Thomas Manton · 24 of 67

Verse 4. · Part 6

Uses. Well, then, we learn hence:—

1. That Christ is a proper object for faith. Faith is built on God, 1 Peter i. 21, and Christ is God; and therefore his merit was sufficient to redeem the church, which is therefore said to be ‘purchased by the blood of God,’ Acts xx. 28. This maketh him able to sanctify us, and purge us, for his blood was ‘offered through the eternal Spirit,’ Heb. ix. 14. As God he knoweth our wants; for as to his divine nature he knoweth all things; and then he hath a human nature that hath had experience of them. He is able, as God, to give in the supplies of the Spirit, to save to the uttermost, Heb. vii. 25. God manifested in our flesh is a firm basis for faith and comfort.

2. Since he was God by nature, let us observe the love of Christ in becoming man. Men show their love to one another when they hang their picture about their neck. What did Christ when he took our nature? To see the great God in the form of a servant, or hanging upon the cross, how wonderful! ‘God manifested in our flesh’ is a mystery fit for the speculation of angels, 1 Tim. iii. 16, with 1 Peter, i. 11; it would have seemed a blasphemy for us to have thought it, to have desired it. Among the friars, they count it a mighty honour done to their order if a great prince, when he is weary of the world, cometh among them, and taketh their habit, and dieth in their habit. Certainly it is a mighty honour to mankind that Christ took our nature, and died in our nature, and that he was ‘made sin,’ ‘made man,’ ‘made a curse.’ Let us desire to be made partakers of his nature, as he was of ours. This is our preferment, to ‘be partakers of the divine nature,’ 2 Peter i. 4, as this was his abasement. The sun of righteousness went backward, there was the miracle; and let us use ourselves more honourably for the time to come, that we may not defile that nature which the Son of God assumed.

3. It is an invitation to press us to come to Christ, and by Christ to God. The great work of the ministers is like that of Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, to seek a match for our master’s son. Our way to win you is to tell you what he is; he is God-man in one person; he is man, that you may not be afraid of him; God, that he may be sufficient to do you good;’ the Lord of lords,’ ‘King of kings,’ the ‘heir of all things,’ the ‘Saviour of the world;’ ‘this is your beloved, ye daughters of Jerusalem.’ He knoweth your wants, is able to supply them, though you are unworthy. Come, he needeth no portion with you; we can bring nothing to him, he hath enough in himself; as Esther, the poor virgin, had garments out of the king’s wardrobe, Esther ii. 12, and the perfumes and odours given her on the king’s cost. Therefore come to him; it is danger to neglect him: ‘See that ye refuse not him that speaketh from heaven,’ Heb. xii. 25. It is God wooeth you; he will take you with nothing, he is all-sufficient; you bringing him nothing but all-necessity, he will protect you, maintain you, give you a dowry as large as heart can wish. Therefore leave not till you come to ‘I am my beloved’s, and he is mine.’

Obs. 5. I come now to the word implying their guilt, ἀρνούμενοι, denying. Observe, that it is a horrible impiety to deny the Lord Jesus; when he would make these seducers odious, he giveth them, this character. Now Christ is many ways denied. I shall refer them to two heads—in opinion and practice.

1. In opinion: so Christ is denied when men deny his natures or offices. (1.) His natures, his deity or humanity,—as those ancient and wicked heretics, Ebion and Cerinthus; and that is the reason why John beginneth his Gospel (which was last written) with a description of his Godhead, and is so zealous against them in his epistles; as also Jude and Peter. Ebion, Cerinthus, and Carpocrates, and others, held he was begotten as others are, by the help of a man. Manes held the Son of God to be a part of his Father’s substance. Saturnius, Basilides, Cordion, with others, denied the humanity of Christ, saying he only appeared in the shape of a man. Samosatanus held God was not otherwise in Christ than in the prophets. Eutyches held there was in Christ but one nature, which was made up of the commixture of his flesh with his divinity, as water is mixed with wine. Nestorius would give him two personalities, because he had two natures. The Marcionites affirmed Christ suffered not really, but in show. Thus you see how busy the devil hath been, and always is, about this main article. (2.) His offices of king, priest, and prophet have been denied by none, as I remember, but yet often made void and of none effect. Antichristianism is perfectly the evacuating of Christ’s offices. The Papists set up head against head, which is the spirit of antichristianism. They make void his priestly office by indulgences, purgatory, doctrine of merit; his prophetical office by doctrines of men and unwritten traditions. So Socinians make void his priesthood by denying his satisfaction; and Papists make void the other act of his priesthood by setting up mediators of intercession, &c.

2. Christ is denied in practice; and so—(1.) By apostasy and total revolt from him: Mat. x. 33, ‘Whosoever shall deny me before men,’ &c. None sin as apostates do; for they do as it were, after trial, and upon deliberate judgment, acknowledge the devil the better master; they first forsook Satan, and then came to Christ, and then they go back again from Christ to Satan; and so do, as it were, tell the world, that with him is the best service; and therefore it ‘were better they had never known the way of righteousness,’ &c., 2 Peter ii. 21. (2.) By not professing Christ in evil times, for not to profess is to deny: see Mat. x. 32, 33, and Mark viii. 38, in an age when men prove disloyal in the duty of the covenant, called there an ‘adulterous generation.’ Some are ashamed for fear of disgrace, as well as afraid for fear of danger to own Christ, and the ways best pleasing to him; this is to deny him. (3.) Men deny Christ when they profess him, and walk unworthily and dishonourably to their profession. Actions are the best image of men’s thoughts. Now their actions give their profession the lie: Titus, i. 16, ‘They profess they know God, and in works they deny him.’ So 1 Tim. v. 8, ‘If any provide not for his own house, he hath denied the faith;’ that is, done an act incompatible with the Christian faith, of which he maketh profession; which is interpretativè—a denying the faith. For the more clear opening of this, consider these propositions:—

[1.] An empty profession of Christ is not enough; now Christ is everywhere received, it is easy to profess his name. To be a Christian in heart and conscience was far more easy to them in the primitive times than to be so in name and profession, the powers of the world being against that way; whereas the difficulty on our part lieth in being Christians in heart: it is no disgrace now to be a Christian outwardly; that opposition and scorn which was then cast upon Christianity would now be cast upon Judaism, or Turcism, or Paganism. The winds blow out of another corner, and that which was their discouragement may be our motive, to wit, the countenance of civil powers; all advantages lie this way. If in Christ’s time they followed him for the loaves, John vi. 26, now they may much more. Quandoquidem panis Christi jam pinguis factus est, saith Gilbert;tractatur in conciliis, disceptatur in judiciis, disputatur in scholis, cantatur in ecclesiis, quaestuosa res est nomen Christi—the world is well altered since the first flight of Christianity abroad; the kings and princes and wise men of the world were then against it, everywhere was it hooted at as a novel and improbable doctrine; but since, by long prescription of time, it hath gotten esteem in the world, and is made the public profession of nations, and kings and princes have brought their glory into the church, now Christ is handled in councils, disputed of in the schools, and preached of in the assemblies, so that the general profession of Christianity is a matter of no thanks. It is easy to be good where there is nothing to draw us to the contrary; and therefore, when Christ cometh to judgment, paganism and loose profession of Christianity shall fare alike; for loose Christians are but pagans under a Christian name; see Jer. ix. 25, 26, ‘The days shall come that I will punish all them that are uncircumcised with them that are circumcised; Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon and Moab; for these nations are uncircumcised in flesh, and the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.’ It is no advantage to bear God’s mark in our bodies, and to have no fruit of it in our souls; this is but to clothe ourselves with the leaves of the vine without partaking the sap. What difference is there between those who, in a loose Christian profession, are addicted to luxury, wantonness, quarrel ling, prodigious lusts, and the votaries or worshippers of Mars, Venus, Bacchus, and Priapus? Only the one appear in their own colours, and show what they are, and the other, though they are as low and brutish in their practices, pretend to a higher name, even to the sacred and excellent name of Christians. Alas! your ‘circumcision shall be reckoned uncircumcision.’ Rom. ii. 25, when you have not the fruit of it.

[2.] Profession of Christianity without answerable practice maketh us in worse case than a heathen that is ignorant of Christ and salvation by him; see 1 Tim. v. 8, ‘He is worse than an infidel,’ Poor pagans are not so well enlightened, instructed, and acquainted with such rich and glorious mercy, with ‘the great things of eternity,’ with the assistances of God the Spirit; they have not such rules as we have, nor such advantages as we have, nor such obligations as we have, nor such encouragements as we have. If a man on horseback cometh slower than a man on foot, we blame him the more, because he had more help. So are carnal Christians in worse case than the heathen, because God may justly expect more from them. To be brought up in a prince’s court, and to be still of rude and servile conditions, is worse in them than in those that follow the plough all days of their lives. So to be trained up in the courts of Christ, and to come short of the heathens in morality and strictness of conversation, it will be worse taken of us than of those that never heard of Christ. The more we profess the truth the more we condemn ourselves in our evil practices, and therefore must needs be worse than heathens; for we practise that by voluntary choice and perverse inclination which they practise by education, they know little better; so that the more excellent the religion is which we profess, the more vile and base is our disobedience; for our profession will be a sore witness against us, that we knew better and had encouragements to do better; we justify the heathen, but we condemn ourselves, as Israel justified Sodom, Ezek. xvi. 51, but by her profession so much the more disproved her own carriage, see ver. 63. Time will come when you will wish you had ‘never known the way of righteousness;’ and as Job cursed the day of his birth, so will you the memory of that day wherein you were added to the church.

[3.] Profession accompanied with some rash and fond affection to Christ is not enough to acquit us from denying him. Many in a heat and humour will be ready to die for their God, and yet deny him ordinarily in their lives. As a quarrelling ruffian will stand up for the honour of his father, who yet, by his debauched courses, is the very grief of his heart; it may be he wisheth his death to enjoy the inheritance, yet if any other should speak a disgraceful word of him, he is up in arms presently, and ready to fight with him. So some men pretend much affection to their religion, and are ready to stab him that shall question it, or to venture their own lives in the quarrel, and yet none do this religion so great a despite and dishonour as they do themselves by their ungodly conversations. The apostle supposeth that some may ‘give their bodies to be burned ‘that have not charity, 1 Cor. xiii. 3, for all this ado is not for their religion, but their humour. If their religion were rightly understood they would not endure it, because it altogether disproveth such practices as they delight in; and all that they do is no more than they would do for an idol, if they were born there where idols are worshipped. The blasphemies of a pagan or an open enemy to religion do not touch Christ so near in point of honour as the scandalous behaviour of a Christian; when Pagans declaim against him, it is but the malice of an enemy. Dogs will bark, it is their kind; but your disobedience to his laws and unsuitable carriages doth far more dishonour, and represent him as an ulcerous Christ to the world; because you pretend so much affection to him, and can live in such a fashion, you would be taken for his greatest friends, and so in effect you make the world believe that he doth approve your doings.

[4.] Christ may be denied, though there be a stricter profession of his name, and some faint love and relish of his sweetness. Besides the loose national profession of Christianity which God, in a wise providence, ordaineth for the greater safety and preservation of his church, there may be a strict personal profession, taken up from inward conviction, and some taste and feeling, and yet Christ may be denied for all this, as some that had ‘tasted the good word,’ turned aside to the world, and so are said to ‘crucify him’ rather than to profess him, Heb. vi. 4-6. The apostle intendeth some Hebrews that did mix Moses with Christ and Judaism to save their goods. So elsewhere he speaketh of some that ‘had a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof,’ 2 Tim. iii. 5; by the form, meaning the strictest garb of religion then in fashion. This is to deny Christ, when we deny the virtue and power of that religion which he hath established, and will not suffer it to enter upon our hearts.

[5.] The means to discover false profession is to observe how we take it up, and how we carry it on; whether we embrace it upon undue grounds, or match it with unconsonant practices.

(1.) We embrace it upon undue grounds if we take it up merely upon tradition, without a sight of that distinct worth and excellency which is in our religion, for then our religion is but a happy mistake, the stumbling of blind zeal upon a good object; and all the difference between you and pagans is but the advantage of your birth and education. Standing upon a higher ground doth not make a man taller than another of the same growth and stature that standeth lower; their stature is the same, though their standing be not the same. So you are no better than pagans, only you have the advantage of being born within the pale, and in such a country where the Christian religion is professed. You do according to the trade of Israel, 2 Chron. xvii. 4, and live κατ᾽ αἰῶνα, as the fashion of your country will carry it, Eph. ii. 2; and as beasts follow the track, so you take up that religion which is entailed upon you.

(2.) If we match it with unsuitable practices. These may be known, if we do consider what is most excellent in the Christian religion. Elsewhere I have showed that the glory of the Christian religion lieth in three things—in excellency of rewards, purity of precepts, and sureness of principles of trust.

First, In the fulness of the reward, which is the eternal enjoyment of God in Christ; therefore they that do not make it their first and chief care to ‘seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness,’ Mat. vi. 33, that are like swine, in preferring the swill of carnal pleasures before communion with God, or, in the scripture expression, ‘Love pleasures more than God,’ or prefer the profits of the world before everlasting happiness, they whose lives are full of epicurism, atheism, worldliness, it is not a pin to those whether they be pagans or Christians; for, acting thus heathenishly, thus brutishly, they do but pollute that sacred and worthy name.

Secondly, The perfection of the precepts, which require a full conformity of the whole man to the will of God. More particularly, Christian precepts are remarkable for purity and charity: for purity, and therefore ‘revellings and banquetings and chambering’ are made to be customs of the Gentiles, 1 Peter iv. 3, things abhorrent from the Christian religion; they that are yokeless, and live according to the swing of their own lusts, or else that only fashion the outward man, make no conscience of thoughts, lusts, &c.; they do not live as Christians. For charity: nothing is more pressed than giving; it was Christ’s maxim ‘It is better to give than to receive,’ Acts xx. 35. And also forgiving: one great strain of his sermon is love to enemies, Mat. v. 43-48. Christ, when he brought from heaven the discovery of such a strange love from God to man, would settle a wonderful love on earth between man and man.

Thirdly, For sureness of principles of trust; the whole scripture aimeth at this, to settle a trust in God, and therefore it discovereth so much of God’s mercy, of his particular providence, of the contrivance of salvation in and by Christ; so that to be ‘without hope,’ is to be like a Gentile, for they are described to be men ‘without hope,’ 1 Thes. iv. 13; and carking and distrustful care is made the sin of the Gentiles, Mat. vi. 31, 32: this kind of solicitude is for them that know not God, or deny his providence over particular things.

Well, then, take heed of denying Christ; it is a heavy sin, it cost Peter bitter sorrow, Mat. xxvi. 75. Will you ‘deny Christ that bought you’? 2 Peter ii. 1. Now they deny Christ, whose hopes and comforts are only in this world; Christ is not their God, but their belly, Phil. iii. 19. Libertines are not disciples of Christ, but votaries of Priapus. Merciless and revengeful men do condemn that religion which they do profess. In short, they do not only deny Christ that question his natures or make void his offices, but they that despise his laws, when they do not walk answerably, or walk contrary.