Category Archives: Worship

George Swinnock, The Christian Man’s Calling 1.3 (What is Godliness)

23 Saturday Jan 2021

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CHAPTER III

What godliness is

To begin his discussion of godliness, Swinnock looks to the word “religion”. He considers three possibilities, but it is the third of these which draws his attention, so we will begin here: Religion means to bind or knit two things together: 

Austin and Lactantius (to whom I rather incline) derive it à religando, from binding or knitting, because it is the great bond to join and tie God and man together. As the parts of the body are knit to the head by the nerves and sinews, so man is knit to God by religion. 

From this word he draws out the concept:

Sin and irreligion separate God and man asunder; ‘Your iniquities have separated between you and your God’ Isa. 59:2.

This then leads us to godliness:

Godliness and religion unite God and man together; ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,’ 2 Cor. 6:16. 

He then brings the thoughts together

Atheism is a departing or going away from God, Eph. 4:18; Heb. 3:12. Religion is a coming or returning unto God, Heb. 10:22; Jer. 3:1. 

He then repeats the concept, but this time by bringing an application:

The great misery of man by his fall is this, he is far from God; and the great felicity of man by favour is this, he draweth nigh to God, Ps. 73:2 ult.; James 4:8. Irreligion is a turning the back upon God, but religion is a seeking the face of God, and a following hard after him, Ps. 2:3, 27:8, and 63:8. By ungodliness, men wander and deviate from God; by godliness, men worship, and are devoted to God, Ps. 119:150.

Swinnock turns from the Latin source for the English “religion” to the Greek equivalents (which are used in the New Testament):

The Grecians call it θρησκέια [thrêskiéa], Beza thinks, from Orpheus, a Thracian, who first taught the mysteries of religion among his countrymen. The word in the text is ἐυσέβεια [eusebeia], which in a word signifieth right or straight worship, according to which I shall describe it thus:

Godliness is a worshipping the true God in heart and life, according to his revealed will.

At this point, Swinnock breaks the topic down into its logical aspects which here essentially tracks the linguistic structure:

In this description of godliness, I shall observe four parts. First, The act, it is a worship. Secondly, The object of this act, the true God. Thirdly, The extent of this worship, in heart and life. Fourthly, The rule, according to his revealed will.

He here develops the elements: A Definition of “Worship”:

First, For the act, godliness is a worship. Worship comprehends all that respect which man oweth and giveth to his Maker.

He then describes this honor in terms of the relationship of subject and sovereign. As one who lived his life solely in a republic, this sort of language has not intuitive effect. I understand the words, but I do not have a experienced analog:

 It is that service and honour, that fealty and homage, which the creature oweth and tendereth to the fountain of his being and happiness.3 It is the tribute which we pay to the King of kings, whereby we acknowledge his sovereignty over us, and our dependence on him. ‘Give unto the Lord the honour due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,’ Ps. 29:2.

To worship God is to give him the glory which is due to him. It is a setting the crown of glory on God’s head. To render him due honour is true holiness; to deny this, is atheism and irreligion. 

The language of “atheism” follows in the line of Charnock’s “practical atheism”: not an intellectual rejection but a practice of living life as if there were no God.

All that inward reverence and respect, and all that outward obedience and service to God, which the word enjoineth, is included in this one word worship.

External Worship:

This worshipping God is either external or internal. God is to be worshipped with the body. Joshua fell on his face and worshipped, Josh. 5:14. Moses bowed his head and worshipped, Exod. 4:31. Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and prayed, John 17:1. David lifted up his hands to God, Ps. 63:4. The bodies of saints shall be glorified with God hereafter, and the bodies of saints must glorify God here, Phil. 3:21; Rom. 12:1.

Inward worship:

Inward worship is sometimes set forth by loving God, James 2:5; sometimes by trusting him, Ps. 16:1; sometimes by delighting in him, Ps. 37:3; sometimes by sorrow for offending him, Ps. 51:3, because this worship of God (as one piece of gold containeth many pieces of silver) comprehendeth all of them. 

At this point, Swinnock turns aside to press home exhortation. We cannot worship by halves:

All the graces are but so many links of this golden chain. As all the members of the natural body are knit together, and walk always in company, so all the parts of the new man are joined together, and never go but as the Israelites out of Egypt, with their whole train. If there be one wheel missing in a watch, the end of the whole is spoiled. If once grace should be wanting in a saint, he would be unsainted. There is a concatenation of graces, as well as of moral virtues. Those that worship God give him their hottest love, their highest joy, their deepest sorrow, their strongest faith, and their greatest fear; as Abraham gave Isaac, he gives God all.

A synecdoche is a part standing for a whole:

What Moses calls fearing God, Deut. 6:13, our Saviour quoting, calls worshipping God, (Mat. 4:9, 10,) by a synecdoche, because the former is both a part and a sign of the latter. 

Here is an outstanding word picture which turns his doctrine into an image which can then be understood affectively:

As when the guard are watching at the court-gate, or on the stairs, and examining those that go in, it is a sign the king is within; so when the fear of God stands at the door of the heart, to examine all that go in, lest the traitor sin should steal in slily, it is a sign that God is within, that he sits upon the throne of the soul, and is worshipped there.

Second point: To whom is the worship directed:

Secondly, The object, the true God. All religion without the knowledge of the true God is a mere notion, an airy, empty nothing.

Here provides argumentative support for his proposition:

Divine worship is one of the chiefest jewels of God’s crown, which he will by no means part with. God alone is the object of the godly man’s worship, Exod. 20:2. His hope is in God, Ps. 39:7; his dependence is on God, Ps. 62:8; his dread is of God, Ps. 119:122; his love is to God, Ps. 10:1; God is the only object of his prayers, Ps. 5:3, and 44:20; and of God alone are all his praises, Ps. 103:1; God alone is to be worshipped, because he alone is worthy of worship, ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things,’ Rev. 4:11.

Having made the affirmative point, he defines is position further by contrasting the true and proper object of worship with the false:

To hold anything in opinion, or to have anything in affection for God, which is not God, is idolatry. To worship either men, as the Samaritans did Antiochus Epiphanes, (styling him the mighty god;) or the host of heaven, as the Ammonites; or the devil, as the Indians; or the belly, as the glutton; or riches, as the covetous; or the cross, as the papist; is unholiness.

A final contrast. The use of “worship” at the time of Swinnock would have covered the giving of civil honor, which addresses:

There is a civil worship due to men, Gen. 48:11, but sacred worship is due only to God; and he is a jealous God, who will not give his glory to strangers, nor his praise to images.

After a short digression (omitted) on heathen idols, we comes to the comprehensive nature of worship:

Thirdly, The extent, in heart and life. Godliness is the worshipping God in the inward motions of the heart, and the outward actions of the life; where the spring of the affections is clear, and the stream of the conversation runs clear, there is true godliness. ….His heart is suitable to God’s nature, and his life is answerable to God’s law, and thence he is fitly denominated a godly man.

Here, Swinnock makes an exhortation by means of a rebuke. He calls hypocrisy blasphemy in practice:

In heart, hypocrisy is a practical blasphemy; ‘I know the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not.’ God’s eye taketh most notice of the jewel of spiritual devotion; the eyes of men, of the cabinet of outward adoration. 

Here a development on the nature of the heart:

‘My son, give me thy heart,’ saith God, Prov. 23:26. The heart is the king in the little world, man; which giveth laws both to the inward powers and outward parts, and reigneth and ruleth over them at pleasure.

And there in the heart must lie our worship:

The life of godliness lieth much more in the heart than in the life; and the saints’ character is from their inward carriage towards God; ‘They worship God in the spirit,’ Phil. 3:3. … The deeper the belly of the lute is, the pleasanter the sound; the deeper our worship comes from the heart, the more delightful it is in God’s ears.

The life of the heart is the life of the entire man:

And life-godliness, as it sets God on the throne of the conscience, so it walks with God in the conversation [conduct]. Though the spiritual (as the natural) life begins at the heart, yet it doth not end there, but proceeds to the hands; the same water appeareth in the bucket which is in the well. 

As when the heart is like a dunghill, full of filth, it sends forth a noisome and unsavoury stench in the life; so when the heart is like a box of musk, it perfumes and scents the tongue, and eyes, and ears, and hands, and whatsoever is near it, with holiness. 

This is not directly in the stream of Swinnock’s argument. But he does make an exhortation which flows from the elements of his preceding argument: (1) fear of God demonstrates the presence of God in the heart; (2) what is in the heart flows out to the life: Therefore, the godly life of a Christ gives evidence of God.

Worship is called the name of God, Ps. 29, and worshipping, a praising him, 2 Chron. 7:3. Because as a man by his name, so God by his worship is known in the world; and those that worship him in their practices, do before the eyes of the world give him praise.

This was an element which was particularly a matter of contention in 16th and 17th Century. The Puritan position was that worship may consist only in what is prescribed in Scripture. There were others who held that which is consistent with Scripture and is not forbidden is permitted:

Fourthly, The rule, according to his revealed will. Every part of divine worship must have a divine precept. As the first command teacheth us what God is to be worshipped, so the second command teacheth in what way he will be worshipped. … 

Our work is not to make laws for ourselves or others, but to keep the laws which the great prophet of his church hath taught us; that coin of worship which is current amongst us must be stamped by God himself. We are to be governed as the point in the compass, not by the various winds, (the practices of former ages, or the fashions of the present generation, which are mutable and uncertain,1) but by the constant heavens. Our devotion must be regulated exactly according to the standard of the word. 

Here is the point of his argument:

It is idolatry to worship a false god, or the true God in a false manner….

He ends with various instances of the contrary.

3 Cultus religiosus est obsequium supremum illi soli debitum qui est principium et autor tam creationis quam beatificationis nostræ.—Daven. Determ.

1 Traditioni humanæ nomen religionis applicant, ut religio appellatur, cum sit sacrilegium; quia quod contra authorem est sacrilega mente inventum est.—Amb. in Col. 2.

Edward Taylor, Was there a palace of pure gold.3

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

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Having fully set out the problem, Taylor prays for a resolution. If he is not adequate by nature, then he seeks to be made adequate by grace. That is, it is not a work of Taylor’s effort, but a work of God, “this worthy work of thine.”

The prayer is threefold: first that his heart be made a sacred vessel (thy golden box); second, filled with the correction disposition (love divine); third, offered up to God.

Oh! That my heart was made thy golden box

Full of affections and of love divine

Knit all in tassels, and the true-love knots,

To garnish o’re this worthy work of thine.

This box and all therein more rich than gold

In sacred flames I to thee offer would.

The image of gold is used for those things most proper to God.  In the previous stanza the poet notes that he had tied “knots” – had decorated the “earth’s toys” lovingly with flowers; but in this stanza, the God-given new heart would decorate the be a “golden box” impossibly knit together from tassels and flower (knots). 

The box would contain “affections” and “love divine”. 

The golden box so decorated would be more wonderful than a mere gold box. 

And last, the box would then be offered up as a sacrifice to God. He would spend this box “in sacred flames.”

The concept of sacrifice here may sound odd, because a fiery sacrifice would be the destruction of the golden box. While Taylor is perfectly willing to mix metaphors (a golden box made of flowers), the concept here is more likely the concept of a “living sacrifice”:

Romans 12:1 (AV) 

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 

If he so reworked and remade, then he will be fit for that heavenly pleasure he desires:

With thy rich tissue my poor soul array:

And lead me to thy Father’s House above.

Thy graces’ storehouse make my soul I pray.

Thy praise shall then wear tassels of my love.

If thou conduct me in thy Father’s Ways,

I’ll the golden trumpet of thy praise. 

The word “tissue” does not here mean an insubstantial paper. The older meaning was a cloth interwoven with gold or silver: the clothing of royalty. And so dress me like a prince and lead to the Father’s House. 

Father’s House comes the Lord’s words in the Upper Room:

John 14:1–2 (AV) 

1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

By the way, “mansion” does not mean separate enormous houses: the Greek here speaks of a place to live, a dwelling place. 

The prayer to be led, is a common prayer in the Psalms; which undoubtably was behind Taylor’s prayer in the poem. For instance:

Psalm 43:3 (AV) 

3 O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; 

let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. 

He prays not merely to be led, but rather for the entire renovation of the soul to be a storehouse filled with grace. The idea of grace is free work of God in him: it is the good which God does and gives. 

Then finally being filled with God’s grace and no longer a “leaden mind”, a “blockhead”, he will burst forth in praise. In fact, the praise will be “tassels” a decoration of his love: thus bringing the image of a decorated heart again into view.

This time, if God will bring Taylor to that “Palace of Pure Gold” he will no longer be dumb but will now offer praise. 

Edward Taylor, When Thy Bright Beams

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

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4505646830_41ba1cffa6_o

(2009 photo contest winner for the Nature / Landscapes category. Photo by Kurt Svendsgaard/USFWS)

When thy bright beams, my Lord, do strike mine eye,

Methinks I then could truly chide out-right

My hidebound soul that stands so niggardly

That scarce a thought gets glorified by’t.

My quaintest metaphors are ragged stuff,

Making the sun seem like a mullipuff.

 

When I am struck evidence of your glory, I see how little right effect that glory works into my soul. I chide myself that I show so little effect up me. The words which I produce are of so little value.

“chide out-right”: Scold, upbraid.

“My hidebound soul”: his soul is unresponsive.

“Niggardly”: selfish, tightfisted: It is as if his soul is a miser which will pay out no praise.

“scarce a thought get glorified”: The glory of God does not translate into transformed thinking.  In Romans 12:2 Paul calls up us to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind”

“quaintest metaphors”: my most clever metaphors. The style of writing exercised by Taylor gives great emphasis to the cleverness of metaphor. He here raises his most able talent and says that it means nothing: it is “ragged stuff”.

He ends the stanza with a comic comparison: rather than raise what I know in admiration by means of comparison, I turn the very sun into a fuzzball.

 

It’s my desire, thou shouldst be glorified:

But when thy glory shine before mine eye,

I pardon crave, lest my desire be pride,

Or bed thy glory in cloudy sky.

The sun grows wan; and angels palefac’d shrink

Before thy shine, which I besmear with ink.

 

It is my aim – my desire – that you, God, should be honored by my work. But I see your already existing glory, rather than thinking of some means of providing you greater honor; I feel myself ashamed. I ask that you should forgive me (I pardon crave).

 

Rather than my writing providing something honoring to, I fear that I will dishonor you with my words. Rather than adding a luster to God’s glory, Taylor’s words will have the effect of being a “cloudy sky” to the sun. His poem will merely “besmear with ink” the glory of God.

 

This realization that (1) his soul has not responded rightly to the realization of God’s glory and (2) his complete inability to glorify God, leads to a crisis: What will I do? That crisis is set forth in the third stanza:

 

But shall the bird sign forth thy praise and shall

The little bee present her thankful hum?

But I who see thy shining glory fall

Before mine eyes, stand blockish, dull, and dumb?

Whether I speak, or speechless stand, I spy,

I fail thy glory: therefor, pardon cry.

 

Even the most simple things give glory to God: birds singing, bees humming.  This matter that all nature praises God is a theme in Scripture. For instance, Psalm 149

 

Psalm 148:7–10 (AV 1873)

7          Praise the Lord from the earth,

Ye dragons, and all deeps:

8          Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour;

Stormy wind fulfilling his word:

9          Mountains, and all hills;

Fruitful trees, and all cedars:

10         Beasts, and all cattle;

Creeping things, and flying fowl:

 

I do like “dragons”, but the contemporary translations render as something like “great sea creatures”.  All of nature praises God, “All thy works shall praise thee”. Ps. 145.10.

 

So, if all of creation praises God, then certainly Taylor – who has better reason and better ability to praise God – must do something. It is particularly wrong for Taylor to stand agape and say nothing,

 

But I who see thy shining glory fall

Before mine eyes, stand blockish, dull, and dumb?

 

So Taylor has no escape: If he praises God or he fails to praise, both will be wrong:

 

Whether I speak, or speechless stand, I spy,

I fail thy glory: therefor, pardon cry.

 

What can he possibly do but seek mercy?

 

 

 

But this I find: my rhymes do better suit

Mine own dispraise than tune forth praise to thee.

Yet being chide, whether consonant, or mute,

I force my tongue to tattle, as you see.

That I thy glorious praise my trumpet right

Be thou my song, and make Lord, me thy pipe.

 

He acknowledges that his best ability in terms of poetry is to note his own deficiency rather than God’s glory:

But this I find: my rhymes do better suit

Mine own dispraise than tune forth praise to thee.

 

And God, you also see since I deserve no matter I do (“whether consonant or mute”), but you also see that I cannot help but speak and praise you.

 

So then, Taylor prays that God will work in Taylor’s praise to remedy his defect. In making this prayer, Taylor is seeming relying upon the promise of Romans 8:27 that when we pray the Holy Spirit will intercede for us – that He will effectively correct our defective prayers.

 

He then ends with a praise to God’s great glory which shall be revealed on Judgment Day.

How to become humble

18 Monday Sep 2017

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Humility flows not from thinking badly about oneself (that is still pride that I am not better); rather it flows from not thinking of oneself. It is not obtained by looking to oneself, but is obtained by looking one greater.  True humility before God and worship are inextricably linked:

Poverty of spirit is born of the conscious meeting with God. It lives by the constant daily, hourly realisation of God. Therefore it keeps a man strong, it makes him stronger than all the self-asserting vaunters who trust in themselves, or in their brains, or their rank, or their money, or their power of making a noise—it makes him strong, because he is always feeling the true source of his strength, always in touch with his Inspirer. He is not casting about wildly to find support in other men’s appreciation of him; the sources of his strength are present to him—they are ever with him; he is and God is—and in his case the unforgotten Voice ever says, “Fear not, for I am with thee, I have called thee by thy name, and thou art Mine.” He cannot vaunt himself, he cannot push himself, he is but an instrument, and an instrument that can only work as long as it is in touch with its inward power; the ‘God within him’ is the source of his power. What can he be but poor in spirit, how can he forget, how can he call out ‘worship me,’ when he has seen the Vision and heard the Voice, and felt the Power of God? Poor in spirit, emptied of mere vain, barren conceit, deaf to mere flattery he must be, because he has seen and known; he has cried “Holy, Holy, Holy,” he knows God, and henceforth he is not a centre, not an idol, but an instrument, a vessel that needs for ever refilling, if it is to overflow and do its mission. His is the receptive attitude; not that which receives merely that it may keep, but that which receives because it must send forth. And so he accepts all merely personal conditions, not as perfect in themselves, but as capable of being transmuted by that inward power, which is his own, yet not his own—his own because God is within him, not his own because he is the receiver, not the inspirer. His cry is ever, “Nevertheless I am alway by Thee, for Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel: and after that receive me with glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee: and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

Robert Eyton, “The Benediction on the Poor in Spirit,” in The Beatitudes, Second Edition. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1896), 18–19.

Richard Sibbes: God is a Relationship

16 Thursday Mar 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spiritual Chymist, Preaching and Public Worship

07 Tuesday Feb 2017

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Meditation XLI
Upon the Benefits of a Sucking Bottle

The Word of God by which men are turned from darkness onto light sometimes compared to a seed (Mark 4:4) and sometimes onto milk (1 Peter 2:2); and the ministers of it, sometimes onto fathers (1 Thessalonians 2:11)and sometimes onto nurses (1 Thessalonians 2:7). This double relation points forth their double duty which is not only as spiritual fathers to beget men onto Christ, but as nursing mothers to give them the full breasts the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby and of newborn babes maybe come strong in the face, and filled with all knowledge and wisdom in the things of God.

But how was this done? It is by Reading only the Scriptures, without giving the sense (though it be a public ordinance of God [1 Timothy 4:13], and highly to be honored of all), or by the diligent and well digested preaching of the Scriptures, in which the truths delivered or sucked in as milk from the breast that partakes of the warmth and spirits of the nurse?

Some ministers have consulted more for their own ease than their people’s profit, and have endeavored to maintain reading to be preaching, as if that were a sufficient discharge of their duty.

But what then will become of the apostle’s question? Who is sufficient for these things? It should be rather who is not sufficient? Or of what use will be this counsel, to preach in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2) and to divide the word of God aright as a workman that needeth not be ashamed. (2 Timothy 2:15)

True it is, that if preaching be taken largely for any declaration or publishing of the Word of God, it cannot be denied to be preaching. But if it be taken strictly for preaching, by way of office, and for ministerial publishing of the gospel, then it is quite another thing.

Was there not a wide difference between the woman of Samaria making known of Christ (John 4:28-30), and the apostles preaching of him; or between Andrew calling his brother Peter (John 1:40-41) before he was put into his apostolical office and his preaching of Christ when commissioned by him?

And what less difference is there between a naked reading of the Scripture or some other set discourse and the powerful preaching of the Word? But if trial and experience could better evince than argument, those who justify the opinion by their practice, I could wish that such might bring forth children who lived wholly upon the singular means of reading and let their countenance be looked upon and the countenance of those who have had the Word duly preached onto them and then let others judge whether their countenance appear as fair and as fat as their brothers?

Oh how quickly would it be discerned which they are, which have received the nourishment from the breast and which from the bottle? It would soon be judged that the weak are the flocks of Laban and the strong the flock of Jacob (Genesis 30:41-42), which God has by far blessed far above the other.

Think upon it of O ye slothful ones, to whose care God has committed the welfare of many souls how you will answer your neglected to God! If the chief officer was afraid that his withholding the king’s appointed meat from Daniel and his companions might endanger his head to his lord should he see their faces worse than the children of their sort (Daniel 1:10) what cause will you have to fear the displeasure of Christ when he shall behold the wan and pale looks of those for whom he died by your detaining breast from them who should have been nourished up in the Word of faith and good doctrine?

Nor shall ye, O Christians who slight ordinances (Communion, baptism, and here most likely public worship) and turn your back upon the breast of consolation which are held forth onto you escape any better than the ministers who deny them to their people. If it be a sin to do the one, it is no less, if not greater in you, to do the other. They sin against the souls of others, and you sin against your own souls. And yet how great are the numbers upon whom the guilt of this crime may be charged?

Some think that they are past their childhood and therefore wean themselves. They know as much as their teachers can tell them, and to what end then should they still give them their attendance? To hanker after the breast is for babes, not for grown persons! But are not they who thus speak puffed up and know nothing as they ought? Is not this whole life a state of infancy in respect of perfection? Does not the apostle say, That we see but darkly and know but in part. Why then should the old be ashamed of these breasts more than the young Timothies? David professed himself a weaned child from the world but not from the Word.

Others please themselves, that though they go not to hear, yet they read good books and betters sermons at home than their ministers can make: and so take themselves not to be zealous, but only more discreet than their brothers who do not the like. And yet who can excuse such persons from the guilt both of folly and wickedness? Is it not folly to refuse the warm breast and suck the milk from the bottle when it is dispirited and has lost both its warm and lively state?

And what less difference is there between a sermon in the pulpit and in the press? Is it not also wickedness to offer sacrilege for sacrifice and to rob God of one duty to pay him another; to withhold the greater and to seem conscientious in the less? Are they not in thus thieves of their own souls, depriving themselves of the profit of both, while they are willful neglecters of each?

Be wise therefore, O Christians, in keeping up a high esteem of the Word preached, and be always babes for hunger and desire after it; though not for knowledge and understanding in it.

And remember that there is no way so dangerous to lessen your desires as to keep yourselves fasting from it. For the Word of God still creates new appetites, as it satisfies the old (it makes us more hungry at the same time that it satisfies our hunger for it); and enlarges the capacities of the soul as it fills it.

Use good books as apothecaries do their succedanea (drugs, medications), one simple to supply the want of another; when the preacher cannot be had to then make use of them [books and written sermons]; but let it rather be to stay the stomach in the absence of an ordinance than to satisfy it. And when you enjoy both, say as Aristotle sometimes did of the Rhodian and Lesbian Wines (wines of Rhodes and Lesbos), when had tasted both: the Rhodian was good, but the Lesbian was pleasanter. Holy Books are good, and relish well, but the Word Preached is more sweet. The one is as the wine the bridegroom provided at the marriage feast and the other as that which Christ made which was easily discerned by the governor (the chief of the feast) but know not whence it was, to be far better (John 2:10).

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.

Soren Kierkegaard: “The Rotation Method” Part One (Either/Or)

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Culture, Philosophy, Psychology, Uncategorized, Worship, Worship

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This is the most entertaining essay I have ever read on boredom. It begins:

Starting from a principle is affirmed by people of experience to be a very reasonable procedure; I am willing to humor them, and so begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself to be so great a bore as to contradict me in this….Boredom is the root of all evil.

In the context of this volume, which is addressing the human being at the aesthetic level of being, this principle cannot be gainsaid. If the point of all life is simply to avoid pain and obtain pleasure, boredom is monster which lurks everywhere (as soon one has food and shelter).

Think of how much effort and treasure is poured into entertainment: movies, music, sports, video-games. Drug taking is primarily to shake off boredom by being easily amused. It is the mark of a  culture which is largely childish. Consider these two sentences and at the same time consider street crime:

In the case of children, the ruinous character of boredom is universally acknowledged. Children are always well-behaved as long as they are enjoying themselves.

Sadly I have known more than one criminal intimately. I have never met the man who stole because he was honestly going to starve after he could not find work. Violence, theft, assaults, are weirdly often a form of entertainment.

He even attributes the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) to boredom (“To divert themselves they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens.”).

Think of politics: how much of politics is entertaining theater (I am happy here to draw out examples from all parties and candidates sufficient to gore everyone’s ox. But these facts are too well known).

Sadly, too much of the Christian church is little better than second rate theater meant to divert on in the task of “worship”. That does not mean I think that Christian worship should be boring: When it is truly worship, nothing is more riveting. Rather, diversion rather than presentation of the living God is where most “worship” settles (frankly it is easier to be diverting than meet God — it also the reason why it is so easy to forget).

 

So when we think about it: this question of boredom has profound effects: I have only briefly (and in the barest form) considered crime, culture, politics and worship. According to Kierkegaard’s formulation of the aesthetic stage the trouble is that most of world is peopled by those who cannot operate at a more matured level (that is for his later books).

Popular Contemporary Music

03 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in Music, Uncategorized, Worship

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I one time saw a popular “preacher”, a young man with more enthusiasm than wisdom , say “It’s an oxymoron, like a sad Christian.” He was apparently unfamiliar with “Blessed are those who mourn ….” Anyway, this same nonsense, the inability to realize that are not yet in the New Heavens and New Earth has infected was passes for Christian current music (I will not repeat the idiocy of “Beautiful Day”, it makes me cringe):

The upbeat lyrics of “Beautiful Day” aren’t exceptional. I took a look at the last five years of Billboard’s year-end top 50 Christian songs1 to see whether Christian pop is unrelentingly cheerful. I looked at pairs of concepts across the entire collection of lyrics2 (life and death, grace and sin, etc.)3 and calculated the ratio of positive to negative words. For every pair I checked, positive words were far more common than negative ones.

There were 2.5 times as many mentions of “grace” as “sin” in the songs’ lyrics. Other pairs were even more lopsided: There were more than eight mentions of “life” for every instance of “death,” and “love” was more than seven times as common as “fear.” (For the record, John 4:18 — “perfect love casts out fear” — is advice for spiritual formation, not lyrics writing.) Parishioners may find too much positive language dispiriting. When Christian pop songs and hymns are “excessively positive or wholly positive,” they often “come across as cotton candy and inauthentic,” said Richard Beck, a psychology professor at Abilene Christian University and the author of several books on the intersection between theology and psychology.

Read the rest

Of course Christianity has the most profound promise of call for joy. But it shouldn’t make me feel like I’m buying soap.

What the Ascension Means to the Church

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Ascension, Ecclesiology, Uncategorized, Worship, Worship

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Jesus has taken his place at the right hand of the Father. He has vanquished all the powers. In his person he has carried human nature up into the presence of God the Father. Ascension points to the fact that the whole cosmos has been re-organized around Jesus of Nazareth. Mission is a response to this doxological reality. And so is the church’s life of worship.

Ascension means the church is the kind of institution that is simultaneously drawn upward in worship and pushed outward in mission. These are not opposing movements. Unfortunately, too many churches today see it that way. Ascension forbids such a dichotomy. The church does not have to choose whether it will be defined by the depth of its worship life or its faithfulness in mission. Both acts flow from the single reality of ascension. Both have integrity only in that they are connected to one another. Mission is the church’s response to the universal lordship of Jesus. When people respond to the gospel— whether through faith and repentance or by bringing every area of life under the lordship of Christ—worship happens. The more authentically missional a church becomes, the more profound will be its life of worship since mission always ends in worship. It flows from the place of the ascended Christ in his heavenly reign, which means mission’s success increases the amount of praise and worship of God in the world. Together the church’s life of mission and worship enact and bear witness on earth to what is already true in heaven.

Here’s the rest: THE CHURCH UPWARD AND OUTWARD: IMPLICATIONS OF THE ASCENSION