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Two Sermons by John Howe on Yielding to God. The call to come

22 Friday Mar 2019

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Having explained the nature and need of yielding to God, Howe ends with the call. The last section of this sermon is quite lovely and encouraging. First, Howe calls upon all to “yield to God”:

Shall we then all agree upon this thing?

Shall we unite in one resolution, “We will be the Lord’s.”

Shall every one say in his own heart, “For my part, I will, and so will I, and so will I?”

Come now, one and all.

This is no unlawful confederacy, it is a blessed combination! “Come then, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, not to be forgotten,” Jer. 50:5.

With whatsoever after-solemnity you may renew this obligation and bond of God upon your souls, as I hope you will do it, every one apart, in your closets, or in any corner, and you cannot do it too fully, or too often;

 

yet let us now all resolve the thing; and this assembly make a joint-surrender,

and oblation of itself to

 

the great God our sovereign,

rightful Lord,

through our blessed Redeemer and Mediator,

by the eternal Spirit,

(which I hope is breathing and at work among us,) as one living sacrifice,

as all of us alive from the dead,

to be for ever sacred to him!

O blessed assembly!

O happy act and deed!

 

With how grateful and well-pleasing an odour will the kindness and dutifulness of this offering ascend, and be received above! God will accept, heaven will rejoice, angels will concur and gladly fall in with us. We hereby adjoin ourselves in relation, and in heart and spirit, “to the general assembly, to the church of the first-born ones written in heaven, to the innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,” and within a little while shall be actually among them. Is it possible there should be now among us any dissenting vote?

He then gives reasons for why should come. He presses home the point of how foolish it would be to refuse this God who will be your Judge come Judgment Day; how insane it is to refuse the God who calls you.

He also holds the blessings of coming to this God, who is so full of mercy. This seventh reason he presses for us to yield was particularly sweet:

7.  But if you sincerely yield yourselves, the main controversy is at end between the great God and you. All your former sins are pardoned and done away at once. Those glad tidings you have often heard, that import nothing but “glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will towards men,” plainly show that the great God whom you had offended, hath no design to destroy you, but only to make you yield, and give him back his own. Though you have formerly lived a wandering life, and been as a vagabond on the earth from your true Owner, it will be all forgotten. How readily was the returning prodigal received! and so will you. How quiet rest will you have this night, when upon such terms there is a reconciliation between God and you! You have given him his own, and he is pleased, and most of all for this, that he hath you now to save you. You were his to destroy before, now you are his to save. He could easily destroy you against your will, but it is only with your will, he having made you willing, that he must save you. And his bidding you yield implies his willingness to do so. O how much of gospel is there in this invitation to you to yield yourselves to God! consider it as the voice of grace. Will he that bids a poor wretch yield itself, reject or destroy when it doth so?

And he ends with the promise of happiness. For what greater happiness can there be beyond be to reconciled to God so good and full of love and mercy:

8.  And how happily may you now live the rest of your days in this world. You will live under his care, for will he not take care of his own, those that are of his own house? An infidel would. You are now of his family, under his immediate government, and under his continual blessing. And were you now to give an account where you have been to-day, and what you have been doing; if you say, you have been engaged this day in a solemn treaty with the Lord of heaven and earth, about yielding yourselves to him; and it be further asked, “Well, and what was the issue? Have you agreed?” Must you, any of you, be obliged by the truth of the case to say, “No?” Astonishing answer! What! hast thou been treating with the great God, the God of thy life, and not agreed? What, man! did he demand of thee any unreasonable thing? “Only to yield myself.” Why that was in all the world the most reasonable thing. Wretched creature, whither now wilt thou go? What wilt thou do with thyself? Where wilt thou lay thy hated head?—But if you can say, “Blessed be God, I gladly agreed to the proposal; He gave me the grace not to deny him:” then may it be said this was a good day’s work, and you will have cause to bless God for this day as long as you have a day to live.

 

 

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 402–405.

Two Sermons by John Howe (Romans 6:13): The Affections for Coming to God

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

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Having set forth the intellectual elements of yielding to God, Howe know comes to the affective aspects of coming. Coming to God in both thought and affection. There is a tendency for one sort of Christian to know the right things, but be stiff or lacking in their affections; a cold orthodoxy. There is an opposite tendency to be reverent in emotion, but without any direction. They desire to love God, they just don’t know much about God. These two camps tend to denigrate the other. Howe rightly shows that we must have right thoughts and right affects. 

The first element of affection is consent, “It must be done with a fulness of consent; and herein it chiefly consists. When the soul says, “Lord, I am now most entirely willing to be thine,” this is your yielding yourselves. And hereby the covenant is struck between God and you; which consists in the expressed consent of the parties covenanting in the matters about which the covenant is.” In fact, the other aspects of affection largely fill-out what Howe means by “fulness of consent.”

He calls this covenant a “conjugal” covenant, a marriage. 

He makes an important observation here: “But then you must take notice that this is to be done with a full consent, which that is said to be which determines you, though it be not absolutely perfect.” Note that: the nature of the consent to yield is an action which “determines you” — it is what you will be: “You may be said to yield yourselves to God, with a full consent, when you live afterwards as one devoted to him.”

Next, the yielding must involve “life” — it is a true, vital act. But it is not done in one’s own power, “Do it as feeling life to spring in your souls towards God in your yielding yourselves to him. What! will you offer God a carcass? not the “living sacrifice,” which you see is required, Rom. 12:1. Beg earnestly for his own Spirit of life and power, that may enable you to offer up a living soul to the living God.” [That is a great line, would you offer God a carcass?]

The yielding must be done in faith. Notice carefully how he defines faith: not as a bare intellectual apprehension, and not as a vague feeling, but as a very definite act of the will in dependence, “There must be faith in your yielding yourselves; for it is a committing, or entrusting yourselves to God, with the expectation of being saved, and made happy by him.”

The full consent to this conjugal covenant, made in life and faith must be made in love, “Another ingredient into this yielding of yourselves must be love. As faith, in your yielding yourselves to God, aims at your own welfare and salvation; so love, in doing it, intends his service, and all the duty to him you are capable of doing him.” He explains that as coming to God as a “devoted servant.”

It is done with humility, “With great reverence and humility. For, consider to whom you are tendering yourself; to the “high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity;” to him that hath heaven for his throne, and earth for his footstool; and in comparison of whom all the inhabitants of the world are but as grasshoppers, and the nations of the earth as the drop of a bucket, and the dust of the balance, &c.” 

He then finishes the manner of coming with a pair of emotions which we do not often  pair, joy and solemnity; or gladness tends toward frivolity and our solemnity to being glum; but Howe requires both. 

First, joy: “And yet it surely ought to be with great joy and gladness of heart, that he hath expressed himself willing to accept such as you, and that he hath made you willing to yield yourselves. The very thought should make your heart leap and spring within you, that he should ever have bespoken such as we are to yield ourselves to him, when he might have neglected us, and let us wander endlessly, without ever looking after us more.” Note that this strain of joy comes after humility. Humility is necessary because we too easily think God should hear us and forgive us. But Howe rightly underscores, God was under no obligation to show goodness to us; therefore, we should come to him in joy. 

Finally, solemnity:  Note what you are doing, “You should do it with solemnity.* For, have you ever had a business of greater importance to transact in all your days? If you were to dispose of an estate, or a child, would you not have all things be as express, and clear, as may be? And would not they insist to have it so, with whom you deal in any such affair? And is there not a solemnity belonging to all such transactions, especially if you were to dispose of yourself, as in the conjugal covenant? though that is to be but for this short, uncertain time of life: so as that the relation you enter into today, may be by death dissolved and broken off again to-morrow. How much more explicit, clear, and solemn, should this your covenanting with God in Christ be, wherein you are to make over your soul to him, and for eternity? You are to become his, under the bond of an everlasting covenant.”

What would this look like:

Do so then. Fall before his throne; prostrate yourself at his footstool; and having chosen your fit season, when nothing may interrupt you; and having shut up yourself with him, pour out your soul to him; tell him you are now come on purpose to offer yourselves to him as his own. O that you would not let this night pass without doing so! Tell him you have too long neglected him, and forgotten to whom you belonged; humbly beseech him for his pardon, and that he will now accept of you, for your Redeemer’s sake, as being through his grace resolved never to live so great a stranger to him, or be such a wanderer from him more. And when you have done so, remember the time; let it be with you a noted memorable day, as you would be sure to keep the day in memory when you became such a one’s servant or tenant, or your marriage-day. Renew this your agreement with God often, but forget it never. Perhaps some may say, “But what needs all this?” were we not once devoted and given up to God in baptism? and is not that sufficient? To what purpose should we do again a thing that hath once been so solemnly done?

Two Sermons by John Howe, Romans 6:13; A thoughtful assent

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

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Continued from this post

The second, third and fourth elements of such yielding concerning the degree of intellectual assent which must be given in any true yielding: deliberation, judgment and “fulness of consent”.

Deliberation: 

It must be done with great deliberation; not as the mere effect of a sudden fright. What is done in a rash haste, may be as soon undone. Leisurely consider, and take the whole compass of the case; weigh with yourselves the mentioned grounds upon which you are to yield yourselves, and the ends you are to do it for, that things may be set right between him and you, that you may return into your own natural place and station, that you may be again stated in that subordination to your sovereign Lord which fitly belongs to you; that he may have his right which he claims, and you the mercy which you need. Here is place for much consideration.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 397.  A point noted previously, Howe’s call to repentance is not the purely emotional call of a “revivalist” or “evangelist”: you are pressed to come (and he will press); but you are not called without due consideration.  In speaking like this, Howe has the model of the Lord:

28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:28–33 (ESV).

Judgment: One must consider the case until he has reached a conclusion, a judgment. God calls you to yield; consider the matter carefully and do not come or depart until you have reached a judgment. Howe cites to:

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

2 Corinthians 5:14–15(ESV). The word for concluded is the verb krinein, to pass judgment upon. The yielding there to the control of Christ is the result a judgment.

Fulness of consent: At this point Howe speaks of making a deliberate covenant with God. The idea here is taken from the law. A contract is formed by a “meeting of the minds”. One cannot accidentally form a contract (or at least that is the ideal!).  You know what you are doing and “hereby a covenant is struck between God and you.” It is not idle movement, it is not “thinking about it.” The yielding sought by Romans 6:13 is an understanding consent to the call of God.

In the next, we will come to the affections and attitudes which must characterize the one who yields to God. In the end, we will see that Howe is setting out the elements of true faith: head, heart, hands (if you will).

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 3. How we are to consider God in relation to us.

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

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This is the third post in this series

Howe will argue that we must “yield” ourselves to God. Therefore, he next underscores aspects of God’s relationship to us which would necessitate such a yielding.  Thus, he notes that God is our Creator and Sustainer. Our very existence depends upon God, he “who renews your life unto you every moment.”

This matter of being our Creator and Sustainer will imply certain aspects which pinch our flesh.

Since God is our Creator and Sustainer, he holds additional relationship to us. He is our Owner. In recognizing such we add nothing to God’s rights:

Your yielding yourselves adds nothing to his rights in you; you therein recognize and acknowledge the right he had in you before; but it add to you a capacity and qualification, both by the tenor of his Gospel-covenant, and in the nature of the thing, for such nobler uses as wither wise you cannot service.

Recognizing his right in us, makes us more serviceable, but it is nothing other than what we owe. If we refuse this acknowledgement, we are no better than “brutes and devils”.

God is also our Teacher:

There is another sort of teaching, which if you yield yourselves to him as your great Instructor, he will vouchsafe unto you. The things you know not, and which it is necessary you should know, he will teach you, i. e. such things as are of real necessity to your true and final welfare, not which only serve to please your fancy, or gratify your curiosity; for his teaching respects an appointed, certain end, suitable to his wisdom and mercy, and to the calamity and danger of your state. The teaching requisite for perishing sinners, was, what they might do to be saved. And when we have cast about in our thoughts never so much, we have no way to take but to yield ourselves to God, who will then be our most undeceiving Guide. To whom it belongs to save us at last, to him only it can belong to lead us in the way to that blessed end.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 386. This teaching of God is not new revelation. Rather, God makes the existing revelation effective, it becomes teaching we receive from him:

He will so teach you, as to make you teach yourselves, put an abiding word into you, that shall talk with you when you sit in your houses, and walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, and whereby you shall be enabled to commune with your own hearts upon your beds while others sleep; and revolve, or roll over in your minds, dictates of life.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 390. His teaching will not leave you unchanged.

Third, since God is our Creator and Sustainer, God is our Sovereign Ruler:

Though teaching and ruling may be diversely conceived of, they cannot be separate in this case. The nobler and final part of God’s teaching you, is teaching you your duty; what you are to practise and do. And so when he teaches you, he commands you too; and leaves it not arbitrary to you whether you will be directed by him or no. What is his by former right, and by after-consent, and self-resignation, shall it not be governed by him, if it be a subject capable of laws and government, as such consent shows it to be? Your yielding yourselves to God is not a homage but a mockery, if you do it not with a resolution to receive the law from his mouth: and that whereinsoever he commands, you will to your uttermost obey. But in this and the other things that follow, my limits constrain me unto more brevity. Only let not this apprehension of God be frightful; yea, let it be amiable to you, as in itself it is, and cannot but be to you, if you consider the loveliness of his government, the kind design of it, and how suitable it is to the kindest design; that it is a government first and principally over minds, purposely intended to reduce them to a holy and peaceful order, wherein it cannot but continue them, when that kingdom comes to be settled there, which stands in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and all the laws whereof are summed up in love; being such also as in the keeping whereof there is great reward.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 392.

Finally, we must consider God as our Benefactor. Now, we often think of a benefactor as someone who does us good by our own sights and according to our own inclination. God is a greater benefactor, because he government and his goodness to us are one. He does us good by being our teacher and sovereign:

The very business of his government is in the first place to alter the temper of your minds; for, continuing carnal, they neither are subject to the law of God, nor can be, as the same place tells you. Therefore if his government take place in you, and you become subject, you become spiritual, the “law of the Spirit of life” having now the possession and the power of you. Nor was it possible he should ever be an effectual Benefactor to you, without being thus an over-powering Ruler; so do these things run into one another. To let you have your own will, and follow your carnal inclination, and cherish and favour you in this course, were to gratify you to your ruin, and concur with you to your being for ever miserable; which you may see plainly if you will understand wherein your true felicity and blessedness must consist, or consider what was intimated concerning it, in the proposal of this head; that he is to be your Benefactor, in being to you himself your supreme and only satisfying Good. He never doth you good effectually and to purpose, till he overcome your carnal inclination.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 393.

Finally, we must consider ourselves in this transaction: If God is our Creator, Sustainer, Owner, Teacher, Sovereign and Benefactor, who are we? We are his creatures, but sadly creatures who are apostate and unfit for communion with God; and yet, under the Gospel, we are “sinners invited and called back to God.”

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 2. Some Notes Concerning the Nature of God as His is in Himself

26 Tuesday Feb 2019

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This is the second post in this series on John Howe’s sermons on Roman 6:13. The prior sermon may be here

Having noted that much depends upon how we consider of “God” to whom we must yield, Howe briefly considers the nature of God as God is to himself. In this, Howe emphasizes the independence and self-existence of God, “You must conceive him to be an eternal, self-subsisting Spirit, not sprung up into being from another, as our souls are: but who, from the excellency of his own being, was necessarily of and from himself; comprehending originally and eternally in himself the fulness of life and being.”

God is independent of all creation for his existence; yet, all existence and all that is in it is contingent upon God:

You must conceive of God therefore as comprehending originally in his own being, which is most peculiar to himself, a power to produce all whatsoever being, excellency, and perfection, is to be found in all the whole creation; for there can be nothing which either is not, or arises not from, what was of itself: and therefore that he is an absolutely, universally, and infinitely perfect Being; and therefore that life, knowledge, wisdom, power, goodness, holiness, justice, truth, and whatsoever other conceivable excellencies, do all in highest perfection belong, as necessary attributes, unchangeably, and without possibility of diminution, unto him, and all which his own word (agreeably to the plain reason of things) doth in multitudes of places ascribe to him, as you that are acquainted with the Bible cannot but know. You must therefore conceive of him, as the ALL in ALL! So great, so excellent, so glorious a ONE he is, to whom you are to surrender and yield yourselves!

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 383. Thus, our yielding to this God is not something strange; but rather something inherent in the nature of our relationship to him (as will be discussed in the next section of the discourse).

Howe then makes an interesting note concerning the nature of God as One and Three-in-One:

And that we so far conceive of them as three, as to apprehend some things spoken of one, that are not to be affirmed of another of them, is so plain, of so great consequence, and the whole frame of practical religion so much depends thereon, and even this transaction of yielding up ourselves, (which must be introductive and fundamental to all the rest,) that it is by no means to be neglected in our daily course, and least of all in this solemn business, as will more appear anon. In the meantime, set this ever blessed, glorious God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, before your eyes, as to whom (thus in himself considered) you are now to yield yourselves.

 John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 384.

This explicitly Trinitarian understanding of God is something missing from much contemporary theology and preaching. Indeed, asking a Christian (often, sadly, even a Christian teacher or preacher), why a Trinitarian understanding matters. In this respect to his emphasis on the Trinity, Howe reminds one of John Owen’s Discourse Concerning Communion With God.

Two Sermons on Romans 6:13 by John Howe, Part 1. Do you have right those of God?

22 Friday Feb 2019

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John Howe preached two sermons on Romans 6:13, “Yield yourselves to God”. From this he derives two basic questions: 1. How or under what notions we are to consider God and ourselves in this matter:2. What our yielding ourselves to him, so considered, must include.

This is a great secret to good exposition: pay attention to the parts of a text and ask the question: What does this mean? When presented with a word like “truth” or “love” or “God” or “yield” we think assume we know what is meant. But it is precisely that assumption which is troublesome.

It is precisely at this point that Howe begins. He points out that we fail to properly understand … God.

But do you now know with whom you have to do? Too many have the name of GOD, that great and awful name, in their mouth or ear, and have no correspondent thought in their mind; it passes with them as a transient sound, as soon over as another common word of no greater length, and leaves no impression. Perhaps there is less in their minds to answer it, than most other words which men use in common discourse.

For they have usually distinct thoughts of the things they speak of; otherwise they would neither understand one another nor themselves, but might speak of a horse, and mean a sheep; or be thought to mean so. And it would no more move a man, or impress his mind, to hear or mention a jest, than a matter of life and death.

But the holy and reverend name of GOD is often so slightly mentioned, as in common oaths, or in idle talk is so merely taken in vain, that if they were on the sudden stopped, and asked what they thought on, or had in their mind, when they mentioned that word, and were to make a true answer, they cannot say they thought of any thing: as if the name of GOD, the All! were the name of nothing! Otherwise, had they thought what that great name signifies, either they had not mentioned it, or the mention of it had struck their hearts, and even overwhelmed their very souls!

I could tell you what awe and observance hath been wont to be expressed in reference to that sacred name, among a people that were called by it; and surely the very sound of that name, ought ever to shake all the powers of our souls, and presently form them to reverence and adoration. Shall we think it fit to play or trifle with it, as is the common wont?

My friends, shall we now do so, when we are called upon to yield ourselves to God? Labour to hear and think, and act intelligently, and as those that have the understandings of men. And now especially in this solemn transaction, endeavour to render GOD great to yourselves: enlarge your minds, that as far as possible and needful, they may take in the entire notion of him.

 

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, vol. 1 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 382.

The Vanity of This Mortal Life.15

31 Tuesday Jul 2012

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John Howe has demonstrated through long discussion the proposition that should one presume that the human being exists merely in and for this mortal life, one holds an absurdity as the conclusion. In doing this, Howe actually provides insight into two different issues of current apologetics: First, the problem of evil. Second, presuppositional apologetics.

Howe states that we cannot understand what is happening the in world unless start with the presumption that human beings exist for something greater than the current structure – only by presuming the continuing exists of humanity can we begin to understand our circumstance:

For whereas we can never give a rational account why such a creature as man was made, if we confine all our apprehensions concerning him to his present state on earth: let them once transcend those narrow limits, fly over into eternity, and behold him made for an everlasting state hereafter, and the difficulty now vanishes, the whole affair looks with a comely and befitting aspect.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 290. The structure of his argument runs similar to presuppositional arguments: We cannot understand the world until we first presume the existence of God.

This relates directly to the matter of “design” in evolution vs. intelligent design debates. One constant argument of evolutionists is that God could not have designed the world, because animals we see have so many devastating flaws. An intelligent design argument absent a presumption of Creation and Fall misses the argument that the design exhibits the Creator; the flaws exhibit the curse and decay of the world.

The greatest “flaw” in the design is death. If death can be answered, then the other questions pale in significance.

Howe proposes a case which answers the facts. First, the Creation, Fall, and Redemption:

For we may now represent the case thus to ourselves: that man was put into this terrestrial state and dwelling, by the wise and righteous designation of his great Creator and Lord, that his loyalty to him, amidst the temptations and enticements of sensible things, might be tried awhile; that, revolting from him, he is only left to feel here the just smart of his causeless defection; that yet such farther methods are used for his recovery, as are most suitable to his so impaired state.

The means of recovery are extraordinary acts of grace shown by God

testifies his reconcilableness, and persuades a reconciliation, upon such terms, and by so endearing mediums, as might melt and mollify hearts of adamant; and shall effectually prevail with many to yield themselves the subjects and instances of his admired goodness for ever; while others lie only under the natural consequents and just resentments of their unremedied enmity and folly.

 

Therefore,

though now we behold a dark cloud of mortality hanging over the whole human race; though we see the grave still devouring and still unsatisfied, and that all are successively drawn down into it; and we puzzle ourselves to assign a reason why such a creature was made a reasonable being, capable of an everlasting duration, to visit the world only and vanish, to converse a short space with objects and affairs so far beneath it, and retire we know not whither: if yet our eye follow him through the dark paths of the region of death, till at the next appearance we behold him clothed with immortality and fitted to an endless state, the wonder is over, and our amazement quickly ceases.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 290. In short, Howe contends that redemptive history is a story which presupposed makes sense of the seeming senselessness of life.

 

 

 

 

The Vanity of this Mortal Life (John Howe).14

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

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Howe concludes his discussion as to whether God in fact has made human beings vain. He has defined the term vain, and then applied his definition to humanity in existence. He determines that human beings must have been created for more and greater existence than to just exist for this life and end in oblivion:

What remains, then, but that we conclude hence, we ought not too much, or too long, thus to abstract; nor too closely confine our eye to this dark and gloomy theme, death and the grave, or withhold it from looking further. For, far be it from us to think the wise and holy God hath given being to man (and consequently exercised a long continued series of providence through so many successive ages towards him) in vain. Nothing but a prospect of another state can solve the knot, and work through the present difficulty; can give us a true account of man, and what he was made for. Therefore, since it would be profane and impious, sad and uncomfortable, a blasphemy to our Maker, and a torture to ourselves, to speak it as our settled apprehension and judgment, that God hath made man to no purpose; we are obliged and concerned, both in justice to him and compassion to ourselves, so to represent the case, as that we may be able to remove so unworthy and black a thought to the greatest distance from us, both in itself and whatsoever practice would be consequent thereto: that is, to conclude, That certainly there must be another state after this; and accordingly steer our course.—The improvement, then, of the foregoing discourse will have a double aspect:—on our judgments, and practice.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 289.

The Vanity of this Mortal Life (John Howe).13

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

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Howe then proceeds to ask the question of whether the goodness of God accords with giving men merely a temporary existence.  He admits that “strict justice” would “upon the ground of absolute dominion” give God the ground to “what [he] will with [his] own.” However, such a thing would be contrary to abundant goodness of God: both in degree and in continuance.

First, Howe notes the majesty of the nature of humanity and how mismatched it is with current, sublunary existence:

[F]or who sees not, that the nature of man is capable of greater things than he here enjoys? And where that capacity is rescued from the corruption that narrows and debases it, how sensibly do holy souls resent and bewail their present state, as a state of imperfection! With how fervent and vehement desires and groans do they aspire and pant after a higher and more perfect! “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, (2 Cor. 5:4, that is not enough, to be delivered out of the miseries of life, by laying down this passive part—is not that which will terminate their desires,) but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Theirs are not brutal groans, the complaint of oppressed sensitive nature under a present evil; but rational and spiritual, the expressions of desire strongly carried to pursue an apprehended suitable good.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 286-87.[1]  A temporary life, a life ended with material death would be inconsistent with the goodness of God.

It is an interesting observation that those who seek to rest in base materialism – we are splendid accidental machinery, soon to pass into oblivion – must also diminish and deny the obvious exaltation of humanity. On one end, we are little different than animals (although I heard a famous evolutionary scientist express his admiration for our ability to use symbolic language, an attribute for which he admitted he could find no explanation). On the other we are less than the animals, for it would be best if we were removed from the planet so that the I more “natural” beasts could carry on. [2]

[1] In making this observation, Howe was answering the sort of question being asked within this time and place. Hamlet famously makes such observations about the nature of man. Howe seems to be echoing the thoughts of Shakespeare in Act II, scene 2 of Hamlet:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,

what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not

me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling

you seem to say so.

And, in Act IV, scene 4, Hamlet asks

                                What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused.

[2] Stephen Falken: Now, children, come on over here. I’m going to tell you a bedtime story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren’t even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start again. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David.  – War Games

The Vanity of this Mortal Life (John Howe).12

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

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Secondly, a refusal to procure the eternal state of humanity beyond death would not be calculated to procure love. Why would anyone seek to love and serve God, when there is no possibility of “future recompense”:

and at last lose their very beings, they know not how soon, and therewith (necessarily) all possibilities of any future recompence? Is this a likely way to procure love, and to captivate hearts into an affectionate and free obedience? Or what is it probable to produce, but a sour and sullen despondency, the extinction of all generous affection, and a temper more agreeable to a forced enthralment to some malignant, insulting genius, than a willing subjection to the God of all grace and love? And every one will be ready to say, There is little of wisdom in that government,

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 285.[1]

[1] Twain again (from the third chapter of Huckleberry Finn):

 

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn’t scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my self, there ain’t nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was “spiritual gifts.” This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant — I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no advantage about it — except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn’t worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body’s mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson’s got him there warn’t no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow’s if he wanted me, though I couldn’t make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.