The very hairs of your head are all numbered....Matt. x. 30. Therefore I NEVER can understand this, says carnal reason. reject it, says human pride. What didst thou ever gain, O christian, by indulging carnal reasonings or giving way to human pride? Verily, many a sad hour, many an uncomfortable frame. O, how happy doth simple faith make the heart! it receives every word which the Lords speaks, and draws comfort from it. It serves carnal reason and pride, as David did his ten concubines. He put them in ward and shut them up to the day of their death....2 Sam. xx. 3. For verily they are like the spies which Moses sent out, "who brought up an evil report of the land."....Numb. xiii. 32. Therefore listen not at all to their suggestions. Our Lord never spoke a word to be the subject for thy curious speculations; but that thou shouldst humbly believe it, exercise thy believing mind upon it, and derive peace and comfort from it. Our Lord had been telling his disciples things very disagreeable to flesh and blood. That they were as sheep among wolves; would be hated of all men for his name's sake and persecuted. Yet says he, fear not them who can only kill the body. They cannot touch the soul. But what disciple is there who is not subject to fear the wrath of man? Fear of being hurt is natural to us all. What can deliver a man from and set him above this fear? Nothing but the power of faith. The very hairs of your head are all brought to the suburbs of comfort. Believe and enter into it. If every the most minute excrescence of my body lies open to my heavenly Father's eye, if not one of them can fall to the ground without his permission, then carnal reason avaunt. Fears begone. Men and devils do your worst. My loving Father stands between your wrath and my soul. I am safe while omnipotence lives and everlasting love changes not. Ah, but when I think of the hairs of my head, I think of my sins. If the former are numbered, the latter are all recorded; and they are more in number than the very hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me....Psalm xl. 12. Then let sense and reason be subject to faith. Hear and rejoice at what thy Lord saith. I HAVE blotted out as a THICK CLOUD thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee....Isa. xliv. 22. Still with my God I leave my cause, And trust his promis'd grace; Here is the Lord's word. numbered. Now you are Not all the pains that ere I bore, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee....Isa. xliv. 22. None but God. Be- THUS of miserable sinners God makes happy saints. Here is the work of each divine person in the ever-glorious trinity. God the Father blots out sins in the court of heaven: God the Son by his atonement on the cross: and God the Spirit in the court of a sinner's conscience. Believe and enjoy the comfort of this. Now may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing this, and make us to abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost....Rom. xv. 13. When the dear women came unto the sepulchre to see our Lord, they said, who shall roll away the stone from the door?....Mark xvi. 3. But behold it was done. So a poor broken hearted sinner says, this thick, black, impenetrable cloud of my sins intercepts between my soul and the light of God's countenance; it prevents the comforting rays of the sun of righteousness from shining into my soul. O, who can disperse it? hold he hath done it, and he assures us of it. humble, look up and be joyful. Did you think a storm of divine wrath and terrible vengeance was gathering over your guilty head? Behold, love speaks, grace proclaims, mercy declares I have dispersed the cloud: I have blotted out thy sins. Grace super-abounds over all the aboundings of sin. A deluge of pardoning love, mercy and grace washes away all thy transgressions. They are all dispersed like a cloud driven away by the sun. What? all this rich love, mercy and grace to such a hell-deserving sinner as I am? and that too without any terms and conditions, requisites and deserts of mine? Yes, all is of rich love, free grace and sovereign mercy. But behold the end of this. It is to attach thy heart to a sin-pardoning Lord. For he says, "Return unto me." O, nothing attracts the gracious heart from sin, the world and vanity, to the Lord, like free1 and full declarations of gospel grace and pardoning love. O, my soul, return from thy backsliding ways, thy unbelieving thoughts, thy jealousies and suspicions of thy Lord's love, unto him. For "I have redeemed thee." Look on thy sins, see thyself redeemed from them by blood divine. Look to heaven; see it purchased for thee, and secured by thy Redeemer's righteousness. Now glory of, and live like a son of God and a joint heir with Christ. O, may his blood make all serene within. May that purge our conscience from all dead works to serve the living God....Heb. ix. 14. Redeeming grace, forgiving love, Thy Saviour calls, my soul, return M. Is not this the carpenter's son?....Matt. xiii. 55. "SUCH indignity I cannot bear: such insult is intolerable." Ah! who? What art thou who speakest thus? Thou sinful dust, thou proud worm of earth, look unto Jesus. See, the King of kings, the Son of God becomes a mean man, the son of a carpenter; yea more, himself a carpenter, the son of Mary....Mark vi. 3. Mark his condescension; learn humility hence. Behold his treatment and contempt. Learn patience and submission. Astonishing mystery Let reason bow and faith adore. Sinner, behold with joy and wonder thy God in flesh. Born under that curse for sin, "in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread."....Gen. iii. 19. He works at a mean trade, and follows an ordinary occupation. O ye great and mighty who are above trade, and despise those who follow it, saved ye must be by this carpenter's son, or perish everlastingly. He is the one and only object of hope and salvation. "He is God and man in one Christ. One, not by conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God." Well might Isaiah style him WONDERFUL....Chap. ix. 6. He is so, both as God and as man, and as God and man in one Christ, wonderful in love, sufferings and power to save sinners. Wonderful in his humility, for he made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a ser vant. The Jews were "astonished at him, and said, whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?" Yet they were offended in him, because of the meanness of his birth, parentage and education. Exceeding foolish: so is judging of Christ by sight and sense. But he says, "Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me."....Matt. xi. 6. It is the blessed nature and peculiar office of faith, to pierce through the mean appearance of the humanity, and to see the godhead of Christ. Here is the sure evidence of vocation, "Though Christ is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, yet to them who are CALLED, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.".... 1 Cor. i. 23,24. Now do you see salvation finished by the power and according to the wisdom of God by this carpenter's son? Mean and contemptible as he appeared in the eyes of others, do you see such matchless beauty, such divine glory shine in his person and works, as to say, My Lord and my God? O beware of looking on this as a common call. Know it is of special, peculiar, distinguishing grace. Give glory to the Holy Spirit for it. Rejoice at the meanness of thy Lord: love him for it: all was for thy salvation. Rejoice in him; though to the eye of sense mean and contemptible, yet he is "able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by him."....Heb. vii. 25. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not....1 John iii. 6. BEWARE, O my soul, of licentious spirits, who make Christ a minister of sin, instead of a Saviour from ALL sin. For such are strangers to the sweet experience of abiding in Christ, whereby sin is dethroned in the heart, the power of it subdued in the life, and holiness maintained in the soul. To abide in Christ is to continue to believe in, and rest upon him, as the dwelling of our souls. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.".... Psalm xc. 1. This is the claim and confession of the faithful. my Ask a believer, where dwellest thou? he will reply, on my own freehold, Father's patrimony, where my treasure is, IN CHRIST. Such. an one sinneth not. What! never sin in thought, word, or deed?: Has he po sin in him? This state is the earnest desire of his soul. Verily he doth not abide in Christ who doth not long for it. But so far from being in it, that every believer feels he is a lump of sin, knows that nothing but sin dwells in his flesh, finds if left to himself, he can do nothing but sin. Yet he sinneth not. 1st. He abides in the truth. He cannot so sin as to lie against the truth, and say "I have no sin." 2d. So as to reject the record of truth, that eternal life is in Christ, and make the God of truth a liar. For he believes, that free remission of sin and full justification unto eternal life, is by the blood and righteousness of Christ ONLY. 3d. As a new creature in Christ he sinneth not. He lives above the power of sin, hates all sin, walks contrary to sin, and strives against every sin. 4th. He sinneth not, as under the law of works, for he is under the grace of Christ. Though sin lives and rages in his flesh, yet he lives not in sin. He is dead to sin. Sin reigns not over him. Of every evil (let who will abuse it, at the peril of his soul) he may say with Paul: "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”......Rom. vii. 17. 5th. He sinneth not as the ungodly do or as he himself did while unregenerate. Then the whole man, spirit, soul and body loved sin, wilfully and habitually committed sin with enmity against God. But now the least sin is his grief. The very motions of sin his distress. Lastly, he sinneth not to the damnation of his soul; for there is no, not one condemnation against him, as he is in Christ Jesus. And he is kept by the power of God unto salvation. O, precious abiding of faith! Victory over every enemy. is sure; "for we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us."....Rom. viii. 37. What tho' thine inward lusts rebel? Stand up my soul, shake off thy fears, Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth....Jer. iv. 2. A REBEL under an attainder, a malefactor under sentence of death, cannot be sworn to give evidence in any court. Such is thy case, O sinner. Thou art naturally under an attainder as a rebel against the King of kings; and art under sentence of death by the law of God. But, if an earthly monarch by a royal act of sovereign mercy forgives a rebel, and pardons a malefactor, they are then good evidences in court. So it is with thee, O believer; thy attainder is taken off, thy pardon is passed under the broad seal of heaven, by a sovereign act of thy gracious Lord. But, never forget the love of Jesus who obtained this for thee. Well, now thy Lord challenges thee: "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."....Isa. xliii. 10. He subpœnas us into court. He commands us, YE SHALL SWEAR. The Lord, in our days of ignorance, got great dishonor from us, by our taking his holy and sacred name in vain: if not by profane oaths and horrid imprecations, (which alas! few have been free from) yet in many other ways. Now we are pardoned by him and returned to him, he will get honor and glory from us. Swearing an oath is, 1st. for the confirmation of the truth: 2d. to put an end to all strife....Heb. vi. 16. Christian attend to the form of thy oath: thou shalt swear the Lord liveth: can you swear this in truth from your own knowledge? Hearsay evidence cannot be admitted in any court. O, but if thy heart is quickened and turned to the Lord, if thou believest in the Son of God, verily thou canst give sure evidence that the Lord liveth. The Lord Jesus liveth in thee by faith. Thou hast fellowship with him who saith, "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for ever more, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death."....Rev. i. 18. Solemnly attest, and steadily persist in this truth, in the presence of angels and men. Confirm it by thy solemn oath before the judge of all. So shall it put an end to all strife in thy own conscience. As surely as the Lord hath quickened thy spirit, he liveth to save thy soul to the uttermost. Honor thy Lord by thy sacred testimony to his life and life-giving influence. Record thy solemn oath to thy Lord in the court of conscience; produce it against the false accusations and lying evidence of satan. Fulfil thy Lord's word: unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. "In the Lord have I righteousness and strength."....Isa. xlv. 24. Lamb of God, in thee we trust, On thy fix'd love depend: Thou art faithful, true and just, And lovest to the end. Heav'n and earth shall pass away, But thy word shall firm abide : That's thy children's stedfast stay, When all things fail beside. |