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George Swinnock, The Christian Man’s Calling, 1.5

17 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in George Swinnock, George Swinock, Image of God

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Aristotle, Final Cause, George Swinnock, image of God, Imago Dei, The Christian Man's Calling, Worship

In this fifth chapter, Swinnock contends that the purpose of our creation was to worship God. Hence, our final cause must be godliness.

I come in the third place to the reasons, Why godliness should be every man’s main and principal business.

God created us for the purpose of godliness: this was the ‘final cause’ for our creation. Although not explicitly set forth here, Aristotle’s fourth cause sets the basis for this argument. Aristotle broke causation down into four elements: For instance, if someone were to carve a statue, the artist, the hammer, and the stone would all contribute to the creation of the final statue: each would be a cause of what was created. But there is a fourth cause, the final cause which is the point of the whole thing. The point of God’s creation is to Glorify God and enjoy him forever. 

First, Because it is God’s chief end in sending man into, and continuing him in, this world.  It is without question, that the work should be for that end to which it is appointed, and for which it is maintained by a sovereign and intelligent workman. 

Analogous principle: a servant has a duty to fulfill that end whichhas been set out by his master. We are not our own master, and we are not at liberty to determine our own actions. 

Where the master hath authority to command, there his end and errand must be chiefly in the servant’s eye. Zeno well defines liberty to be ἐξουσία αὐτοπραγίας [authority over one’s own conduct] a power to act and practise at a man’s own pleasure; opposite to which, servitude must be a determination to act at, and according to, the will of another. 

A servant is, as the orator saith well, nomen officii, a word that speaks one under command; he is not one that moveth of himself, but the master’s living instrument, according to the philosopher, to be used at his pleasure. 

Now he applies the principle: If God has authority over us then our obedience must correspond to his authority:

According to the title or power which one hath over another, such must the service be. Where the right is absolute, the obedience must not be conditional; God having therefore a perfect sovereignty over his creatures, and complete right to all their services, his end and aim, his will and word, must be principally minded by them. Paul gathers this fruit from that root: ‘The God whose I am, and whom I serve,’ Acts 27:23. His subjection is founded on God’s dominion over him.

Having established the principle that a servant owes due obedience to his master, Swinnock returns to the principle of this chapter:

Now the great end to which man is designed by God, is the exercising himself to godliness.

God erected the stately fabric of the great world for man, but he wrought the curious piece of the little world [man] for himself. Of all his visible works he did set man apart for his own worship. 

Here is an important move in the argument. By being made for godliness, human beings were made for something more than the world. The world was made for human beings, but human beings were made for God. Godliness will then entail something more than merely getting by in the world on such terms are convenient or acceptable to us.

The force of this argument is apparent when it is raised in the opposite direction. When a standard for godly living is raised, we can object to it on the ground that it does not seem to create problems or have negative consequences. Such an argument would sound like this, “Why do you think X is wrong, who does it hurt?” Such an argument has implicit it in the proposition that the only final cause for a human being is oneself, and that only final cause for a rule must be ease or immediate good. This is incidentally, similar to the nature of therapy: The purpose of therapy is help you feel good about whatever you are doing. As long as you do not violate the right of consent in another person, you have fulfilled your moral obligations. 

The nature of godliness will not correspond to the therapeutic, consent-based morality. The final cause, the purpose of godliness is not that you should feel good right now. There may be some immediate pleasure or happiness from godliness, but 

godliness will not necessary entail immediate goods. Restraint, humility, kindness, chastity are not considered immediate goods.

The trouble is that our subjective emotional response is not identical to the ends for which God has created human beings. 

Swinnock’s argument that we are made for something more than this world, explains why immediate emotional response may not be a good indicator of highest end. To the extent our judgment is based upon an evaluation of what is best for me right now, my judgment will be impaired. He needs to establish this point early on, because the course of godliness will not always match my feelings or subjective evaluation.

Man, saith one, is the end of all in a semicircle, intimating that all things in the world were made for man, and man was made for God. It is but rational to suppose that if this world was made for us, we must be made for more than this world. 

It is an ingenious observation of Picus Mirandula, God created the earth for beasts to inhabit, the sea for fish, the air for fowls, the heavens for angels and stars, man therefore hath no place to dwell and abide in, but the Lord alone.

The great God, according to his infinite wisdom, hath designed all his creatures to some particular ends, and hath imprinted in their natures an appetite and propensity towards that end, as the point and scope of their being.2

He here gives a great many examples from nature showing a conformity of all things to their purpose.

Yea, the very inanimate and irrational creatures are serviceable to those ends and uses in their several places and stations. Birds build their nests exactly, bringing up their young tenderly. Beasts scramble and scuffle for their fodder, and at last become man’s food. The sun, moon, and stars move regularly in their orbs, and by their light and influence advantage the whole world. The little commonwealth of bees work both industriously and wonderfully for the benefit of mankind. 

Flowers refresh us with their scents; trees with their shade and fruits; fire moveth upward; earth falleth downward, each by nature hastening to its centre; thunder and winds, being exhalations drawn up from the earth by the heavenly bodies, are wholly at, though stubborn and violent creatures, the call and command of the mighty possessor of heaven and earth; and with them, as with besoms, he sweeps and purifieth the air; fish sport up and down in rivers; rivers run along, sometimes seen, sometimes secret, never ceasing or tiring till they empty themselves into the ocean; the mighty sea, like a pot of water, by its ebbing and flowing purgeth itself, boileth and prepareth sustenance for living creatures. 

Through this womb of moisture, this great pond of the world, as Bishop Halltermeth it, men travel in moveable houses, from country to country, transporting and exchanging commodities [ships and trading]. Thus the almighty Creator doth, γεωμετρεῖν, as Plato saith, observe a curious comely order in all his work, and appoints them to some use according to their nature. 

Since all created things are suitable to their ends, it must be so with human beings:

Surely much more is man, the point in which all those lines meet, designed to some noble end, suitable to the excellency of his being; and what can that be, but to worship the glorious and blessed God, and the exercising himself to godliness?

‘The Lord made all things for himself,’ Prov. 16:4. God made things without life and reason to serve him passively and subjectively, by administering occasion to man to admire and adore his Maker; but man was made to worship him actively and affectionately, as sensible of, and affected with, that divine wisdom, power, and goodness which appear in them.

Here Swinnock expressly raises the question of Aristotle’s causes:

As all things are of him as the efficient cause [God is the agent of causation] , so all things must necessarily be for him as the final cause [the end of everything which God makes is God’s glory]. 

But man in an especial manner is predestinated and created for this purpose: Isa. 43:1, 7, ‘Thou art mine; I have created him for my glory; I have formed him, yea, I have made him.’ There is both the author and the end of our creation: the author, ‘I have created him;’ the end, ‘for my glory.’ As man is the most exact piece, on which he bestowed most pains, so from him he cannot but expect most praise. Lactantius accounteth religion the most proper and essential difference between men and beasts.[1] The praises which beasts give God are dumb, their sacrifices are dead; but the sacrifices of men are living, and their praises lively.

Here Swinnock plays on the idea of the natural world as a theater of God’s Glory. The world as theater is certainly well known from Shakespeare. But the matter of a theater for God’s glory goes at least back to Calvin: “Therefore, however fitting it may be for man seriously to turn his eyes to contemplate God’s works, since he has been placed in this most glorious theater to be a spectator of them, it is fitting that he prick up his ears to the Word, the better to profit.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 72.

God did indeed set up the admirable house of the visible world (flooring it with the earth, watering it with the ocean, and ceiling it with the pearly heavens) for his own service and honour; but the payment of this rent[2] is expected from the hands of man, the inhabitant. He was made and put into this house upon this very account, that he might, as God’s steward, gather his rents from other creatures, and pay in to the great landlord his due and deserved praise. 

Note again this understanding of the image of God: We could look to the image in terms of the capacity to reflect God. But Swinnock here emphasizes the natre of image as the reflection (rather than the capacity to reflect):

Man is made as a glass, to represent the perfections that are in God. A glass can receive the beams of the sun into it, and reflect them back again to the sun. The excellencies of God appear abundantly in his works; man is made to be the glass where these beams of divine glory should be united and received, and also from him reflected back to God again.

A return to the final cause argument: If the human being is capable of worship and reflection, then the final cause of the human being must be congruent with that capacity. If we were merely fit for animal-actions, then there would have been no need to have made us as we are:

Oh, how absurd is it to conceive that God should work a body so ‘curiously in the lowest parts of the earth,’ embroider it with nerves, veins, variety and proportion of parts, (miracles enough, saith one, between head and foot to fill a volume,) and then enliven it with a spark of his own fire, a ray of his own light, an angelical and heaven-born soul, and send this picture of his own perfections, this comely creature, into the world, merely to eat, and drink, and sleep, or to buy, and sell, and sow, and reap. Surely the only wise God had a higher end and nobler design in forming and fashioning man with so much care and cost.

The upright figure of man’s body, as the poetical heathen could observe, may mind him [put him in mind to do so] of looking upward to those blessed mansions above; and that fifth muscle in his eye, whereby he differeth also from other creatures, who have only four—one to turn downward, another to hold forwards, a third to turn the eye to the right hand, a fourth to turn the eye to the left; but no unreasonable creature can turn the eye upward as man can—may admonish him of viewing those superior glories, and exercising himself to godliness, it being given him for this purpose, saith the anatomist, that by the help thereof he might behold the heavens.

Conclusion: we were made for the purpose of godliness:

Thus the blessed God, even by sensible demonstrations, speaks his mind and end in making man; but the nature of man’s soul being a spiritual substance, doth more loudly proclaim God’s pleasure, that he would have it conversant about spiritual things. He made it a heavenly spark, that it might mount and ascend to heaven.

Living at the time Swinnock, it was simply known that human beings were made to fit into a particular place in the world. 

A philosopher may get riches, saith Aristotle, but that is not his main business; a Christian may, nay, must follow his particular calling, but that is not his main business, that is not the errand for which he was sent into the world. God made particular callings for men, but he made men for their general callings. 

It was a discreet answer of Anaxagoras Clazamenius to one that asked him why he came into the world; That I might contemplate heaven.[3]

Heaven is my country, and for that is my chiefest care. May not a Christian upon better reason confess that to be the end of his creation, that he might seek heaven, and be serviceable to the Lord of heaven, and say, as Jerome, I am a miserable sinner, and born only to repent. [See, Phil. 3:2, “But our citizenship is in heaven.”]

The Jewish Talmud propounds this question, Why God made man on the Sabbath eve? and gives this answer: That he might presently enter upon the command of sanctifying the Sabbath, and begin his life with the worship of God, which was the chief reason and end why it was given him.


2 The ancient philosophers, and the old divines among the pagans, did portray their gods in wood and stone with musical instruments, not that they believed the gods to be fiddlers, or lovers of music, but to shew that nothing is more agreeable to the nature of God, than to do all in a sweet harmony and proportion.—Plutarch.

[1]

“It follows that I show for what purpose God made man himself. As He contrived the world for the sake of man, so He formed man himself on His own account, as it were a priest of a divine temple, a spectator of His works and of heavenly objects. For he is the only being who, since he is intelligent and capable of reason, is able to understand God, to admire His works, and perceive His energy and power; for on this account he is furnished with judgment, intelligence, and prudence. On this account he alone, beyond the other living creatures, has been made with an upright body and attitude, so that he seems to have been raised up for the contemplation of his Parent. On this account he alone has received language, and a tongue the interpreter of his thought, that he may be able to declare the majesty of his Lord. Lastly, for this cause all things were placed under his control, that he himself might be under the control of God, their Maker and Creator. If God, therefore, designed man to be a worshipper of Himself, and on this account gave him so much honour, that he might rule over all things; it is plainly most just that he should worship Him who bestowed upon him such great gifts, and love man, who is united with us in the participation of the divine justice.”

Lactantius, “A Treatise on the Anger of God,” in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. William Fletcher, vol. 7, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 271.

[2] For this same idea, see, “The setting forth of his glory is a rent due to him from all creatures. We are to praise him both in word and deed, in mind, and heart, and practice, which we can never do unless we understand the dignity of his person.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 1 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1870), 432.

[3] “When some one asked him if the hills at Lampsacus would ever become sea, he replied, “Yes, it only needs time.” Being asked to what end he had been born, he replied, “To study sun and moon and heavens.” To one who inquired, “You miss the society of the Athenians?” his reply was, “Not I, but they miss mine.”” Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. R. D. Hicks (Kansas City Missouri: Harvard University Press, November 1, 2005), 141. ἐρωτηθείς ποτε εἰς τί γεγέννηται, “εἰς θεωρίαν,” ἔφη, “ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης καὶ οὐρανοῦ.” Diogenes Laertius, “Lives of Eminent Philosophers,” ed. R. D. Hicks (Kansas City Missouri: Harvard University Press, November 1, 2005), 140.

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

23 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in George Swinock, Worship, Worship

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George Swinnock, godliness, Worship

CHAPTER III

What godliness is

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

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

From this word he draws out the concept:

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

This then leads us to godliness:

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

He then brings the thoughts together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

External Worship:

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

Inward worship:

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

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

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

A synecdoche is a part standing for a whole:

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

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

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

Second point: To whom is the worship directed:

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

Here provides argumentative support for his proposition:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here a development on the nature of the heart:

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

And there in the heart must lie our worship:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the point of his argument:

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

He ends with various instances of the contrary.


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

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

Some brief observations on the Church and heavenly realities.

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Ecclesiology

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Eastern Church, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Worship

One of the critical aspects of the Christian religion is the nature of the Church. There have been many ways this could be understood and explained.

In this short summary taken from an article “Some Classic Views of the Church”in the Ashland Theological Journal, Owen H. Alderfer provides the a summary of the self-understanding of the Eastern Church:

The church is a means whereby the ideas and experiences of the divine realms—the real world—are communicated to men. Indeed, as the future concerns of the Eastern church would show, there must be concerns for truth—orthodoxy, the law of God, and clerical orders, but these are of value only as they contribute to experiencing the relation to Christ and the attainment of immortality through Him.
Such a view of the church resulted in the development of an extensive liturgy as an aid to the attainment of spiritual reality. Congar in his work After Nine Hundred Years shows that the Eastern church across the years has placed great value on “a line of descent from celestial realities to the midst of the sensible world,” so that there developed “a rather sumptuous liturgy, imbued with Holy Mysteries and the idea of ‘Heaven on Earth.’ It was a church essentially sacramental, a church of prayer with less attention to the exigencies of its militant and its itinerant state.”

First there is something important in this understanding of the church; something which is routinely absent in any self-understanding of the average American evangelical congregation: the church is an outpost of another age. It partakes and points forward to the age to come. The church is an outpost of heaven and the worship of the Church resounds in heaven.

The contemporary Church is too mundane; too immanent in all its concerns. The head of Church is ascended in high; we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places; or we are blessed not at all.

If the Church does not express divine worship, it is not the Church of Christ:

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Col3.1-4 (ESV)

But there is a danger in this self-understanding, particularly with an emphasis on sacrament and liturgy: while typical American worshipper can sing his contemporary songs which make him feel good; the practice of words and forms of precise character and order can become magic. The worship again becomes immanent: but here my behavior wrenches some sort response from heaven.

I believe it was Pelikan who wrote of worship being mystery but not magic.

We are such instantaneous and easy isolators that anything can be wrenched to bad end.

Another concern I have here is the apparent Platonism: where physical forms portray heavenly reality.

I see the physical form we have here being the Word of God, baptism and the Supper. But the ornate forms, the gold and incense were not prescribed for the worship of Christ. The temple forms pre-represented truths about Christ which became moot when Christ appeared.

The power of God is the Spirit of God working in the Word of God. The forms place too great a premium upon human ingenuity and cultural taste.

Edward Taylor, When Thy Bright Beams

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Uncategorized, Worship, Worship

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Edward Taylor, Literature, poem, Poetry, Praise, Psalm 148, Worship

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

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

Methinks I then could truly chide out-right

My hidebound soul that stands so niggardly

That scarce a thought gets glorified by’t.

My quaintest metaphors are ragged stuff,

Making the sun seem like a mullipuff.

 

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

“chide out-right”: Scold, upbraid.

“My hidebound soul”: his soul is unresponsive.

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

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

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

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

 

It’s my desire, thou shouldst be glorified:

But when thy glory shine before mine eye,

I pardon crave, lest my desire be pride,

Or bed thy glory in cloudy sky.

The sun grows wan; and angels palefac’d shrink

Before thy shine, which I besmear with ink.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

But shall the bird sign forth thy praise and shall

The little bee present her thankful hum?

But I who see thy shining glory fall

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

Whether I speak, or speechless stand, I spy,

I fail thy glory: therefor, pardon cry.

 

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

 

Psalm 148:7–10 (AV 1873)

7          Praise the Lord from the earth,

Ye dragons, and all deeps:

8          Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour;

Stormy wind fulfilling his word:

9          Mountains, and all hills;

Fruitful trees, and all cedars:

10         Beasts, and all cattle;

Creeping things, and flying fowl:

 

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

 

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

 

But I who see thy shining glory fall

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

 

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

 

Whether I speak, or speechless stand, I spy,

I fail thy glory: therefor, pardon cry.

 

What can he possibly do but seek mercy?

 

 

 

But this I find: my rhymes do better suit

Mine own dispraise than tune forth praise to thee.

Yet being chide, whether consonant, or mute,

I force my tongue to tattle, as you see.

That I thy glorious praise my trumpet right

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

 

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

But this I find: my rhymes do better suit

Mine own dispraise than tune forth praise to thee.

 

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

 

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

 

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

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Study Guide. 10.1

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Jeremiah Burroughs, Study Guide, Uncategorized

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Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs, Study Guide, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Worship

It’s been a long time, but the previous post in this series may be found here.

Burroughs now moves to the question of motivation: it will take work to “learn” (Phil. 4:11) how to be content. Contentment is a heavenly flower, a mark of the age to come, and it is not common to this world. If anything, contentment has only become more difficult for people living at this time, because we live in a world that engages in constant propaganda to make us discontent. This is a fact noted by all. From those who are negative to Christianity, ” The whole thing [advertising] is a set up to keep us unhappy and foolishly intent on spending our way out this unhappiness.” But it was noted far earlier by Solomon,

 

Ecclesiastes 1:8 (ESV)

8           All things are full of weariness;

a man cannot utter it;

the eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

 

There are all the false offers of happiness in this world. Even though they all end the same (Ecclesiastes 2:11), we find them irresistible (Jer. 2:25). Therefore, breaking off from these false hopes and setting our hope in God such that we will do the work to learn contentment with God’s will for our lives — even when it crosses are desires — will require a hope in that contentment is better than what we have now.

 

It is to this task which Burroughs turns.

 

  1. How does Burroughs describe the result of this learning? If we have learned contentment, what would be the nature of our speaking about contentment? Read Philippians 4:1-13, the passage where Paul says that he has learned contentment. What is the tone taken by Paul in this passage? Verse 13 is a famous verse: in context, what is that God gives Paul the strength to do?

 

  1. Why does Burroughs note that even the greatest pagans thought contentment a great goal?

 

  1. The worship due God. In raising this issue, Burroughs is both showing us the greatness of contentment, and at the same time, raising the greatest barrier to contentment.

 

  1. How does Burroughs first define contentment? In particular note the aspect of free submission.

 

  1. What sort of thoughts, desires and fears keep you from freely submitting to God’s will for your life? If they hold that God is sovereign, and that our present circumstance must work for good, then what must we think when our present circumstance runs contrary to our will? What must we think about ourselves? What must we think about God?

 

  1. How does willing submission to God help bring about contentment?

 

  1. Why should giving God proper worship be a motivation for contentment? Honestly, does that seem like a sufficient reason?

 

  1. Burroughs uses some language which may sound offensive to your dignity, when he discusses worship. Read Genesis 3:5. Does this lie of the Serpent help shed light on why this is difficult for us?

 

  1. Look at a few passages involving humans meeting God:
  2. Leviticus 10:1-3
  3. Deuteronomy 5:22-27

iii.        Isaiah 6:1-5

  1. Ezekiel 1
  2. Luke 5:8
  3. Luke 9:34

vii.       Revelation 1:17

 

  1. What is wrong with our natural thoughts about God? ii

 

  1. How does Burroughs describe the greatness of this aspect of worship?

 

  1. Read Revelation 5: i) What sort of worship does Christ receive from those who know him best? ii) What is the basis for this worship? iii) Do you rightly value this worth? iv) Is it wise to submit one’s condition and life to such wisdom? v) Read Romans 8:31-32: is there any good which God would not give you?

 

Richard Sibbes: God is a Relationship

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Richard Sibbes, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Uncategorized, Worship

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Biblical Counseling, Covenant, God, God is a Relationship, Preaching, relationship, Richard Sibbes, Sanctification, Worship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20 Friday Jan 2017

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

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glory, Pepper-corn, Peppercorn, Praise, Rent, The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, Worship

MEDITATION XXXVIII
Upon the Payment of a Pepper-corn

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(Photo courtesy of John Lodder)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the Ascension Means to the Church

09 Monday May 2016

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

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ascension, Doxology, Ecclesiology, great commission, Mission, Worship

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

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

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

Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaiah, Music, Uncategorized

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Handel, Isaiah 53, Messiah, Music, Worship

Isaiah 53:1–12 (ESV)

Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2  For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3  He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4  Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5  But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6  All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

8  By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

9  And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10  Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

12  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

What is Worship (2)?

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Thesis, Uncategorized, Worship

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Culture, False Worship, idolatry, salvation, Sin, Thesis, Worship

Last night working this definition through my graduate theology class, I had some helpful assistance:

First, the “sin” is recognized, typically by a subject sense of unhappiness. The “salvation” thus being that which brings happiness.

Second, the matter of sin and salvation could be better understood as a matter of shame and honor.

Third, there are a series of sin/salvation events which lead ultimately to a self-honor which resolves the problem of having been put to shame in the Fall (since no one aspect of the creature is sufficient to resolve the lose of the Creator (see, Romans 1:18, et seq.) it will be necessary to seek multiple “salvations” — no creature will ever be enough).

 

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