most in its genuine excellency and native beauty, and was found to praise, and honor, and glory; he singles out the religious affections of love and joy, that were then in exercise in them: these are the exercises of religion he takes notice of, wherein their religion did thus appear true and pure, and in its proper glory.

-Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, WJE, online, vol. 2.

Edward Taylor, Raptures of Love.5

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in 1 John, Ascension, Christology, Edward Taylor, Hebrews, Praise

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The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/edward-taylor-raptures-of-love-4/

To heav’n went he, and in his bright throne sits
At God’s right hand pleading poor sinners’ cases.
With golden wedges he of promise, splits
The heav’ns ope, to shew to show what glory ‘braces.
And in its thickness thus with arms extended,
Calls, come, come here, and ever be befriended.

Line 1:
To heav’n went he: This refers to the Ascension of Christ:

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Acts 1:9-11

Upon ascending to heaven, Christ sits upon the throne as king. This is recorded in Hebrews 1:

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Revelation 1:5 refers to the Ascended Christ as “the ruler of the kings of earth”.

Line 2:
At God’s right hand: see Hebrews 1:3, “he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high”.

pleading poor sinners’ cases. Christ has ascended to the right hand of majesty where he pleads for those who have sinned against God. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 1:1. It must be noted that Jesus Christ is not pleading with an angry Father, for it was the Father who sent the Son to procure forgiveness.

We are encouraged to come to Christ for help in our time of need:

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16

Christ’s pleading from this throne is based upon his work as sacrifice and priest:

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)
12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Hebrews 9:11-14

Line 3:
With golden wedges he of promise, The “wedges” refer to a wedge placed into a block of wood, which is struck at one end and hit with a hammer on the flat end. The wedge pushes into the wood and splits it open.

Line 5:
Calls, come, come here, and ever be befriended

This petition is based upon the offer of Jesus recorded in Matthew 11:28-29:

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”