are professors of it should take heed that you do nothing to cast shame
on this gospel. Do not mingle the christian faith with doubtful notions
of your own. Do not defile your christian conversation with sinful
practices. Do not make the lesser circumstances and appendages of your
religion the matter of loud contest, and a party strife; for all these
things expose the gospel to shame, and may justly put its professors to
the blush, in the face of the world, when they are guilty of these
practices.
Let me insist a little upon each of these.
1. Do not mingle the christian faith with doubtful notions and fancies
of your own. The articles of our christianity, and the necessary truths
of the gospel, are divine and glorious: Take heed you do not bring in
your peculiar sentiments and favourite opinions, which have no
sufficient evidence from the word of God, and join them in the same
dignity with the articles of your faith; and much less should you dare
to impose them upon the consciences of your fellow-christians. The
gospel itself will suffer by it, and sink in the esteem of the world,
when the divine doctrines of it are mingled with our weaknesses, and
debased by the addition of our doubtful sentiments.
2. Defile not your christian conversation with sinful practices. Indulge
not a conformity to this present evil world in any of the corrupt and
unlawful customs and courses of it. Mingle not your practice of the
lovely duties which this gospel enjoins, with lying, and slandering, and
railing; do not interline your lives with religion and sin, with
devotion and shameful lusts. It is a gospel that forbids all iniquity,
it requires that you mortify sin and _cleanse yourselves from every
defilement of flesh and spirit_, and that you go on to _perfect holiness
in the fear of the Lord_; 2 Cor. vii. 1. The very design and end of it
in God’s eternal counsels and contrivance, is, _that you might be holy,
and without blame before him in love_; Eph. i. 4. If you pursue this
advice, then shall others, who behold you, confess that there is
something divine in christianity, when you thus adorn the doctrine of
God your Saviour. Thus you give the gospel its due honour by believing
all it reveals, by worshipping according to the methods of its
appointment, and by that purity of conversation which it enjoins.
3. Make not the lesser circumstances and appendages of your religion the
matter of loud contest, and a party-strife. We are called to _contend
earnestly for the_ great and necessary doctrines of _faith_, which were
once delivered to the saints: But we are commanded also to receive those
that are weak in the faith, without involving them _in doubtful
disputations_ about matters of less moment. Give no occasion to the
infidel to blaspheme the gospel by your factions and quarrels, and the
rage of a bitter and unsanctified zeal. Oh that the time were come, when
_the wolf and lamb shall lie down together, and there shall be nothing
to hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain_! But surely, it is very
hard if the lambs themselves, who belong to the flock of Christ, cannot
live without hurting and destroying one another; that christians cannot
live without exposing their divine and heavenly religion to the
blasphemies of sinful men. Happy were the christian world, if we could
all behave ourselves so as never to give occasion to the adversary to
reproach the professors of the christian faith, nor throw shame and
dishonour upon the gospel of Christ! May the blessed Spirit of God teach
us this lesson effectually, and let it be copied out in our lives daily,
till we arrive at the regions of perfect holiness and love! _Amen._
SERMON XVII.
_A Rational Defence of the Gospel: Or, Courage in Professing
Christianity._
ROM. i. 16.——I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.
THE THIRD PART.
Though the passion of shame has something in it that sinks our nature,
and enfeebles our spirits, yet it is a very becoming passion, where sin
is the object of it; and indeed it was wisely ordained by our Creator to
be a guardian to those small remains of natural virtue that abide in us
since the fall. We find the first young sinners clothed with shame in
the garden of Eden at the presence of God. But the growing corruption of
our natures, the subtilty of Satan, and the temptations of this world
have joined together to take this piece of artillery out of the hands of
virtue, and make use of it in their attacks upon religion and goodness.
We ought to be ashamed indeed of nothing but our sin, our folly, and our
wretchedness; but we have been too ready to be ashamed, even of the
grace of God, and the methods of our recovery from folly, wretchedness,
and sin. The gospel itself, _the glorious gospel_, has been made a
matter of reproach among men, and its professors have been sometimes
tempted to be ashamed of it.
The blessed apostle in my text had gained a victory over this
temptation, for he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Whatsoever
there might be contained in the doctrines of this gospel, or whatsoever
might be found among the professors of it, from which infidels or
unbelievers might take occasion to throw shame and scandal upon it; yet
I have shewn in the two foregoing discourses, that all this is unjustly
charged on the gospel, and have given particular answers to both sorts
of cavils.
I go on now to the last proposal, which is to explain the force of the
apostle’s argument against shame in professing and preaching this
gospel, and to make it appear, that the words of my text contain a
general and most extensive guard, or defence, against all possible
occasions of shame in the profession of christianity; and that is, that
_the gospel of Christ is the power of God for the salvation of all that
believe_.
Now this is an argument which you, who believe in Christ, may all assume
to yourselves as well as the apostle: You cannot preach this gospel so
well as he, nor explain the reasons of your faith to others, and
establish it upon so solid and unshaken foundations of argument, as Paul
could do; but every christian, that has embraced the faith, and felt the
power of this gospel for his own salvation, may give this reason for the
profession of it, and may support his courage in opposition to all the
sharpest temptations of mockery and reproach.
When the apostle says, it is the power of God, we must suppose him to
understand, it is a most powerful means, or effectual instrument that
God uses, to save souls, and it is attended with divine power for that
end.
It is more powerful than the light of nature; for we have no just reason
to believe, that the mere light of nature, without some helps of divine
revelation, or some unwritten traditions of it, ever saved any souls at
all; and if there have been any of the sinners of the heathen nations
made partakers of grace, I think it is otherwise to be accounted for
than merely by the poor remains of the light of nature.
It is more powerful than any religion that men or angels could invent,
and more powerful too, than any religion that God himself ever invented,
or revealed, and proposed to men before the gospel of Christ. His
revelations to the patriarchs were but few; they were made here and
there to a house or two, or to a family; they were particular favours
that he bestowed upon persons called out of idolatry, nor had they a
very long, nor spreading, nor lasting influence, except in the family of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where they were frequently renewed.
It is more powerful than all the revelations of grace, which God made by
Moses to the children of Israel, and intermingled with the Jewish law:
for these discoveries reached but to one single nation, and wrought but
feebly toward the conversion of sinful souls to God and holiness, in
comparison of what the gospel of Christ has done.
Besides, let it be considered, that all the power which all the former
discoveries of grace to the patriarchs, or to the Jews, had to save
souls, was derived from the gospel of Christ, which is contained in them
in lower measures, and in a more obscure manner. Therefore since the
gospel of Christ now stands forth in open light, and in full glory, it
is most eminently powerful to convert sinners, to bring this apostate
world back again to God, and to save millions of souls.
I. It is the most powerful means of salvation, considered in itself, and
in its own nature and influence.—II. It is the most powerful means, as
it is accompanied with the influences of the Holy Spirit.
The first of these maybe called a moral persuasive influence; the last
is supernatural and sovereign. Let us meditate on each of these
distinctly.
I. It is the most powerful means, if we consider the gospel in itself,
and its own nature. Not that the mere word of the gospel, reaching the
ears of men, is sufficient to change the heart, and to save the soul
without divine influences: For it is said to be the power of God to
salvation; that is, it is that doctrine whereby God exerts his divine
power to save sinful man. But still it must be granted, that the
doctrine itself in its own nature has a very great and evident tendency
to this glorious end, as it is the noblest, the richest, and the
brightest discovery of grace that ever was made to man.
If we consider it in its own nature, it has the greatest moral power, or
persuasive influence toward the salvation of perishing sinners. This is
easily proved by explaining what this salvation means.
Salvation includes in it a freedom from the guilt and punishment of sin,
together with a right and title to heaven; it implies also a freedom
from the power of sin, and thereby a preparation for heaven, and a final
possession of it. Under each of these considerations it will appear with
great evidence, that _the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the power
of God to salvation_.
1. It is the most powerful means to set sinners free from the guilt and
punishment of sin, and to relieve a distressed conscience under the
sense of divine anger: It gives the most effectual security to a
believer against the terrors of hell and eternal death; for it not only
declares, that there is forgiveness with God, but it shews us the
foundation upon which this forgiveness stands, namely, the satisfaction
made to the offended justice of God by the death and sacrifice of Jesus
Christ, his Son. Suppose it were possible for a philosopher, or wise
man, to prove that God would forgive the sins of the penitent, yet there
is nothing but the gospel that can set the conscience at such joyful
ease from the terror of guilt, and release the soul from the chains
wherewith it was held: “For now, says the believer, I not only hear it
proved by divine testimony, that there is pardon of sin to be obtained
from God, but I see how God may do it with honour: I behold the
atonement that is made by Christ Jesus, his own Son: The atonement is
equal to the offence: He can justify me, though I am a sinner, upon the
account of this perfect righteousness, and he can do it with glory to
all his terrible perfections; therefore I may venture my assent to this
doctrine, and I may rest my soul upon it.”
2. The gospel is a powerful means also to raise undeserving sinners to a
hope of heaven and eternal life. It shews us what heaven is, by the
discoveries of one that has been there, even the Son of God himself.
_Life and immortality are brought to light by this gospel_, which lay
hid under much darkness before; 2 Tim. i. 10. It teaches us also, how
the happiness of heaven is procured for us, even by the obedience and
blood of the Son of God; and therefore, some think, heaven is called
_the purchased possession_ in Eph. i. 14. It assures us, that this
blessed state of the enjoyment of God in unchangeable peace, and in the
company of blessed spirits, waits for every believer, when he is
dislodged from this flesh, and when the habitation of the body is no
longer fit to retain the spirit: And it reveals also the final heaven of
the saints, when the body shall be raised into immortality. “Without
this gospel, says the soul, I could have no just ground to hope for
heaven; for all my best righteousnesses are imperfect, my fairest acts
of holiness have many defects in them; but I behold the perfect
righteousness of my Saviour that has procured it. A life of holiness
without defect, and a most submissive obedience to a painful and
shameful death, has been the price and purchase of it.”
3. This gospel is a most powerful means to subdue sin in the soul, to
mortify corrupt nature, to inspire us with virtue, to wean our hearts
from vice, sensuality, and trifles, and from all the insufficient
pretences to blessedness that the world can flatter us with. The gospel
of Christ, both in his own personal ministry of it, and in the writings
of his apostles, sets before us the most divine scheme of morality,
piety and virtue, that ever the world knew. The sacred dictates of
probity and goodness towards men, as well as the venerable rules of
piety toward God, which are scattered up and down in an imperfect and
obscure manner among the philosophers, and shine like a star here and
there in the midnight darkness of heathenism; these are all collected
and refined in the gospel of Christ, and fill the christian world with a
pure and universal light like the sun unclouded in a meridian sky: We
know our duty infinitely better from the instructions of Christ and St.
Paul, than all the Platos, and the Plutarchs, all the Zenos and the
Antonines of Greece and Rome, could ever teach us.
The most divine rules of the gospel are attended also with the noblest
motives to love virtue, and to hate all vice; for never was the evil of
sin so displayed to the eyes and senses of men, as by the cross and
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Never did sin appear so hateful, so
abominable, so justly the object of divine and human hatred, as when it
appeared pressing the soul of the holy One of God into agonies and sharp
anguish. A believer, who has seen the evil of sin as revealed in this
gospel, will hate it, and will be led powerfully to a conquest over it.
Besides, the terrors of hell are revealed to us among the doctrines of
christianity, as the just punishment of sin, and that in such a manner
as no other religion pretends to: For, as the doors of heaven are opened
by our Lord Jesus Christ, both by his ministry on earth, and by his
ascent into heaven, and by the farther discoveries which his apostles
have made of the future unseen happy world, so the doors of hell are
opened too. Our Lord Jesus himself preached hell and terrors to sinners
with a sacred vehemence, and set everlasting fire in a clearer and more
dreadful light than ever had been done by all the philosophers in the
world. The soul of every saint has been in some measure a witness of
this truth, when it lay under the work of divine conviction.
And not only the horrid nature and evil of sin, and the dreadful
consequences of it, are powerful motives to make us stand afar off, and
fear it: but “The sweet and constraining influence of the love of Christ
does most effectually incline me, saith the believer, to hate every sin,
and to follow after universal holiness: Shall I build up again the
things which my Saviour died to destroy? This would be to make him
suffer agonies in vain, and run counter to all the designs of his
bleeding love, and the voluntary sacrifice of his soul?”
“I have also the glorious and perfect example of my blessed Lord: Never
did virtue and religion shine so bright, and look so amiable as in his
life, and he has set it before me as my pattern: I feel the attractive
and divine power of it: Where my Lord leads, I must follow; for I would
fain be like him. He draws me by his example, and he draws me too by his
heavenly promises. He spreads the glories and the joys of heaven before
me, to allure my hope; I see those sacred glories, I long after the
possession of these unfading joys, and I must and will keep the path
that leads to paradise, that where my Lord is, I may be also. The rules
and precepts of holiness, which my Lord has taught me, are more pure,
more clean, more perfect, more divine and godlike, than ever any other
scheme of rules and duties was; and the joyful and dreadful motives
given me to press after this holiness, are infinitely beyond all the
motives that any doctrine of religion has proposed. Blessed be God that
I ever learnt those holy rules, that I ever felt the power of these
divine motives, and am become a lover of holiness.”
4. Thus the gospel prepares the saint for heaven, and fits every power
of his soul for the business and blessedness of those happy regions.
“Once, says he, I had no delight in spiritual things; I had no relish of
spiritual pleasures; but now I taste them with delight, and I rejoice in
the hopes of a sweeter and more complete taste of them on high. Once I
had no love to God: it is true, I feared him as some unknown and
extraordinary terror; but I had no delight in him, no desire after him.
Now he is the object of my warmest love, and of my sweetest meditations.
Heaven itself, as it is described in the word of God, was not pleasant
to me. What! The everlasting continuance of a sabbath? Perpetual
employments of worship and service to be done for God everlastingly?
These are things that were not agreeable to carnal nature; but by the
influence of this gospel of Christ my heart is new-moulded, and I
delight in the fore-thoughts of such a heaven as the gospel describes.”
Such instances as these of the sweet efficacy of the gospel upon the
soul of man, turning it into a divine temper, and fitting it for the
enjoyment of God, are so many proofs of the power of this gospel unto
salvation, and so many grounds and reasons why the believer cannot be
ashamed of it.
But I must add, in the fifth place, it is the gospel of Christ that
brings believers to the final possession of heaven. Then, and not till
then, is the salvation perfect, it is the gospel that has given us an
unchangeable promise of heaven, when our state of trial is ended here on
earth, and Christ is bound to fulfil it. The gospel assures us, that
when we are absent from the body, we shall be present with the Lord.
When we see the heavens open at the death of Stephen the first martyr,
and Jesus Christ, standing there to receive his departing spirit; we
believe that the same Jesus will fulfil the same kind office to us also,
and receive our spirits, if we have been found faithful to the death.
The same gospel also gives us a more distant hope and glorious assurance
of the resurrection of our bodies from the prison of the grave. When we
behold the body of our blessed Saviour rising from the tomb, and
ascending to glory, and when we are told, that his resurrection is a
pledge and pattern of ours; then with a joyful expectation we wait for
the same blessedness. The gospel lays an obligation upon Christ himself
to raise his saints from the dead; for he himself tells us, that it is
the will of his Father, that every one which seeth the Son, and
believeth on him, should have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day; John vi. 40.
Hence it comes to pass, that the believer triumphs over death under the
influence of these hopes. “Now, saith the saint, I can venture to die;
for my spirit shall be received to dwell with my Saviour among the
spirits of the just that are made perfect. These feeble and withering
limbs of mine I can chearfully commit them to dust and the grave; for
the great trumpet must sound, the dead must arise, my Redeemer will call
my flesh from its dark prison; I shall arise to meet the Lord in the
air, and dwell with him for ever in unknown worlds of blessedness.” Thus
I have shewn you the first thing I proposed, _viz._ how the gospel in
its own nature has a very proper and powerful tendency in a moral or
persuasive way towards the salvation of the soul, as it insures
pardoning grace and final blessedness to believers.
II. I come now to shew how the gospel is made powerful to the salvation
of sinners by the accompanying influence of the Spirit of God, and this
is supernatural and sovereign. If I should run over all the particulars
I have just before mentioned, I might make it appear in each of them,
how the Spirit of God by the word of his gospel, works this salvation.
It is this blessed Spirit that awakens the stupid and thoughtless sinner
to a sense of his guilt and danger. It is he shews him the evil of sin,
and makes him groan after deliverance, and cry out, what shall I do to
be saved? And it is the Spirit that reveals and discovers Christ Jesus
to him as the only and all-sufficient Saviour: It is he who shews the
convinced sinner, that there is righteousness and grace to be found in
Christ, to answer all his present complaints and necessities. The word
of the gospel says these things indeed, but it is like a _dead letter_,
till the living spirit speaks them over again, and, as it were,
constrains us to hear the voice of encouragement and hope. It is he
represents the death and sufferings of the Son of God, as an effectual
atonement for sin, and makes the soul believe it, and teaches us how to
lay hold on this hope, to fly to this refuge, to receive this atonement:
It is the Spirit of God that softens the hardest heart, and melts it
into godly sorrow: It is he makes us willing to accept of Jesus as a
Prince and a Saviour, to renew our sinful natures, to refine our hearts,
and thereby to reform our lives: It is he that takes the blood of
Christ, and applies it to a distressed conscience under the guilt of
sin, and thus gives the disquieted soul rest and peace: _He takes of the
things of Christ, and shews them unto us_ in all their glory and
sufficiency for our salvation, and thereby justly obtains the name of
the paraclete, that is, an _advocate_ for Christ, and a _comforter_ to
us: John xiv. 26. and xv. 26. and xvi. 14, 15. He composes the ruffles
of the disturbed mind, and speaks all the waves of the soul into a calm:
He makes all within us peaceful and easy, under the apprehensions of
divine forgiveness through the merit of Christ.
It is only the Spirit of God that can make the discoveries of heaven in
the gospel effectual to awaken our hope, and to raise our joy: He shews
us how it is purchased by the blood of Christ, and that it is made sure
to all those that believe: He stamps his own holy image upon us, and
seals us up for the inheritance of heaven; Eph. i. 13. _When ye heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation_, and _believed it, ye
were_ then _sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance_. The Spirit is sent into our hearts as a _Spirit of
adoption, whereby we call God Father_; Gal. iv. 6. And he changes us
from children of wrath into the sons and daughters of the living God;
and he himself dwelling in us is a pledge and _earnest of that
inheritance, which is reserved for us among the saints in light_.
It is the same blessed Spirit that makes the gospel of Christ powerful
to mortify sin in us; for though the words of the gospel forbid all
iniquity, and require us to renounce the lusts of the flesh, and the
vanities of the world, if we belong to Christ; yet it is by the Spirit
of God alone that we are enabled to _mortify the deeds of the body_,
that we may obtain eternal life: It is he that makes the commands of
Christ come with divine power and authority upon the soul, and gives the
motives of the gospel power to persuade us: It is he that renews our
affections, makes us hate sin, and love God supremely, and causes us to
delight in the spiritual pleasures of a future, unseen world, which
before we treated with contempt, or disregard: It is by the
_sanctification of the Spirit, and the belief of the truth_, that we are
prepared for the heavenly _glory whereunto we are called by the gospel_;
2 Thess. ii. 13. And since the Spirit of God is promised to _dwell in us
for ever_; John xiv. 16, 17. we have good reason to believe he will be
our eternal Sanctifier in heaven and our eternal Comforter.
There is such a thing as the influence of the Spirit of God attending
the gospel of Christ. The apostle argues thus with the Galatian
christians, _Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the
hearing of faith?_ Gal. iii. 2. And it is the great promise of the
gospel, or the new covenant, that God would _send his Spirit_ to make it
powerful for the blessed ends for which he has designed it; Ezek. xxxvi.
25, 26, 27. Joel. ii. 28. Zech. xii. 10. Is. xliv. 3.