us that we are actually in the state of grace, but by way of argument or reflection; we know we do belong to God, when we receive His Spirit; (and all christian people have received Him, if they were rightly baptized and confirmed;) I say, we know by that testimony that we belong to God; that is, we are the people with whom God hath made a covenant, to whom He hath promised and intends greater blessings, to which the present gifts of the Spirit are in order. But all this is conditional, and is not an immediate testimony of the certainty and future event; but of the event as it is possibly future, and may (without our fault) be reduced to act as certainly as it is promised, or as the earnest is given in hand. And this the Spirit of God oftentimes tells us, in secret visitations and public testimonies : and this is that which St. Paul calls "tasting of the heavenly gift, and partaking of the holy Ghost," and "tasting of the good work of God, and the powers of the world to come." But yet some that have done so have fallen away, and have "quenched the Spirit," and have given back the earnest of the Spirit, and contracted new relations; and God hath been their Father no longer, for they have done the works of the devil. So that if new converts be uncertain of their present state, old Christians are not absolutely certain they shall persevere. They are as sure of it as they can be of future acts of theirs which God hath permitted to their own power: but this certainly cannot exclude all fear, till their charity be perfect; only according to the strength of their habits, so is the confidence of their abodes in grace. 8. Beyond this, some holy persons have degrees of persuasion superadded as largesses and acts of grace; God loving to bless one degree of grace with another, till it comes to a confirmation in grace, which is a state of salvation directly opposite to obduration; and as this is irremediable and irrecoverable, so is the other inamissible: as God never saves a person obdurate and obstinately impenitent, so He never loses a man whom He hath confirmed in grace. "Whom He (so) loves, He loves unto the end;" and to others indeed He offers His persevering love, but they will not entertain it with a persevering duty, they will not be beloved unto the end. But I insert this caution, that every man that is in this condition of a confirmed grace does not always know it; but sometimes God draws aside the curtains of peace, and shews him His throne, and visits him with irradiations of glory, and sends him a little star to stand over his dwelling, and then again covers it with a cloud. It is certain concerning some persons, that they shall never fall, and that God will not permit them to the danger or probability of it: to such it is morally impossible: but these are but few, and themselves know it not as they know a demonstrative proposition, but as they see the sun, sometimes break d Heb. vi. 4, 5. e Hic felix, nullo turbante deorum; ing from a cloud very brightly, but all day long giving necessary and sufficient light. 9. Concerning the multitude of believers this discourse is not pertinent; for they only take their own accounts by the imperfections of their own duty blended with the mercies of God: the cloud gives light on one side and is dark upon the other; and sometimes a bright ray peeps through the fringes of a shower, and immediately hides itself: that we might be humble and diligent; striving forwards, and looking upwards; endeavouring our duty, and longing after heaven: "working out our salvation with fear and trembling;" and in good time "our calling and election" may be assured, when we first, according to the precept of the apostle, "use all diligence." St. Paul, when he writ his first epistle to the Corinthians, was more fearful of being reprobate, and therefore he used exterior arts of mortification : but when he writ to the Romans, which was a good while after, we find him more confident of his final condition, "persuaded that neither height nor depth, angel nor principality nor power, could separate him from the love of God in Jesus Christs:" and when he grew to his latter end, when he wrote to St. Timothy, he was more confident yet, and declared that now a crown of righteousness was" certainly laid up for him;" for now he had "fought the fight, and finished his course; the time of his departure was at hand:" henceforth he knew no more fear; his love was perfect as this state would permit, and that "cast out all fear." According to this precedent if we reckon our securities, we are not likely to be reproved by any words of scripture, or by the condition of human infirmity. But when the confidence outruns our growth in grace, it is itself a sin; though when the confidence is equal with the grace, it is of itself no regular and universal duty, but a blessing and a reward, indulged by special dispensation, and in order to personal necessities or accidental purposes. For only so much hope is simply necessary, as excludes despair, and encourages our duty, and glorifies God, and entertains His mercy; but that the hope should be without fear, is not given but to the highest faith, and the most excellent charity, and to habitual, ratified, and confirmed Christians; and to them also with some variety. The sum is this: all that are in the state of beginners and imperfection, have a conditional certainty, changeable and fallible in respect of us, (for we meddle not with what it is in God's secret purposes;) changeable, I say, as their wills and resolutions. They that are grown towards perfection have more reason to be confident, and many times are so; but still, although the strength of the habits of grace adds degrees of moral certainty to their expectation, yet it is but as their condition is, hopeful and promising, and of a moral determination. But to those few to whom God hath given confirmation in grace, He hath also given a certainty of condition and therefore f 1 Cor. ix. 27. Rom. viii. 38. b2 Tim. iv. 6-8. if that be revealed to them, their persuasions are certain and infallible; if it be not revealed to them, their condition is in itself certain, but their persuasion is not so, but in the highest kind of hope, "an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast." THE PRAYER. O eternal God, whose counsels are in the great deep, and Thy ways past finding out; Thou hast built our faith upon Thy promises, our hopes upon Thy goodness, and hast described our paths between the waters of comfort and the dry barren land of our own duties and affections; we acknowledge that all our comforts derive from Thee, and to ourselves we owe all our shame, and confusions, and degrees of desperation. Give us the assistances of the holy Ghost to help us in performing our duty; and give us those comforts and visitations of the holy Ghost which Thou, in Thy infinite and eternal wisdom, knowest most apt and expedient to encourage our duties, to entertain our hopes, to alleviate our sadnesses, to refresh our spirits, and to endure our abode and constant endeavours in the strictnesses of religion and sanctity. Lead us, dearest God, from grace to grace, from imperfection to strength, from acts to habits, from habits to confirmation in grace, that we may also pass into the regions of comfort, receiving the earnest of the Spirit and the adoption of sons; till by such a signature we be consigned to glory, and enter into the possession of the inheritance which we expect in the kingdom of Thy Son, and in the fruition of the felicities of Thee, O gracious Father, God eternal. Amen. SECTION XIV. Of the third year of the preaching of Jesus. 1. BUT Jesus, knowing of the death of the Baptist, Herod's jealousy, and the envy of the pharisees, retired into a desert place beyond the lake, together with His apostles: for the people pressed so upon them they had not leisure to eat. But neither there could He be hid, but great multitudes flocked thither also; to whom He preached many things. And afterwards because there were no villages in the neighbourhood, lest they should faint in their return to their houses, He caused them to sit down upon the grass, and, with five loaves of barley and two small fishes He satisfied five thousand men, besides women and children, and caused the disciples to gather up the fragments, which, being amassed together, filled twelve baskets. Which miracles had so much proportion to the understanding, and met so happily with the affections of the people, that they were convinced that this was the "Messias who was to come into the world," and had a purpose to have "taken Him by force and made Him a king." 2. But He that left His Father's kingdom to take upon Him the miscries and infelicities of the world, fled from the offers of a kingdom, and their tumultuary election, as from an enemy; and therefore sending His disciples to the ship before towards Bethsaida, He ran into the mountains to hide Himself till the multitude should scatter to their several habitations; He in the meantime taking the opportunity of that retirement for the advantage of His prayers. But when the apostles were far engaged in the deep, a great tempest arose, with which they were pressed to the extremity of danger and the last refuges, labouring in sadness and hopelessness till "the fourth watch of the night," when in the midst of their fears and labour "Jesus comes, walking on the sea," and appeared to them; which turned their fears into affrightments, for they supposed it had been a spirit;" but He appeased their fears, with His presence, and manifestation who He was. Which yet they desired to have proved to them by a sign; for "Simon Peter said unto Him, Master, if it be Thou, command me to come to Thee on the waters:" the Lord did so: and Peter, throwing himself upon the confidence of His Master's power and providence, came out of the ship; and his fear began to weigh him down, and "he cried, saying, Lord, save me: Jesus took him by the hand," reproved the timorousness of his faith, and "went with him into the ship:" where when they had "worshipped Him," and admired the divinity of His power and person, they presently "came into the land of Genesareth," the ship arriving "at the port immediately." And "all that were sick," or possessed with unclean spirits, "were brought to Him, and as many as touched the border of His garment were made whole." 3. By this time, they whom Jesus had left on the other side of the lake had come as far as Capernaum to seek Him, wondering that He was there before them: but upon the occasion of their so diligent inquisition, Jesus observes to them, that it was not the divinity of the miracle that provoked their zeal, but the satisfaction they had in the loaves, a carnal complacency in their meal; and upon that intimation, speaks of celestial bread, the divine nutriment of souls; and then discourses of the mysterious and symbolical manducation of Christ himself, affirming that He himself was the bread of life, that came down from heaven,' that He would give His disciples 'His flesh to eat, and His blood to drink,' and all this should be for the life of the world,' to nourish unto life eternal; so that without it a happy eternity could not be obtained. Upon this discourse "divers of His disciples" (amongst whom St. Mark the evangelist is said to be one, though he was afterwards recalled by Simon Peteri) "forsook Him," being scandalized by their literal and carnal understanding of those words of Jesus which He intended in a spiritual sense. For the words that He spake" were not profitable in the sense of flesh and blood, but "they are spirit, and they are life," Himself being the expounder, who best knew His own meaning. 4. When Jesus saw this great defection of His disciples from Him, He turned Him to the twelve apostles, and asked if they "also would go away? Simon Peter answered, Lord, whither shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe, and are sure, Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." Although this public confession was made by Peter in the name and confidence of the other apostles, yet Jesus told them that even amongst the twelve there was "one devil;" meaning Judas Iscariot, "who afterwards betrayed Him." This He told them prophetically, that they might perceive the sad accidents which afterwards happened did not invade and surprise Him in the disadvantages of ignorance or improvision, but came by His own knowledge and providence. 5. Then came to Him the pharisees, and some scribes, which came from Jerusalem and Galilee, (for "Jesus would not go to Judea, because the Jews laid wait to kill Him,") and quarrelled with Him about certain impertinent, unnecessary rites, derived to them not by divine sanction, but "ordinances of man:" such as were washing their hands oft when they eat, baptizing cups and platters, and washing tables and beds; which ceremonies the apostles of Jesus did not observe, but attended diligently to the simplicity and spiritual holiness of their Master's doctrine. But in return to their vain demands Jesus gave them a sharp reproof, for prosecuting these and many other traditions to the discountenance of divine precepts; and in particular, they taught men to give to the corban, and refused to supply the necessity of their parents, thinking it to be religion though they neglected piety and charity. And again He thunders out woes and sadnesses against their impieties, for being curious of minutes, and punctual in rites and ceremonials, but most negligent and incurious of judgment and the love of God; for their pride, for their hypocrisy, for their imposing burdens upon others, which themselves helped not to support; for taking away the key of knowledge from the people, obstructing the passages to heaven; for approving the acts of their fathers in persecuting the prophets. But for the question itself concerning washings, Jesus taught the people that no outward impurity did stain the soul in the sight of God, but all pollution is from within, from the corruption of the heart, and impure thoughts, unchaste desires, and unholy purposes, and that charity is the best purifier in the world. 6. And thence "Jesus departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, i Epiphan. Adv. hær. li. [§ 6. lib. i. tom. i. p. 428 A.] |