33. Christians compared to the best things

Christians compared to the best things

Use. 5. Again, in that grace is of a growing nature, in all changes and alterations, whatsoever we decay in, let us not decay in grace. Beg of God. Lord, whatsoever thou takest from me, take not thy Spirit from me! take not thy stamp from me! Let me grow in the inward man although I grow not in the world. Let us labour to grow ’from glory to glory,’ though we lose otherwise. That is well lost and parted with in the world that is with the gain of any grace, because grace is glory. It is a good sickness that gets more patience, and more humility. It is a good loss that makes us grow less worldly-minded and more humble by it. All other things are vanity in comparison. And that grace that we get by the loss of them is well gained. Grace is glory; and the more we grow in grace, the more we grow in glory. Therefore I beseech you labour to thrive that way, to grow up heavenward, daily more and more in our disposition. Beloved, the more grace we get the more glory; and the more like we are to Christ and to God, the more we adorn our profession; and the more we shame Satan and his instruments, and stop their mouths, the more duties come off naturally and sweetly from us without constraint. It is good for us to be grown Christians, that we need not be cumbered with corruptions. The more we grow, the more nimble and cheerful and voluntary we shall be in duty. We shall partake more of that anointing that makes us nimble in God’s service. There is nothing in the world so glorious as a grown Christian. Therefore let us be in love with the state of Christianity, especially with grown Christians. Of all things, he is compared with the best. If he be a house, he is a temple; if he be a plant, he is a cedar growing up; if he be a flower, he is a lily rising and growing fresher; if he be a stone, he is a pearl. He grows in estimation and use more and more. Beloved, if we had spiritual eyes to see the state of a Christian, of a grown Christian especially, we would labour above all things to thrive in this way. Have we not many works to do? Have we not many enemies to resist? Have we not many graces to perfect? Are we not to die and to appear before God? Are we not to enjoy the blessings of God purely? and do not these things require a great deal of strength of grace? Oh they do. Therefore labour above all things in the world to behold God’s love in Christ, and to behold Christ, that by this sight we may grow from glory to glory. And this will make us willing to die. What makes a man willing to die, but when he knows he shall go from glory to greater glory? After death is the perfection of glory. Then we are glorious indeed, when we are in heaven. A weak sight here by faith changeth us; but a strong sight, when we shall see face to face, perfectly changeth us. Then we shall be like him, when we shall see him face to face. A wicked man cannot desire death, he cannot desire heaven itself. Why? Because heaven is the perfection of grace. Glory [which] is but grace he loves not. Therefore it is a certain evidence of future glory, for a man to love grace, and to grow. I say such a man is willing to die. A wicked man, that hates grace, that loves not Christ in his image, in his children, or in his truth, he hates glory that is the perfection of grace; for peace, and joy, and comfort, they are but those things that issue from grace, and spring from grace. Grace is the chief part of heaven, the perfection of the image of God, the perfection of all the powers to be like Christ. But for peace and comfort that springs from it, a wicked man loves peace and quiet, but to have his nature altered he loves not that; and if he love not grace, how can he love glory? There is no man but a Christian that loves heaven. We are ready to drop away daily. Now to be in a state unchanged, it is a fearful thing. Unless we be changed by the Spirit of God, we shall be afraid to die. We cannot desire to be in heaven. The very heaven of heavens is the perfection of grace. To see God to be all in all, and by the sight of God to be transformed into his likeness, it is the chief thing in heaven. Therefore I beseech you let us labour more and more to grow in grace; set Christ before us. Let me add this one thing, make use of our patterns among us. Christ is now in heaven, but there will be the Spirit of Christ in his children to the end of the world; and grace is sweetly conveyed from those that we live amongst. We grow up in grace by growing in a holy communion one with another. Christ will kindle lights in every generation. Therefore let us labour to have the spirit of those we live with given to us; in conversing, to be like Christ in his members; to love the imago of Christ in his children, and to converse with them; to be altered into their likeness. This will change us to the glorious likeness of Christ more and more.

Those that care not what company they keep, those that despise the image of Christ in those among whom they live, can they grow in grace?

We shall give account of all the good examples we have had. Doth God kindle lights for nothing? We should glorify God for the sun and moon and stars, and other creatures. Is not a Christian more glorious than all the creatures in the world? We should glorify God for grace in Christians, and labour to be transformed to them that we may grow the liker to Christ, that we may grow more and more glorious. I speak this to advance the communion of saints more and more, as we desire to partake more and more of this grace, and to grow ’from glory to glory.’

Use 6. Again, considering that God means to bring us, by little and little, by degrees, to perfect glory of body and soul, and condition in heaven to be like Christ, let this make us be content to be vile for Christ in this world, as David said when he teas scorned, ’I will be yet more vile,’ 2 Samuel 6:22, ’do you think I think much to shew myself thus, for the honour of God?’ When Michal scoffed, ’I will be more vile.’ Let us be content to go out of the camp, and bear the reproach of Christ, Hebrews 11:26, bear the reproach of religion. Let the world scorn us for the profession of religion. God is bringing us from glory to glory, till he bring us to perfect glory; and shall we suffer nothing for him? Let us be content to be more vile, and to bear the reproach of religion. The very worst thing in religion, the reproach of Christ, as Moses made a wise choice, it is better than the treasures of Egypt, Hebrews 11:26. The most excellent things in the world are not so good as the worst thing in religion, because reproach ends with assurance of comfort, that God will take away that, and give us glory after. Therefore, let us not be discouraged from a Christian course, but go through good report and bad report, break through all, to finish our course with joy, as St Paul speaks of himself, Acts 20:24.

Use 7. And doth God bring us from glory to glory, till he have brought us to perfection of glory? Then, I beseech you, let us beforehand be thankful to God, as we see in the epistles of blessed St Paul and Peter: ’Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath begotten us to an inheritance immortal, undefiled, reserved in heaven,’ saith St Peter, 1 Peter 1:4; and so St Paul. Let us begin the employment of heaven beforehand. For why doth God discover to us that he will bring us to glory? why doth he discover it to our faith, that excellent state? That we might begin heaven on earth, as much as might be. And how shall we do that? By the employment of heaven. What is that? ’Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,’ Revelation 4:8. There is nothing but magnifying and glorifying of God. There shall be no need of prayer. There are praises alway; and so much as we are in the praises of God, and glorifying of God for his mercy and love in Christ, so much we are in heaven before our time. I beseech you, therefore, be stirred up in consideration of this, that we are leading on by degrees, from glory to glory, till we come to perfection. Let us even give God the praise of all beforehand. For it is as sure as if we had it. For one way, how things to come are present, is by faith. Glory to come is present two or three ways already, that may stir us up to glorify God beforehand.

(1.) The glory to come is present to Christ our head. We, in our husband, are in heaven. Now he hath taken heaven for us!

(2.) And in regard of faith, that is the evidence of things not seen. It is the nature of faith to present things to come as present. To faith, glory to come is present, present in Christ, and we are part of Christ, Christ mystical, and members. And we in our head are in heaven already, and sit there. And to faith, that makes things present that are to come, we are in heaven already.

(3.) And we have the earnest of heaven, the first-fruits of the Spirit. We have grace which is glory, the beginnings of glory. We have the first-fruits and earnest. Now, an earnest is never taken away, but is made up by the bargain with the rest; so the earnest of the Spirit of God, the first-fruits of peace and joy, of comfort and liberty to the throne of grace, these are the beginnings of heaven. Therefore, be much in praising God. Oh that we could be so! If we could get into a frame and disposition to bless God, we could never be miserable; no, not in the greatest afflictions, for thankfulness hath joy alway. When a man is joyful, he can never be miserable, for joy enlargeth the soul. When is a man most joyful, but in a state of thankfulness? And what makes us thankful so much, as to consider the wonderful things that are reserved in another world, the glory that God is leading us to by little and little, from glory to glory, till we be perfect?

’Even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’

’As’ here is taken according to the phrase in the Greek; and there is the like word in the Hebrew. It signifieth likeness and similitude sometimes, and sometimes otherwise.* It is not here meant as if we were like the Spirit of the Lord, but this change is wrought even as by the Spirit of the Lord. That is, it is so excellent and so strong, that you may know that it is done by none but the Spirit of God.

Again, ’as by the Spirit of the Lord,’ that is, so far as the Spirit of the Lord changeth us. It implieth those two things, that is, it is done by the power of the Spirit, that we may know it is done by the Spirit of the Lord; and then, as by him and no further, for we no further shine than he enlighteneth us. As the air, it is no further light than the sun shines into it; so we have no more glory, strength, comfort, and peace, or anything gracious or glorious, than the Spirit of God shines into us: therefore he saith, ’as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ It is so glorious and excellent, and so far forth as he doth it. ’As by the Spirit of the Lord;’ so he expresseth the meaning of that phrase.

Now you see here the doctrine is clear, that all that I have spoken of before comes from the Spirit of the Lord, and from no other cause. The beholding, the transforming, the degrees of transforming from glory to glory, the taking away of the veil, all is from the Spirit of the Lord. To go over the particulars. The Holy Ghost doth open our eyes to behold the glory of the Lord, and therefore he is called the Spirit of illumination. The Holy Ghost takes away the veil of ignorance and unbelief, and thereupon he is called the Spirit of revelation. The Holy Ghost upon revealing the love of God to us in Christ, and the love of Christ to us, and illuminating our understandings to see these things, he breeds love to God again, shewing the love of God to us, and thereupon he is called the Spirit of love. Now when God’s love is shed into us by the Spirit of illumination and revelation, then we are changed according to the image of Christ; and thereupon the Holy Ghost, from the working of a change, is called the Spirit of sanctification, because he is not only the holy temple of that blessed person, but he makes us holy; and because this change is a glorious change, a change from one degree of grace to another, till we come to be perfect in heaven; hereupon it is called a Spirit of glory, as St Peter saith, ’the Spirit of glory resteth on you,’ 1 Peter 4:14, that is, the Spirit of peace, of love, of comfort, of joy, &c. The Spirit, in regard of this blessed attribute, working all these, he is called the Spirit of glory. The Spirit hath divers names according to the divers operations he works in the saints and people of God; as here the Spirit of illumination, of revelation, of love, of sanctification, of glory, all is by the Spirit. Whatsoever is wrought in man it is by the Spirit. All comes from the Father as the fountain, and through the Son as Mediator; but whatsoever is wrought it is by the Holy Ghost in us, which is the substantial vigour in the Trinity. All the vigour and operation in the Trinity upon the creature, it is by the Holy Ghost, the third person. As in the creation the Spirit moved upon the waters, and moving there and brooding on them, framed the whole model of the creatures; all were framed by the Holy Ghost; so the Holy Ghost upon the water of our souls frames the new creature, frames all this change ’from glory to glory,’ all is by the Holy Spirit. Therefore it is here in the passive term, ’We are changed from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ So in the chain of salvation you have passive words in them all. ’Whom God foreknew he chose: and whom he chose he justified: and whom he justified he glorified,’ Romans 8:30, all because they come from God, and the Spirit of God. So here we are transformed from glory to glory, all is by the Spirit of God, the third person. For, beloved, even as from God toward us all things come through the Son by the Spirit, so back again, all things from us to God must come by the Spirit and through Christ. We do all by the Spirit, as all things are wrought in us by the Spirit. God gives us the Spirit of prayer and supplication, and the Spirit of sanctification; and we pray in the Spirit, and work in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit. We do all in the Spirit, to shew that the Spirit doth all in all. In this new creature and work of sanctification it is by no less than the Spirit of the Lord. For, beloved, as it was God that redeemed us, so it is God that must change us; as it was God that wrought our salvation and reconciled us,—no less person could do it,—so it must be God that must persuade us of that glorious work, and fit us for it by his Holy Spirit. It is God that must knit us to our head Christ, and then by little and little transform us to that blessed condition that Christ hath purchased for us. God the Son doth the one, and God the Spirit doth the other. You have all the three persons in this place, for we see the glory of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost shining in Jesus Christ. Christ is the image according to which we are changed. The Spirit is he that changeth us according to that image. God shows his mercy in Christ. We knowing and apprehending the mercy of God in Christ by the Spirit, are changed by that Spirit ’from glory to glory.’ So that the blessed Trinity, as they have a perfect unity in themselves in nature, for they are all one God, so they have a most perfect unity in their love, and care, and respect to mankind. We cannot want the work of any one of them all. Their work is for the good of mankind. The Father in his wisdom decreed and laid the foundation how mercy and justice might be reconciled in the death of the Mediator. Christ wrought our salvation. The Holy Ghost assures us of it and knits us to Christ, and changeth and fits us to be members of so glorious a head, and so translates and transforms us more and more ’from glory to glory.’

It is a comfortable consideration to see how our salvation and our fitting for salvation, till we be put in full possession of it, stands upon the unity of the three glorious persons in the Trinity, that all join in one for the making of man happy.

I will name two or three doctrines, before I come to that which I mean to dwell on.

As, first, that Doct. The Spirit comes from, Christ.

It is said here, ’By the Spirit of the Lord,’ that is, of Christ; because Christ doth spirare,* as well as the Father. The Father doth spirare, and the Son doth breathe. The Holy Ghost proceeds by way of spiration from both. Therefore the Spirit is not only the Spirit of the Father, but of the Son, as we see here, ’The Spirit of the Lord.’ Christ sends the Spirit, as well as the Father. ’I will send you the Comforter.’ The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son; and he doth report to us the love of the Father and of the Son; and therefore, 2 Corinthians 13:14, the shutting of the chapter, ’The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost,’ &c. As the Holy Ghost hath communion in proceeding from the Father and the Son, and knows the secrets of both; so he reveals them to us. The love of God the Father, and the Son, and the communion of the Holy Ghost; so the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father; he is called here the Spirit of the Lord.

Then again, the Spirit is a distinct person from Christ. It is said before, ’The Lord is that Spirit.’ That might trouble men, how to know that ’the Lord is that Spirit.’ Men might think that Christ is all one with the Spirit. No. Here the Spirit is said to be the Spirit of the Lord. He means he is another distinct person from Christ; and the Spirit is God as well as Christ, because the Spirit hath the operations of God attributed to him, to change and transform, and make new. We are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, ’even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ Creation and renovation of all new is from an almighty power. All the power in heaven and earth cannot make that that was not, to be, especially that that was contrary and opposite, to be. Now for a man in opposition and enmity to religion, to be changed to a better image, to the image of Christ, it argueth an almighty power. These doctrinal points I do but only touch. I come to that that I judge more useful; that is, that Doct. Whatsoever is good in us comes from the Spirit of God.

What need I stand upon reasons? Whatsoever is above nature it must come from God’s Spirit. The Spirit is the author of all things above nature. Grace whereby we are like Christ, is above nature; therefore it must be by the Spirit of God.

Besides, that which riseth of nothing, and is opposite, and hath Satan to oppose it, it must have an almighty power to work it. Therefore whosoever works anything that is supernaturally good in us, he must be above the devil. We cannot so much as call Jesus,* with a feeling, but by the Spirit of God. We cannot think a good thought. All is by the Spirit, whatsoever is gracious and comfortable in us. I should be over-troublesome to you to be much in so clear a common argument as this is. Therefore I will hasten to make some use of it.

Use 1. And therefore put out of your thoughts, I beseech you, when you look to have any grace or comfort wrought, shut out of your hearts too much relying upon any outward thing. Think not that education can make a man good, or plodding can make a man good: in bodily exercise, in hearing much, in conferring much, in custom or education, or any pains of our own. These are things that the Spirit will be effectual in, if we use them as we should; but without the Spirit what are they? Nay, what is the body of Christ without the Spirit? ’The flesh profiteth nothing,’ John 6:63. What is the sacrament and the word? Dead things without the Spirit of the Lord. Nothing can work upon the soul, no outward thing in the world, but the Spirit of God; and the Spirit of God works upon the soul by the means of grace, by gracious habits and qualities wrought. For he doth not work upon the soul immediately. Before he alter and change the soul, the Spirit works upon the soul by altering, and changing of it; and when it hath altered the soul, then it joins with the soul, and alters and changeth it according to the image of Christ, more and more still.

I beseech you, in your daily practice, all learn this, that you trust not too much to any outward performance or task; to make idols of outward things. People when they would change their dispositions, and be better, they take a great deal of pains in hearing, and reading, and praying. All these are things necessary; but they are dead things without the Spirit of Christ. Therefore in the use of all those outward things, whatsoever they be, look up to Christ, that is the quickening Spirit, that sends the Spirit into our hearts. The Spirit must enliven and give vigour to all these things, and then somewhat will be done in religion, in hearing, and reading, and praying, and receiving the sacrament. Therefore in all these look to the Spirit first. He laboureth in vain that relieth not wholly upon the Spirit of God, that trusts not to a higher strength than his own. It must be a higher strength than our own that must work any good in our souls, either grace, or comfort, or peace. And therefore in the use of all things, as the proverb is, oculos ad cælum, &c. Let the eye be to heaven, when the hand is at the storn† at the same time; and then we shall ba transformed and changed by the Spirit of God. Know that in all means alway the Spirit is the principal, efficient, blessing, cause of all. And therefore before we set upon anything that is good, wherein we look for any spiritual good, desire God by his Holy Spirit that he would clothe what shall be said. Words are wind without the Spirit. The Spirit must go with the ordinances, as the arteries go together with the veins. You know in the veins in the body there are arteries that go with them. They convey the spirits. The veins convey the blood. That is a dull thing, without the spirits, of itself. If there were no spirits in the arteries, what would the blood in the veins be? Nothing but a heavy uncomfortable humour. But the arteries that come from the heart, the fountain of life, being joined, and conveying the spirits, they quicken the blood that comes from the liver. So the veins and arteries join together to make the blood cheerful. The word and truth of God are like the blood in the veins. There is a great deal of matter in them, but there is no life at all. There must the Spirit go along with them to give life and quickening to the word, to clothe those divine truths with the Spirit, and then it works wonders, not else. Paul spake to Lydia, Acts 16:14, seq., but the Holy Ghost opened her heart. The Spirit hath the key of the heart to unlock and open the heart. We speak to the outward man, but except the inward man be opened by the Spirit of God and unlocked, all is to no purpose. Therefore let us pray for the Spirit of this changing. All is by the Spirit of the Lord.

It is in mystical Christ, even as it was in natural Christ; all his grace was from the Holy Ghost as man. For though he were conceived of the Holy Ghost, he was anointed by the Holy Ghost; he was sealed by the Holy Ghost; he was led by the Holy Ghost into the wilderness; he offered himself by the Spirit; he was raised by the Spirit; he was full of the Spirit. As it was in Christ natural, so it is in Christ mystical; that is, in the church all is by the Spirit. As he was conceived in the womb by the Spirit, so we are conceived to be Christians by the Spirit. The same Spirit that sanctified him sanctifieth us. But first the Spirit by way of union sanctifieth us, by knitting us to him the head of all; and then unction comes after union; anointing after union. Then the Spirit, when he hath knit us to Christ, works the same anointing that he did in Christ. Therefore we are called Christians of Christ, not only partakers of the naked name, but of the anointing of Christ—that anointing that runs down the head of our spiritual Aaron to the skirts, to every poor Christian. All change, all comfort, all peace is from the Spirit of Christ. Therefore give him the glory of all. If we find any comfort in any truth, it comes not from us, but from his Spirit; and we must go upward to him again. As all descends from heaven, from the Father of lights and from the Spirit of God, so all must ascend again. Yield him the praise of all. And one work of the Spirit is to carry our souls up. For the Spirit, as it comes from heaven to change, so it carries us up again to view and to imitate Christ, to be where Christ is. As water when it is to be carried up, it is carried as high as the spring head, from whence it came, so the Spirit coming from Christ, it never leaves changing and altering of us till it have carried us to Christ again. Therefore as it is the work of the Spirit to carry us to Christ, so let us desire it may carry us beforehand for the good work begun in us, in thankfulness, that we may begin heaven upon earth. All is from the Spirit of Christ. A man now in the state of grace must look for nothing from himself; for as we are saved altogether out of ourselves by Christ the mediator, so the fitting for that glorious salvation that we have purchased by Christ, it is by the Spirit. The working of our salvation is by God, and the assurance of it to our souls is by the Holy Ghost, by the witness of God sealed to us. And the fitting and preparing and changing and sanctifying of us, it is by the Holy Ghost. All is out of us in the covenant of grace, wherein God is a gracious Father in Christ. All is out of us in regard of the spring. The work indeed is terminated in us. The Spirit of God alters our understanding, will, and affections, but the spring is out of us. As in paradise those four streams that watered paradise, that ran through it, yet the head of them was out of paradise, in another part of the world. So though the work of the Holy Ghost, the streams of the Spirit, run through the soul and water it; yet the spring of those graces, the Holy Ghost, is out of us, and Christ the root of salvation is out of us. For God in the covenant of grace will not trust us, as in Adam God trusted us with grace, he had grace in his own keeping. If he would he might have stood. He had liberty of will, but God saw we were all ill husbands of grace and goodness, that he would not trust us again. Therefore he trusted God-man, the second Adam, with grace; and he sends his Spirit into us, and conveys grace ’from glory to glory’ by degrees, and all by the Spirit of the Lord.

And, in the next place, this point of doctrine should marvellously comfort and stay us, and direct us.

Use 2. It should comfort us when we find no goodness at all, nor no strength at all in our natures. Doth God expect that we should have anything from ourselves? Who expects anything from a barren wilderness? Our hearts are such. God knows it well enough. There is no goodness in us, no more than there is moisture in a stone or a rock. Therefore he looks that we should beg the Spirit of him, and depend upon him for the Spirit of his Son, to open our eyes with the Spirit of illumination; to reveal his love to us, and then to sanctify us and to work us more and more to glory, and to work out all corruption by little and little. He expects that we should depend upon him for the Spirit in all things we do.

Therefore Christians are much to blame. They think to work and to hew out of their own nature the love of God, and keep ado with their own hearts, as if they had a principle of grace in themselves as of themselves; and they may long enough work that way. But that is not the way, but acknowledgment that in ourselves, as of ourselves, as Saint Paul saith, we cannot do anything, Philip. 2:13. We cannot so much, by all the power in the world, as think a good thought. If we should live a thousand years, there cannot rise out of our hearts a good desire of ourselves. All is out of us from the Spirit of the Lord. Now thereupon we must not look for it in ourselves, but go to God for his Holy Spirit. Go to Christ for his Spirit, for the Spirit proceeds from them both, that he would enlighten us and sanctify us, as I shewed in particular before. We must not therefore presume that we can do anything of ourselves; and so we must not despair. Shall we despair when once we believe in Christ? when we have abundance of grace and Spirit in our head Christ? And he can derive* his Spirit as he pleaseth. He gives the Spirit by degrees as he pleaseth; for he is a voluntary head to dispense it as he will. He is not a natural head. Who shall despair when he is in Christ, who is complete? And in him we receive grace for grace, grace answerable for grace in him.

Let none presume that he can do anything of himself, for you see how God suffered holy men to miscarry. It was folly in this case in Peter to presume of his own strength: ’Though all forsook Christ,’ Mark 14:31, seq., yet would not he. He presumed upon his own strength. God left him to himself. You see how foully he fell. So it is with us all, when we presume upon the strength of our nature and parts. We must not come to this holy place in the strength of our own wit and parts, but come with a desire that the Spirit may join with his ordinances, and make them efficacious for our change. All change is by the Spirit of the Lord. Nothing works above his own sphere. It is above the power of nature to work any thing supernatural. Therefore if we will profit by the word, come not with presumptuous spirits, but lift up our hearts to God, that his Spirit may clothe the ministry with vigour and power, that he may convey holy truths into our hearts, and make them effectual for the changing of the inward and of the outward man. Then we come as we should. All is by the Spirit of the Lord, blessing all means whatsoever, without which all means are dead. Therefore we must open as that flower that opens and shuts as the sun shines on it (n). So must we as Christ shines on us; and we ebb and flow as he flows upon us. We shine or are dark as he shines on us. As the air is no longer light than the sun shines, so we are no longer lightsome and open, and flow and are carried to anything, than Christ by his Spirit flows on us. For we do what we do, but we are patients first to receive that power from the Spirit. We hear and do good works, but the activity and power and strength comes all from the Spirit of God.

Use 3. Hence likewise we may make another use of trial, whether we have the Spirit of Christ or no: whether we have the Holy Ghost, which is called here the Spirit of the Lord.

I will not go out of the text for trials.