XV.-The Diamond painted. HOW wide and unhappy a mistake it is when christians endeavour to adorn their pure divine worship by the mixture of it with ceremonies of human invention. The symbolical ordinances of the gospel have a noble simplicity in them: Their materials are water, bread and wine, three of the most necessary and valuable things in human life; and their mystic sense is plain, natural, and easy: By water we are cleansed when we have been defiled; so by the grace of the Holy Spirit we are purified from sin, which pollutes our souls in the sight of God: By bread we are fed when we are hungry, and nourished into strength for service: By wine we are refreshed and revived when thirsty and fainting; so from the body of Christ which was broken as an atoning sacrifice, and his blood which was poured out for us, we derive our spiritual life and strength. The application of these symbols is most simple, and natural also: We are commanded to wash with the water, to eat the bread, and to drink the wine; most proper representations of our participation of these benefits. Thus much of figures and emblems did the all-wise God think proper to appoint and continue in his church, when he brake the yokes of Jewish bondage, and abolished a multitude of rites and ceremonies of his own ancient appointment. How plain, how natural, how glorious, how divine are these two christian institutions, Baptism and the Lord's-supper, if surveyed and practised in their original simplicity! but they are debased by the addition of any fantastic ornaments. What think ye of all the gaudy trappings and golden finery that is mingled with the christian worship by the imaginations of men in the church of Rome? Are they not like so many spots and blemishes cast upon a fair jewel by some foolish painter? Let the colours be never so sprightly and glowing, and the lustre of the paint never so rich, yet if you place them on a diamond they are spots and blemishes still. Is not this a just emblem to represent all the gay airs, and rich and glittering accoutrements wherewith the church of Rome hath surrounded her devotions and her public religion? The reformers of our worship of the church of England were much of this mind, for they boldly pass this censure on many of the Popish ceremonies," that they entered into the church by undiscreet devotion and zeal without knowledge: They blinded the people, and obscured the glory of God, and are worthy to be cut away, and clean rejected: That they did more confound and darken, than declare and set forth Christ's benefits unto us, and reduced us again to a ceremonial law, like that of Moses, and to the bondage of figures and shadows:" This is their sentence and judgment concerning many of the Romish rites, in the preface to the book of Common Prayer. Happy had it been for Great Britain if they had thought so concerning all of them, since they had all the same or a worse original, and they all tend to the same unhappy end? However, let others take their liberty of colouring all their jewels with what greens and purples and scarlets they please; but for my own part I like a diamond best that has no paint upon it. XVI.—Bills of Exchange. 1705. WHEN a rich merchant who dwells in a foreign land afar off, commits his treasure to the hands of a banker, it is to be drawn out in smaller sums by his servants or his friends here at home as their necessities shall require; and he furnishes them with bills of exchange drawn upon his banker or treasurer, which are paid honourably to the person who offers the bill, according to the time when the words of the bill appoint the payment. Is it not possible to draw a beautiful allegory hence to represent the conduct of the blessed God in his promises of grace, without debasing so divine a subject? God the Father, the spring and fountain of all grace, dwells in regions of light and holiness inaccessible, too far off for us to converse with him or receive supplies from him in an immediate way; but he has sent the Son to dwell in human nature, and constituted him Treasurer of all his blessings, that we might derive perpetual supplies from his hand; he has intrusted him with all the riches of grace and glory; he has laid up infinite stores of love, wisdom, strength, pardon, peace, and consolation in the hands of his Son for this very purpose, to be drawn out thence as fast as the necessities of his saints require. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. He has received gifts for men." Col. i. 19. Psalm lxviii. 18. Now all the promises in the bible, are so many bills of exchange drawn by God the Father in heaven upon his Son Jesus Christ, and payable to every pious bearer; that is, to every one that comes to the mercy-seat and offers the promise for acceptance, and pleads it in a way of obedient faith and prayer. Jesus the High-Treasurer of heaven, knows every letter of his Father's hand-writing, and can never be imposed upon by a forged note; he will ever put due honour upon his Father's bills; he accepts them all, for "all the promises in him are yea, and in him amen. In him they are all sure to the glory of the Father; 2 Cor. i. 20. It is for the Father's honour that his bills never fail of acceptance and payment. If you apply to the blessed Jesus and offer him a bill of the largest sum, a promise of the biggest blessings, he will never say, "I have not so much of my Father's treasure in my hand." For he has received all things. John iii. 35. "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his band:" And may I not venture to say, This whole treasure is made over to the saints, "All things are yours;" 1 Cor. iii. 22. And they are parcelled out into bills of promise, and notes under the Father's hand. So the whole treasure of a nation sometimes consists in credit and in promissory notes more than in present sums of gold and silver. Some of these divine bills are payable at sight, and we receive the sum as soon as we offer the bill, namely, those that must supply our present wants; such as, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me:" Psalm 1. 15. And there have been many examples of such speedy payment. Psalm cviii. 3. "In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul." Some are only payable in general at a distant time, and that is left to the discretion of Christ the treasurer, namely, "As thy day is so thy strength shall be;" Deut. xxxiii. 25. and we need never fear trusting him long, for this bank in the hands of Christ can never fail; "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily:" Col. ii. 9. And Eph. iii. 8. we are told of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Sometimes Christ may put us off with a general kind answer, or give us a note under his hand payable at demand in several parcels, instead of a full payment all at once: Thus he dealt with his dear friend and servant Paul, in 2 Cor. xii. 9. Doubtless Paul, in his seeking the Lord thrice for the removal "of his thorn in the flesh, had pleaded several large promises of God, had offered those divine bills to Christ for acceptance and payment; but instead of this our Lord gives him a note under his own hand, which ran in this language, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Aud if we had but the faith which that blessed apostle had, we might live upon this hope. This would be as good as present payment; for if he delay to give the full sum, it is only because he sees we have not need of it at present: He knows our necessities better than we ourselves; he will not trust us with too much at once in our own hands; but he pays us those bills when he sees the fittest time, and we have often found it so, and confest his faithfulness. At other times he pays us, but not in the same kind of mercy, which is mentioned in the promise, yet in something more useful and valuable. If the promise mention a temporal blessing, be may give us a spiritual one: if it express ease, he may give patience and thus his Father's bills are always honoured, and we have no reason to complain. So the banker may discharge a bill of a hundred pounds not with money, but with such goods and merchandise as may yield us two hundred, and we gladly confess the bill is well paid. Some of these promises, these bills of heavenly treasure, are not made payable till the hour of our death, as, "Blessed are those servants whom when the Lord comes he shall find watching, &c." Luke xii. 37. "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Mat. xxiv. 13. "Be thou faithful to the death and I will give thee a crown of life." Rev. ii. 10. Others are not due till the day of the resurrection; as, "Them who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 1 Thess. iv. 14. "I will redeem them from death." Hos. xiii. 14. Col. iii. 4. "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Phil. iii. 21. "He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." 1 Pet. v. 4. "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Now when the great day shall come in which our Lord Jesus Christ shall give up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and render an account of all his stewardship, how fair will his books appear! How just a balance will stand at the foot of all his accounts! Then shall he show in what manner he has fulfilled the promises to the saints, and present to the Father all the bills that he has received and discharged; while all the saints shall with one voice attest it to the honour of the High-Treasurer of heaven, that he has not failed in payment even to the smallest farthing. XVII.-The Saints unknown in this World. OUT of the millions of mankind that spread over the earth in every age, the great God has been pleased to take some into his own family, has given them a heavenly and divine nature, and made them his sons and his daughters. But he has set no outward mark of glory upon them; there is nothing in their figure or in their countenance to distinguish them from the rabble of mankind. And it is fit that they should be in some measure unknown among their fellow-mortals: Their character and dignity is too sacred and sublime to be made public here on earth, where the circumstances that attend them are generally so mean and despicable. Divine wisdom has appointed the other world for the place of their full discovery; there they shall appear like themselves, in state equipage and array becoming the children of God and the heirs of heaven. Their blessed Lord himself who is God's first-born Son, was a mere stranger and unknown amongst men ; he laid aside the rays of divinity and the form of a God when he came down to dwell with men, and he took upon him the form of a servant. He wore no divine majesty on his face, no sparks of godhead beaming from his eyes, no glaring evidence of his high dignity in all his outward appearance. it knew him not. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because comes in the glory of his Father with legions of angels, and we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. The life of the saints is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ, who is their life, shall appear, they also shall appear with him in glory. 1 John iii. 1, 2. Col. iii. 3, 4. In that day they shall staud forth before the whole creation in fair evidence; they shall shine in distinguished light, and appear vested in their own undoubted honours. But here it seems proper there should be something of a cloud upon them, both upon the account of the men of this world, andupon their own account too, as well as in Conformity to Christ Jesus our Lord. First, Upon their own account, because the present state of a christian is a state of trial. We are not to walk by sight as the saints above and angels do; they know they are possessed of life and blessedness, for they see God himself near them, Christ in the midst of them, and glory all around them. Our work is to live by faith, and therefore God has not made either his love to us or his grace in us so obvious and apparent to ourselves, as that every christian, even the weak and the unwatchful, should be fully assured of this salvation. He has not appointed the principle of life within us to sparkle in so divine a manner as to be always self-evident to the best of christians, much less to the lukewarm and the backslider. It is fit that it should not be too sensibly manifest, because it is so sensibly imperfect, that we might examine ourselves whether we are in the faith, and prove ourselves, whether Christ, as a principle of life, dwell in us, or no. 2 Cor. xiii. 5. While so many snares, and sins, and dangers attend us, and mingle with our spiritual life, there will be something of darkness ready to rise and obscure it, that so we may maintain a holy jealousy and solicitude about our own state, that we may search with diligence to find whether we have a divine life or no, and be called and urged often to look inwards. This degree of remaining darkness, and the doubtful state of a slothful christian, is sometimes of great use to spur him onward in his race of holiness, and quicken him to aspire after the highest measures of the spiritual life; that when its acts are more vigorous it may shine with the brightest evidence, and give the soul of the believer full satisfaction and joy. It serves also to awaken the drowsy christian to keep a holy watch over his heart and practice, lest sin and temptation make a foul inroad upon his divine life, spread still a thicker cloud over his best hopes, and break the peace of his conscience. Though the principle of grace be not always self-evident, yet we are required to give diligence to make and to keep it sure. 2 Pet. i. 10. And as it was proper that every little seed of grace should not shine with self-sufficient and constant evidence on the account of the christian himself, so, secondly, it was fit that their state and dignity should not be too obvious to the men of the world, that they might |