A Goodly Heritage

“Courage up your heart; when you tire He will bear both you and your burden.” Who does not sometimes tire Even the strongest saints are liable to faint and grow weary; at least they grow weary in, if not weary of, their Master's service. But, however much they may sometimes tire, they never altogether sink. And what lightens their bur den, and dispels the rising mists of desponden cy and fear? It is the presence of the Lord— the sustaining hand of him who is the Son of Man, and yet the Son of God. Dear believer, your burden may be heavy, but however heavy the burden, or weak the bearer of it, courage up your heart; for when you tire, he will bear both you and your burden, and he alone. None but Jesus can give the heavy laden rest. “Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”—Ps. xxvii. 14.

I find Christ to be Christ, and that He is far, far, even infinite heaven’s height above man. And that is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them; and make debts, that He may   pay them; and make falls, that He may raise them; and make deaths, that He may quicken them; and spin out and dig hells to themselves, that He may ransom them. Now I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free ransom given for sold souls; only, alas! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour! But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a ship-broken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ.

"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." John 12:27-28. Suppose it were revealed to a godly man that he were to suffer an extreme, violent, and painful death, and, withal, some fearful soul desertion, as an image of the second death. It should much affright him to remember this, and he might pray that the Lord would either save him from that sad hour, or then give him grace with faith and courage in the Lord to endure it. So here, Christ, God and man, knowing that he was to bear the terrors of the first and second death, doth act over aforehand (the time being near) the sorrow and anguish of heart that he was to suffer in his extreme sufferings. As it were, ere the cross come, to act it in our mind, and take an essay and a lift of Christ's cross ere we bear it, to try how handsomely we would set back and shoulders under the Lord's cross, we are to lay the ...

Thank God for any good thing that thou hast, and that thou art kept in a good estate. They never kent [knew] Christ's help well who put man in such a tutor's hand as free-will, to be kept by it; who say that Christ has acquired salvation to all, and when He has acquired it, He puts it in the hand of free-will to be disposed of as it pleases, to keep or not to keep it. This is to make Christ a fool merchant, and not to take account whether it be misspent or not; but Christ is not so. He knows what shall become of all whom He has bought. You know it is evermore the happiness of the weaker to depend upon the stronger. So it is the happiness of the poor soul to depend upon Christ and upon free grace. The happiness of the ship stands in that to have a good pilot; the happiness of the lost weak sheep depends on a good shepherd to seek it in again, and to keep it from the enemies thereof; the happiness of the weak, witless orphans depends in a good, wise tutor. Even so the happiness ...

The Efficacy of the Sacraments This question [of how children are received into the visible Church by baptism] touches the controversy about the efficiency, working and operation of the sacraments, of which I will give a taste shortly. Sacraments are considered [in these four ways]: 1. As sacraments in abstract. 1 The reprobate do receive holy seals and sacraments, else they could not be said to profane the holy things of God. And so they [the seals] may be sacraments and work no grace, either by themselves or from God. All operation from or about the sacrament then, must be accidental [not necessary] to [the being of] a sacrament. 2. In concrete, according to all which they include in their use, as they consist of the sign, the thing signified, the institution of God and the promise of grace. And in this meaning Altisiodorensis2 (as I conceive) makes the sacraments not to be efficient causes of grace, yet material causes containing grace. 3 So the Scripture says, ‘baptism saves,’ [1 ...

“ And he went into a house, and would that no man should know it. ” THIS will, according to which, it is said, “he would that no man should know it,” was his human will, according to which, the Lord Jesus was a man as we are, yet without sin; which was not always fulfilled. For his divine will, being backed with omnipotency, can never be resisted; it overcometh all, and can be resisted by none. Consider what a Christ we have; one who as God, hath a standing will that cannot fail. ( Isa. 14:24 .) “He doth all his pleasure.” His pleasure and his work are commensurable. ( Isa. 46:10, 11 ;  Psalm 135:6 ;  Psalm 115:3 .) Yet this Lord did stoop so low, as to take to himself man’s will, to submit to God and law. And see how Christ, for our instruction, is content that God should break his will, and lay it below providence, ( Matt. 26:39 .) Oh! so little and low as great Jesus Christ is! All is come to this, “O my Father, remove the cup; nevertheless, not as I will, but as th...

“ And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and went into an house, and would that no man should know it: but he could not be hid. ”— MARK 7:24 . “ Then Jesus went from thence, and came into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David, for my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. ”— MATTHEW 15:21,22 . “ For a certain woman whose young (little) daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came, and fell at his feet: (The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him, that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. ”— MARK 7:25, 26 . THIS text being with child of free grace, holdeth forth to us a miracle of note: and because Christ is in the work in an eminent manner; and there is here also much of Christ’s new creation, and a flower planted and watered by Christ’s own hand, a strong faith in a tr...

"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." John 12:27-28. It cannot then be a sin, intrinsically and of itself, to be troubled in soul, if Christ was under soul trouble, for sins imputed to him. Hence let me stay a little on these two: First, what a troubled conscience is, and secondly, what course the troubled in soul are to take in imitation of Christ. A soul troubled for sin must either be a soul feared and perplexed for the penal displeasure, wrath and indignation of God, or for the eternal punishment of sin; or, for sin as it faileth against the love of God, or for both. In any of these three respects it is no sin to be soul-troubled for sin, upon these conditions: (1.) That the soul be free of faithless doubting of God's love. Now Christ was free of this. He could not but have a fixed, entire, and never-broken confidence of his Father's eternal love. If ...