Thomas Manton · 32 of 57

The Fifth Verse. · Part 2

(2.) The power of sin. This disturbeth and filleth the soul with the sense of God’s wrath, and embittereth the soul against God. Through the strength of sin we hate God, because we cannot but look upon him as a punisher ‘of it. Now Christ slayeth this hatred by sending his Spirit to kill our enmity, to heal our poisoned natures, and maketh us more willing and careful to please God. It is said, Titus iii. 6, ‘The Spirit of regeneration is shed on us abundantly (or richly), through Jesus Christ our Saviour.’ He taketh away that rancorous disposition that is in the heart. This is the first reason: Christ taketh away hatred, and therefore purchaseth peace.

2. Because he hath taken away all show of hatred. The ceremonial law was an ordinance hinting out our guilt. Now Christ would take away whatever in show made against us, or was contrary to us: Col. ii. 14, ‘He took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.’ He would not leave any ground for doubt or suspicion; he hath provided against all our scruples: Christ would not leave the least line uncrossed, our own confessions do not make against us. As soon as you give in the bill, Christ teareth it; he hath nailed all in triumph to his cross. You can urge many things against yourselves; ay! but all these things are pardoned, and God hath nothing to show for the debt. St Paul says, 1 Tim. i. 13, ‘I was a blasphemer and a persecutor;’ a heavy bill, ‘but I obtained mercy.’ All this was taken out of the way. Christ hath not only paid the debt, but torn also the bonds. By his death on the cross he did as it were declare to the believer that God hath nothing to show against him. As there is not anger, so there should not be suspicion of anger. He hath taken up the controversy that was between God and the soul.

3. Christ hath procured us favour. Not only the matter that kindleth anger, and all show of it is taken away, but love is procured: the children of wrath are become the children of love: Mat. iii. 17, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ The eyes of God’s holiness cannot but be offended with a filthy, polluted sinner, yet he is well-pleased with them in Christ, and so they are not only objects of his love but of his delight: Isa. lxii. 4, ‘But thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah; for the Lord delighteth in thee;’ and in another place, ‘He shall rejoice over them to do them good.’ A man delighteth in things that are most suitable and agree able to his nature. There cannot be a more pleasing work to God than to do his people good. It is said, Luke xv. 5, of the lost sheep, that ‘when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.’ Before there could be no work more suitable to God’s justice than to punish sinners; whereas now it is, as the prophet calleth it, ‘his strange work,’ Isa. xxviii. 21, a thing that he would not be acquainted with towards his people. Whereas, to the wicked, still he laughs at their destruction, Prov. i. 26. Therefore, Christ hath purchased peace for us, because he hath not only taken away anger but procured favour. Among men, anger many times may be taken away, but they have not love. Rebels, after a pardon, live in a great deal of umbrage, and are under suspicion; the scars remain though the wound be cured: as Absalom, when pardoned, did not see the king’s face. Artificial cracks will be seen though soldered; but it is not so here, for we are re-instated in God’s love and affections. Christ hath satisfied wrath and merited favour; so that the soul can look upon God with a great deal of comfort and joy.

Use 1. This serveth to reprove those—

1. That fetch their peace anywhere else. No comfort is lasting but what floweth from the blood of Christ; that only is the true peace that he hath merited.

2. Those that are against peace, or the settling of the heart in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. I begin with these first, and they are of two sorts:—

[1.] Such as are grossly ignorant of Christian privileges, and think it a duty to doubt, and a matter of merit to keep themselves upon terms of perplexity. A popish spirit haunts many; they think assurance a dry doctrine, and therefore do not strive to settle their hearts; as if there could be no duty where there is no fear. Hereby they plainly discover out of what principles they act for God,—to wit, out of a servile spirit; and therefore they cannot be kept right any longer than they fear wrath. O brethren! turn these evil thoughts out of your hearts. True peace is a great benefit that Christ hath purchased for us.

[2.] Such as would fain apply themselves to Christ, but are loth to busy themselves with what should make for the settling of their hearts and establishing their spirits; as if it were more pleasing to God to keep the conscience raw with sins, than to heal it with Christ’s righteousness. A man should labour after peace with God, and peace of conscience too. It is a natural superstitious thought to think God is pleased with the mere sorrow of a creature; and, therefore, false worshippers have wounded themselves, that they might make some dolorous impressions upon his mind. Christ suffered the sorrows that you might have the peace; the chastisement of your peace was upon him. Why should you stand out against comfort, if there were not some secret thought of satisfying by your sorrow? Now you are not to satisfy, but Christ. It is good to reflect upon wrath, to drive us to mercy; but it is not good to dwell always in the preparations, for that is to forget our errand, and to stay in the porch when we should enter into the temple. Labour to get an interest in him in whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

3. It reproveth such as would have peace, but not this way, but upon wrong grounds. Now that is an evil peace that cometh any other way. Look to the grounds of your peace. How came you to such a peaceable frame of heart? The false grounds are:—

[1.] Ignorance of our condition. A man doth not fear danger till he be sensible of it. Now many do not know that God and they are at such terms of distance and anger. Little doth a man trouble himself when he doth not know what evil is determined against him: Rom. iii. 11, ‘There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they have no understanding.’ And it is easy to go hoodwinked to hell. Blinded sinners go merrily to the pit of destruction, never dreaming that danger was so near hand. Poor souls that do not know the worst by themselves! This is the greatest judgment that can be fall them.

[2.] Carelessness in others. When men cannot put off sorrow, they put it by, and will not so much as reflect upon themselves. You may know it is bad with men when they cannot endure to look inward. Things that are evil cannot brook a trial; men will put all care out of their hearts as to their eternal concerns.

[3.] When men avoid whatever may put them in mind of their misery. There are two things that humble men, doing of duty and striving against sin.

(1.) Doing of duty seriously, that will make men see what profane, unsavoury, and senseless spirits they have. A man that lieth abed doth not feel his lame leg, but when he goeth to walk upon it he does. Exercise the soul in inward duties, and you will see it diseased. We know things when we come to make trial of them: therefore, wicked men will not meddle in inward and hearty duties, lest thereby they should discover the soul to itself. Formal duties make men the more secure: they are thereby apt to think better of themselves than they ought. The pharisee thought himself in a good case, because of his vain fasting, giving alms, and paying tithes. So formal duties are a vain refuge. But now duties wholly spiritual, and spiritually performed, make men see the weakness and wickedness of their spirits; but they are looked upon as such a disturbance to wicked men that they cannot endure to hear of them.

(2.) Resisting of sin. Tumult is caused by opposition. When a man tamely yieldeth to Satan, no wonder if he be let alone. The devil rageth most when we set against him: Rev. xii. 12, ‘For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.’ Dying beasts bite shrewdly. Oh, how is the poor soul tortured with sin, when it is about to quit it! The sea doth not rage so much when the wind and the tide go together. Please the worst natures and they will not disturb you. This is a peace that will end in trouble: there will be a quarrelling between affections and convictions when a sinner cometh to be serious and thoughtful.

[4.] When men do what they can to divert all care and minding of their condition: this is like a few stolen waters, when they can get conscience asleep. As it is said, Prov. ix. 17, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ They lull the soul asleep by pleasures, or distract it by business. They never keep the heart empty that they may enter into themselves. As Cain built cities, so carnal men drown themselves in business or pleasures.

Use 2. Is direction, to teach us what to do if we would have peace when our consciences are enraged. Go to Christ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Get an interest in Christ, and you have an interest in God. God is not to be had as a friend without Christ. Get him and you are presently interested in God’s favour. For ‘he that has the Son hath the Father also.’

But, you will say, how shall I get an interest in Christ? I answer—in one word—By faith; that is the way to get Christ to you with all his benefits; and, therefore, faith is expressed by receiving Christ: John i. 12, ‘To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God;’ and Eph. iii. 17, Christ is said to ‘dwell in our hearts by faith.’ You must say, in the language of faith here, ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him.’ Those that offered a peace-offering were to lay their hands upon the head of the sacrifice, which implieth a kind of joining. So Christ is the peace-offering, and you must lay your hands upon his head. When Thomas believed, he cried, ‘My Lord and my God.’ That gives your souls the possession of Christ; and if of Christ, of God. But briefly I might from this speak to two sorts of persons:—

1. To secure sinners.

2. To poor broken-hearted sinners that labour under the sense of wrath. But having spoken from several passages of Christ’s sufferings for them, and more remaining to be insisted on from other verses, I shall now only speak a little to secure sinners. I shall press them to two things:—

[1.] To consider their condition; and,

[2.] The danger of their condition.

[1.] Consider your condition. You are. in a state of enmity with God; God is at war with you. That this may appear to you, weigh these things following:—

(1.) That your condition is not to be measured by your present feeling and apprehension. A man may be in danger, though he be not sensible of it: Isa. lvii. 21, ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked: they are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest.’ The wicked do not think so, but my God saith so. It is what God speaketh to you, not what you think of yourselves. Wicked men’s lives slide away in pastimes, and pomp, and pleasure; but still they are under continual danger, though they mind it not. Mark that expression; 2 Peter ii. 3, it is said, ‘Their damnation slumbereth not.’ Though they slumber, their damnation doth not slumber. If men could make their condemnation sleep as well as themselves, it were well. Do not measure your estate by your own thoughts, but by God’s heart towards you, how he looketh upon you in Christ. God may be angry with you and you not know it.

(2.) Remember that God is angry with every man in his natural condition. Till you get an interest in Christ, you have not God for a Father. There is a war between God and every natural man. Those that think themselves at peace with God from their cradles upwards, never were at peace with him. You are at peace with God, you say, when you are at war with him. The scripture speaks otherwise of you: Eph. ii. 2, You are ‘children of wrath, even as others.’ And, John iii. 36, ‘The wrath of God abideth on them.’ This you must take for granted. There was a time when you were fallen out with God and God with you, even as well as others those that embraced the Christian profession, as well as Turks and pagans. We are indeed estranged from the womb, but we are not reconciled from the womb, Ps. lviii. 3; therefore, whatever you think, you must conclude that God is angry till you can get him pacified in Christ.

(3.) There are expressions of this anger and enmity that pass between God and the soul, though we do not take notice of it.

(1st.) On our part there are a great many expressions of our enmity to God; as hatred of his being, wishing he were not, slighting of his ordinances, rebellion against his laws, a rising of heart against his servants; a rancorous tumult, and rebellious storming in our affections against his providence; a vexing that he doth so thwart us in our ways and courses. This is our war. Then vexing and grieving his blessed Spirit. God hath told us what will grieve him, and yet, contrary to all the motions of his blessed Spirit, and the checks of our own consciences, we will go on our own way. As Esau took a wife from the daughters of Heth, which was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah, Gen. xxvi. 35.

(2dly.) From God to us. There are some flashes of wrath, and opening of our consciences, fears of hell, horrors, Hosea ii. 6. Hedging up our ways with thorns, and making a wall that we should not find our paths, which maketh us to vex and storm when we cannot have as much as we desire. So likewise by turning all providences into a snare, cursing all ordinances to us. Now and then, I say, God discovereth much wrath to the soul, that it cannot but see it. Oh, then, labour to be sensible of your condition. You think to rub it out well enough, and yet you see there are many expressions of war between God and you.

[2.] Consider the danger of your condition. Oh, it is a sad thing to be at war with God. If a man were at war with one with whom he were able to make his party good, it were no such matter; but this you can never do with God. Foolish man thinketh so, and therefore the apostle saith, 1 Cor. x. 22, ‘Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?’ Will ye act so flatly against his commandments, as if you thought you should be able to bear out yourselves in the transgression? That you may not think so, consider:—

(1.) He it is that upholdeth you in your beings, and he can resolve you into nothing, as easily as he could create you out of nothing. Solomon saith, Prov. xvi. 14, that ‘the wrath of a king is as the messenger of death;’ that is, you had as good have one to come and tell you that you shall die, as to come and tell you that a king is angry with you. A wrinkle in the brow of majesty is as a grave to you. If men were sensible, it is much more true of the wrath of God; he can speak you out of your beings in an instant. It is said, Heb. i. 2, ‘He upholdeth all things by the word of his power.’ And would a man be angry with him that is able to speak him into nothing? Now thus it is with God.

(2.) Besides his power, consider the whole creation taketh part with God; and when he pleaseth he is able to arm the meanest creatures against you. As he said that would not dispute with a king, ‘I have learned not to contend with him that is able to command legions;’ so should we say, that we will not contend with God, that is able to command the creatures. The meanest worm is able to revenge God’s quarrel against you. Sometimes God declareth his power against his enemies by frogs, flies, mean contemptible things, as we read concerning the plagues of Egypt. So Herod was eaten up of worms, Acts xii. 23; and Pope Adrian was choked with a gnat. I would not willingly expatiate on these things, to offer only matter to your fancies, but beseech you to weigh it in your thoughts. God might kill you with the least fly that hummeth about you, and you have deserved it. It is not only the more dangerous things that can do man hurt, but all things. Consider this, I pray you; God doth more eminently discover it to you, that you may consider it.

(3.) If nobody else, yet God can make use of your own selves against yourselves. He need plague a man no worse than to open his own conscience against him. As Luther said, for a man to see but his own sins, is as great a hell as can be imagined. This hath made saints to roar, Ps. xxxii. 3. This dried up David’s moisture, ver. 4. Spira would give all the world for one motion of the Spirit to make him believe what was proposed to him concerning Christ. See that expression, Job vi. 4, ‘The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirits; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.’ Just as a man runneth up and down in distraction that hath a poisoned arrow shot into his bowels. In the whole circuit of nature you cannot find one medicine that will heal this grief. All friends, comforts, and relations, are nothing, and all other troubles are but sport and recreation to these. Spiritual good and evil, both are not known till felt. Oh, consider how it will be with you when God shall bring out all those unclean thoughts, horrid oaths, lies, deceits that you have been guilty of. All shall be set on upon the heart, and you become a terror to yourselves.

(4.) He is able to ruin you, body and soul, eternally; and so he will deal with all his enemies: Mat. xxi. 41, ‘He will miserably destroy those wicked men.’ Not only destroy, but miserably destroy. Many are encouraged in their attempts, that if they be ruined, it is but their fortune, there is the worst of it. Now he is able to destroy you so as you shall not know the worst of it; he is able to sink you below all happiness of being or subsistence. Oh, consider the end of those whose peace is not made with God! Judgments without measure, most extreme and exquisite sufferings without mitigation, not a drop of cold water to cool the tongue; judgment without mercy.

By his stripes we are healed.

Doct. That the healing of our natures, as well as peace and reconciliation with God, is the fruit of Christ’s sufferings. Three things are here to be taken notice of:—

1. Healing puts us in mind of a disease incurable by human art, or any remedies that are in our power.

2. Health implieth our recovery out of this disease, or our salvation by Christ.

3. The means of this recovery is by Christ’s stripes.

First, For the disease.

1. The soul hath its diseases as well as the body, and may be in a good or ill plight, as well as the body. It is in a good plight when it is fit to serve God or enjoy him. It is in an ill plight, or diseased, when it is disabled for these ends. The diseases therefore of the soul are those inordinate dispositions by which it is hindered from bringing forth actions agreeable or belonging to the spiritual life. This came to pass by Adam’s sin, which, according to the tenor of the first covenant, is imputed to all those who were naturally propagated from him, they being thereupon deprived of original righteousness; whereby we became blind in our minds, perverse in our hearts, and so sold under sin; and till we be freed by the grace of God, we cannot but act sinfully, and daily contract and strengthen evil habits and inclinations. Therefore the work of conversion is expressed by healing: Isa. vi. 10, ‘And convert and be healed.’ When these distempers and perverse inclinations of the soul are done away, we are healed, otherwise we lie under the power of a blind mind, and a hard heart, a guilty conscience and carnal affections, which are as so many deadly wounds and diseases of the soul.

2. The diseases of the soul are greater than those of the body, as being seated in the nobler part, and so the wound is the more grievous. As a cut in the body is worse than a rent in the clothes, so is a wound in the soul more grievous than a cut in the body. The diseases of the body tend only to the death of the body, which of itself must necessarily die: Eccles. xii. 7, ‘Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was;’ and then by the power of God shall certainly rise again. But the diseases of the soul, as they make us unuseful to God for the present, so they tend to eternal destruction and death both of body and soul for ever: Mat. x. 28, ‘But rather fear him that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.’

3. I assert that sin is the great sickness of the soul. There are two sorts of diseases in the soul:—

[1.] Terrors, or spiritual bondage, by which the soul is driven from God, and cannot think of him, or seek after him, with any comfort or peace. And this is a sore and evil disease indeed, for the curing of which Christ also came; for it is said, Ps. cxlvii. 3, ‘He hath healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds;’ Luke iv. 18, ‘He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted.’ Which he doth by pardon or peace, the former benefit mentioned in this verse.

[2.] Sins, or evil habits and inclinations, which disable us from pleasing of God. These are the worst sort of diseases, as being the cause of the other; for terrors entered into the world with sin. When Adam had sinned against God he was afraid of him, and ran to the bushes, Gen. iii. 8-10. And when sin is taken away, the others cease. Now that sin is the great sickness and wound of the soul, I shall prove by these considerations:—

First, It is a wasting disease; it bringeth the soul into a languishing condition, and wasteth the strength of it. Therefore our natural estate is described to be an estate without strength: Rom. v. 6, ‘When we were yet without strength, Christ died for us;’ that is, without strength to help ourselves out of that misery into which sin had plunged us. Sin hath weakened the soul in all the faculties of it, which all may discern and observe in themselves. The mind is weakened; for how acute and discerning soever it be in earthly things, it is stupid and dull in things spiritual and heavenly. We see little of the danger of eternal damnation, or the worth of eternal salvation, or the need of Christ, or the serious preparation for the world to come: 2 Peter i. 9, ‘He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off.’ These things, that is, faith and other graces of the Spirit. And then the memory is weakened; it is true and faithful in retaining what is evil, but slippery and treacherous in what is good. These things we easily let slip, as leaky vessels do the liquor contained in them: Heb. ii. 1, ‘Therefore we ought to give the more diligent heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.’ Our will is fixedly inclined to evil, and averse to good: ‘Their heart is fully set in them to do evil,’ Eccles. viii. 11. The affections are like tinder, apt to catch fire at the spark of every temptation: Prov. vii. 22, ‘He goeth after her straightway.’ But they are like wet wood as to the entertainment of any heavenly motion: 1 Cor. ii. 14, ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ Therefore sin hath made fearful havoc in the soul, and destroyed the strength and right constitution of it. The strength of man lieth not in the robust, healthy temper of his body; that is a brutish strength, and a bull or an ox exceedeth us in that; nor merely in the strength of natural parts, for therein many pagans excel many Christians: but it lies in the strength of grace, strength to overcome temptations to sin, to govern our passions and affections, to do the things which God commandeth, that is strength indeed, the strength of the inward man. See, on the other side, man’s proper strength described, Prov. xvi. 32, ‘He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.’ On the other side see weakness described, Ezek. xvi. 30, ‘How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman!’ That is a weak heart that lieth open to every temptation; that is at the beck of every foolish and hurtful lust, as pride, sensuality, worldliness, carnal fear and sorrow. An imperious heart is a weak heart, and this weakness sin hath brought upon us.

Secondly, It is a painful disease, it woundeth the spirit; and a wounded spirit who can bear? Prov. xviii. 14. Greatness of mind may support us under a wounded body, but when there is a breach made upon the conscience, what can relieve us then? Take either a tender conscience, or a raging, stormy conscience, for an instance to show what sin is. Ask of Cain and Judas, and they will tell you what horror and anguish it breedeth in the soul, what storms and tempests it raiseth in the mind: Gen. iv. 13, ‘My iniquity is greater than I can bear.’ Their lives, yea, all their comforts, are a burden to them. Nay, ask any man whose heart is well awaked, and he will tell you, that the sense of the guilt of sin is bitterer to the soul than the gall of asps, and that no tortures are comparable to the piercing stings of an accusing conscience. Even holy David could say, Ps. xxxviii. 1-3, ‘Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thine hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.’ If this holy man, whose heart was upright with God, did thus complain, what should they do who are nothing else but wounds and putrified sores from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot? We think a man in a fever is in a miserable condition, who hath little rest day or night: but alas! feverish flames are nothing to the scorchings of conscience, and the fearful apprehensions of divine wrath: they that are under these are miser able indeed, because the pains of hell do compass them round about, and wherever they go, they carry their own hell along with them.

Object. But you will say, They that are most infected with sin feel little of this; how is it then so painful a disease?

Ans. 1. If they feel it not, the greater is their danger; for stupid diseases are the worst, and usually most mortal. It is an ill crisis and state of soul when men are past feeling: Eph. iv. 19, ‘Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness.’ These have out grown their consciences. There is hope of sensible sinners; their anguish may drive them to the physician, and make them inquisitive after a remedy: Acts ii. 37, ‘When they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ But it is more dangerous when sins do not terrify but stupefy. A spiritual lethargy is the common disease that ruineth the far greatest part of the world.