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Thinking About Meaning While Weeding the Garden

22 Wednesday Mar 2023

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The extraordinary bouts of rain to fall upon California has led to an extraordinary bounty of weeds forcing themselves about the plants in my yard. Today, in a respite between showers, I was freeing a decorative plant from the infestation of some noxious greenery. And as one does, I thought of how the weed worked like cancer, sucking up the nutrients and water meant for the plant I desired.

This led me to consider the deep ecological thinking that humanity is like a weed or cancer upon the earth. Thus, humanity needs to be culled – or perhaps even abrogated for the good earth.

From that I thought: What is the harm which comes to the earth if human beings are well but some other life on earth is not? Whatever answer I come to is the answer of a human being. If l land some pagan ecology and think that “life” itself is what matters, and human beings are merely the froth of this wave, it is still a human being who has this thought. No grass or caterpillar or goose is worried about this metaphysical existential problem.

The meaning exists in the human mind.

This leads to an interesting quandary for those make humanity the culprit, the cancer upon the globe.

Let us assume an utterly materialistic understanding of nature, by this I mean whatever forces there may be within the universe, the universe is the boundary of reality. There are molecules in motion.

In such a universe, meaning a useful fiction of the human mind; but “meaning” has no existence independent of the human mind. We cannot go exploring through the universe and find meaning somewhere. Meaning has no existence beyond a human being thinking, “This has meaning.”

If this so, destroying human beings would destroy the tenuous meaning which could exist. It would also “mean” that the world was meaningless. There is no moral difference between gushing mercury into an oyster bed and tending to a rose or rescuing a baby from a fire.  Some person may make some sort of judgment about one thing or the other, but the moral value would extend no further than the judgment.  Meaning is a function of human intelligence.

Right or wrong would simply be a majority opinion.

And if human beings were all gone, the world would be meaningless.  Racoons hunting crayfish might still happen, but it would have no moral value: that moral value could only come from human beings.

The thought that well, life will go and perhaps better without us, is merely a thought of a human being. But the value of “life” and “better” and whatnot do not exist. That is a nonsense statement neither true nor false.  It is a vapor which would disappear without a human being to think it.

The other possibility is that there is some meaning independent of the human mind. For such an abstraction to be exist, it would necessarily exist in another mind.  Meaning is a kind of way an intelligence thinks about an event. For meaning to something other than an incident abstraction of human beings, but to a fact; meaning must be grounded in something other than human beings thinking of it.

What sort of mind would suffice to ground meaning as an objective fact?

Thomas Traherne, The Soul’s Communion With Her Savior 1.1.6

17 Friday Mar 2023

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§. 6.

Holy Jesus, who, for the morerational engagement[1] of the Virgin’s faith, didst further acquaint her by the same Angel, Behold, thy Cousin Elizabeth, who was called barren, she also hath conceived a Son in her old Age[2].

I magnify thy Holy Name[3],

Because with God nothing shall be unpossible[4].

This Maxim may suffice to silence all the cavilling inquiries of human reason[5],

How this should be:

For the same power that makes the barren Womb fruitful,

can with the same facility dispense with those Laws of Nature

that render it unlikely there should be a Virgin-Mother[6]:

And that Spirit, which, by breathing on them, was able to make dry bones live[7],

may be very rationally believed[8] of sufficient power to impregnate a Virgin’s Womb.

And therefore, in considering this transcendent mystery[9] of my Savior’s Incarnation,

I will rather admire and recount his Goodness and Truth,

than question his Power, or pry into the manner of its accomplishment;

and in all his trials of my faith or patience, my Soul shall say,

as  Mary of the Lord did, Be it unto me according unto thy word.[10]

[1] By rational engagement, he means a good ground for believing the announcement to be true.

[2] Here we learn that the announcement of John (the Baptist’s) birth which opened the book of Luke was to Mary’s cousin.

30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. 34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. 36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Luke 1:30–37 (KJV)

[3] In this instance, the comment following the Scripture quotation is not in the form of a prayer as much as a meditation. The first line is an allusion to

1           Bless the Lord, O my soul:

And all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Psalm 103:1 (KJV)

[4] Luke 1:37. There is a further allusion to the birth of Isaac:

13 And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? 14 Is any thing too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

Genesis 18:13–14 (KJV)

[5] Contrary to our modern prejudice that we only recently figured out that virgins cannot become pregnant and dead men to do not resurrect from the dead, questions about these matters were debated and considered since before Jesus. The claims of the Gospel beginning with a virgin birth and ending with a resurrection have been matters of philosophical debate since time of the Gospels. The claims were not received because the people back then were credulous. Traherne is putting the question on a different foundation: The power for this miracle to occur is a power of God, alone. When asking how, the answer should be, God has that power. Trying to figure how that power could be exercised based upon my understanding of physics and physiology is beyond the point.

[6] The narrow argument here is that if God can make a woman can have no children to bear a child (Elizabeth), God can make a virgin pregnant ( Mary). The broader argument is that even normal pregnancy and birth are miraculous, we are just used to such things.

[7]

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, 2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

Ezekiel 37:1–5 (KJV)

[8] One cannot admit the power of God and then say, this particular miracle is not possible.

[9] It is a thing which can be admired though not completely understood.

[10] Mary becomes the model of faith: I cannot understand how God will do this miracle. But rather than question it I will receive and admire it: Let God act and I will believe. He has been careful to argue this is not a bare fideism or an irrational conclusion: I have good reason to believe God can this present thing, because God has shown his power in these past things.

Suffering Now and Then

11 Saturday Feb 2023

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Joblike suffering is, contrary to all appearances, a preparation for heaven, when all secondary blessings have fallen away. As Christopher Ash writes:

the Satan, for all his malice, is doing something necessary to the glory of God. In some deep way it is necessary for it to be publicly seen by the whole universe that God is worthy of the worship of a man and that God’s worship is in no way dependent on God’s gifts.18

From this perspective, yhwh ‘uses mortals to validate truths about himself’ in a way that confers ‘awful dignity’ on us.

Piercing the Leviathan, Eric Outland

This is a hard saying, who can bear it? It seems impossible that such a position could be true. How can suffering now be in any way good? One trouble is that our horizon is too narrow. We can think about human good only in terms of the next few years. We also think about good in terms of current values and ease. We lack the knowledge and imagination to consider that some goods which are to come can both difficulty now.

I do not mean to make suffering trite. Job’s suffering was extraordinary. This illustration is meant only to prove that present difficulty can lead to future good. The Olympic athlete strains and sacrifices for years to obtain merely a moment of joy.

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.
25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.
27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. https://esv.org/1Cor9.24-27

This leads to a second failure of understanding. We do not see how now will matter then. How can this present way of life be of value in the resurrection. But we are taught there is a connection between the two. We are told to be sexually immoral because we will be resurrected. 1 Cor 6:14 Positively we are our labor is not in vain because of the resurrection:

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. https://esv.org/1Cor15.58

There is a correlation between then and now. Now fits us for then. And somehow even our sorrow and suffering transform us now for then. And then is better than now

17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. https://esv.org/2Cor4.17-18

Where did loneliness come from?

08 Wednesday Feb 2023

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I have two masters students who are beginning their work on biblical responses to loneliness. I did some initial research on my own and found the concept of “loneliness” almost entirely missing from theology prior to the 20th century. John Newton in a song lyric, “The Prisoner” has this image:

When the poor pris’ner through a grate

Sees others walk at large,

How does he mourn his lonely state,

And long for a discharge!

 Newton, John, and Richard Cecil. The Works of John Newton. Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824, p. 605. Loneliness here is part ofthe punishment of a criminal, but apparently not a normal human condition.Thomas Boston says that being alone will be banished in heaven:

Heaven’s happiness must needs be unspeakable, in respect of the society there. The saints going thither shall no more be in a lonely condition, but have the pleasant society of other saints perfected, holy angels, the man Christ, and God himself. The society of saints here is very comfortable, how much more the general assembly of them in heaven?

 Boston, Thomas. The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing. Edited by Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 5, George and Robert King, 1849, p. 411. He seems to be arguing that heaven will be even less un-lonely than here. Samuel Rutherford writes of someone pursuing Christ while others do not:

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Ye know that this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things, and not the things of Jesus Christ. Ye are your lone, as a beacon on the top of a mountain; but faint not: Christ is a numerous multitude Himself, yea, millions. Though all the nations were convened against Him round about, yet doubt not but He will, at last, arise for the cry of the poor and needy.

 Rutherford, Samuel, and Andrew A. Bonar. Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents. Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1891, p. 703.

But this is not loneliness. Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads gives us, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” But it was a poem about voluntary solitude who finds himself in a “crowd” of flowers. But there is no actually loneliness in the poem.

Google N-Gram for loneliness shows the word almost non-existent in the early 19th Century only to gain dramatically after 1980. There is the UCLA Loneliness Scale which can be used to measure loneliness. An article in the New Yorker summarizes the proposition from three books which have examined the history of loneliness. According to one of the authors considered, loneliness seems to be modern product:

“Modern loneliness, in Alberti’s view, is the child of capitalism and secularism. “Many of the divisions and hierarchies that have developed since the eighteenth century—between self and world, individual and community, public and private—have been naturalized through the politics and philosophy of individualism,” she writes. “Is it any coincidence that a language of loneliness emerged at the same time?” It is not a coincidence. The rise of privacy, itself a product of market capitalism—privacy being something that you buy—is a driver of loneliness. So is individualism, which you also have to pay for.”

The author referenced has a TED talk which I will give a listen to.

The article and the authors quoted all seem to make a loneliness an economic product. And that must in part be true. Economics describes why we do not live in villages nor on farms nor even in crowded tenements if we can help it. But that does not explain someone living by themselves in an apartment. What is missing from this story is marriage.

In marriage, two people live together. One is not alone. Most often (and obviously not all instances), children come along to bring more people into the house. If there are families of origin nearby (the distance of extended family is an economic question), the grandparents will be involved. The children will bring in their own friends, and so on.

Thus, it seems to me that loneliness was made possible by the economic structures, but made actual by decline in marriage A quick review of Alberti’s book on loneliness mentions the medieval monk who did not feel “lonely” even when alone, because of how he conceptualized his solitude. Likewise, Wordsworth’s afternoon of solitude was not lonely. This would add a further element of loneliness to the loss of marriage. The monk had purposefully forsaken marriage for some task, and that task involved something quite meaningful. I should also mention, that the monk did not necessarily live in any sort of isolation unless he was in fact a hermit. And even then, the isolation was likely not absolute (some early desert fathers lived some bizarre forms of isolation).

Just some initial thoughts

Weakness

26 Thursday Jan 2023

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I saw a clip: two zookeepers in China thought of a stunt to celebrate the changing of the year from tiger to rabbit. And so they brought out a cute white bunny and a tiger cub. The men smiled and showed their animals, then placed the bunny near the cub on a decorated perch.

As soon as the tiger was free, it pounced upon the rabbit. A paw the size of the rabbit, knocked on its side and swiped it into the tiger’s jaw.  They tried to separate the two, but it was too late.

Rabbits have a wisdom of their own. They are never to be found in the presence of tigers. They endeavor to never be seen, except by other rabbits. In summer they are the color brush and dirt and rocks. In winter, some become the color of snow. Rabbits are not the peacocks of the world, they are skittish, quick, and concealed.

You will be surprised the first time you watch a rabbit dig a hole. And the hole will quickly be a burrow. Leave alone long enough and you will have a warren, a rabbit city beneath the ground.

Rabbits have no claws to fend off dogs or cats or birds seeking to make them prey (although a mother rabbit will strike as quick as a rattlesnake. She may not have more than some nails for digging and teeth for hay, but she will use them with all the force within her.) The rabbit scurries about beneath the brush, wary at every moment.

Consider a moment and look about, you will see how every weak animal seeks to survive on this planet by speed and wisdom and concealment. Sparrows disappear among the branches of a trees or the leaves upon the ground. They move in clouds, so that no one sparrow can be easily tracked. The skitter about, anxious to survive.

Even insects can hide and dodge with a genius beyond their size. Try grabbing a fly or tracing a gnat on a summer evening as it dips and zags like someone weaving hair.

Predators may seem to have it much better. They are great and powerful, but their prey is elusive. And predators confront predators. Lions fight hyenas for the carcass, and vultures dog the hawk. A great white shark fears nothing, but orcas hunt and eat the apex predators beneath them.

Goats have horns and cattle are large. Where no rancher culls the herd, dangerous bulls will protect the cows. A stampede of buffalo and obliterate a pack of wolves.

Yet, one animal stands out. The lamb is not the color of grass. His mother has no horns. He will never run like a gazelle or fly like a crow. He cannot disappear into a crevice after a snake. He does not pretend to be a poisonous animal. No wolf was ever harmed by a flock of sheep.

How striking then that God speaks of his people as sheep:

        But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,

will give thanks to you forever;

from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

Psalm 79:13  

            7           For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture,

and the sheep of his hand.

Psalm 95:7

And he is a shepherd:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:11.

Think again of the language of the well-known 23rd Psalm:

            1           The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

            2           He makes me lie down in green pastures.

                        He leads me beside still waters.

Psalm 23:1–2. Those who cause injury to the church are fierce beasts:

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves

Matthew 10:16.

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;

Acts 20:29.

The Puritan Richard Sibbes observed:

For the first, the condition of men whom he was to deal withal is, that they were bruised reeds, and smoking flax; not trees, but reeds; and not whole, but bruised reeds. The church is compared to weak things; to a dove amongst the fowls; to a vine amongst the plants; to sheep amongst the beasts; to a woman, which is the weaker vessel: and here God’s children are compared to bruised reeds and smoking flax.

Sibbes, Richard. The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes. Edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1, James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862, p. 43. 

The earth is dangerous; even roses have thorns.  The sheep have no protection, except their shepherd. All of their hope is in their shepherd. If a wolf comes, the shepherd alone can stop the wolf. The sheep can only die.

God does not save by increasing our strength. His people never become wolves or bears. Instead, he teaches us to be weak. We are not merely harmless beasts; we are taught to become harmless beasts. In fact, we are not merely to accept our weakness, but to glory in our weakness:

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:8–10. Now there is a paradox. To be weak, seems to be one who has no honor, no glory, no power. How then can Paul glory in his weakness? How is he safe in the power of Christ, when we know how often Paul was imprisoned, degraded, beaten? How can suffering insults or calamities be a means of glory? A great grizzly, fearless of all things in the world is filled with glory. A lion is glorious. A sheep? Sheep are weak and foolish. But sheep have something no shark, no wolf ever had: a shepherd.

Spiritual Eye-Salve: Sermon Outline

10 Saturday Dec 2022

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SPIRITUAL EYE-SALVE
Thomas Adams
Ephesians 1:18
This grace that here Paul prays for his Ephesians is illumination. Wherein is described to us — I. an eye; II. an object [what the eye sees]. The eye is spiritual, the object celestial.
I. The eye is the most excellent organ of sense.

But it is certain, in God’s image be not in the understanding, the soul is in danger; if they chimed air, there is comfort of life gay, life of comfort. Hence it is that the God of this world dothso strive to blinded the minds of them that believe not
God hath set to bid us to defend the poor real eye from annoyances. So he had given the understanding faith and hope to shelter it.

A. The situation of the spiritual eye is the soul. God, framing man’s soul, planted in it two faculties: the superior, that is the understanding, which perceive it and judge it; the inferior, that is the will, which being informed of the other, accordingly follows are flies, chooseth or if refuseth.

Use 1: this teaches us to desire in the first place the enlightening of our eyes, and then after, the strengthening of our feet…. Keep it labors for feet before he has eyes, takes a preposterous course; for, up to, the lame is more likely to come to his journeys and then the blind…. Chrysostom says, knowledge of virtue must ever go before devotion; for no man can earnestly affect the good he knows not; and the evil whereof he is ignorant, he fears not.

Use 2: this reprehends a common fashion of many auditors. When the preacher begins to analyze this text, and to open the points of doctrine, to inform the understanding, they lend him very cold attention…. But alas! No eyes, no salvation.
B. I come from the situation to the qualification of the spiritual eye: enlightened…. Man’s mind is not only dark, darkness, Ephesians 5:8, till the Spirit of knowledge of light on him, lighten him…. When a natural man comes in the Temple, among the congregation of God’s saints, the soul is not delighted with their prayers, praises, songs, and service; he sees no comfort, no pleasure, no content in their actions. True, he does not, he cannot; for his understanding is not enlightened ….Wwhat a world of happiness does this man’s I not see! Whereupon we call a mere full and natural. The world links have esteemed and misnamed Christians Gods fools; but we know them the fools of the world.

There are two reasons why we must all day of God for ourselves, as Paul did for the Ephesians, this grace of illumination:
Reason one: Our spiritual blindness came upon us by God to just curse for our sins.

Reason two: This original defect is increased by actual transgressions…. But I rather think that, like the water man, but look one way and row another; for he must needs be strangely squinted eye that can at the same instant fashion one of his lights on the light of glory, and the other on the darkness of iniquity.
C. [Diseases of the eye]:
1. First the cataract, which is a thickness drawn over the eye, and bread of many causes: this especially, either from the rheum of vainglory, or the inflammation of malice…. This dark mind is the fault were saints and keeps his seminary, and since hatching a black root of the lusts.
The means took spell this disease is to take God’s law and to thy hand and heart, and through that glass to look to thyself…. This inspection is difficult. It is a hard, but a happy thing, to know oneself. Private sins are not easily spied out…. He that is partially indulgent to one sin is a friend to all. It is at pains well taken to study thyself. If thou wouldst be good, first know that thou art evil.

And as in some, the fuliginous vapors arising from the lower parts of the body blind the eyes; so in him the fumous evaporations of the flesh’s lusts have caused absolute blindness.

2. Secondly, there is another disease called pearl in the eye: a dangerous disease, and hereof are all worldlings sick; for earthly riches is such a great pearl in the eye, that they cannot see the pearl of the Gospel, which the wise merchant sold all he had to purchase…. We are easily inclined and declined from our supernal bliss, by a doting love of these transient delights…. The eye follows the heart with more diligence than a servant his master…. This pearl must be cut out of the worldling’s eye with a sharp knife of repentance otherwise he is never likely to see heaven.

D. There is also a double defect in this natural eye

1. First it perceives only natural and external things. A beast has one kind of eye, a natural man to a Christian three. The beast has an eye of sense; the natural man, a sense and reason; the Christian, of sense, of reason, and of faith. Each of these has its several objects, several intentions. The eye of sense regards only natural things; the eye of reason, only sensible and natural things; the eye of faith, spiritual, supernal, and supernatural things.

2. The second defect in the eye is an insolid levity; it is roving, like Dinah’s, and ravished abroad; but wants self-inspection. Nothing does sooner blind us in comparisons. He they would mount to a high opinion of his own worth, by comparing it to the base wickedness of another, is like one that observing a cripple’s lameness, wonders at himself that he is so swift.

E. Spiritual blindness

1. Spiritual blindness shall appear the more perilous, if we compare it with natural. The bodies I may be better spared than the souls; as to want the eye of Angels is far worse than to want the eyes of beasts. The want of corporeal site is often good, not evil: evil in the sense, and good in the consequence. He may the better intent heavenly things, that sees no earthly to draw him away. Many a man’s eyes has done him hurt [like David].

Besides, the bodily blind fields and knowledge is his want of sight; but the spiritually blind thinks that none have clearer eyes than himself. He that wants corporeal eyes blesses them that see; this man derides and despises them…. But the mind and soul is led by the world, which should be his servant, is his traitor; or, by the flesh, which should be as a wife, is his harlot; or by the devil, which is a dog indeed, a crafty curb, not leading, but misleading him.

2. The means to cure it:
i. A knowledge of God, procured
a. By his works.
b. by the Scriptures
c. But the scriptural knowledge (common to the wicked) is not sufficient; there must be a spiritual knowledge.
ii. A knowledge of ourselves, procured
a. Naturally, by looking into the Constitution and composition of our own persons.
b. Morally: by considering how frequently we have transgressed these virtues to which the very heathen gave a strict obedience.
c. Spiritual knowledge goes yet further: it searches the heart; and if that most inward chamber, or in any thereof, you can find an idle, it brings it forth.

II. The object to be seen: ‘the hope of his calling, and the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints.’
The philosophers propound six necessary occurrences to her perfect seeing

A. Firmness or good disposition of the organ that sees. A rolling eye bolts nothing perfectly…. This object is so immense, that we cannot well look besides it.

B. The spectacle must be objected [made an object] to the sight:… nor can the understanding see into the super natural joys, lest the Lord objects [shows it] it to them.

C. That there be a proportional distance between the organ and the object: neither too near, nor too far off…. The best I upon earth looks but through a glass, a lattice, and obscuring impediment.
It is required that the objective matter be substantial…. but this object here proposed is no empty chimera, or imaginary, translucent, airy shadow, but substantial: “the hope of God’s calling, and a glorious inheritance;” which though natures goal I cannot reach, the fates by sees perfectly.

D. And the subject of this spectacle is by demonstration proved solid and substantial; because nothing but that can give this intellectual eye firm content and complacency. How go the affections of man and a rolling and ranging pace from one creature to another. Now that hard to set up on wealth…. say wealth was calm, thou art than for honor; they riches are a latter, whereby thou would client dignity [and so on from one desire to another – no man is content with anything in this world. Here is an irony: The man who cannot see God is still not content with anything but God.] Nothing but the Trinity of persons in that one Deity can fill the triangular concave of man’s own heart.

E. clearness of space between the organ and the object …. there must be removing all thick and impenetrable obstacles:
i. Some have whole mountains between their eyes and heaven; the mountains of vainglory hinder their sight.
ii. Others, to make sure prevention against their site of heaven, have rolled the whole earth between that and their eyes.
iii. Others yet have interjected such a skewer and peachy clouds between their site and his son of glory, but they cannot see. Whether of the errors, the dark and light of truth, or of affected ignorance, but blind to their own eyes; or a blasphemous atheism; they will see nothing what they do see…. Thus the devil deals with them,…. First he put out their eyes with their own iniquities, and then leaves them about to make himself sport.

F. lastly, the object must be stable and firm.

Conclusion: ….Contemn we, condemn we the foolish choice of worldlings, in regard of our portion, and the better part, never to be taken from us. Why should I mislike my gold, because he prefers his copper? The least dram of these joys shall outweigh all the pleasures of earth. And as one performance in hell shall make the reprobate forget all earthly vanities; so the least drop of this pleasure shall take from us the remembrance of our former miseries. We shall not think on our poverty in this world, when we possess those riches; but forget contemptible baseness, when God shall give us that glory of Saints… God give us to see these things now in grace, that we may hereafter see them in glory! Amen.

Ruth’s “Return”

23 Wednesday Nov 2022

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If we hold this understanding of blessing, it makes some sense of Ruth’s ‘return’ (šûb) to Bethlehem. The narrator states that Naomi returned, but he/she also specifies that Ruth ‘returned from the country of Moab’ (1:22). In a physical sense, it makes no sense for Ruth to ‘return’ to Israel. Yet in a spiritual sense, it is only when Ruth repents – that is, turns to trust in Yahweh (1:16–17) – that she begins to be blessed and becomes a blessing to others.37 For it is through Ruth (and Boaz) that Naomi’s emptiness/hunger (1:21) is satiated by the end of the Ruth narrative (4:14–17). Thus, Naomi’s fullness can also be understood not only in physical terms, but also spiritual – a return to right relationship with Yahweh, and the blessings that flow from that relationship.

NEW STUDIES IN BIBLICAL THEOLOGY 41 Series editor: D. A. Carson Unceasing kindness A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF RUTH Peter H. W. Lau and Gregory Goswell, 105

Zachery Crofton, Repentance not to be Repented.4

15 Tuesday Nov 2022

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(Continuing with this sermon from the 17th Century from Zachery Crofton.)

That contrition and humiliation are required in repentance is admitted. But this raises the question of Why? Why would be important that one be contrite, that there be humiliation as part of repentance. The answer given by Crofton is that such humiliation/contrition makes us willing and able to change.

The first aspect of the change is that we will come to Christ.

Rearranging his argument somewhat, we see it as follows. If I am feeling content and without compunction for my sin, why would I do anything about it? We don’t change if we do not feel the need to change. While a cognitive appreciation is necessary to change, a cognitive appreciation is never sufficient. We will not act without an emotional push and pull.

Crofton writes this contrition suits us to “engage them to set an esteem on, Christ Jesus, and the remission of sin in him.” Only the seek a physician. Only those who see and feel their will seek mercy.

That seeing myself as being in need drives me to Christ. And it is precisely the person who is in such need who is offered welcome. “The weary and heavy-laden are the men invited to Christ for ease and refreshment; (Matt. 11:28;) for indeed such only seek him, and can be satisfied in him, and duly savour him.”

Another aspect of this contrition is that it gives us a deeper sense of the mercy received. “The deeper the sense of misery, the sweeter is the sense of mercy.” He then compares this to a one who is thirsty, “How acceptable is the fountain of living waters to the chased, panting heart! and the blood of Christ to the thirsty soul and conscience, scorched with the sense of God’s wrath!”

This is why, “The broken and the contrite heart is the only sacrifice acceptable to God. (Psalm 51:17.)”

The second element of the change is the movement away from sin. This is a necessary move, since sin comes to us by nature. We drink sin like water. It is only when the sin begins to “make us sick, [that we be] willing to be rid of it.”

Only one who is sick of sin will be willing to receive instruction which will make us fit to receive instruction. We may hate some knowledge of the sin, but until we hate the desire for the sin, until the sick makes us nauseous we will be unwilling to fully put it away.  When we see our sin well, it makes us willing to undergo the training God will exert to reform our hearts: “Sense of sin is a principle of submission under affliction: “Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” (Lam. 3:39.)”  

We will receive instruction in the way soft wax receives a seal. “A bruised heart is, like soft wax, prepared for divine impression; so that, to the end [that] Christ may be of esteem as a Lord and Saviour.” The one who has a sense of sin which he wishes to escape my be willing to accept Christ as Savior. But only the one who has profound contrition for his sin will accept Christ as Lord.  That second move is perhaps the most critical in repentance. Lot’s wife was willing to flee the city, but she could not help but look back.

He ends this section with a caveat. Contrition is necessary for true repentance. But sometimes people may have contrition without repentance. Sometimes people are sorry, but they do not change. (An analogy here is the parent who loves her child, but will not get sober to care for her child.)

He ends with an eloquent expression of the work of preaching in bringing about repentance:

Preaching repentance is

the opening [of] the blind eye,

and the bringing [of] the prodigal into his right mind;

that, in the sense of his sad estate, he may go unto his father and seek mercy.

The work of the word is to make them sinners of sense, that shall come to Christ for cure; to cast down all proud imaginations, and every high thought which exalteth itself, and so to bring into obedience to Christ; (2 Cor. 10:5;)

to affect men with guilt and danger, that they may with fervency cry, “What shall we do to be saved?”

to convince, that the issues of death will be the end of the way in which they now walk, that they may flee with desire, and return without delay:

in a word, to affect the heart with the high transgressions of God’s holy law,

the disobedience of a gracious Father, and offence done to infiniteness;

that the soul may down on its knees, prostrate itself at the footstool of mercy,

fly to Jesus Christ as its Redeemer, Surety, and alone satisfaction,

and so sue out its pardon by a serious return to God.

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 5 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 381–383.