Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

clothed. We have made ourselves blind, and God in mercy to us has provided eye-salve, that we may see. We have deprived ourselves of all spiritual food; we are like the Prodigal son that perished with hunger, and would gladly have filled his belly with husks. God has taken notice of this our condition, and has provided for us a feast of fat things, and has sent forth his servants to invite the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind. We, by sin, have brought ourselves into a dry and thirsty wilderness; but God was merciful, and took notice of our condition, and has provided for us rivers of water, water out of the rock. We, by sin, have brought upon ourselves a miserable slavery and bondage; God has made provision for our liberty. We have exposed ourselves to weariness; God has provided a resting place for us. We, by sin, have exposed ourselves to many outward troubles and afflictions; God has pitied us, and in Christ has provided true comfort for us. We have exposed ourselves to our grand enemy, even Satan, to be tempted and buffeted by him; God has pitied and has provided for us a Saviour and captain of salvation, who has overcome Satan, and is able to deliver us. Thus God has in Christ provided sufficiently for our help in all kinds of evils.

How ought we to bless God for this abundant provision he has made for us, poor and sinful as we were, who were so undeserving and so ungrateful. He made no such provision for the fallen angels, who are left without remedy in all the woes and miseries into which they are plunged.

2. We should admire the love of Christ to men, that he has thus given himself to be the remedy for all their evil, and a fountain of all good. Christ has given himself to us, to be all things to us that we need. We want clothing, and Christ does not only give us clothing, but he gives himself to be our clothing, that we might put him on. Gal. iii. 27. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Rom. xiii. 14. "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."

We want food, and Christ has given himself to be our food; he has given his own flesh to be our meat, and his blood to be our drink, to nourish our soul. Thus Christ tells us that he is the bread which came down from heaven, and the bread of life. "I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." In order to our eating of his flesh, it was necessary that he should be slain, as the sacrifices must be slain before they could be eaten; and such was

Christ's love to us, that he consented to be slain, he went as a sheep to the slaughter, that he might give us his flesh to be food for our poor, famishing souls.

We are in need of a habitation; we by sin have, as it were, turned ourselves out of house and home; Christ has given himself to be the habitation of his people. Ps. xc. 1. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." It is promised to God's people that they should dwell in the temple of God for ever, and should go no more out; and we are told that Christ is the temple of the new Jerusalem.

Christ gives himself to his people to be all things to them that they need, and all things that make for their happiness. Colos. iii. 11. "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all." And that he might be so, he has refused nothing that is needful to prepare him to be so. When it was needful that he should be incarnate, he refused it not, but became man, and appeared in the form of a servant. When it was needful that he should be slain, he refused it not, but gave himself for us, and gave himself to us upon the cross.

Here is love for us to admire, for us to praise, and for us to rejoice in, with joy that is full of glory for ever.

SERMON XIII.

1 PETER ii. 9.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

THE apostle in the preceding verses speaks of the great difference between Christians and unbelievers, on account of their diverse and opposite relations to Jesus Christ. The former have Christ for their foundation, they come to him as to a living stone, a stone chosen of God, and precious; and they also as living stones are built up a spiritual house. The Christian church is the temple of God, and particular believers are the stones of which that temple is built. The stones of Solomon's temple, which were so curiously polished and well fitted for their places in that building, were a type of believers. And Christ is the foundation of this building, or the chief corner On the contrary, to the latter, to unbelievers, Christ instead of being a foundation on which they rest and depend, is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; instead of being a foundation to support them and keep them from falling, he is an occasion of their stumbling and falling.

stone.

And again, to believers Christ is a precious stone: "Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious." But to unbelievers he is a stone that is disallowed, and rejected, and set at nought. They set light by him, as by the stones of the street, they make no account of him, they disallow him; when they come to build, they cast this stone away as being of no use, not fit for a foundation, not fit for a place in their building. In the eighth verse the apostle tells the Christians to whom he writes, that those unbelievers who thus reject Christ, and to whom he is a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence, were appointed to this. "And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed." It was appointed that they should stumble at the word, that Christ should be an occasion not of their salvation, but of their deeper damnation. And then in our

text, he puts the Christians in mind how far otherwise God had dealt with them, than with those reprobates. They were a chosen generation. God had rejected the others in his eternal counsels; but themselves he had chosen from eternity. They were a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.

As God distinguished the people of Israel of old from all other nations, so he distinguishes true Christians. It is probable, the apostle had in his mind some expressions that are used in the old testament, concerning the people of Israel. Christians are said here to be a chosen generation, according to what was said of Israel of old. Deut. x. 15. "Only the Lord thy God had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day." Christians are here said to be a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, agreeably to what was said of old of Israel. Exod. xix. 5, 6. "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel."

But there is something further said here of Christians than there of Israel. There, it is promised to Israel that, if they obey, they shall be a kingdom of priests; but here, Christians are said to be a priesthood of kings, or a royal priesthood. They are a priesthood, and they are also kings.

I propose to insist distinctly upon the several propositions contained in the words of the text.

I. True Christians are a Chosen Generation. Two things are here implied.

1. That true Christians are chosen by God from the rest of the world, to be his.

2. That God's people are of a peculiar descent and pedigree, different from all the world besides.

1. True Christians are chosen by God from the rest of the world.

God does not utterly cast off the world of mankind. Though they are fallen and corrupted, and there is a curse brought upon the world, yet God entertained a design of appropriating a certain number to himself. Indeed all men and all creatures are his, as well since as before the fall; whether they are elected or not, they are his. God does not lose his right to them by the fall, neither does he lose his power to dispose of them; they are still in his hands. Neither does he lose his end in creating them. God hath made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil. It possibly was Satan's design, in endeavouring the fall of man, to cause that God should lose the creature that he had made,

by getting him away from God into his own possession, and to frustrate God of his end in creating man; but this Satan has not obtained.

But yet in a sense the wicked may be said not to belong to God. God doth not own them; he hath rejected them and cast them away; they are not God's portion, they are Satan's portion; God hath left them, and they are lost. When man fell, God left and cast off the bulk of mankind; but he was pleased, notwithstanding the universal fall, to choose out a number of them to be his, whom he would still appropriate to himself. Though the world is a fallen world, yet it was the will of God still to have a portion in it, and therefore he chose out some and set them apart for himself. Ps. iv. 3. "But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the Lord will hear when I call unto him." God's portion is his people, and Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. Deut. xxxii. 9. Those who are God's enemies, and to whom he is an enemy, are still his. But those who are his friends, his children, his jewels, that compose his treasure, are his in a very different manner. God has chosen the godly out of the rest of the world to be nearly related to him, to stand in the relation of children, to have a property in him, that they might not only be his people, but that he might be their God; he has chosen these to bestow himself upon them. He hath chosen them from among others to be gracious to them, to show them his favour; he has chosen them to enjoy him, to see his glory, and to dwell with him for ever. He hath chosen them as his treasure, as a man chooses out gems from a heap of stones, with this difference, the man finds gems very different from other stones, and therefore chooses. But God chooses them, and therefore they become gems, and very different from others. Mal. iii. 17. "And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Ps. cxxxv. 4. "For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure." God hath chosen them for a most noble and excellent use, and therefore they are called vessels unto honour, and elect vessels. God has different uses for differSome are destined to a baser use, and are vessels unto dishonour; others are chosen for the most noble use, for serving and glorifying God, and that God may show the glory of divine grace upon them.

ent men.

Several things may here be observed concerning this election of God, whereby he chooses truly godly persons.

First. This election supposes that the persons chosen are found among others. The word election denotes this, it signifies a choosing out. The elect are favoured by electing grace among the rest of mankind, with whom they are found mixed together as the tares

VOL. VIII.

49

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »