A Goodly Heritage

 And therefore, when you think your present trials that are come upon you far greater than you can bear, think withal of the glorious power of God that is at hand to help you. It is a great word that, ‘his glorious power,’—a greater attribute could not have been named or found out for our comfort,—and is a word of virtue, force, and power, to hearten to or against anything whatever. It is true thy present trial may be, and is, above that inward strength which serves and hath served hitherto to act thy graces in thy ordinary walkings with God, holily and sincerely. A child may by its ordinary strength he able to walk up and down a room by stools (suppose) supporting it, without any other extraordinary help; but if it be to go up a pair of stairs, the strength that enabled it to these lesser performances will not be sufficient thereunto; he must be carried and held up in the arms of one who is strong and mighty. And so it is here. That other part of our Christian obedience, the acti...

Art thou imperfectly holy? Comfort thyself with this, that though thou beest now full of blame, and men may lay many things to thy charge; yet God hath chosen thee to be one day holy and without blame before him. Yea, thou mayest comfort thyself against imperfect holiness in this, that when God chose thee, that first view he took of thee, that first idea wherein thou wert represented to him, was as he meant to make thee, even perfectly holy; such thou camest up before him in his first intention about thee, even clothed with all those jewels and embellishments which he meant one day to bestow upon thee. What is the reason that God is willing to pardon us, and that he pleaseth himself in us now? He knows that though we be sinful now, yet it will not be long ere we shall be perfectly holy before him. Christ cleanseth us, to 'present us to himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle.' And on the other side, if it be meant of imperfect holiness, as the means to the end, t...

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.— Col. 1:26, 27.  apostle spends this chapter, from the 13th verse to the end, in three things principally. 1. In setting out Jesus Christ in all that fulness of the riches of his glory wherewith he is arrayed and represented in the gospel; from ver. 13 to 23, from whence to the 4th verse of the second chapter, he falls into a commendation and elogium of the gospel, 'Which is that  mystery,'  as the text hath it, 'wherein is made known that rich glory of Christ, the glory of the mystery, which riches is Christ.' And the apostle doth both these on set purpose (as in the 4th and 8th verses he professeth), to divert and take off these Colossians' minds, from these vain deceitful speculations grounded on philosophy, tradit...

The Positive Vanity of Our Thoughts to Evil (1) The vanity of them discovers itself in that which Christ calls “foolishness” (Mar 7:22), that is, the kind of thoughts that madmen have. This foolishness is seen in the unsettled wantonness, the wavering of the mind in thinking. Solomon 6 says the “eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth” (Pro 17:24), they run up and down from one end of the earth to the other, shooting and streaming. And though the mind of man is truly nimble and able to run from one end of the earth to the other, that being its strength and excellence, yet God would have this strength and nimbleness put to a steady directing of our thoughts toward His glory, our own salvation, the good of others, etc. He gave our minds nimbleness to turn away from evil even the first appearance of it. As we are to walk in God’s ways, so every single thought, like every action, is a step and ought to be a steady one. “Make straight paths for your feet” (Heb 12:13), turn not to the ...

In Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle having described our lost condition by nature goes on to enumerate the benefits we have in and by Christ. But not sooner does Paul state the first blessing a soul experiences, ‘quickening’ (that is, conversion) in verse 5, than he must break in with the cause of this salvation, ‘by grace ye are saved’, this abrupt manner with which he brings the cause in – before he finishes his sentence – argues that he had this thing in his thoughts, his thoughts were full of it, and it must break out. ‘By grace ye are saved’, he states it briefly at first, but then repeats it again and again; he opens it more largely in verse 8, showing it to be the cause of our salvation excluding all things else; he cuts off all pleas whatsoever that might share the honour with free grace. There is nothing that hath been more corrupted in all ages than the truth that free grace alone is the cause of our salvation, therefore Paul states it both briefly and largely, to the end t...