Tag Archives: Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford on how we Misjudge God

07 Friday Apr 2017

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Samuel Rutherford in Sermon 1 of the Trial and Triumph of Faith explains why we often do not understand what God is doing. First, we must understand that God’s Providence is complex: God uses even sin for His own ends:

The Providence of God hath two sides; one black and sad, another white and joyful. Heresy taketh strength, and is green before the sun; God’s clearing of necessary and seasonable truths, is a fair side of that same providence. Adam’s first sin, was the devil and hell digging a hole through the comely and beautiful frame of the creation of God; and that is the dark side of Providence: but the flower of Jesse springing up, to take away sin, and to paint out to men and angels the glory of a heaven, and a new world of free grace—that is a lightsome side of Providence

Second, we look upon only a portion of God’s work; it as of we judged the outcome of a story but stopped in the middle or sneered at house which was not complete;

—It is our fault, that we look upon God’s ways and works by halves and pieces; and so, we see often nothing but the black side, and the dark part of the moon. We mistake all, when we look upon men’s works by parts; a house in the building, lying in an hundred pieces; here timber, here a rafter, there a spar, there a stone; in another place, half a window, in another place, the side of a door: there is no beauty, no face of a house here. Have patience a little, and see them all by art compacted together in order, and you will see a fair building

We are impatient of our ease and want our heaven while we are upon earth.

On the Death of an Infant: “She is not lost to you who is found to Christ.”

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Charles Hodge, Charles Spurgeon, Galatians, John MacArthur, Ministry, Samuel Rutherford

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This is from a short address I gave on what happens when babies die?

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What happens when an infant dies? That child stands before the Lord with glory and honor as a joint heir of Christ. How can I say this? Because God is good and Christ died for sinners. The 19th Century Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge explained in his Systematic Theology: “[A]ccording to the common doctrine of evangelical Protestants [] all who die in infancy are saved.”
Hodge explains that the death of Christ, according to Romans 5:18-19, undoes the work of death wrought by Adam:
We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, except what the Bible itself places on them. The Scriptures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, from the benefits of the redemption of Christ.
In short, Jesus saves infants.
This doctrine is quite dear to me. At nine months of age, my first son died. He had a seizure late at night, then his heart stopped and his breathing stopped. He died while his mother held him. The paramedics came, and despite their best efforts, his heart would not start again. A few hours later, as the sun came-up, a man came to our house and laid a sheet on the floor of my son’s bedroom. He took the body of myson, laid him in the middle of the cloth and wrapped him like a package and then carried him away.

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Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide Six (The Valley of the Shadow of Death)

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in affliction, Andrew Bonar, John Bunyan, John Calvin

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The prior post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/pilgrims-progress-study-guide-5/

Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death:

  1. Why does Christian go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death?
  2. This letter from Samuel Rutherford helps us understand this passage:

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER IN CHRIST,—I could not get an answer written to your letter till now, in respect of my wife’s disease; and she is yet mightily pained.[1] I hope that all shall end in God’s mercy. I know that an afflicted life looks very like the way that leads to the kingdom; for the Apostle hath drawn the line and the King’s market-way, “through much tribulation, to the kingdom” (Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:4). The Lord grant us the whole armour of God.

….all God’s plants, set by His own hand, thrive well; and if the work be of God, He can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself for setting forward the work.

For yourself, I would advise you to ask of God a submissive heart. Your reward shall be with the Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks); and suppose the word do not prosper, God shall account you “a repairer of the breaches.”

And take Christ caution, ye shall not lose your reward. Hold your grip fast. If ye knew the mind of the glorified in heaven, they think heaven come to their hand at an easy market, when they have got it for threescore or fourscore years wrestling with God. When ye are come thither, ye shall think, “All I did, in respect of my rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too little.” Now then, for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners, Forward, forward; faint not.

Take as many to heaven with you as ye are able to draw. The more ye draw with you, ye shall be the welcomer yourself. Be no niggard or sparing churl of the grace of God; and employ all your endeavours for establishing an honest ministry in your town, now when ye have so few to speak a good word for you. I have many a grieved heart daily in my calling. I would be undone, if I had not access to the King’s chamber of presence, to show Him all the business.

The devil rages, and is mad to see the water drawn from his own mill; but would to God we could be the Lord’s instruments to build the Son of God’s house….

Samuel Rutherford and Andrew A. Bonar, Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents (Edinburgh; London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1891), 50–51.

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On the Death of an Infant

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Apologetics, Biblical Counseling, Charles Hodge, Charles Spurgeon, Ministry, Samuel Rutherford

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I was asked to write a short article for a church news letter on the death of infants. Here it is:

On the Death of an Infant: “She is not lost to you who is found to Christ.”

What happens when an infant dies? That child stands before the Lord with glory and honor as a joint heir of Christ. How can I say this? Because God is good and Christ died for sinners. The 19th Century Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge explained in his Systematic Theology: “[A]ccording to the common doctrine of evangelical Protestants [] all who die in infancy are saved.”

Hodge explains that the death of Christ, according to Romans 5:18-19, undoes the work of death wrought by Adam:

We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, except what the Bible itself places on them. The Scriptures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, from the benefits of the redemption of Christ.

In short, Jesus saves infants.

This doctrine is quite dear to me. At nine months of age, my first son died. He had a seizure late at night, then his heart stopped and his breathing stopped. He died while his mother held him. The paramedics came, and despite their best efforts, his heart would not start again. A few hours later, as the sun came-up, a man came to our house and laid a sheet on the floor of my son’s bedroom. He took the body of my son, laid him in the middle of the cloth and wrapped him like a package and then carried him away.

I have never felt so hollow, so sad, so alone. The pain of death has a quality unlike any other. The death of a child strikes so hard, you can reach out your hand and touch it. I felt as if my heart had turned to stone. The sorrow is such that words fail.

Sometime later, I realized how my Lord and my son had much in common. When Jesus was born, his mother wrapped him tight; she swaddled him and loved him.  And then, when my Lord came to die Joseph of Arimathea came for Jesus. “This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had every yet been laid” Luke 23:52-53. My son and my Lord were both wrapped in cloths at death –O the infinite love of the Lord! That He would willingly give Himself in the humiliation of death to rescue my son from death! How can I speak to such a thing?

And what of the Father’s love? I recall thinking that I would give the world to save the life of my son. And yet, I know, that God gave His Son to save the world (John 3:16). I cannot understand such a thing. The Father gave His Son for the sin of my son. My son, as dear as he was and is to me (for my son has died and yet is not dead – such is the paradox of God’s grace), was a son of the first Adam. My son was born under a curse. And so, God

Sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Galatians 4:4b-7.

My son was saved from the curse of sin by God’s Son bearing the curse of the law. Galatians 3:13.

How then can I say my son was saved? My son never prayed aloud – indeed, he could not make any sounds for much of life (because a feeding tube was kept down his throat). My son never understood the Gospel. My son knew little beyond needle pricks and hospital rooms – how could he be saved?

The reason I know my son is safe with God is because God sent His Son for my son. This is a doctrine so lovely and deep that I cannot lay out all the details in this small space – and so I encourage you to study further so that you can rejoice at the surpassing goodness of God.

First, read Spurgeon’s sermon on “Infant Salvation”:

Now, let every mother and father here present know assuredly that it is well with the child, if God hath taken it away from you in its infant days. You never heard its declaration of faith—it was not capable of such a thing—it was not baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ, not buried with him in baptism; it was not capable of giving that “answer of a good conscience towards God;” nevertheless, you may rest assured that it is well with the child, well in a higher and a better sense than it is well with yourselves; well without limitation, well without exception, well infinitely, “well” eternally.

You will find the rest here: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0411.htm. Here are two books for you to read: John MacArthur, Save in the Arms of God; and James W. Bruce III, From Grief to Glory.

Let me leave you with a letter written by the Scottish Puritan Samuel Rutherford to a dear friend on the death of her infant daughter. That letter reads in part:

Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. We see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock.

January 15, 1629; letter to Lady Kenmure.

Lex Rex 4 (A King’s Right to Rule Comes from the People)

17 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Samuel Rutherford, Sovereignty

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The prior entry may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/lex-rex-3-do-we-need-a-king/

To understand this question, we must first understand Rutherford’s doctrine of divine action, which would currently go by the title “compatibilism” or as Feinberg has it “soft determinism”. [1] In one sense all actions the result of God’s determination. However, in acting through human beings, God does not make a human being do something they do not desire to do. Rather, the determination of God and decision of the human being are compatible (please see the entire discussion by Feinberg to understand the nuances).

The concept is important to Rutherford’s argument, because he is considering whether a man becomes king because God has made him King or because the people have chosen the king.  Romans 13:1 states that all authorities exist because God has appointed them. Thus, some would argue that I am king because God made me king: Therefore, everything I do is right (because God has willed it).

Rutherford nuances the argument by noting that with very possible exceptions (such as David being anointed as king by Samuel), no King was chosen by immediate act of God (there is no prophetic announcement that Mr. X will be king, in most instances). He gives the example of a biblical prophet.  Jeremiah is a prophet because God made him a prophet. The fact that no one wants him to be a prophet does not change anything. Yet even David at some point must reckon with the willingness of the people that he be King:

The prophets were immediately called of God to be prophets, whether the people consented that they should be prophets or not; therefore God immediately and only sent the prophets, not the people; but though God extraordinarily designed some men to be kings, and anointed them by his prophets, yet were they never actually installed kings till the people made them kings.

God has decided that David will be king. God gives a prophetic word that David will be king. God also works through the people of Israel to make David king. But unless we are going to reduce Providence to fate and human beings to robots, we must take seriously the human interaction.

If they mean by the people’s choosing nothing but the people’s approbative consent, posterior to God’s act of creating a king, let them show us an act of God making Kings, and establishing royal power in this family lather than m that family, which is prior to the people’s consent,—distinct from the people’s consent I believe there is none at all.

Why then kings at all? Rutherford explains that to defend ourselves from violence (the common defense), it may make sense to have a ruler who can wield an army.  Thus, the people are choosing someone to protect them. Moreover, people choose the local magistrates who rule over them; how much different is it than choosing a king?

And how then a king?

If all men be born, as concerning civil power, alike,—for no man cometh out of the womb with a diadem on his head or a sceptre in his hand, and yet men united in a society may give crown and sceptre to this man and not to that man,—then this power was in this united society, but it was not in them formally, for they should then all have been one king, and so both above and superior, and below and inferior to themselves, which we cannot say; therefore this power must have been virtually in them, because neither man nor community of men can give that which they neither have formally nor virtually in them.

And so he concludes that is the choice of the people that results in the king (even though such choice accords with God’s decision):

I think royalists cannot deny but a people ruled by aristocratic magistrates may elect a king, and a king so elected is formally made a lawful king by the people’s election; for of six willing and gifted to reign, what maketh one a king and not the other five? Certainly by God’s disposing the people to choose this man, and not another man. It cannot be said but God giveth the kingly power immediately; and by him kings reign, that is true. The office is immediately from God, but the question now is, What is that which formally applieth the office and royal power to this person rather than to the other five as meet? Nothing can here be dreamed of but God’s inclining the hearts of the states to choose this man and not that man.

This argument then opens the further consideration (not here addressed by Rutherford): If the consent of the governed is what makes a king (and such consent comes from God); then the retraction of consent must also derive from God.

Rutherford then also turns God’s will in appointment of a king against a king. Since the office is a gift of God (in the ultimate sense), the king must acknowledge his rule as not originating in his own goodness and fitness but rather in God’s gift:

But there is no title on earth now to tie crowns to families, to persons, but only the suffrages of the people: for, 1st, Conquest without the consent of the people is but royal robbery, as we shall see. 2d, There is no prophetical and immediate calling to kingdoms now. 3d, The Lord’s giving of regal parts is somewhat; but I hope royalists will not deny but a child, young in years and judgment, may be a lawful king. 4th, Mr Maxwell’s appointing of the kingly office doth no more make one man a lawful king than another; for this were a wide consequence. God hath appointed that kings should be; therefore John à Stiles is a king; yea, therefore David is a king. It followeth not. Therefore it remaineth only that the suffrages of the people of God is that just title and divine calling that kings have now to their crowns. I presuppose they have gifts to govern from God.

[1] “Soft determinists agree that everything happens is causally determined, but they also believe that some actions are free….Compatibilists contend that there are free actions and those actions, though casually determined, are free because they are done in accord with the agent’s wishes” (Feinberg, No One Like Him, 635 & 637).

Lex Rex.3 (Do we need a king?)

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Samuel Rutherford, Sovereignty

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Question III: Whether Royal Power and Definite Forms of Government be From God?

Answer:

This question concerns whether the particular form of government be from God.  Rutherford notes the argument of Bellarmine that God generally appointed the fact of some kind of government, but the precise form of that government be something wholly in human hands.

This issue ultimately touches upon the matter of divine sovereignty and the freedom of human will. Rutherford would hold a compatibilist position. Crudely stated, Human beings choose what they want, but they will choose exactly what God requires:

Proverbs 16:1 (ESV)

The plans of the heart belong to man,

but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

 

Proverbs 21:1 (ESV)

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;

he turns it wherever he will.

 

Acts 2:23 (ESV)

23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

 

Rutherford first considers a number of scriptural passages which indicate God appoints rulers. He then summarizes and concludes:

So, if the king be a living law by office, and the law put in execution which God hath commanded, then, as the moral law is by divine institution, so must the officer of God be, who is custos et vindex legis divinæ, the keeper, preserver, and avenger of God’s law.

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), 4.

Rutherford then turns to an objection: If God appoints monarchs, then every other form of government must be “wrong.”  Rutherford rejects that position. First, the actual forms of government are not more less acceptable from a Christian perspective: God does not mandate that a country have a monarchy rather than a republic.

Second, even a king is subject to law:

and wherever God appointed a king he never appointed him absolute, and a sole independent angel, but joined always with him judges, who were no less to judge according to the law of God (2 Chron. 19:6,) than the king, Deut. 17:15. And in a moral obligation of judging righteously, the conscience of the monarch and the conscience of the inferior judges are equally under immediate subjection to the King of kings;

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), 5. Thus, “All three forms [of government] are from God” (5).

How then does a country choose a government? Don’t they choose independently of God?  No. The moral law of nature requires a government: without a government there will be anarchy and loss of life (consider how quickly anarchist movements develop some “council” to make decisions). Human beings simply will not long tolerate no government of any sort.

How then do they choose a particular form? Rutherford gives the analogy from one’s marital status:

so then, the aptitude and temper of every commonwealth to monarchy, rather than to democracy or aristocracy, is God’s warrant and nearest call to determine the wills and liberty of people to pitch upon a monarchy, hic et nunc, rather than any other form of government, though all the three be from God, even as single life and marriage are both the lawful ordinances of God, and the constitution and temper of the body is a calling to either of the two; nor are we to think that aristocracy and democracy are either unlawful ordinances, or men’s inventions, or that those societies which want monarchy do therefore live in sins (5)

It is in the nature of the particular country as which government it will choose – and God has sovereignty over the nature of the country, also

Lex Rex.1

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Samuel Rutherford

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Lex Rex

Lex Rex is a work of Samuel Rutherford, the Scotch Presbyterian (1600-1661) who lived through the political and religious turmoil of 17 Century Britain.

In 1643, Rutherford was appointed as a delegate to the Westminster Assembly. At this time, Rutherford wrote the instant rejoinder to the work of a man named Maxwell:

About this time, he wrote his celebrated work entitled Lex Rex, in answer to a treatise by John Maxwell, the excommunicated Bishop of Ross, entitled “Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or the sacred and royal prerogative of Christian kings, wherein soveraigntie is, by Holy Scripture, reverend antiquitie, and sound reason asserted,” 4to., Oxford, 1644. This work endeavours to prove, that the royal prerogative of kingly authority is derived alone from God; and it demands an absolute and passive obedience of the subject to the will of the sovereign. The arguments in Lex Rex completely refute all the wild and absurd notions which Maxwell’s work contains, although some of the sentiments would be thought rather democratical in modern times.

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), xviii–xix.

Not surprisingly, after the restoration of the monarchy, Rutherford’s work was seen as seditious. He was ordered to appear to answer for the charge of high treason:

His work, Lex, Rex, was considered by the government as “inveighing against monarchie and laying ground for rebellion;” and ordered to be burned by the hand of the common hangman at Edinburgh. It met with similar treatment at St Andrews, and also at London; and a proclamation was issued, that every person in possession of a copy, who did not deliver it up to the king’s solicitor, should be treated as an enemy to the government. Rutherford himself was deprived of his offices both in the University and the Church, and his stipend confiscated; he was ordered to confine himself within his own house, and was summoned to appear before the Parliament at Edinburgh, to answer a charge of high treason. It may be easily imagined what his fate would have been had he lived to obey the mandate; but ere the time arrived he was summoned to a far higher than an earthly tribunal. Not having a strong constitution, and being possessed of an active mind, he had evidently overworked himself in the share he took in the struggles and controversies of the time. Although not an old man, his health had been gradually declining for several years. His approaching dissolution he viewed with Christian calmness and fortitude. A few weeks before his death, he gave ample evidence of his faith and hope in the Gospel, by the Testimony which he left behind him.* On his death-bed he was cheered by the consolations of several Christian friends, and on the 20th of March 1661, in the sixty-first year of his age, he breathed his last, in the full assurance and hope of eternal life. His last words were, “Glory, glory, dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land.”

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), xix.

The work itself is long, complex, contains numerous (now) obscure allusions, filled with Latin and Greek (at times both in the same clause, “a κατὰ τιad illud quod est dictumἀπλῶς”); and written it is in 17th century English by a man from Scotland. In short, the book does not make for an easy read. Therefore, I will endeavor to summarize the conclusions of his argument to make the matter plain for myself and perhaps be of use to others.

The work is structured as a catechism, question and answer – which was a form of teaching common at the time. Rutherford asks a question and then divides the proposition into smaller parts and examines those elements (and so on)?[1]

Question 1: Whether Government be Warranted by a Divine Law

Answer: Yes. Rutherford gives two reasons.

First, Scripture states that government (although not a specific form of government) is stated to derive from God (Rom. 13:1). Rutherford also bases this upon the inference drawn from the proposition that Christians are commanded to be in subjection to government (Romans 13:5; 1 Peter 2:13).

Second, since peace is an obvious appropriate end of human life (he derives this without reference from God and from “nature”), the ability to achieve that end must be also appropriate.

Question 2: Whether Government be Warranted by the Law of Nature

Nothing in nature gives one man the right of rule over another:

The law saith there is no law of nature agreeing to all living creatures for superiority; for by no reason in nature hath a boar dominion over a boar, a lion over a lion, a dragon over a dragon, a bull over a bull: and if all men be born equally free, as I hope to prove, there is no reason in nature why one man should be king and lord over another;

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), 2. In so writing, Rutherford strikes at the argument that X has the right of rule over Y due to some inherent superiority of X over Y.

However, that does not mean that government is necessary at odds with that freedom.  Thus, while nature does not give the power of one human to rule another, yet government may rightly exist as something which has its warrant in God’s grant:

Therefore I see not but Govarruvias, Soto, and Suarez, have rightly said, that power of government is immediately from God, and this or that definite power is mediately from God, proceeding from God by the mediation of the consent of a community, which resigneth their power to one or more rulers;

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince (Edinburgh: R. Ogle, 1843), 3.  (Incidentally, one can see from the references in the above-quotation, that Rutherford considered and argued with a great many political thinkers.

 

Edward Taylor’s Meditation Upon Isaiah 63:1

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in 1 Peter, Edward Taylor, Isaiah, Jonathan Edwards, Love, Meditation, Praise, Puritan, Samuel Rutherford, Song of Solomon

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Isaiah 63:1–2 (ESV)

63 Who is this who comes from Edom,

in crimsoned garments from Bozrah,

                        he who is splendid in his apparel,

marching in the greatness of his strength?

                        “It is I, speaking in righteousness,

mighty to save.”

            2           Why is your apparel red,

and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?

 

Edward Taylor looked and marveled.  He sees Christ, “all glorious in apparel” – his robes stained with blood in the glory of having conquered his enemies.  The glory of Christ is such that the sky “blanced with sunlight” is “black as sackcloth” when compared to Christ.  He brings image upon image, this language failing in its attempts to describe a beauty beyond words:

One shining sun gilding the skies with light
Benights all candles with their flaming blaze
So doth the glory of this robe benight 

Ten thousand suns at once ten thousand ways. 


This beauty overwhelms Taylor’s sense.  Now plainly Taylor has not had an actual vision of Christ; rather Taylor has taken a description of the conquering Christ and drawn out the beauty.

By the conquering Christ, Taylor would have understood this as a reference to his death upon the cross. We can know this by looking to contemporary uses of this passage.  John Meriton in his sermon on Christ’s Humiliation wrote:

III. Upon what grounds Christ thus humbled himself to death; what cogent necessity was upon him.—For we may not conceive that Christ thus humbled himself to death upon trivial and impertinent considerations. As David said once of Abner, “Died Christ as a fool dieth?” (2 Sam. 3:33.) No, sure! It was upon these six weighty grounds:—

1. That scripture-prophecies and predictions might be accomplished.—All which represent him as coming in “dyed garments from Bozrah.” (Isai. 63:1.) The first scripture that ever mentions Christ, shows him a bleeding and crucified Saviour. (Gen. 3:15.). Now Christ was to make good to a tittle every thing that had been before written of him.

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, Volume 5 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 223. Richard Steele in his sermon, “The Right of Every Believer to the Blessed Cup in the Lord’s Supper” likewise ties Bozrah to Christ’s victory on the cross:

When this blessed cup is poured out, let thy eyes pour down a flood of tears mixed of grief and joy: to see such a person pouring out his life by thy procurement,—this should melt thee with grief: to see the price paid by that blood for thee, should lift thee up into a trance of joy. When thou takest that cup of salvation, think, “ ‘What shall I render to the Lord for this his benefit to me?’ (Psalm 116:12.) ‘Who is this that comes with dyed garments from Bozrah? how glorious is he in his apparel!’ (Isai. 63:1.) How bitter was his passion! how sweet his compassion to poor sinners! ‘Be ye lift up, O my everlasting doors, and let the King of glory come in.’ ” (Psalm 24:7.) Bring him into thy soul, and there feed upon him by faith, and let his fruit be savoury to thy taste. (Canticles 2:3.) Inward communion is the crown of an ordinance; it is “the cup of the new testament in Christ’s blood, which was shed for you;” (Luke 22:20;) receive it with reverence, receive it with thankfulness, receive it with application: remember his death, remember his love more than wine. (Canticles 1:2.)

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, Volume 6 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 503.  Indeed, Steele’s usage is particularly appropriate to understand Taylor’s usage, in that Taylor was contemplating the Lord’s Supper in his poem. The coming of coming is a coming encounter with Christ.

Now what is it that Taylor sees, when he looks at this coming Christ? A Christ who comes for his bride:

[Christ]

Comes glorious in’s aparel forth to woo. 

 Oh! if his glory ever kiss thine eye,
Thy love will soon enchanted be thereby. 

 

In making such usage, Taylor is moving within the existing use of his fellows. Samuel Rutherford in his sermon “The Church Seeking Her Lord” writes:

Fair things delight us much, and perfect white and perfect red make a beautiful person. Beauty be a great conqueror of love, and will take a castle in the heart. We love fair things, as fair sun, fair moon, fair roses, lilies, men, women, &c. But put out all the beauty of the creatures in one; they are all but caff1 and sand to fair-faced Jesus. I had far rather have one look of fair-faced Jesus as have all the world, and ten worlds, with sevenfold more beauty than they have. See Isa. 63:1: “Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength?” The Kirk, wondering at Christ’s beauty to see Him go so manly-like, says, “O, who is yon goes so manly and so sonsy-like? [Prosperous, happy] He is a lucky-like person.” It would rejoice one’s heart to see Him go in the greatness of His strength. Is not yon fair, glorious Jesus, in red scarlet, having all His clothes dyed in blood?

 

Samuel Rutherford, Quaint Sermons of Samuel Rutherford (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1885), 147.

Jonathan Edwards, whose father was friends with Edward Taylor, likewise sees the image of Christ coming from Bozrah as one of love and delight:

Christ and the true Christian have desires after each other. Canticles 7:10, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is towards me.”7 And the desire of the Christian’s soul is after Christ. Canticles 3:1–2, “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets and broad ways. I will seek him whom my soul loveth.” The true Christian has an admiration of Jesus Christ; he admires his excellencies. Isaiah 63:1, “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with died garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?” And so Christ is represented as admiring the excellency and beauty of the churCanticles 6:10, “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

Christ and the believer do glory in each other. The believer glories in Christ. Canticles 5:16, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend.” Canticles 6:3, “I am [my] beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” Christ glories in his people: he looks on them as his armor and his crown. Isaiah 62:3, “Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.” Zechariah 9:16, “And they shall be as the stones of a crown”.

Edwards, Collected Works, vol. 19, Sermons and Discourses, “The Sweet Harmony of Christ”, p. 442 (edwards.yale.edu).

Thus, in coming to communion, Taylor sees Christ coming to him mystically, if you will, in beauty seeking to woo his bride – the entire church. The combination of elements, the conquering hero coming in love is not so far disparate – even for us. The one who overcomes the enemies and rescues the beloved is a common image in movies and stories.

How here is the trouble: Such beauty should overwhelm Taylor and draw him out in love; but, Taylor finds his soul too small to swell with such love as is right:

Then grieve, my soul, thy vessel is so small

And holds no more for such a lovely he.

That strength’s so little, love scarce acts at all.

 

At this point, Taylor expresses the gravest sorrow of the Christian.  When we consider the love and unbending courage and grace of Christ – whose love was “strong as death” (Canticles 8:6) – it should engender a love as profound and deep within our hearts.  To see the love of Christ should conform us utterly to his image and glory:

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9–10 (ESV)

When Christ comes from Bozrah, when he comes to woo, he comes to one who deserves no mercy. Indeed, as the quotation from Hosea (found in  1 Peter 2:10) shows, we are actively enemies of God. Indeed, Hosea portrays the people of God as prostitutes who have strayed from the marriage vow.

It is in this place that Christ comes. Taylor knows this  — and knows that it is his purpose and joy to “proclaim the excellencies” of Christ – the one who by his death drew us out of darkness.   Notice also, a point well developed by Taylor, that the “marvelous light” is not beyond Christ is Christ, “his marvelous light”.

It is into this place that Taylor knows despair – none of our love and praise approximates that which is deserved.

Think of a wedding day.  The bride comes down the aisle, resplendent in her youth and beauty. Her husband to be looks at her and says, “Hey not bad!” After a few moments of looking, he turns to his friends and starts in a videogame on his phone.

Such is the gravity of our flesh, that even after conversion, even when we know the magnificence of Christ, it drags us down.

It is here that Taylor’s poem shines. For rather than resolve to merely bear his dullness, he strives for something still more:

My lovely one, I fain would love thee much
But all my love is none at all I see,
Oh! let thy beauty give a glorious touch
Upon my heart, and melt to love all me.
Lord melt me all up into love for thee
Whose loveliness excels what love can be. 

Now to some, Taylor may seem grim and sour, for he sees plainly the inability of the human being. Yet, when we think of him fairly, there is no sour despair.  In seeing his need for grace and glory from Christ, he exhibits the grandest hope. It is a strange sort of “optimism” which settles for little. No one who knows human beings well can think that we – even at our best – live up to what we know as best. This is a statement which can be made even by one who denies Christ.

No for the Christian, who sees the end of humanity in the greatest possible manner, it is unquestionable that we are far sort of what we were created to be. In fact, we know human beings to be such a grand thing that nothing in the universe will suffice for us. Only the Creator of the universe is a grand enough object for our love. Yet, when we recognize this, we know also that we fall sort (Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God). We know this falling short to be sin.

Hence, we know our trouble lie with our sin: sin is an infection, a foreign strain, an abnormality that trails along death and misery. Thus, to fit us for our true greatness, Christ conquers sin and then woos our soul. It is this misery and rescue which Taylor sees. He knows Christ to be more magnificent than all the world; precisely what Taylor has always hoped would be. And it is at this point that knows his love falls short.

 

But also notice the faith and hope which drive Taylor on. He does not think to settle for an insufficient love. Christ is such a great husband that he cannot merely engender love but he can create love.

O, What a Happiness for a Soul to Lose

19 Sunday May 2013

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For Christ cannot tire or weary from eternity to be Christ; and so, he must not, he cannot but be an infinite and eternal flowing sea, to diffuse and let out streams and floods of boundless grace. Say that the rose were eternal; the sweet smell, the loveliness of greenness and colour must be eternal.
Oh, what a happiness, for a soul to lose its excellency in His transcendent glory! What a blessedness for the creature, to cast in his little all, in Christ’s matchless all-sufficiency!

The Trial and Triumph of Faith, 5-6
Samuel Rutherford

When we think God has demanded too much of us

07 Sunday Apr 2013

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Affliction presents a multitude of trials: First, one knows the pain of the thing itself, whether disease or slander.

Second, one dreads the prospect of the trial continuing into the future. Things which one could bear for a moment will overwhelm us should seem never to end. A toothache

Third, a trial may dredge up guilt: at we all know our imperfection of life. The pain of the trial may drive the nails of guilt into the conscience. Fourth — the trial may seem too great for our guilt. We see others who do not suffer as we do — and this is worse when it is other Christians – and think, why do I deserve to suffer more than them. We will all go to one place, why must I go at such a great cost?

Hold your grip fast. If ye knew the mind of the glorified in heaven, they think heaven come to their hand at an easy market, when they have got it for threescore or fourscore years wrestling with God.

When ye are come thither, ye shall think, “All I did, in respect of my rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too little.” Now then, for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners, Forward, forward; faint not.