SERMON X.—Revelation 21:4, 5, 6, 7

SERMON X.—Revelation 21:4, 5, 6, 7

SERMON VII* —Zech. 11:9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another, &c.—Zech. 11:9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

BELOVED in our Lord, this text is Christ's farewell to the Church of the Jews. He is, as it were, half out at the door, leaving His harlot wife; and saying to her, Seek ye another husband, and I will seek another wife: and so He bids her adieu. The words contain,

1. Christ's good-night: "I will not feed you."

2. A fruit of His farewell: "That that dieth, let it die."

3. The manner of His departing from them: "I took My staff, and cut it asunder."

4. What followed upon that: "The poor of the flock that waited upon Me knew that it was the word of the Lord."

5. Ere He go clean away, and give over His calling, He says, Pay me my bygones:† "Give me my price."

6. They gave Him for His price, thirty pieces of silver to buy Him, that they might get Him crucified.

7. He is sorry, is offended, or grudges the price, and says, "Cast it into the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them." As if He had said, Give it to your beggars and strangers, to buy a burial place for them: for I will have none of your wages, if that be all you will give Me. And so the Lord's wages was casten back again into the potter's field, to buy it.

1. "Then said I, I will not feed you."—Here is a terrible word, and a hard threatening spoken by Christ, the great Shepherd, sent of the Father, to gather in His own sheep. "I will feed you no more." Beware, O people of Anwoth, lest He be saying this unto many of you; for your want of love to Him, and slighting His ordinances with the means of salvation and mercy offered unto you. Hence we may observe, that when Christ has gathered in all His own sheep, all His own elect children and people, He sometimes gives them up for a season. This prophecy has a relation to that time, after Christ's death and ascension, when the Apostles left the church of the Jews, and turned themselves to seek and suit a young wife for their Master, even the church of the Gentiles.

Even in Abraham's days, when it was but morning, and the beginning of days, the Lord began to feed His sheep, and sent Moses and Aaron to herd them in the wilderness: and sent prophets and servants to His vineyard, with an order to say, Render fruit; send in the rent of your farm to My Father. But they slew and stoned the prophets (Matt. 23:37). Then He sent other servants unto them, and they beat them. At length He sent the King's own Son, the Heir and Lord of all, to them; and they slew Him. And He sent the apostles last of all, and they persecuted and killed them (Matt. 21:36, 37, 38, 39). All this time Christ was gathering in His own sheep, for Christ will want none of them. And when Christ had gotten in all the lost money, even all to the last farthing; then He blows out the candle, and cares not for the rest, but says, Take ye the sweepings of the house and cast them away; I have got My own. Wherefore holdeth a great man a house? It is not to entertain beggars and strangers: they get a bit, or a meal in the by-going, which is all their errand to the house. But He holds His house to entertain His children and servants in: and were it not for them, He would give up house-keeping. When Christ's children are grown up, and married to their new husband; and when His sheep are gathered into His fold, sealed and marked; and when there are but strangers without; then He gives up house-keeping, locks the door, and says, He will feed them no more.

Hence also, here is a spark of hope to those who fear Christ. If He say to this land, I will feed you no more; yet there is in the land children and sheep to be fed. Ye shall aye get your meat of it, go as it will. Though ye should be hounded and scattered from mountain to mountain; and though the dogs should bark at you; yet Christ must feed the poor of the flock, till He get them out from among the rest. And therefore eat ye now, and take the meals that your Lord sends you, with good will: it is for you that God feeds the flock. It is not for the rocks and the mountains, that God sends down rain; it is for the grass and the corn.

2. The fruit of Christ's departure: says He, "That that dieth, let it die."—This, no doubt, is hard. Lord, if you feedest us not, we will die, we will be hounded and slain upon the mountains. Yea, I know, says Christ, it shall be so: but I shall be blameless; I shall give up with you, and lay down My calling.

Hence, we see what follows, when Christ turns His back on the sheep. They die, they perish, they eat one another's flesh for hunger. For not only were those people made vagabonds upon the earth, as they are at this day; but their souls famish, and they are groping in darkness for the coming of another Messiah. So we see when Christ, the Shepherd, goes away, the fox, the lion, the wolf, and all the dogs of hell, come and run away with the flock. For this is Satan's way, when Christ has gone away, pulled down the Shepherd's tents, removed a preaching ministry, and taken His flock with Him. The leavings and the goats must fall to the lion. The devil gets Christ's leavings; what God refuses, by law falls to the devil: when Christ has gotten in His wheat, then Satan comes and takes up the loose sheaf. Woe to you who are not in Christ's bundle, but fall out and lie in the field, and will not be gathered into Christ's barn, for ye are the devil's by law.

Then, ere we proceed further, let every one try whose side they are on. Ye cannot deny that Christ is at His harvest, and gathering in His sheaves in this land. See whose mark and arms you carry: ye must carry either God's or the devil's. See whether ye be in Rome's black camp, wherein the fallen star, the red dragon, and the prince of the bottomless pit, are the captains. For Christ is now mustering His men, and proclaiming, Who is for Me, and who is for battle? Some are saying, God help us, for we know not which of the sides is rightest: ye say one thing, and they say another. If ye say, "I am indifferent;" I like not that. Ye will get a master ere long. Satan, by his due, gets the wandered sheep; I mean the indifferent man, or him who is on none of the sides.

Many temporal evils come upon a people, when Christ says, "I will feed you no more."—Multitudes who heard Zechariah, would be glad at this, "I will feed you no more." They would say, We will get the good old lucky world again: when we baked cakes to the queen of heaven we wanted nothing: we will get quit of that which the barking prophets are aye crying: "The burden of the Lord, the burden of the Lord." So say our people, If this religion were away we will get the good old merry, sonsy* world again, wherein there was much luck and grace.

Then let our text answer you both. So then, would you have the old lucky, sonsy world again? Then take it to you out of God's mouth; "Ye shall eat every one the flesh of another," when the gospel goes away. God said then; Devil, anti-Christ, Jesuite, pestilence, famine, and sword, set on them! I have done with them. The Romans, sword, and famine, did devour them. Will a mother eat her own child of a span long for hunger? yet this was done. That was the old world the Jews got when Christ turned His back upon them. For this, see Jer. 25:17, When the people rejected the word of the Lord, and put it from them, as we are doing, the Lord put in Jerusalem's and Judah's hand the cup of the wine of the wrath of God, and bids them drink, and spue, and fall, and never rise again. Now what think ye of this old sonsy world? See also Psalm 74; when God left feeding His sheep, in came the enemies, warred, burnt the sanctuary, &c. And when God left the flock (Psalm 79:2), the dead bodies of His servants are given for meat to the fowls of heaven. And see what follows on God's departure (Ezek. 8:9, 10, 11, and 12:13). The prince shall flee away on his feet, with his flitting upon his back. "I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon." They shall be taken as birds, &c.

3. "And I took my staff, even beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people."—Here there are three things. 1. What the staff is. 2. The name of it, Beauty. 3. The Lord's breaking of it.

I shall go no further to seek the meaning of it. The breaking of the staff is the breaking of the covenant: the staff itself is the word of God and covenant. And indeed the word of God is Christ's shepherd's staff, whereby He driveth His sheep to heaven, and awakes the conscience. For Christ has no rod over the neck of His sheep but His word; it is His sceptre. Christ's strength, in bringing in His sheep is in His word, for it is His sceptre; and therefore it is called, The Lord's arm (Isaiah 53:1). And an arm must have a hand and fingers. It is even that, whereby He wrestles with His enemies, with sinners, when He makes them saints: and no man dare separate them. The devil would fain separate Christ and the soul, when they are wresthng a fall; but Christ gives him a back-stroke, and with His staff can wound the conscience of one who has seven devils, and can cause them fall under Him. But know, our Lord useth this sort of staff against several sorts of men, wherein ye shall see the use of it.

a. Christ casts His staff at many, and it misses them, for the pikes of it go no more in the conscience of some men than a pointless arrow in a wall of brass (Ezek. 3:7). Are there not many who are no more moved, nor touched with the sharp point of Christ's staff than a dead man is with the sound of a trumpet blown in his ear? The word never draws blood in their consciences, they can fence and ward their souls from a stroke.

b. Some get a blad* and a blea† stroke in their conscience, as trembling Felix did, and despairing Cain, and others got. But the devil heals their wounds; as Cain got a plaster on his wound, and went and built a city. See, for this, Hosea 6. There ye see how our Lord blads and strikes with His staff. Verse 5, He says, "I have hewed them in pieces by My prophets, and slain them by the words of My mouth." There was blea wounds in their conscience made by Christ's staff. But what then? Verse 7, "But they like men have transgressed the covenant." They mended again, after Christ's staff had wounded their conscience.

c. Some get a dead stroke with Christ's staff. It is a dead trumpet to them, and cries nothing to them but God's curse and malediction; 1 Peter 2:8; 2 Cor. 10:6, "Christ is to them a stone of stumbling and rock of offence, even to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient thereunto." Christ strikes with the rod and strength of His power: "He strikes through kings, and fills the high-ways with dead bodies" (Psalm 110).

d. The Lord's own sheep get a wound in their consciences with the staff, Beauty, as when He cries, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Saul bled with the pikes of the staff, so that the law, and the curses and terrors of it drew him off his high horse, and made him lie on the breadth of his back; so that he cried, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Christ, with His staff, struck three thousand at once, until they were pricked in their hearts (Acts 2:37). And they cried, for their consciences were driven all to flinders, saying, "Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?" Lydia got such a back-stroke with the pikes of this staff, that Christ, with infinite power, brake up all the locks of her heart, till it was made to receive the word. Then know ye when God's word strikes the conscience? If ye did, ye would say, Lord, strike on! ye would wish that Christ's staff, Beauty, laid you in a swoon. Many of you are angry when it touches you. Ye are not wise; it is but Christ's staff knocking your crown (Rom. 5:10, 11). He made Paul's head blood: "the law (says he) slew me." He gave to David, by Nathan, so many strokes with the word, that his bones were broken (Psalm 51:8). Better get a broken head, than get leave, with the silly, foolish sheep, to slip into a pit-hole, or ditch, for a little green grass, and be drowned there.

It is called Beauty because the word of God is purer than gold tried in the fire seven times. And what a sweet sight it is to see Him, who is the fairest of men, the fairest among the sons of men, standing in all His beauty, in the midst of His flock, with His staff, Beauty, in His hand.

e. The breaking of this staff is of the greatest weight and concernment. And this our Lord speaketh as a shepherd tired of his part of it; and threateneth to go away. So, as it were in a passion, our Lord speaketh thus, I will go seek a new master, and seek ye a new servant. Nay, He was both angry and sorry; so that He shed tears at His flitting, Matt. 23:37, 38, Luke 19:41, "If thou hadst known in this thy day," &c.

Doctrine. Then Christ has a term day with a particular church; and when He is ill used He may go where He may do better.

But let us see whether Christ had good cause or not to break His staff and leave His flock to the foxes. Answer. He had; because He was true and faithful in His service, and was aye seeking out the wandering sheep; soon up and late up, with many a sore heart, seeking them: and He lost none, but made an account of them all to His Father. What were all these? Ezek. 3:6, "If I had sent thee to a nation of a strange language," &c. Matt. 12:41, "The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it." Chap 11:21, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin," &c. These show that Christ had but a hard life when He fed them.

But to come nearer yet. What causes a servant tire of his services? The ruler of the house changes his wages, and strikes him, howbeit he do his duty: and the rest of the servants mock him; he is set at the board foot* and matched† with every running beggar that comes to the house. Few give him good words: they all look down upon him with contempt and scorn. Just so was Christ handled; the rulers, Pharisees, and priests, did not pay Him His wages; they smote Him. Every lown in the house made a fool of the honest servant; yea, the high priest's servants smote Him on the face, and spat upon Him. Indeed, they set Him to the by-board, yea, to the foot of the board, Psalm 22:7, "I am a worm, and no man." They matched Him with every vagabond that came to the house, and put Him in the midst, between two thieves. They gave Christ the thief's seat, and Barabbas was thought better than He.

Might not Christ break His heart for all these things, and say, What ails ye at Me? Might He not break His Shepherd's staff, put up His wares, and flit? Might He not say, It's time for Me to pack* to the gate, they are tired of My service. And yet I have gotten many a wet foot in seeking these sheep? Yea, He may say, they are ill worthy of Him.

All that is true. But to come to ourselves. In His members He is ill used: banished, silenced, and treated worse than Barabbas. He gets no justice in our Parliaments; Papists, Arminians, and Atheists, get favour, honour, and court preferment; but an honest professor is counted an ill subject, a seditious man, and an enemy to authority. But see how God has met us, He has broken His staff, Beauty: the purity, power, and life of doctrine is away. The word of God is not sharp from preachers' mouths: it draws no blood in men's consciences. Nay, we wield not the staff with force, until the fire fly from the pikes of it. We cast† and handle it, as if our arm was broken! We see the sheep gone out of the way, and over the march, in the Lord's forbidden pasture. We see every man out of his place, and everything wrong in the Kirk. We see the sheep devoured and poisoned with Popery and false doctrine in colleges and pulpits. The staff is not drawn; and why? Because it is broken; and ye will yet see it worse broken. Think ye that a pair of organs, and an ill said mass (as King James the VI. termed it), and a busking of dirty ceremonies, the whore's abominations, which we once spued out, think ye that ever this staff will draw blood of a man's conscience? Nay, ere this staff break, or blood* a proud hard heart that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, ye may as soon essay to break a man's head with a straw, or a rush. The Lord says this is a broken staff, and we see it not.

"That I might break my covenant."—Because of the doctrine of the pestilent enemies of grace, I will crave leave to free this place, and to prove, 1. That the covenant of grace with the elect cannot be broken. 2. Show in what sense the Lord says, He will break His covenant.

For the first of these, see Jer. 31:36, 37, Isaiah 54:10, "For the mountains shall depart," &c. I intend, at another occasion, to prove that the covenant is made fast with Christ, and so stands not in our free will. See Jer. 32:40, chap. 31:32, 33, 34, 35, Luke 6:13. God's oath and promise is a sure thing. "Aye sure," say they. What then? "Sure and sealed on God's part, providing we sin not, for God swears that believers shall be saved." Nay, but the Lord made the covenant with Adam everlasting; for if Adam had stood, the Lord would have done His part. Nay, the law of nature, given to the reprobate angels, in their creation, should have been as stable as the new covenant: for will any call in question, that God would have rewarded the apostate angels, providing they had continued in their obedience. "Nay," say they, "the covenant keeps not men from sinning against the covenant; but sinning against the covenant breaks the covenant."

Answer. Sin on the elect's part breaks not the new covenant (Psalm 89:33).

But the question is: If the elect can sin against the covenant? If that were objected,

I answer. They may sin, and sin against the doctrine of the covenant, and against the articles of the contract of marriage, as a wife may take another lover. But if this be in the contract, "She shall be my wife, howbeit she take another lover," then her harlotry by no law, destroys the marriage contract. Now, when Christ marries His church, He says He will forgive her sins, and swears He will forgive her harlotry.

But I ask, What makes a man to be within the covenant? Answer. Not faith nor obedience. What then? God's free love. Ezek. 16:8, "Thy time was the time of love,—I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee." Then how long is a contract valid? So long as the chief clause is kept. Now, the chief head of the contract is God's eternal love, and all here is fastened on God's free promise; and this is surer than mountains of brass. As long as the foundation and corner-stone is firm, the wall standeth. Now, in all the sins of the elect, the unchangeable love of God standeth still. And let Papists, Arminians, and Socinians, come and loose this corner-stone if they can: it will break all their backs to aim at it, and has clouded their wits already.

To sin against the covenant is to cast the grace of the covenant fully away, so as if they were without it; so that they are not now within it; as Adam was after the fall. But, by sin, the elect cannot shake off the seed of God (1 John 3:9), "For His seed remaineth in Him." Here is a special difference betwixt the first and the last covenant that will clear the matter.

In the first covenant, Adam had not a tutor, he was like a daft young heir, who, having gotten infeftment of all that his father gave him, he wastes and spends all. But, in the latter covenant, God does with us as a father doth with a bankrupt son: he gives him little at once, infefts him not, but keeps a hank in his own hand,* and gives him over to a tutor. Man has cracked his credit with God; and so the Lord will not put a sum in free will's hands again; but He doth two things. 1. He gives little in hand but the end of the covenant, and keeps the body of it in His own. Our writs and charters are in Christ's keeping, we lose aye the thing we get, and therefore God gives us only a copy of the charter; but while here we never get the principal; Christ keeps the great sum and gives us but like a penny to keep our purse. 2. We have not power to cast out the seed again no more than a man child has power to make himself a woman child.

Now, the point is, Wherefore saith God He will break His covenant with His people?

Answer. It is not He will break His covenant with these same elect persons, as John, Thomas, Anna, Mary, and all who are elected, or within the covenant: but He breaketh the covenant with a new generation, a generation of castaways, who are their seed, and gloried that the covenant was made with their fathers, and call themselves Abraham's seed and chiefest kindred: their kindred was better than themselves. That particular church, had so many years of Christ for mail† and duty.‡ The tack§ expires, they sin, and pay not; then Christ warns all the tenants, in His Father's name, to flit. The contract was made with their fathers; they came in their fathers' room, but did not their duty, and God put them away. But as for the true, friendly, and tender believers, He takes some of them to their rest, and some to their kingdom. And if here and there one be left, when the Shepherd's staff is broken, He feeds them secretly; and is a little sanctuary to them, and they shall get crowns immediately from God. And therefore the breaking of the covenant is nothing but the breaking of the staff, and taking away of the word from the people of the Jews.

And therefore we may learn our lesson, if we are good scholars. The Lord has given us summons, and our tacks are worn out. Many are called home who are within the covenant. God can separate His own from the wicked, and then God shall tear the contract of marriage. Therefore try your holding, and look out your papers, and see upon what terms ye brock* Christ. I fear some have nothing but profession, empty, windy profession; others have the thoughts of their own head; many have little law or right upon their side for Christ. Therefore see to yourselves; Christ has said He will try your sitting, what shall either be His, or your own. Your rights are growing old, renew them to-day, and make sure work.

"And it was broken," &c.—When God will break the staff, who can keep it whole? There can none come after God that can mend the thing that He doeth. When God gives out the doom, it is no empty talk. The thing that God makes crooked no man can set a foot on it and even it (Eccles. 7:13, Job 12:14). He says, Behold He breaketh down, and it cannot be built up again. Then, ere the decreet be given forth, let us return: for who will get a suspension on the Lord's decreet? Nay (Jer. 15:1), "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my heart could not be towards this people." And therefore, if He give His church a shake for her sins, it will try all our art to mend her; and if He shall drive our hard hearts all to pieces, then put ye your hands to mend it.

4. "And the poor of the flock knew that it was the word of the Lord."—Hear how He speaks of the remnant of election. Ask what is the church, and especially after judgment has gone through the land? They are a number of on-waiters. There was nothing left now, when Christ had broken His two staves, Beauty and Bands, but to wait on an absent hidden Christ. For we can all wait on and believe when the Bridegroom fills our eyes with His presence, but see what the prophet Isaiah saith, chap. 8:17, "I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and will look for Him." This is something to wait for a hidden God, and to kiss Christ in the dark night, that is a wonder, Psalm 123, "Behold, as the eyes of servants look into the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden into the hand of her mistress: so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that He have mercy upon us." Ken ye not, when a poor servant has gotten a bloody skin, and comes in all bloody to his master, what a look will he let out, even as he would look through him: so are our Lord's children, when oppressed with bloody faces, looking up to our Lord and waiting on (see Psalm 130:6). As the morning watch waiteth for the morning; so we see the saints holding out their tired arms to God, and longing and looking over the mountains. And they have little or nothing in hand but hope.

Here is a doubt answered. Worldlings say, What have ye that we have not? Ye are a sick, poor, oppressed, banished, and mocked people; and where is your happiness. We have here an answer to such; we are on-waiters on God. Ken ye not some are very rich, and have thousands in this man's hand, and thousands in that man's hand. If ye ask them where their riches is, and bid them let you see what they are worth; they can let you see nothing but a number of papers, and bonds; even so, heaven is the land of promise, and the land of hope to believers. Let the apostle answer in this, 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." We are the poor of the flock, and the nothings of the world (1 Cor. 1:21). We are nothing, that is, but little less than a straw, or a feather. But stay, I pray you, our stock is in God's hand. Wait ye on until yonder day, until the fait, clear, and bright heartsome morning of your long summer day, when Christ shall take His weeping bride in His arms, kiss her and wipe her face, and say, "My dear sister, hold thy tongue," and shall busk her with His own hand.

Will ye let this foul black shower blow by; die not for sorrow. Wait on; now stir about Christ's door, cry over the wall, Lord, Jesus, take in a begging brother. Cry and wait, and I can assure you Christ Jesus is cautioner, and the Holy Spirit notary, who writes it, and takes heaven and earth, sun and moon, to be witnesses, that ye shall laugh and rejoice, and be forced to say, Believers indeed have a great to-look,* and are very happy.

"Then I knew it was the word of the Lord."—So soon as the staff is broken, and the Lord flitted: the Lord's poor on-waiters miss Christ, they begin to clap their hands, and to say, Alas! He is away. And the rest know not what that means; they remember not that, though it was written as Zechariah had prophesied. So the Doctrine is, That Christ cannot steal away from His own, and beguile them, but they miss Him, and know that He is away. The faithful know when He goes, and when He comes. If not so, what means that of the spouse? "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? And I charge you by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye tell him when ye find him that I am sick of love" (Cant. 2) The Church sees Him on the mountains, standing behind the wall; she misses Him (Cant. 3), and cannot find Him with the watchmen. But on the contrary, you see the wicked never miss Him; they know not what God is doing when the staff is broken. Nay (Hos. 7:9), "Strangers have devoured Him, and He knows it not." And even when our church is falling there are men who say she is rising, and that the staff is as whole as ever it was, and more so: and say our church was under beggary and misery before. And why? They would have a kirk, conscience, and religion made of gold, silks, and velvets, and foot-mantles, and high horses, and much court. But this text says, the poor of the flock are the only on-waiters on Christ.

5. But to proceed to verse 12, "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price."

Doctrine. A good servant, such as Christ was, should get His hire uncraved: but Christ gets leave to crave His hire thrice over, ere He get it: yea, and to seek His own by law. Now, I think, I recollect to have heard of a humble meek Steward, speaking very modestly to his master, and saying, If it please you, I would have the thing I have wrought for. Even so (to speak with reverence), it is here.

Doctrine. Hence we see where Christ has laboured, He will seek fruit (Isaiah 5), "I looked for grapes, and behold wild grapes." He will not work for nothing. He bade John Baptist make ready His way, ere He came. In Matt. 3:8, says John, Bring forth fruit worthy of amendment of life. And in all His doctrine, He urged the bringing forth of fruit. And as for the Jews' waste, He cursed the fig-tree, because it had leaves, and no fruit; therefore every one in Christ's house, seeing Christ served you in hard service, and gave His life in ransom for you, pay Him. Remember Christ is a hard craver, and will seek His own, especially His wages from you, even obedience, and newness of life. O then! See that ye bear not bulk* in His garden, and no more; but do good for fear He pull you up and cast you over the dyke. When men are redeemed, and have gotten forgiveness, they are ready to sit down and do no more; just as if a drink of the well in David's house had made them drunken, and laid them over to sleep. Nay, but when ye have gotten mercy, ye must up the brae.† For know ye, that when Christ saves you, as your Shepherd, and gives His life for you, see that you bargain, or change with Him, to give Him yourself for His wages. When an honest man bargains with another, he says to him, Ye shall be no loser: I shall lose ere ye lose. So should ye, when Christ bargains with you; let Him not be behind, but rather lose yourselves, ere Christ want a penny of His wages. Woe's me, to hear that professors, in buying or selling, will, for five or six shillings more of a price, let Christ's glory get a blot. Is this to pay Him His wages? It were something to be a servant, would ye pay Him for by-gones.* In this ye may learn a doctrine.

Doctrine. Christ is made a servant, and a servant is not his own, but a bond man; an hired servant is his master's, and all his work is his master's; and he is bound to serve no other. How is this? Was Christ our servant? Yea, He says, in Matt. 20:28, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."

But it were well done here to clear the matter to you, and to let you see that Christ was hired, and who hired Him. We hired Him not. Why then should He crave His wages of His church?

Answer. His Father hired Him. For understanding of this;—God, our Father, and Christ's Father, had a necessary piece of service to do: He had His sheep to bring out of hell: sheep that had gone astray, over and beyond the black river of death and hell: and our merciful Lord would fain have them brought home again. The angels could not take the service in hand: they could never have won the hire: but in comes Christ, and says, I will win the wages. And He struck hands with the Father: and was booked God's servant. Isaiah 42, "Behold My servant, whom I have chosen." At the meeting, Christ said, I will do Your bidding; and so He did (Psalm 40:7, 8), "Then said He, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is written within My heart." And (Isaiah 50:5), "The Lord hath opened," or pierced, "mine ear:" as the servant under the law, who would not leave his master's service; so was our Lord. And further, He says, I was not rebellious, neither turned I away My back. Verse 6, "I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair." And (Phil. 2:7), "He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant." There is Christ saying, My Father bored My ear, and hired Me as a servant, to suffer shame and death. And says Christ, I did My duty, I played not the truant, I brake not to Him: or I came not back, nor turned to a back-side: I brake not away from My Master, as an ill servant. Now then, ye see, God hired Him to Himself, and God hired Him to us; and Christ was true to His Master, and God trusted all to Him (Isaiah 52:13), "Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently." And so God gave Him in hand grace and strength above His fellows for the work; and promised Him a willing people, or a kingdom. And Christ accepted of the condition, and said, Send Me, a bargain be it.

Now, God be thanked for that hired Servant. And God gave to Christ something in hand; even our nature. By taking a body, Christ bound Himself to us, head and foot, as well as He was bound to God. For He having taken our nature, was sworn to bestow His manhood upon us, to redeem us. For had He taken on man's nature, and not saved man, He had not kept the condition as a faithful servant: but now being bound, He then puts His hand to the pen, and says Amen to the bargain. So then, when Christ became man, He said, A bargain be it. It's true, naked manhood was not enough to make Him a sufficient servant; but Christ said, I shall put to that which is wanting. I shall put to My grace to your nature, and My God-head to your manhood, to make the work hold forward. Now know that the Lord was bound to God and to us, not merely to do His best to perfect the service; not to bring our salvation under free communing* betwixt God and us: not as if He had said, I shall do what I can to make the agreement betwixt you, and to save you: I will see if I can please parties; and, if not, I shall leave it no worse than I found it. Nay, but accepting the office of a Mediatorship, He took upon Him an absolute submission to make up the difference, or else to stick by the gate;† and that what God had left undone (to speak so) Christ was bound as a Servant to make it up. So God and man made it up; for God had lost the glory, both of His truth and justice: of His active and passive obedience. Man had taken it from Him; and Christ said to His Father, All Thy losses be upon Me, and crave Me for all: and here what man had stolen, Christ gave it again, of the same kind: as if money was stolen, and money was given again to him from whom it was stolen.

Let us learn, then, to bind ourselves to Christ, as He bound Himself to us; for He could not run away when once He was bound. So when once we are His, we may not take the play. Christ once gave in obedience (when we had lost heaven) to justice and truth; and Christ said, My dear brethren, all your losses be on me, Amen. Now, well said, Lord Jesus. Look then now, how Christ was bound for you, and yet ye think much to bind your necks to His service, for thirty or forty years, and then to go to heaven through Him? But he went a rougher gate for you, to hell and the grave. Now, be content to bind yourselves to Him, I pray you.

"And if not, forbear."—As if Christ would say, If ye will not pay Me, I will not break My heart for the matter; keep it to yourselves. I will do My work; My Father will pay Me. He is even speaking as they use to do to dyvours. Either pay Me, or say ye will not: shift* Me not. Give Me either wages, or surety, that I may seek My own by law.

But then I see when all is done, Christ cares not much to want His wages, He resolved to do the work whether He got hire or not. It was another He was looking to than man. He had an earnest desire after the work, howbeit we should pay Him nothing. For the matter stood not upon our will, and our love, so as if Christ had said, I work My work, and die, upon condition they will pay Me. Nay, it was not so; but a reason in His death and mediation was to win our will to obedience, and to purchase grace, whereby we should be made willing to pay Him His wages. And here we see, if a nation refuse Him, as Scotland, He will get others willing to pay Him His wages. He will not want a new master.

6. "So they weighed for My price thirty pieces of silver."—Consider this answer was neither boasting nor high; but like the meek Lamb of God; like a poor oppressed servant, He craved His wages, and said, Give me My hire for My labour. See the rough answer they gave Him, Give You Your wages; the carpenter's Son who has a devil? Give Him thirty pieces (say they) to buy Him to the gallows! Hire Judas to put Him out to us, that we may take Him and hang Him, for that is the wages we allow upon Him! Is not this indiscreet talking to the Son of God. They pay the Shepherd His wages with many a blea stroke,† saying, Let Him take that for His pains. They answered even as a rough master does to an ill servant, who says, Pay me, and let me go my ways. The master answers, Give you your wages! give you the gallows! So do they answer Christ, as if He were an ill servant. But His Father sent Him with good words, "I am that good Shepherd, come unto Me all ye that are weary, and heavy laden. If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink." Then might not the priests have given our Lord a good answer? Nay, see two words in Matt. 21:38, 39. The Heir came to seek fruit, of the vineyard they caught Him and cast Him out of the vineyard, and slew Him. Would ye have believed, when Christ came to His own vineyard, that the servants would have slain Him and casten Him over the dyke; denied Him a grave, and let Him borrow another man's! Would ye not wonder to see Him come in to the church, in to the Parliament House, and to see men cast the door in His face, and hold Him out. Yet even so (Acts 4:11), He was the stone set at nought, and thrown over the wall. O! a strange thing! Would they give Him no room in the wall? Might they not have made Him a pinning?* Or was He not fit for the work?

Now ye may say, Foresaw not Christ all this; saw He not, ere He was hired, what wages His master's would give Him? Ay, this text tells, in Zechariah's days He saw it. Wherefore then entered He on the service?

Answer. If ye look the text, ye will see He took the hire and would not return it again; but in His providing, He cast it to the Potter's field, and went on in His service for all that. See yet more, what a meek and patient servant Christ was. He cried, Pay Me My wages; but they said, Give You wages! give You thirty pieces of silver to buy You to the gallows. Thus they stormed at Christ's answer, and ran away. Yet indeed He took it, and employed it as he thought good. He calls it His wages; as if He would say, This is even as much as refusing to pay Me. Why not willing, My dear spouse? Thirty pieces of silver to buy Me to the cross! I am even content; a bargain be it. I see it will be so: I foresee and prophesy it will be so.

Then the Lord saw how matters would go, and how He would be handled; but yet He would not repent of the bargain; He would not give it over; He accepted of the money, and goes forward in His service, until He be betrayed, slain, and buried. Ye may see, then Christ had resolved on the worst, to swallow all indignities, and set His face against the stormy blast. Now, see ye, all that Christ got was a hard reward for His service: He had many a wet foot in seeking His sheep; and got but twenty-six pounds Scots* for His pains. Christ did not stumble on the matter by guess, as one who makes a bargain, and when He sees what it will cost Him, He says, It had been good for Me if I had never seen it. Nay, but Christ saw the worst, and resolved on the worst. Nay, but has He not been serving all along ever since the Reformation? And who can deny that He has been feeding His sheep amongst us, craving His wages, and seeking His fruit? But alas! we have given Him as little as they did before the Reformation? We have sold Him and His truth. What fruits has He gotten? They are worth nothing. Nothing but ignorance of God, idolatry, cursing, lying, and swearing; and on His Sabbath He gets but raw service, an hour and a half, and on some days mickle vanity and pride in apparel, extortion, no justice, but many false laws, incest, and adulteries; many unrevenged bloods, a wicked and windy profession.

"A goodly price."—Christ speaks as a man to be pitied or bemoaned; like a poor servant beguiled of his wages. As if he had said, God kens if I wan it not dear. I endured the winter's cold and the summer's heat. Many a weary night was I awake when they were asleep; and look at the hire they have given Me! Indeed, a good price that I the Lord was valued at! These worldlings, like Judas, the Scribes, and Pharisees, who love the world, and never have a right estimation of Christ; for thirty pieces of silver the kirk-men bought and sold Him. If the world be great in your books, Christ has then lost court* in your hearts; for faith and a good conscience die and live together. Make once a hole in a good conscience, and bring in the world into your hearts, and ye shall see faith sink very soon. I wish men saw with two eyes here, that the world is a golden hammer to break religion in pieces, and that it breaks down the kirk walls. For what has overturned Christ and religion but men's love of the world, court, and honour. Go over to Rome, and see how they love God, who make golden kirks and golden images their religion. They have riches and fat benefices, and therefore they have put a tongue in Purgatory's mouth to cry, Money, Money. They love honour well, and therefore their doctrine cries, A Pope above all kings and emperors in worldly glory. And because the second commandment speaks against their images, they have shut it out as a servant. Men see not their court.† and the world can put a lie in their consciences, and cause them to believe black is white, and idolatry is a thing indifferent. Would ye know the cause of it? (but men will not believe it). When once the affections are passionate, and when therefore the truth comes into the soul of men of corrupt minds and affections, it is like good wine put into old bottles: our hearts sour the truth. Or, like a beautiful stranger coming into a very smoky house, who is all bleared and blackened to-morrow. And why? God's truth charges us to bow to it, and to deny our own wills, and lusts; and yield obedience to it. But when men's affections are poisoned with their lusts, they change the law to say as they say, and wrest, patch, and make religion, and the truth, as a wide shoe to suit their foot: or as a coat with a wide bosom, that they may take both religion and their lusts into it. Hence the adulterer will not bow his back to the seventh commandment; he would have it get a back-blow with his hammer, that it might crook and bow to his lusts. And the covetous man, because he will not be reformed, would wish a reformation on the tenth commandment. The fool's poisoned heart says, God will not bow to him, therefore he gives his conscience a back-throw, till it take the cramp again: and then he says in his heart, There is no God. And do we not see it so this day? Religion goes straight, and the truth of God takes even out at the gate: but men's hearts are upon policy, state, benefices, honour, and court; therefore they would cast religion in a pair of moulds and give it a back-throw, to cause it go halting and clinsing* after the world. And if Christ would say and do, as the rulers of the people would have Him, He should not be crucified.

"That I was valued at:" which I the Lord Jesus, Jehovah, who brake the staves, of beauty and bands, was valued at.—This is clear in the 13th verse, and in Matt. 27:8, 9. It is the man, Christ, whom Judas sold, for Matthew cites the text: but he says that it was cited by the prophet Jeremiah. Now, the text is here in Zechariah: and there is not such a place in Jeremiah; therefore it is like that Zechariah was also called Jeremiah. For it was ordinary for the Jews to have two names; and especially because Zechariah and Jeremiah come both from the same fountain in the Hebrew: and they have both one signification; and both in our language signify, a man exalting God.

But here the thing I would be at against the blinded Jews. Zechariah says, Jehovah was valued at thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, the Son of man was valued at thirty pieces. So these two are one and the same person; which is a clear proof that our Mediator is both Jehovah, God Almighty, and also a betrayed Man, for thirty pieces of silver. The Jews might have remembered this prophecy when they gave thirty pieces of silver for Christ, and before their eyes it was cast down in the Lord's house, and by themselves made use of, to buy the Potter's field. So then, Christ is God and man (the Jews will not have Him, let us take Him); for thus it behoved the work of our redemption to be a mixed work, coming from two natures. Then take Him as sib* to you: Christ, God-man, is all beauty and fair to behold.

Two things commend a wife, a sweet smell, and a fair colour. Christ-man smells of love, as sib to us; and Christ-God is all beauty and fairness itself, to behold. A precious stone, for beauty and colour: and also for the rareness of it, most excellent. So then in everything Christ is excellent. For the God-head and manhood are like two men lifting a dead man out of the water, and each of them lifts to the other's hands. For the manhood draws dead and condemned men from under sin and wrath, and the God-head lends strength, and holds out an arm to the manhood to do it. The manhood prays, is sad, hungry, thirsty, cold, weary, dies, and suffers God's anger. The God-head stands it out as a back-friend,* lifting and bearing up the manhood, under that great work, at that great day of law, when our action is called. The God-head backed Christ, and convoyed Him to the bar of God's justice, where He answers for it. The God-head cannot suffer: the manhood suffered, the God-head being overclouded, yet so as it broke the force of the stroke, by doing and supporting. As an arrow shot at a brazen wall, the point of it is broken and driven back. So the arrow of God's indignation went through Christ, soul and body, and made Him heavy unto death: but the God-head, like a brazen wall, brake the point of the arrow, and held up the man, Christ.

This was a rare work, strange and uncouth† to see! The angels marvelled to see God stand. The God-head stood to ward off the Lord's arrows shot against the holy child Jesus. And never a hole that the arrows had made in Christ-man but the God-head was aye at hand, immediately to pour in balm, and fill it up in the very moment of suffering. And as Christ-man was burnt in His soul, the God-head held a well of faith, comfort, hope and courage to His head to drink His fill. For Christ ever believed, and still hoped, and prayed in faith.

Then, believers, count heaven a precious thing that was so dear bought. Here was an uncouth wonderful yoking* for it! Then fy upon thee, if thou sell it for clay and swinish lusts. The thing that Christ wan with His sweet life, wilt thou slip from it like a knotless thread? Alas! I see men have not the estimation of salvation that Christ had. He gave much for it: they cast it at the cocks for a penny, for a feather. The young heir knows not how hard the conquest† was to his poor father; who was soon up, and late up, and ventured through the seas, and was shipwrecked thrice, and taken with Turks and Pirates. So we are but young daft heirs, and know not how dear Christ bought our inheritance. He wanted the night's sleep for it; it cost Him many a weary and heavy heart: yea He swimmed the salt sea of the Lord's wrath for it.

7. "And I took the thirty pieces, and cast them to the potter."—To buy a field with, for beggars and strangers; for the Jews would not have the uncircumcised buried with them. See ye not how Satan served Judas. He sought in his heart how to betray Christ. Satan said to him, Thou servest a hungry master. Wilt thou put Him in a purse, and get something from the high priest for Him that will do thee good? Judas does so. And now, when Judas got it, it burns his conscience and he throws it from him, and it is cast to the potters to buy a field. What gets Judas' heirs and executors of his thirty pieces? First, he makes a dog's testament; then he leaves nothing to his heirs. Many a purse gotten with selling Christ is casten to the potters: strangers and beggars get it. Then look to court, honour, and benefices, and estates gotten with the selling of Christ, if they thrive to the third heir. Many earldoms, and lordships that come this way will be casten to the potter's field. Satan filled Judas' head and heart with hope when he tempted him; now when he casts away the money, he gives him the cheat for his bishopric: he would laugh him to scorn. For, when Judas was conscience sick, he would not come and hold his head. I think Satan is like a lown, or sporter, who has put in his finger among ashes, where there is fire, and burneth himself, and, tempting, he says to his neighbour, It is not hot; and makes him put in his hand, till he is burnt, and cries; and then he laughs, and says, Good speed. The devil has burnt his hand with sin, and he says to Judas, and others, It is not hot, put in your hand and feel. And when they are scalded, and cry, and cast away the thirty pieces of silver, he but laughs at then. Nay, I have now mind how Jacob took Esau at the right time, when he was dying for hunger: he would not give him a soup of his pottage till he sold him his birth-right. Satan, finding men dying for hunger after the world, court, and riches, he makes them trow* they shall get nothing, unless they sell their birth-right. And when Satan once gets them in a right mood, and to lust after the world; hence, he gets them to sell their birth-right for sin. But, believe me, ye but burn your lips with the devil's pottage; when ye quit Christ and your birth-right for sin. Ye but scrape, and draw together for the potter's field. Ay, but stay till it come to Saul's and Judas' case, in the hinder end of the day. When a house takes fire, it is not long in going to all the corners thereof. So if ye sell your birth-right to Satan, sin, and the world; when death comes, the fire of hell will kindle in your conscience, till all be in a flame; and ye will not get water to quench it. O then, take heed, and beware of Satan's flatteries, sin's vain pleasures, and the world's deceitful allurements: for they are all but empty nothings, a matter of mere moonshine. It is storied of men going over to Italy and selling their goods to wizards, and getting, as they supposed, chest-fulls of gold: and when they came home and opened their chests they had nothing but a number of round slate stones, and were all beguiled. So, in believing the world, Satan, and sin, you can meet with nothing but deception. Ken ye not that the devil, the world, and sin, can all cog* the dice, and promise gold, while all is but mere nothings, empty shadows, and worse than slate stones?

Now, I pray and beseech you, by the mercies of God, by the blood of the eternal covenant, by the price of your souls' redemption, by the salvation of your immortal souls, and by your compearing naked and bare before the judge of the quick and the dead; cast this world and sin over behind your backs. Hate and abhor every sin, whether in yourselves or others, and go up through this world leaning upon Christ, keeping your eye fixed upon Him, as your only safety. The Lord bless His word to you. Amen.

SERMON VIII* —John 20:13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him, &c.—John 20:13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.

HERE is first a conference betwixt Mary Magdalene and the angels who had watched Christ's grave, and been witness of His resurrection (verse 13). Then she turneth from them, and lights upon Christ, and knows Him not.

Second. A conference betwixt Mary and Christ, while she knew not that it was He (verse 14, 15). A person may believe in Christ, and yet not have the assurance thereof. They may have true faith in Him, and yet not the sensible assurance of His love.

Third. A conference betwixt Christ and her, after knowing Him, all full of comfort. The Lord alloweth† comfort to His people after a time of mourning. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5).

Mary Magdalene comes first to the grave, and meets with Christ: for He had dispossessed her of seven devils, and she loved much, because many sins were forgiven her. We are ready to count sin and Satan a sweet possession as long as we have them; but when Christ taketh these from us, we loathe them, and rejoice in Him and His mercy.

"Why weepest thou?"—There is no envying of the angels at her desire after Christ. They are glad that sinners are sick of love for their well beloved. Mary had cause to rejoice, and not to weep: for Christ's rising should be as a napkin to wipe all tears from sinners' faces.*

Doctrine. We have foolish and vain affections, poisoned with sin: we weep when we should laugh, and laugh when we should weep. The disciples should have rejoiced, because He said, "I go to the Father." It was a blessed way for them. He was going to prepare a lodging-house for them; but they were afraid, and had sorrow of heart for His way-going. Some think He feeds not His people in His absence: nay, but let me say it, God indeed not only feeds His own people with sense of presence, but also with absence. When the moon is under a cloud, and the Lord is away, the desire groweth, and the hunger and thirst after Him increaseth, which is a good evidence. We often mistake our Lord, and are really going forward, when we apprehend we are going backward.

"Why weepest thou?"—The angels could teach this, That Christ's rising from the dead is matter of joy. Christ seeing John falling down before Him for fear (Rev. 1:17, 18), laid His right hand upon him, saying, "Fear not; I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen." (Psalm 118:24), "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." (Acts 13:32, 33), "And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children in that He hath raised up Jesus again." Therefore, Christ, after His resurrection, said unto His disciples, "Peace be unto you. It is I, be not afraid." All is well; seeing "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). Just as if Christ should say, You and I have won the action; be glad and come out, all is paid. "Because I live, ye shall live also." Wo* and cold would our comfort have been for ever, if death had arrested Christ in the grave. It is an uncouth† cold bed to go into death's dark pit never to come out again: they are all lodged there for ever. It is a miserable house; the inner chamber is the king of terrors: yea, black hell, hell and the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. But the Lord, in His resurrection, hath triumphed over death and hell, and delivered all His elect people from this grievous curse that they were lying under, in being heirs of hell. Therefore our Lord's coming out of prison is a relieving all His children. Think now (if we may make the supposition) ye see a poor man with one or two bairns on his back, wading a deep water; he is like to drown, and the bairns crying for fear, and he cries to them, Hold your tongue, my bairns, and I shall warrant you; and then when he comes out, he wipes all their faces. So Christ in the grave had all the children that His Father gave Him legally hanging about His neck, and in His arms. Our heaven, and all our writs and charters, all our salvation, was in the grave with Him.

"Mary answered, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."—Have I not good cause to weep? May I not be permitted to weep my fill? They have carried away my Christ from me. We see then two things in her. They have taken away my Christ. He is dead, and they have borne Him to another place, and I wot not where he is: but yet howbeit He be away, He is my Lord. The Note then is this:

Dead Christ, as ye think; a hidden, and a frowning Christ may be thy Christ, and my Christ. (Isaiah 49:14) "But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." Then a forsaking God may be Zion's God. When faith and fainting are wresthng a fall together, faith keeps a hank* of Christ in its own hand. Faith can say, Christ is not dead, albeit there be a hundred miles betwixt Him and me; yet He is my Christ, "my Lord, and my God." The child of God may be driven from many holds, and from the faith of his rising again from the dead, and from the faith of many sweet promises, and, fainting and doubting, may slander Christ, and say, He is unkind and away: but there is aye an hold to the fore,† and faith says, "He is my God." Like a captain besieged when there are many walls battered down to him, and the enemy has taken in mickle ground about him, and taken all the outer works, yet there is aye one castle untaken and to the fore that cannot be taken.

They say, The hold that a dying man gets of a thing, he keeps it till death. The dead-hold that a child of God gets of Christ it keeps for ever. It is good if we can stick to Christ any way, either dead Christ or living Christ, whether kend Christ or unkend Christ, we must still keep something, or we lose all. Let us keep a hold of the hand that strikes us, and kiss it, if we cannot get His face and neck to kiss.

We count little of Christ when we have our fill of Him, and when He is living, but stay until hunger come, and then ye would give a world for His dead body. There is such a hunger in Mary Magdalene that she would be glad even to have dead Christ in her arms! She thinks it is better than nothing! Mary seeks no better than to have her arms full of dead Christ.

Sometimes we let good meat spill, and count little of it! We think little of His company at Communions: there is a day coming, wherein ye shall be blyth* of a small crumb of Christ's bread. Were ye hungry, as may be ye will when this board is drawn: ye shall be blyth of a touch of the hem of His garment and a kiss of His feet. Little ken ye what it is to want. (Lam. 1:16), "For these things I weep: mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me." I trow that was no bairn's play. (Psalm 77:3), "I remembered God, and was troubled," how in former times He embraced me, and loved me; but now He has left me, and I know not what to do. "I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed." What is that? "I remembered God, and was troubled." Should it not rather have been, I remembered God, and leaped for joy? Nay, I remembered God, He that once remembered me, and loved me, but now He has left me, and I know not what to do! At such a time a blink of God, howbeit it were as short as a flash of fire in the air, it were half a heaven. It were good we were all at Mary's part of it, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."

She says, "I know not where they have laid Him."—A sore matter to lose Christ: but a sorer matter not to know where to find Him. It is a trial both to want Christ, and not to know where to find Him. Says the spouse, "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth? If ye find Him, tell Him I am sick of love." Sometimes it will be that the children of God will seek Him in many wynds,* and not find Him in prayer, in the word, nor at the holy table, nor in reading, nor in conference. They will, as it were, follow Christ from place to place, and not know where to find Him; they know not where He is.

"I know not where they have laid Him."—She believed that Christ was yet dead, and this was her ignorance and infidelity; for He had often told them that He would rise again, but they believed Him not. Then we see that there is ignorance even with a good and hearty affection to Christ, in God's children. In Cant. 5:5, there we see a church both sleeping and wresthng at once. Nicodemus loved Christ's company, yet there was great ignorance in him. The Lord's disciples followed Him, and yet they were fools and slow of heart to believe the Scriptures (Luke 24:25). Our soul is like a harp, wherein there is a broken or mistuned string; our mind and our affections are like a broken or lame leg. We have some light in the mind, but our affections are cold like lead. And when the affections are blown upon by the wind of the Spirit, the mind and memory both may have the truant sickness; nay, if God yoke them not all, and drive them up the furrows, some piece or other will lie back like a lazy ox. There is aye a crook or halt in us, so that we go crooked to heaven, as Jacob did. But a sound, hearty affection, even an ounce of it, is worth a stone weight of dim light. Alas! This age hath light, but it is barrelled up. We start all up to be professors! but few have the furniture for heaven. God forbid, that I should discourage any, but I see men contenting themselves with too little; some light, and weak love, to the word, and the preacher, and still their old sins and old jog-trot* is kept; and as dead in practice and reformation of life as they were ten years ago, and some of them worse. Now in the name and authority of the Son of God, try that it be good sufficient work; see that it be stamped and sealed with Christ's arms.

"She turned herself about."—I see the angels cannot help a wounded conscience that has lost a hold of Christ (Cant. 3:1, 2, 3). The watchmen could not lead the church to Christ, unto Him whom her soul loved. Nay, in prayer sometimes He cannot be gotten, (Psalm 22:2), "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not: and in the night season, and am not silent." What meant the prophet's dry throat, and yet could not get God? Job says, chap. 13:24, God hideth His face. In the Word there is often such deadness that the child of God cannot win to his feet: and they may wonder who have seen and had the experience of defection. Will ye not say, When God lays His finger on the soul, and breaks a string of the conscience, what means will be used to get a knot on this broken string, and to get the broken bone knit again? I grant you God (in prayer) has been found, but I am speaking of a presence, or of an access to a blink of Christ; I have experience to say with me, and I knew it of late. Wot ye that presence and comfort is sweet meat, and not for Christ's bairns' ordinary food? There is a time or tide when the wind bloweth where it listeth, even after the use of means. Christ will come, and there is but deadness in the meantime, when ye can neither feel, see, nor hear Christ. Then ye may say, What shall we do, if means prevail not?

Answer. I know no child of God, who is ever in such a case, as they can neither hear, see, nor feel. The sleeping Church has a waking heart (Cant. 5:1). Grace to miss Christ is some feeling, hearing, and seeing. Those who are in Saul's case (1 Sam. 28:15), who said, "I am sore distressed, the Lord is departed from me," are in a sad taking: but the children of God may blame themselves, who are in the exercise of conscience seeking comfort and do not find it. I say I forbid not but that they pray, hear, read; yea, use all means for it; but I would have them doing two things.

1. That ye would continue to cry, look heaven's height, and be very impatient till you get your rights and a new stamp. Sleep not, eat not, rest not, until He come again. Complain, fret, make haste, long, and hunger, for Christ. Look up as if ye were angry at the clouds that hide Him and hinder you to see Him. Shall one bid men fall asleep who have lost Christ?

2. Yet be very patient and submissive, binding Him to no time or manner of coming. (Psalm 40:1), "I waited patiently on the Lord, and He inclined His ear, and heard my cry." Then David both cried, and shouted, and yet had patience. Is a shouting and crying man a patient man? I say he is, 2 Peter. 3:12. Wait on and hasten to the day of the Son of God. See if I lie.

"And saw Jesus and knew Him not."—As in the body seeing and hearing went out, so in the soul we may see Christ, and not know Him. Many have light, as sick men have meat at their bedside, but cannot use it. But here is the matter; at every new meeting we misken* Christ. While your soul is sick, and while He kens not you, the acquaintance is aye to make over again. He must blow the coal; Christ's hot head must warm our cold ones, and His living hand must hold our dead hands and quicken them, and then we begin to stir our fingers, and to take hold of Him. But if Christ be but three days away, we are to begin at A B C again. He left Peter but a while of a day or night, and Peter forsook Him, and never repented till the Lord looked a loving look to him that awakened him. He turned a little from His disciples and they forsook Him and fled, and never wan to their feet again till He reproved them for their infidelity and opened their hearts. He knows a weak sheep fallen into a pit or hole that cannot win out itself. Christ aye looseth the fankled† lamb, bleating and bleeding in the thorny bush. A bow cannot bend itself, a man's arm must do it; it cannot shoot itself, a hand must put the arrow on the string, and draw and loose it. So ye must learn the gate‡ to heaven. It is a borrowing life we have here! We are aye falling, and Christ is aye setting us to our feet again! I see Christ must be cumbered in leading us the right gate to heaven. I think I have mind of an old crazy barque, each dash it gets on a rock it falls out in a hole, and new timber must be put in; and the next day it gets another dash, and a whole board falls out, and a new board must be put in again. This is like our conscience, this crazy soul of ours, having rotten timber in it. A dash of desertion for three days makes a crack in Mary Magdalene's soul, that she sees Christ, and sees Him not! David dashed against a rock of lust, and falls out in a wide rent of adultery and murder. Peter's old barque gets a knock of fear, and he falls out in denial of his Lord. The Lord's fore-hammer lighted upon the disciples, and they fall out with a love of honour and ease here; and they fall out in a great rent, and think He shall make them great men in the world, and restore again the kingdom to Israel. I tell you Christ must aye be putting in new timber till all be made new work, for Christ will take old Adam's rotten timber out of us, and mickle work it is to make this old crazy conscience new, that is like to fall to flinders.*

Jesus saith to her, Woman, why weepest thou?"—What needs Christ question thus? Why should Christ ask at a broken-hearted woman, seeking none but Christ, Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? Ye know a father will be minded to give an apple to his bairn, and he will say, holding it out, Will ye have that? Ye know He said to a poor man, "Wilt thou be made whole?" There may be some souls longing for Him this day, and yet He say, My dear people, tell Me whom ye would have, and whom seek ye? See here, there was a fault in her desire; she sought a dead Christ, or His dead body, and He would have her to seek a living Christ. And therefore, look, when ye are seeking Christ, that there be not a fault in your desire; ye are perhaps serving yourselves when ye are seeking Him. Ye are all seeking comfort, and He perhaps brought you here to hear nothing but conviction, and to humble your proud hearts. When we are seeking God, and our affections opened, the devil can shute* in his arm to the shoulder blades, and cast in a handful of his draff† and spoil the mask.‡ Who would think that a woman weeping for Christ was wrong? and yet she knows not whom she seeketh? Yea, at Communions, let me ask, for Christ's sake, whom ye are seeking? Ye will say, Christ. I say, Would to God it were so. I will have nothing, says one, but comfort. I will have nothing, says another, but a soft heart. And a third comes because it is the fashion! I will ask at these souls, Whom seekest thou? Painted hypocrite; plastered, rotten, dissembler, thou art seeking the devil and condemnation to thyself.

"She supposing Him to be the Gardener."—Her mind was confounded with sorrow and infidelity in her heart, and the Lord held her eyes that she kend not Christ to be Christ; and yet Christ looked more heavenly-like than He wont to do.

Doctrine. Then a child of God may be speaking to Him, and not ken Him. Alas! we often measure Him by our own foot! So Job takes the Lord to be a changed Lord, another God to him, and one that was turned to be his enemy! And so did Jonah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Habakkuk, &c., in their wresthngs. For infidelity is a thick mask upon men's eyes; and who are they whom Satan will not blindfold? He would have put a mask upon Christ's eyes, and put all the world's glory betwixt Him and His Father! but Christ saw through the mask. And Satan would have laid court, honour, and pleasures of sin before Moses' eyes, but God rent the mask, and he looked to the recompense of reward. The devil laid gold over Balaam's eyes. Has not that trumpet of Rome made Christ the gardener? There is no Christ in question or request now but that which rides in Parliament! They have put silks* on Christ and His Kirk, and they will not wear them. I pray you cast off the devil's hoods and his masks, and seek from Christ the salve, to see Christ to be Christ.

"Tell me where thou hast laid Him."—What a lift would this corpse have been? Would not dead Christ, His grave clothes, and an hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes, that was laid upon His body, have been a heavy lift to a woman? Six stone weight or more? Yet Mary says she would bear Him hence, nay, though she could not, she would take† a lift of Him till her back cracked, and her arm guard had been out of lith,‡ but she would have had Him.

Doctrine. Love has strong broad shoulders: the high mountains and the heavy burdens will not tire love. Love will never sweat, faint, nor fall in a swoon, for God helpeth love. Love is as strong as death, or the grave (Cant. 8:6). Get love, and no burden Christ will lay on you will be heavy. Were not the martyrs fraughted§ with love when heavy death and burning quick did not weight them when it was laid on them? But love made them run up the mountains with death and tortures on their back! Lay all hell upon a soul that has love to Christ, he will run with the burden. Seek and get love, and it will make you bear sufferings: for love will not burst at the broad side. Came not Moses from the court, with his back laden with affection to the people of God, and tired not?

"Jesus saith unto her, Mary."—See Christ calleth upon Mary by her name. Thus it is no dry general acquaintance that Christ has with His own. As ye use to say, It is hard to know such a man, but I have seen him. Nay, but Christ knows all His sheep by the head. (Luke 19:5), "Jesus looked up, and said, Come down, Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thine house." (See John 1:48), "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." (John 10:14), "I am the good Shepherd, I know My sheep." This behoved to be Christ, He is not such a rash merchant, but He saw His wares, and kend them all by their names ere He laid down a price for them. Nay, God brought them all before Him, and said, By their dwellings and names take them; and I will give the ends of the earth for Thy inheritance. He shall get all beyond the river (Zeph. 3:10), the dispersed of Judah, &c. (Isaiah 6:10). All these are His. The Father hath said, Son, Ye shall not work for nothing. What think Ye of your wares? how please your goods and mine? And His Father gave Him a fair roll of all their names, by the head, man and woman, as particularly as He had named them, John, Thomas, Mary, &c. And the whole flock was marked. As when a man out of a great flock selleth so many sheep, and sets them by for the merchant; he lets him see his wares, and he puts his mark upon them. So the world, even all mankind, was a great flock before God, and the Father gave Christ the pick* of the market. And He chose so many out of the flock, and bargained with Him for them. And the Father told† them all over to the Son, a fair number of bairns, saying, Take them, Son; but ye shall pay dear for them. And they were all of God's mark and Christ's mark together; and Christ kens what fields they go in; and He has them booked, and calls them, and puts the Mediator's name on them—the new name, even His mark. So here is the reason why, of two or three thousand in one kirk together where the word is preached, Christ calls out one man by name, and the other by name. I trow it is because here is Christ's bought wares, He is up in the count. The Father must keep condition with Christ, for He got arles‡ (as you say) in Abel's days, and He must keep remembrance of all His sheep. But ye will say, Alas! Christ has forgotten me. Well, beware of that. Will ye say the Father has miscounted a sheep, and Christ has lost a sheep in the telling? Then He is sleepy and careless. But it is not so. This is a sweet thing that He cares for you; thou art up in my books, John, Mary, &c. Ye are up in the white roll, and on that condition I give to you myself, my flesh and my blood, this day. O then be blythe§ man, thou wilt not fall|| by in the telling. There is no miscount between the Father and the Son, but faithful and sicker.¶ I pray you tell me when heard you Christ name you by name? I tell you when you think each promise is spoken to you by name, and when you say, Yon is spoken firm. And as when a roll is calling, each one cries here, "Here," to his own name. Then when the gospel is preaching, Christ is a calling the roll, your soul, with joy beliveth when ye cry, Here, here, Lord Jesus. Therefore take good tent when ye hear your own names called, and answer them.

"She saith unto Him, Rabboni."—Thereby acknowledging herself Christ's scholar, and Christ to be her master.

Observe. Here is but a short preaching that Christ makes. He says but one word, Mary: but it is more than a word; and Mary presently knows. So soon as ever Christ speaks, the kirk saith, "It is the voice of my beloved!" A wife who has wanted her husband seven years, when He returns she hears his tongue in the closs, and shouts and cries, Its my dear husband's tongue, and comes out to meet him. "It is I, be not afraid" (Matt. 14:27). And they kend His tongue, and presently received Him into the ship. Christ may learn us all to preach; for one of His preachings is worth a horse-load of our preachings; He has the tongue of the learned indeed. With His mouth He can blow up iron doors. Well kens He all the back-springes* and double locks of the soul, and how Satan has need-nailed† the door. Christ has the way of it, and can draw the bolt with His voice. So then when Christ cometh and speaketh, He brings His word with Him. When the devil comes he has a dumb knock; he raps but will not speak. He cannot bring the word with him, or it is a hollow earthly voice and harsh, aye crying, Clay, clay! court, honour, the world, your lusts, your fill! This is not like Christ's tongue. An image speaks not; the dumb ceremonies have not a tongue; they speak not to the soul; they have a dead knock. I shall be answerable when they come you shall break your heart and say, Yon is not Christ's tongue.

"Rabboni."—Mary had been seeking a dead Christ, and thought He had not been risen; and she gets a living Christ. Doctrine. No man ever went to seek Christ in a right way, but he got more than he sought! The woman of Canaan sought a crumb under the board with the dogs; but ere Christ and she parted, I trow He set her at the boardhead above all Israel.

The forlorn* son came home, and he would be nothing but a servant; he craved but to stand at the by-board. He speaks but of dry-bread; he spake not of whole clothes; but his Father put on him the best robe, and a ring on his finger, and killed the fatted calf, and set him at the high board, and at the first mess. "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3:20).

Now ye hear us speak of Christ; ye come to seek Him; ye think there is much in Him. Come and see, and taste, and ye shall feel that there is a hundred thousand degrees more! See then that you make an errand to Christ, for a sick bairn, for a weak body, for a troubled friend; and ye shall get more than ye seek! Ken ye not that poor folks are glad to get an errand to a hall-house?† If they can make an errand they ken they will find plenty there! Christ is a hall-house: go to Him.

"Jesus sayeth unto her, Touch Me not."—Matthew says, the women held Him by the feet; and no question Mary was hanging about His neck to kiss Him, and would have thrust Him into her heart. But Christ says, "Touch Me not." Alas! (might she think) what means this? Ye may wonder what ails Him at the poor woman! Trow ye Christ was grown lordlier? Was He more lordly than He was, because He was risen and glorified in part? Or, will lordships change manners with Him? No. Its true He forbids her; it was a fault in her seeking to touch Him; she doated too much on His bodily presence; and thought He had come up again to live on the earth, and to eat and drink with publicans and sinners as He was wont to do. But He will not feed her foolish love; Christ would have wise love. Ye are aye craving sense, joy, comfort. Look if that be wise love of yours, and that ye serve not always your pleasure, and delight in Christ, but not for Christ Himself. I say, seek yourself in Christ and your joy; but not for yourself. I pray you mark this; we are beguiled often in our seeking of Christ, for Christ here would be at another thing.

"Touch me not, I am not yet ascended," &c.—It is as much as to say, When I go to heaven and send down the Holy Ghost upon thee, thou shalt then touch Me by faith thy fill: but now hold thy hand, hold thee by that thou hast. When, I say, Christ, for causes known to Himself, will give you no aumus,* nill ye, will ye, then ye should not be in a marvel that ye do not see Christ! Rent not your bills† until I tell you Christ will cry to His beggars, Ye will not be served at this time.

Take an Answer. Now, I come to answer experience here. Will ye not pray, and come from God as it were with empty wind and nothing?

Answer. Christ said, "Touch Me not:" ye were perhaps seeking to play yourself like a bairn with Christ; and He will let you know He is Christ. He is not a Christ to play bairns with. So after we would have joy and comfort in Christ for our pleasure, is often as bairns that would have a painted hat to play with. Ye think, so soon as ye knock and pray, no more should be, but that all heaven's gates should be opened or casten up, and that the King will come out and meet you immediately, and take you into the house of wine. Nay, but stay: what haste? stay, at leisure, and ask at your souls what ye are seeking when ye seek sense and joy. If ye be not out of yourselves, and seek it not for this end, that ye may be hearted* to pray, and hearted to go up the mountain to heaven, I say, Beware ye find not a closed door: and howbeit this were not, beware. "Touch Me not," is good and sweet meet for you. Stand and knock, and go away, and come again and knock; and that draws out faith in a long and strong thread. And that is as good for you as if Christ and you had met at first. For know ye that access, feeling, and liberty, are graces? And He will give them but when He pleases: and it is best that Christ make delicates of such good cheer.

But what is the best mark then in seeking of Christ?

Answer. Take Christ anyway: if He be here, it is He; if there, it is He. Be as content with Him with tears and down-casting as in tears and joy. Nay, here is a second mark—If you can take Him out of hell smoking in your arms. But to seek comfort in Christ is not to seek Christ, say ye? I answer, If ye seek Christ for comfort, and not comfort for Christ, and joy. If ye ask how these are differenced? I answer, Even as the spouse loves the bridegroom, not for his fair clothes, and gold rings and bracelets, but for himself. So must ye seek Christ for Himself, and not Christ for comfort. For, I say, Joy and comfort is but the bridegroom's jewels; but the bridegroom himself is better. Nay, a convicting and rebuking Christ is no less true than a loving Christ! Then I say, It is not Christ, but His love ye would be at.

"Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father."—Christ brings His word with a reason; when I am ascended into heaven, then ye shall get touching Me your fill, wait on till that time. So this is no absolute nay-say, but a delay.

Doctrine. There is never one of Christ's refusals, but they are mixed with hope; the seed of faith and hope is in them. So He said to the woman of Canaan, let the children be first served. There is no refusal, but He puts her in hopes that when the Jews had gotten their dinner, then the poor woman should get the broken meat. Paul, when buffeted, prayed. Christ returned the answer, "My grace is sufficient for thee." This was a good answer. When the disciples would fain have had Christ abiding with them, He said, Nay, but this nay had with it, "But I will come and receive you to Myself." Then take not Christ's nay-say at the worst; it is both sweet and comfortable, and His strokes there is aye that in them, "Ye shall get." Then Christ's refusals are comfortable, and His strokes sweet and healthful. If we have honest hearts in seeking, one way or another God shall comfort us.

Being now risen from the dead, He says, "Go, tell My brethren." He would comfort His brethren with this comfortable doctrine, letting them see this glory He was to be advanced to; it took not away that communion of nature that was between Him and them: therefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren. (Heb. 2:11) We have one God, they and I are halfers together. And more than that, we are Father's bairns. God is their Father and my Father. So we have one mother; for Christ was born of the kirk. "Go forth, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals" (Cant. 3:11).

This is Jesus, the King of Peace, named by His mother the Kirk. But He was crowned with a crown of thorns; and also, crowned by the faithful who made Him their King. Then Christ and we are more than half brethren, we are full brethren; for God will have no step-bairns. We are native and of kin to Him; all the water in the sea will not wash Christ's blood and ours asunder, for Christ and we behoved to be more than second or third a-kin. For the law's cause, we behoved to be as sib* as brethren: and therefore, in (Cant. 4:5) He calls the Kirk His Sister, and delights to avow His kindred to her, for Christ will not man-swear† the silliest of His kindred. Now by the law, the poor brother that had mortgaged his land, had power among the Jews to make an assignation of his right to his brother, or the nearest of his kindred: and so might put his brother in the right of it. As an oppressed man, who is bereft of his inheritance, and has not moyen nor means to double out his matter by law, he makes an assignation of his right to his nearest friend or chief, who has means and moyen to win the action; and that friend has it also in his power to put the poor oppressed man in his place again. So here: no one but God who is above law, having given to Christ a body, made Christ an assignation to our bloody bond, which the law and the justice of God had against us. And when we had forfeit paradise, and could not double out our cause, the kind kinsman, Christ-man, was very kindly to pardon and come in our room as assignee to His poor ruined brethren. And God put into the assignation whereto Christ's name was borrowed, three things.

First, Our flesh and infirmities as sinless. Secondly, All our sins, and whatever followed them. So Christ got with us mickle black debt and many cumbers. And the cursed bond of the law was removed, and Christ was written in the bond accursed, and hanged on a tree. And thirdly, Christ was assigned to our heaven, and He named it to Him, by us.

Then Christ got the law, and we the gospel; and the assignation was mutual. And this was sweet, for Christ made us assignees to His bond, and He was assignee to our flesh. He made the work so as we should be assignees to His Spirit and His grace, that out of His fulness we should receive grace for grace. And so by law, Christ's grace is ours, and He puts us in His own place, and makes us assignees to His glory. (Luke 21:25), "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me."

Then believers be blythe. You are Christ's executors and assignees.* Now that Christ's testament is confirmed, intromet with† His goods, the law will warrant you so to do.

But there is a third thing in Christ's assignation, which He will not take well with if ye refuse it. He makes His brethren assignees to His cross. Ye will start at this, but it is your glory! In the world ye shall have tribulation, or affliction. When ye have subscribed the assignation, the said binds and obliges me to suffer for Him. Even for every cuff Christ took for you and me (and He got many a blue stroke for us), ye must be ready to take a cuff for Him. And know ye there was a clause in the end of the assignation full of comfort; Christ gives you a back-bond* that the cross will not slay you. Christ says, Brethren, I bind and oblige myself I will not leave you fatherless, I have overcome the world, I will see you again.

See then how ye are matched. And say not; Indeed it sets us not to be handled this way. But learn ye to be like your brother, meek and lowly, and then ye may ken ye are brethren. Professors be like Him; ye are come off for Christ's cause. Live holily, for fear Christ man-swear† you; and in judgment say, Ye are none of His kindred, "Depart from Me, I know you not." So, look; as your brother was but like a strange man in the world, so must ye be. Christ will deny step-bairns, and illegitimate bastard brethren that are not born again.

"I ascend to My Father."—He sends His disciples word or‡ ever He sees them, He must up to heaven for them. And therefore, He forbids them to dream of a Christ ever bodily present with them on the earth. And therefore they that would have Christ must follow His trodden path, and trace Him all the gate§ to heaven, and they shall find Him there. Ask Him out in heaven, at the right hand of the Father. And therefore believe His death and resurrection, and so stand there, and go no further, nor slip from Christ like a knotless thread, and lose His footsteps. But we must go after Him to heaven, for where our treasure is, there will our heart be also (Matt. 6:21). If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father. For except we sunder* with Christ, we must be where He is, and He is now up in heaven. He is now up in glory, and we are all down in a low valley; for sinners are aye playing at the mouth of the black pit, like daft bairns playing at the brink of a deep river. And Christ is crying, Come up, come up, after Me, lend Me your hand, I will draw you up. O! should He cry, Up with Me; and we are aye falling down upon the clay of this earth. He would have us flying to heaven: and we are still creeping upon this earth. What will become of the worms, and gathering worldlings?

A man that must ride forty miles ere night, and ye see him drinking at an inn at four o'clock afternoon, thirty-nine miles from his journey's end; ye may think he purposes not to be there that night. Is it not afternoon with our life? many be here past their twelve hours! And who knows how soon it may fall on night? and many have not gone one mile to heaven! Believe me, many men live as if they had the keys of heaven at their belt; and think to stick in this clay of the earth all their days, and leap to heaven at their death, at one leap! Believe me, ye never did leap such a leap in your life time; if ye would be there, its high time ye were on horseback already, and in Christ's chariot driving and posting to heaven as fast as ye can or may. Have ye not furnishing in heaven before you? Christ is there, is not your flitting before you? Then up, ye must after Him. Home, home, flee for your life, this town ye dwell in, and all about it, will be burnt with fire (2 Peter 3:10). Flee then, else ye will be burnt if ye stay here.

See the good word the apostle has (Phil. 3:20), "Our conversation is in heaven:" our burgess-haunting* is in heaven. And when ye would seek a man, you must seek him where he haunts and usually resorts to. As if ye seek the drunkard, he haunts amongst the barrels! for he is but a living barrel himself, to fill and empty, and to glut up his belly again with a new browst!† Would ye know the fleshly man's dwelling, where haunts he? In the whore's chamber; sits he not down at the mouth of hell? (as says Solomon) is he not well neighboured? The devil and her are door neighbours, upon the march together. Would ye see where the earthly man haunts, what need you ask? You shall get the worm in the earth among clay. Ask where the child of God haunts? where haunts he? Up in heaven; the Saviour and He cannot be sundry.‡ He is climbing on His hands and feet to be up. He is ascending and desiring to be with Christ.

Oh! the devil leads many down stairs; and when all is done, men get not their prey on the earth. I think I see them fishing for baronies, and thousands setting their lines and making all their might for a draught of fish, and to make up a fair estate to them, or theirs. And then I may see the tide, and the storm breaking the lines and taking them away, and they come home with empty creels like traiked§ slippery fishers, both wo|| and slippery, crying, shame, ruined; we have got nothing, but have lost twenty pounds worth of nets. So are men undoing their souls through the storm to seek fishing, and they lose their conscience, and a tide of temptation takes their conscience from them, and they go home to their grave with nothing. And some of them are forced to cry, The soul is lost.

My beloved, in the bowels of Christ, who has given His flesh and His blood, and offered it to you this day, in the Sacrament of His Supper, let us lift our thoughts from off this vain world, and transitory things below; and let us set our heart and affections on things heavenly and divine, trusting in the Lord through the whole of our wilderness journey, and inquiring for Him all the way to the very ports and gates of heaven.

We must not attend ordinances for the fashion, and according to use and wont (as we say), but for His glory, and our own soul's salvation. Nothing is to be done here, but upon the footing of divine authority. Away, therefore, with all Romish trash, will-worship, and superstition, in the service of God! All the trumpery of the Romish harlot ought to have no place in the House of God. But not insisting.*

Live soberly, righteously, and godly in your day and generation. In the midst of trials and difficulties, trust in the Lord, and put your confidence in Him; and there is no fear of an outgate, in the Lord's due time and way. Remember, He saith, I ascend to My Father, and your Father; to My God, and your God: Follow ye Me. Amen.

SERMON IX* —Song 5:1, 2

I am come into My garden, My sister, My spouse, I have gathered My myrrh with My spice, I have eaten My honey-comb with My honey, I have drunk My wine with My milk: eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved, &c.—Song 5:1, 2, &c.

BELOVED in our Lord, hitherto in this song there has been much love, and few out-casts† betwixt Christ and His church. In the beginning of this chapter (of which I have read a part unto you), according to the Hebrew, I fetch from verse 2, "I sleep," &c., that there is an out-cast betwixt Him and His church. In other parties there is more love in wooing than in the married state: for our love has a fair and sweet honey month, while it is green and young; it is like the child's new coat, fairest the first day. Our love at length, so far as it is natural, grows thread bare, breaks out, and has need of mending. However the plain contrary is in the true love betwixt Christ and His Church. This militant state is the period wherein Christ and His people differ: but they shall agree well together in the other life, in the triumphant state above.

This chapter hath three parts. 1. The lamentation of the Church, that she had offended her dear one, Christ, in holding Him at the door, with His wet frozen head in the cold night. For Christ in coming to us got a terrible blast out of the north; the storm of God's indignation was in His fair face, and took all the skin off it, and made Him a marred visage, as it is in Isaiah 52:14.

2. There is a conference betwixt the Church and her companions about Christ and His worth. In the former part, there is the Church's confession of her wrong to Christ, and the cause of holding Him at the door is set down and exponed. "I sleep, but my heart waketh." But I sleep not as carnal men do, because my heart, the renewed part, wakes: and through my sleep I ken His tongue. And the spirit cries to the flesh, Wrong, wrong, it is ill your common,* to hold out the Son of God. And she plays the advocate for Christ against herself: enlarges and presses in breadth and length the indignity of the wrong done to Him. First. From the testimony of her own conscience, in knowing His tongue and discerning His knock. Second. From reasons that He used to move her will to consent: as

1. Christ's just claim to her; "My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled."—Styles that we deserve not; for when Christ has gotten us with much intreaty, and hard war, ill and well as it might be, He has gotten but a dirty armful of us. The 2. Reason is, from His sufferings: "My head is full of dew." 3. She comes to her own backwardness, and carnal shifts. In speaking to herself in allusion to the custom of going barefooted in those hot countries, and to the washing of their feet ere they went to bed; says she, I cannot rise now, and quit my ease. And with confidence, she propounds questions to His conscience. How can I in this cold night put on my clothes? how can I defile my feet? Be you judge, husband, if this be reasonable, that ye should not come in day-light before the sun go down. Shall I quit my pleasure, how can I do it? Is this possible? Shall I now defile my feet again? Is this reasonable? Her 4. Reason is, from his manner of working in her heart; My well beloved put in His hand by the keyhole, and made my heart lively, and warmed it by some bestirring motions: and O! unhappy I, who would not rise and open to Him. Her 5. Reason is, from her sorrow in that her bowels were turned for her Lord, who was thus unworthily received (verse 3).

3. Then is subjoined (in verses 4 and 5), the fruits of her laziness, which was the losing of her well beloved; in which are these six particulars.

1. "I rose to open."—This is a new purpose, condemning her former neglect. 2. What befel her in that work; the Lord left upon her heart the smell of His love, sweet as myrrh, which made her hands to drop when she had purposed to open. 3. It is set down, her opening out of time, "He had withdrawn Himself." 4. Her missing of Him when He was gone. 5. Two fruits of her missing of Him, the one which is the fifth in order, her godly sorrow, in that she fell aswoon for Him. The other which is the 6. Particular, her seeking, praying, and longing for Him; but not according to her present desire, "she found Him not." Thus ye have the division.

Now I come to the doctrine.

"I sleep."—It is not long since it was another world, "Let my beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruit;" but now it is a changed world. Once it was as in chap. 2:6, "His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me:" but now there are harlot lovers in the church, and it is ill sleeping in a chamber where Christ is locked to the door.* Perhaps the devil had made the bed, busked the chamber, and drawn the curtains. Hence the holiest living, while the flesh dwells in him, a neighbour to the Spirit, he will fall asleep. (Matt. 25:5), "While the bridegroom tarried, they (even the wise virgins) all slumbered and slept." (Rom. 13:11), "It is high time to awake: for the night is spent." They were in a nap when the apostle would have them to awake. (1 Thes. 5:5, 6) "Ye are the children of the day, therefore let us watch and be sober." Then we must beware lest that, in the believer's day, and in the Lord's day-time, we take a noon sleep.

Question. But what are the causes that those whom God has once awakened fall asleep?

Answer. 1. A full man seeks a bed, a drunken man asketh for a soft resting bed. In prosperity and health, when men sit right against the hot sun—when David is at home, and his kingdom established in his hand, he falls asleep, and lust asketh the way to his house (2 Sam. 11) When it is full moon with the soul, and it has been filled with God's presence, take heed then that you lay not your face to the sun, and fall asleep. When Peter got a fill of glory at the transfiguration of Christ, then he falls asleep; and in a dream, he spoke he wist not what, when he said, "Master, it is good for us to be here" (Mark 11:5, 6). It was a word he spoke through his sleep. If ye, Peter and John, will stay still in that glorious estate ye have soon done with it. But how shall the Christian world be gathered in to Christ by your ministry? Nay, awake ye must, come down from the mount, and be scourged, imprisoned, and suffer death for bearing witness of Christ before the world. The devil does here, as some physicians who give physic when it is full moon. Satan kens well when it is full moon with the soul, and then he waits on with a soft pillow and a made bed. Therefore, after your fill of Christ, and after you have gotten many love tokens from Him; keep your soul waking.

2. Men cast away holy fear, and then they must sleep. They forget their soul's being ill locked up, and forget that loose-handed devils (if we may so say) are going up and down the house: and that they have a great house to keep that is well filled. Their conscience and their affections are treasures often loosely laid up: and there is but a thin wall betwixt us and Satan. And we forget that sin has made us heavy headed and lazy sluggards, inclining to sleep. "Blessed is he that feareth always" (Prov. 28:14). We may catch much harm in sleeping, and therefore holy fear should keep us waking. He that knows himself to be on the head of a top-mast, and with giddy head looking down, he will forget sleeping.

3. We turn idle and leave off our spiritual exercise: and so fall over in Satan's perfumed bed (1 Thes. 5:8). To keep men waking, the apostle sends them to the use of faith, love, and hope. Before men fall asleep, they turn lazy and cold in good works. Such as watch a castle, when they fear sleep, walk up and down, speak and sing; for if they sit down, they will but soon welcome sleep. Let a man for a month do nothing but sit in one place night and day, the sinews of his legs will readily freeze and dry up. Use the body and have the body. When we give up with prayer, reading, hearing, conferring, meditating, and walking in love and good works; no marvel though the sinews of the conscience dry up. Let a watch or a clock stand a year, lay aside the paces,* then all the wheels rust and gather dirt and moths, and so clog it that it cannot go. Leave off to do good, and turn lazy; and the wheels of the conscience, and the affections of love, joy, desire, sorrow, hope, fear, let them gather rust; and if they freeze, the soul must then fall asleep, and turn as dead for a journey to heaven as a sleeping man is to walk. These two last causes of sleep say it is no wonder though all we in this land be fallen asleep. Our little fear of losing our well Beloved, and our deadness in good works and spiritual exercises, cannot but bring us to this sleep.

"But my heart waketh."—My renewed part waked, and knew Christ's tongue. This is not spoken as a volley† or vogue; as many folk in a shew, scant of friendly neighbours to praise them, they save their neighbours the labour, and praise themselves: but the church speaks this to the praise of the grace of God. Hence, we see the worst case the child of God can be in he can discern, even through his sleep, the voice of God in Christ; and in his dream can take up Christ as Christ. For even under these out-casts,‡ and when the peace betwixt them is cried down for a time (1 John 3:9), the seed of God abideth in them (1 John 2:27). The anointing that they have received of God abideth in them. Neither must we think that Christ giveth His friends a spur visit and a standing word, and away again, seeing He still dwells in His own; howbeit He doth not aye work in them.

Under greatest unkindness there is never a defection in the soul, for the Lord's seed of righteousness remaineth in them. Howbeit it casteth not aye heat, yet it casteth aye light, whereby the man seeth sin, and protests and takes instruments* in Christ's name, of the wrong done to Christ. And if the new man cry, Wrong, wrong, think on that: the converted sin not without an eye-witness that speaks against the ill (Rom. 7:17, 18).

But by the way then another Question. How do the renewed in Christ sin at all if the seed of God abide in them?

Answer. Because Christ can lie down in the soul, and not work at all, and suffer the unrenewed part, I mean the old man, to make a road† in the soul: Christ in the new man only making a little struggling, as the birth hurt in the mother's womb makes a stirring. This should be known; it is not grace in the habit that hinders sin in us, but God working and blowing upon that grace. For our watching and walking in God's way, is not like ordinary fire that burns of itself; but is like the smith's fire that must be blown up with the bellows. And therefore, in the time that God's bellows blows not on our fire, it is dark and dead. Then Christ's fire with little heat lies beneath the devil's ashes. God says to Jeremiah (chap. 1:18), "Behold I have made thee this day a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land." Might not that have sufficed Jeremiah, except he were ill to please? Nay, but the fenced city might be taken! Therefore the Lord promised that that should do the turn. (Verse 19), "They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail." Why so? Because Jeremiah was an iron pillar, &c. Nay, another reason is given; and that is, "I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the Lord." So then, it is God Himself working upon His own grace, and blowing upon His own fire, that is the proper and only cause of our standing.

But to the point. The waking heart through the sleep knows the Lord's tongue; and this should comfort and bear up the child of God under falls and different sins, from being a castaway; when Satan comes in in a deep sleep, and steals away the soul and is never trapped. But the devil cannot steal a sleep on the child of God, but the renewed part will awake him, and take him with it red-hand.* Or at least, it is like the tender eye that waters with a blast of wind or a mote. Or thus; when Satan casts water on the faith of the saints, Christ's fire makes a noise and cracking; or when sin lies upon the conscience like uncouth† meat, raw and undigested, on a weak stomach, the child of God gets no rest till he vomit it up again. Now this is a matter of comfort, and it saith the conscience is tender, sensible, lively, and thin-skinned, and will easily bleed. And as it betokens a tender, and a waking heart, so it says that that conscience has a bottom. But for the reprobates, the devil has driven the bottom out of their conscience, so that sin runs through it as a vessel without a bottom, that holds nothing; for sin, after it is committed, is done, or out of mind with them. The Pharisees killed Christ, and were soon washen, though it was with foul water; and they fall to, and eat the passover, and there is no more of it. It is past with them, and that quickly, and there is no more of it by reason of a running out conscience. Cain's murder did not stick long in his throat when he went out of God's presence and built a city.

This confession of the kirk, that in sleeping, "the heart waked," will reprove many who overcharge their conscience and themselves (as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. 2:7), until they be swallowed up with grief. They only speak of the evil that is true of themselves, but no good at all. The church doth not so (Cant. 1:5), "I am my beloved's," &c. I am black, yet she denies not, but Christ's part is comely as the tents of Kedar. We ought to confess our sleepiness; but we should not deny the grace that is in God. As the wretch sinneth away all he has and sayeth he has nothing. Thus some imagine it to be both the root and top of true humility, to say they have no grace at all; there is nothing in me that God can own as His own work. This they think true humility, to put the price of a dog on themselves. As they think they are riding God's errands when they have put the saddle on the wrong horse! But, in doing this, men take Satan's place over his head, for he is an accuser of the brethren, and they play the advocate for him. And this is in confessing to bend the bow beyond the compass of it. And when men say this, that they have nothing of them in God, they forget that Satan is at their elbow, to say, Then I take instruments* on your word, ye must then be mine.

There is also a third sort, who abuse a waking heart in their sleep. They who think they may take a little liberty and elbow room to sin, because, say they, Howbeit I sleep, yet the renewed part is waking. I know Christ's tongue: it is not any gift to suffer for Christ. I will crouch and let the cross of Christ slip by me; yet I wish all well. I love the good cause! Yet they can feed their lusts, and make them fat and wanton. I hope, say these men, I have true grace, I am woe at any slips I make! Now, well said Pilate! Scourge Christ and then condemn Him; and then wash your hands and proclaim yourself a just, clean man. If any man be wrong, then these with the first are playing about the mouth of hell.

"Open to me."—There is then a locked door upon Christ; His face is hidden. So soon as He goes out there is one that pays rent to an uncouth Lord, who wins the house of our hearts, and takes it up. Hence it is, that Christ must beg lodging for God's sake, ere He get possession of His own again. Then by our security, taking the play, and giving a night's lodging or two, to an old lust, dear Jesus must stand and call for Himself, as if He were the Man to be meaned, crying, "Open, My sister," &c. Yet this would seem a hard command, if He would say to us, Open.

Answer. When God commands anything to us, He adviseth not with our lazy flesh. Neither says He, What think ye of the command? He says to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, and say, Let My people go. But He asked not counsel at Moses in his cold blood, nor stood at his natural fear to go to Egypt where he had slain a man. He sends Jeremiah to kings, princes, prophets and people, and makes no great reckoning of the prophet's fleshly shift. "Ah, God! I cannot speak;" says he, "I am a child" (Jer. 1:6). Yea, if our Lord advised with wicked men (to say no more of the saints) in asking their mind anent His commandments, they would shape a law like a wide coat, to take in both God and their lusts. But God's commandments must stand, of His own mould. Hence comes this

Question. How are evangelical commands directed to us? (Ezek. 18:31), "Make you a new heart, and a new spirit." (Col. 3:10), "Put on the new man." (Rom. 12:2), "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind," &c. This seems to lay the weight on our free will, which it cannot bear. What shall ye then do with these things?

Answer. Because lazy nature flings at the load, it should not be refused at the first hearing. We are to take us to our feet, no less than the power were in our own hand. Christ helps fair ventures. Better die working and doing as we can, than cry in the fire, Lord, lift me out. It is our fault; the want of the command breaks our resolution to obey in two pieces, and there we lie.

God sends not His commandments to us because we have strength to do them. But God seeks that His charge be met with humility. Wherefore, the gospel is a mass of humble commandments; and we sigh because we cannot win up the brae. It is acceptable; providing we creep on hands and feet as we can, it is sweet obedience. Because faith has always in the second covenant the first stroke, and the fore-start, before doing, as being the condition of the covenant, therefore our Lord commands, and seeks in the command, that we believe. He will put His Spirit in us, and cause us to do what He craves of us. A father charges his child to bear a burden far above his strength, and threatens him if he obey not. He obeys if he stoop, and mint;* and pant; and withal weeps, yet he cannot get it done, and believes that out of love his father will help him. So in opening of our hearts to Jesus; if we but weep, and look up with watery eyes to Christ, and then cry and mint, to open it as we can, using the weak fingers that we have. For though our money wants many grain weights, yet Christ fills the scale of the balance, and weighs down where we want. So Christ's commands to us are commanding promises and promissory commands. He charges us to do (Ezek. 18:31), and He promises to work in us what He commands us to do (Ezek. 36:26, 27).

The use of this point is to teach us to meet God's commands with humility; as going out of ourselves with faith in the commander. For want of this, our lazy nature lies down under the load, and we stick in the mire.

This speaks against the enemies of grace, who slander us, as if we denied Christ to be a law-giver, who speaks good words to, and speaks good words of us; and said that the gospel does not command at all, but only shews and teaches what God by His Spirit works in the elect. Nay, we teach that it both commands and craves obedience (as they teach); and He irresistibly works by His Spirit what He craveth; and His grace pays our debts. He pays our debts with His own money; which they deny, to God's dishonour, and the reproaching of His grace, that free will may get the throne. But better we want, than grace want.

"My sister, My love."—Christ speaketh like Himself, He calls His church four times over His own, "My sister, My dove, My friend, and My undefiled." Even as if He were proud of His heritage. Mine is a sweet and a friendly word; every one loves well their own. So doth Christ speak of His own, being well content with His conquest, as having no stronger reason to work upon us, to win in upon our souls, than to allege properly His claim to us. And His property and interest is a great one. And it is but reason every one get his own; and far more reason that Christ get His own. We see Christ had begun, or renewed, conversation on low and lovely terms; such as a man has when he finds a treasure (Matt. 13:44). Then Christ filleth to comers, at the first meeting, a cheerful heart. And (Matt. 11:28) ease and rest to their souls is promised. (Rev. 3:20), "If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me." There a feast of joy (Prov. 9:5), Christ saith to a parcel of fools: "Come, eat of My bread, and drink of My wine." There is a home-coming soul set to a full covered table.

I deny not but there be down-casting terrors, and ploughing of the conscience before; but that is before Christ come. Sorrow ushers the gate to Jesus. The reasons are these. 1. The conscience is as a dainty small spun thread at conversion, either begun or renewed. There is a double knot upon it, law terrors, and the threatenings are a sharp knife to cut the thread; but not to loose the knot: and loosed it must be. For well* is the soul that Christ wooeth with its own consent. Therefore love's sweet graces and felt promises have a rank smell of the soul's delight and comfort of Christ's presence: and they are the small soft singers of Christ, whereby, with the strong, soft, and subtile art of love, Christ looseth the knot. The soul is, until then, a locked door. The law is the wrong key, it would break the lock ere it opened the heart. When Christ comes, the law and our affections are like ill ravelled yarn; force would ravel them worse.

But in Christ's coming first to win† in upon our hearts, we are like old vessels made new; it is best to try old vessels with water ere ye put wine in them. Love is like water in the soul; it is not so sore looking in the soul as wine. It is best at our first starting of the race to see the gold.* Christ puts not new wine into old vessels. While His disciples are young and weak, He sooths them with the company of the Bridegroom; but afterwards, when they are older, and have strength, He will take the Bridegroom from them, and then they shall weep in those days (Matt. 9:15). To draw home Ephraim's heart to God, He plats the rope double, that it break not. See our Lord's word to him (Jer. 31:20), "Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child?" &c. And a new garment, feasting, and kissing, is for the forlorn child.

The first love-token is a copy and sampler to all the rest: therefore it must be given with a hearty impression from Christ's own mouth in His word. The bairns' copy should be written with fair and large letters, that it may make them learn with the better will. Our Lord knows we will have to do with experience; and therefore, ordinarily at our first meeting we get as much feeling as we shall never cast off all our life-time again. I will not affirm this to be universal; for Christ steals in upon some souls from the womb, so that they can say, Here He is; but how He came in I cannot tell.

Use. Some may say I have had much sweet delight in Christ langsyne;† but Oh! I may say, God be with good old by-past years.

Answer 1. New love has aye the sweetest breath. While it is new, it is in this point, like the bairn's new coat, it delights because it is new. So is love because new, and afterward it delights because it is love only. But this is not spoken to bolster up any who are fallen from their first love, like Ephesus. We like all well to be soothed in our affections; but be not casten down, because old feasts are turned to hunger; for hunger is as good for you as feeding and feasting. A man on the top of a mountain will see the city though he be many miles from it: and when he is within half a mile of the city, may not see it at all, because he is on valley ground. Longsyne, when ye were Christ's creeping bairns, He set you on the top of a mountain, and made you to see heaven: now ye are within half a mile of the city, and in His wisdom He makes you walk on valley ground, though ye are nearer it now than before. For of old, He was only letting you see the ground, that ye might run fast.

Since Christ in conversion worketh thus by love; it is a vain thing for the enemies of grace to say, God's determinate grace doth strangle free will, because it worketh irresistibly. Nay, seeing grace works by love, it is clear that grace doth not strangle, but clap and kiss free will in its most kindly and natural inclination.

Let never a man please himself in obedience to Christ, until he finds His love load him. I will tell you, for every ounce weight of spiritual love there is as many of spiritual obedience. Get once your soul fraughted with the love of Christ, as a bird in the net, and all is well. Let fear and terror, or other winds blowing our sails stand by, for they shall never take the ship home. It is but a violent motion, and not perpetual. The will going about as the wheels of a watch wearieth, because of the violent motion. The sun wearieth not to shine, nor the fire to cause heat, nor a fountain to spring, because the motion here is natural. Law, fear, lust, gain, credit, and the like, bloweth us forward to obedience, causeth but a violent motion against the hair; the wheels will wear and tire. But when our actions come from the love of God, as from a co-natural fountain, O! the motion is like the action of nature that is not forced. For the love of God is not short of breath, and it will not weary.

"My undefiled one."—Passing the other titles, this shews that the kirk has a feast in Christ's heart, and partaking of His nature. My fellow friends, touching the communion between Him and her, "My dove," it respecteth the chastity of the kirk and matrimonial love to her only husband, Christ. I but touch this, "My undefiled one" is exponed (chap. 7), "Thou art fair, My love, there is no spot in thee." Whence is this, that a sinful kirk is called undefiled?

Answer. Our Lord reckons us from our best part; the new man is an undefiled thing. There is a chain of gold melted, though there is some dregs in it; yet we call it a chain of massy gold. Christ calls His mixt wine, wine. When Christ once loves His, He never reckons the dross: it is holden out of Christ's count book. We are undefiled in Christ, "in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins" (Eph. 1:7). The saints must be undefiled when their sins are put up in Christ's account. (Isaiah 53:6), "The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (2 Cor. 5:21), "God made Him sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." O then (say the Papists), we are as righteous as Christ, if His righteousness be ours; which is blasphemous. And because it is of a truth, that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us: says the Antinomian, we are Christ's, and as righteous as He, and so cannot sin, and we are not under the law. Now to the first; let the Papists, who mock at Christ's imputed righteousness, know, if we look to the quantity of Christ's righteousness, it follows not that we are as righteous. For He is inherently righteous, and His personal sufferings has righteousness for all the elect, and for many worlds. But if we look to the manner of having His righteousness; then, as He is righteous, so are we. Even as a child of one day old is no less a man than a man of thirty years: but the child is not a man of such quantity and stature as a man of thirty years. Christ has righteousness for Himself, and us all; but we have our righteousness in Him, and every one for himself, because sin is but one debt, first upon us, and then on Him. Our bond over Christ's head, and over our own, is but one process; "He was made a curse for us." In challenging one ditty;* my sin was laid on Christ: sad and black ditty; one sum on us both, one death, and which is best of all, one discharge. God be thanked, Christ got free out of prison, and took all dyvours with Him. Hence let us make our own use of it, ere the libertine get his answer. Satan intends summons against weak consciences. Thou art a filthy sinner, says he, and that is the ditty God has at thee, and the plea the Lamb has against thee. But thou mayest get an answer to Satan. It is untrue that there is a plea betwixt me and the law; the plea is betwixt Christ and the law; it is Christ's plea and not mine. Therefore send the devil to Christ for that plea; Christ is old enough, and can answer for Himself.

The devil can trouble us for Christ's plea; yea, he can wade deep here. "Thou art not an elect person, nor written in the Lamb's book of life."

Answer. These doubts of our election, are dreams raised in our heads by the devil; for not any but jugglers and wizards have read your fortune, and told you such a dream. I ask, Hath Christ given you your last answer, and said, I care not for you? Nay, He has not, nor will not say this. But know this, neither the devil nor thy conscience speak always law, if thou can but unfeignedly creep under Christ's lap. There is no water yet casten on Christ's kindness. If His love reek and smoke, there is fire.

The devil can here turn his hand, and borrow the conscience of the Antinomian, and the fleshly libertine, who says, "I am Christ's undefiled one, He has made payment before hand for all my sins, past, present, and to come."

Answer. Ay, He is so righteous to thee, as He is made sanctification to thee also (1 Cor. 1:30). If thou thinkest Christ died for thee, and still sinnest upon luck's head;* because Christ has blood enough to wash thee: as a waster of Christ's blood, thou turnest His grace into wantonness. Christ redeemed none upon such conditions; your faith should never lay claim to Christ. None are saved, except they live to Him who has died for them. As just claims has any man to Christ as they have, if they lead not a holy life. A man in strong prison with iron fetters on his legs, cries, I am a free man. May not the devil laugh under thumb, and say, My freemen? free to bear my bands.

"For My head is full of dew."—This is a strong plea, My spouse. I have endured a cold stormy night for thee: I am all dreeping with rain. My dear wife, pity thy Christ's frozen head, and give Me a night's lodging.

It is a strong argument in Christ, to win ground on our souls, to hear Him tell what He has suffered for us. Let in thy slain Husband in thy heart, and give Him a night's lodging (see 1 Peter 1:18), because Christ bought you dear, not with silver and gold. (1 Peter 2:24), "Christ bare our sins in His own body on the tree." What then sought He in that? "Even that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness." This way Christ's death should work the death of sin in us. In obedience,* which describes the name, what is it, but that which comes from a heart softened and broken with love to Him who had a sore head. He who crieth by His ministers, is He whose head and breasts are pained with knocking to get open doors. And even now, howbeit glorified, when our head is pained with crying, He means His head. He bought the house, and should not be holden out. When a bird builds its nest in the hall of a king's palace the nest is in a wrong place. The devil has a nest of lust, pride, covetousness, revenge, idolatry, atheism, and falsehood in the soul, which is a house redeemed with Christ's wet head, and precious blood. Thou hast a right to cast down the nest, it is in a wrong place. Christ was shut out in the cold winter night, and got the stormy side of the brae, a storm on head and face, like to take the skin off it, to buy the house; then let Him in. So long as men labour not, the devil and they keep a merry castle against Christ.

"My head, My locks," &c.—It sets Christ well to tell His sufferings; "They pierced My hands and My feet" (Psalm 22:16). He would say, It is little to you to hold Me at the door, but My holy manhood paid dear for it. (And He had not much reason for Him to take cold.)* But it is as if our Lord would say, What Christ gave to God for the ransom of sinners was His own head, His own body, His own soul. So there are two things required in a Redeemer. 1. The act of paying a sum, and telling it over the board to the creditor. 2. The sum must be His own, for if He pays a ransom with another man's gold, the man that aught† the gold is the ransomer rather than he: the payer in that case seems to be but a factor to another. But Christ was no factor; He paid the redemption with His own proper gold. So the manhood being made one, in a personal union with the God-head, yet it was His own flesh and blood, and His own soul that He offered to God. For howbeit it was borrowed from us, yet, in substance personal, it was His own: and both His will and God's was one agent in the offering of it, which was a ground of infinite mercy, and the holy will of the manhood earnestly desired it. Here He took on Him the seed of Abraham. And (which is a mystery) the manhood not being a person, but a nature, the drawing of it to a personality with the God-head, made it Himself and His own.

Whence we learn, love both creeping near to us in Christ, and so near that He became us. This is the love of Christ, that no man could go a step beyond Him, in coming down unto us. And therefore see how homely is Jesus, in coming unto us, that our faith here might be as homely and kind as His love was to us. We may lean fully, and lay all our weight upon this ransom. Seeing it is the ransom of God, and is made God's payment as well as man's. For let a subject find a silver mine; suppose it were the king's gift, and the metal were made properly his own; yet the metal will never pass, or be current money, without the king's stamp put upon it by authority. So the manhood slain was metal of our mine; the union with the God-head made it current money. And having a stamp from the God-head, it must be of infinite worth. So our faith may trust itself, and set down both its feet heartsomely and securely here, for it is good, sure, steadfast, and sicker ground.

"I have put off my coat."—This is the spouse's answer to Christ. Like one gone to bed, and having washen their feet (as was the custom in these hot countries) because of sweat after travel. "Trouble me not, for my doors are now shut, and my children are in bed with me, I cannot rise now and give you." This shews that while we are asleep, and bedded with our pleasures, Christ has no place. For here, for all Christ's sweet words to her, calling her, "My sister, My love, My dove," telling His dear head was wet, cold, and frozen; yet all that cannot move her, to open and let Him in. While the temptation was up, and on horseback, and takes us on that score, and finds us on a ground of sinning, with hot blood, we can hardly stand on our feet and resist, and hold our temptation. The prophets rose early in the morning, and sat late up, and spake to Israel to return from the evil of their ways; yet Israel hearkened not (Jer. 26:5). For idolatry had taken them on the right score, and that jumped* with their ease. David was not himself, in commanding to number the people: for Joab (otherwise a bad man) had better light than David, a man after God's own heart; for Joab was against the numbering of the people. But the devil stood up, and took David at the right side, when his pride was swollen over the bank (1 Chron. 21:1). Job's friends find him in a fit of distemper, through the vehemency of his pain, causing him to slant a little off the line. The devil winnowing Peter, came upon his right side, put him upon the denying of his Lord when he was in his cold blood in the fear of his life. Now there be four reasons of this.

The first is common; the withdrawing of God's grace: for if the dam grow dry and ebb, the miln stands. (Psalm 30:7), "Thou didst hide thy face (now the horse is saddled), and I was troubled." So then, unbelief makes a road.* When fear will hold the bridle, up goes the rider's heels, and he falls on his own weight. And so it cannot but be, for obedience is not a web of our spinning, or making. The temptation in this case is of many stone weight heavier than our shoulder can bear.

Then also, lust, laziness, and security, are the great water: the saints in their own strength are the short-legged horse, and down they go! God gives the devil liberty to braik and bost† many in our kirk. Be humble then, and fear. He knew us full well. Pray, "Lord, lead us not into temptation."

There be two herbs that grow quickly in our souls in summer weather; security and pride. Humility is a strong flower, that grows best in winter weather, and under storms and afflictions. When security and pride, and other like weeds, are rank and up, the temptation has us in the night. Then if ye would be kept from the black hour of temptations, swell not on pride, turn not lazy in the use of good means. If ye do, look for a temptation, as God's lance, to make a hole to let out the wind.

When light is turned blunt, and wants an edge; then the temptation of a warm bed will prevail, to hold Christ at the wrong side of the door. For here I appeal to your experience, to discern two nicks* you will be in. On the one hand the temptation goes home without its errand; on the other, ye are taken at a preaching or a communion, with the glance of a renewed face, with a blink of Christ at the death of a friend, or under a sharp rod.

It were a good use of this doctrine, to observe the right frame of your souls, to sharpen a blunted light. To beware of pride and security. Often learn to know the case of your hearts. Seek out the way to the bottom of it, and plumb it often, and see how deep it is. When the heart is on the devil's rack, then take yourselves off quickly. Guide well, and choose your steps. Fear and quake, and cry unto your Rock. To Him be everlasting praise. Amen.

SERMON X* —Rev. 21:4, 5, 6, 7

Christ's Napkin

This title was, no doubt, given by the friend who took down the notes; for Rutherford was not in the way of putting titles to his sermons. The expression, "Christ's Napkin," occurs in this sermon, and also in the sermon on John 20:13, which might as suitably be so called. The Edinburgh edition of 1734, says, "By that flower of the Church, famous, famous Mr. Samuel Rutherford."

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, &c.—Rev. 21:4, 5, 6, 7.

THIS text contains three things. First, The state of the glorified, verse 4. Secondly, A part of Christ's office, verse 5. Thirdly, A description of His nature. Fourthly, The promises as to 1. Drink to satisfy the thirst; 2. An inheritance to the overcomers, or overcoming soldiers; 3. A threatening of eternal wrath to offenders against the first and second tables of the law.

"And God shall wipe away all tears."—When friends meet, they give the stranger his welcome-home. Here is the pilgrim's welcome that our friend, Christ, gives us. It was spoken from heaven, and therefore it is true doctrine. Then we see that the sufferings and tears of the saints shall be wiped away and removed, but not fully, until* the world to come; for then is Christ's welcome-home to poor sinners. They come all to Him with wet faces, and bleared† with tears for sin and the manifold troubles of this life; and Christ meets them in the door, with a fair soft napkin in His hand, and puts up His hand to their faces, and says, "Hold your tongue, My dear bairns; ye shall never weep again." And indeed, in my judgment, it is a speech borrowed from a mother that has a bairn with a broken face, all bloody and all bleared with tears, and it comes to her (and woe's her heart‡ to see him so), and she sits down and wipes the tears from his eyes, and lays her hand softly on the wound, and his head in her breast, and dights§ away the blood, and lays her two arms about him, and there is no end of fair words. So when Christ and we shall meet in heaven, He will hush us, and wipe away all tears, and lay our head in His bosom. See how He alludes to this place (Isaiah 54:11), "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy foundations with sapphires," &c. It is there, to speak so, our Lord is rueing|| that ever He had handled the saints as He did. (Isaiah 65:18, 19), "Be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying." If ever there was a blythe¶ meeting betwixt two, it must be betwixt the Bridegroom and the bride in the marriage-day. And what a meeting there is of joy betwixt such a Bridegroom and bride cannot be conceived. For Christ, that day, will have on all His best clothes. And such a bride as the Lamb's wife! when we shall be clothed, and not a wrong pin on us; a fair bride in silk and purple of Christ's own busking.* And what a welcome she will get! To get a drink at our first meeting and incoming to heaven, "of the well of the water of life." Oh, strong comforting water! And Christ our Lord shall present His bride to His Father; and our Father-in-law, the Father of our Husband, shall take us by the hand and lead us ben† the house to the dining hall, and set us down at a table to feast our fill upon "the tree of life"—to feast upon the Trinity for evermore! Now, mock and scorn the way to heaven as ye please; ye never heard of true happiness till now. Here is a "banquet of joy" for evermore.

"He shall wipe away all tears."—Christ our Lord in this world wipes the tears from His bairns' faces; yet after that they weep new tears. He never wipes away all tears till now. Here shall be our last "good-night" to death—Good-night to crying, and mourning, and sorrow! We shall be on the other side of the water, and over beyond the black river of death, and shall scorn death; for Christ shall take death and hell and cast them in the prison of fire (Rev. 20:14). The mother that lost her bairns shall get them—all the Lord's widows shall get their husbands—the old world, which was the mourning world, shall be away. And therefore, never till now shall "all tears" be wiped away.

The kirk is half a widow here; her Lord is in an uncouth country; far from her home: and ilk loon* round about plucks at this silly† widow, while she is in the valley of Baca, wherein is no water. The watchmen strike her and take her veil from her; but Christ writes a love letter to her, and after she has read it she rejoiceth and wipeth her face. But when the letter grows old, and she has lost the letter, new troubles come on; she sheds new tears, and comes under new persecutions; and her Lord, for her sins, goes in behind the wall and hides Himself, and lets her mourn her fill. But in that day "He will wipe away all tears from her eyes." See then how it goes here in this life—first a fair day, then again a foul day, till at last that fair day dawns when all shadows flee away; and there shall never be a foul day after that; but aye the long, lasting, summer day for evermore. You see a man travelling to his home—here is a water, then dry land; then another water, then dry land; then a water, and at last only dry land between him and his home: then he goes home to his wife and bairns, and has no more waters. So all our tears are never dried till we come to heaven; for the saints have a liferent tack of the cross of Christ, while we are here, and aye ill weather—(Matt. 16:16)—ever the cross. See in John 16:20, 22, our Lord compares our troubles to the pains that come upon a woman in travailing; now a shower, and then some ease; a shower again, and then ease—aye till the last shower that she be delivered, and then no more showers: "She remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." We must be in pain ere our birth be born; but we shall be delivered of our birth.

Use 1st. Let us prepare; for tears will follow us to heaven; unto the very entry of the door our face shall be wet, for we go out of this life sad and groaning for this miserable life; and to thrust through the last port, and to wade through the hindermost water—it is a sore set.* But be blythe,† Christians, and grip to the promises. God's bairns that can now mourn for their own sins, and the sins of the land, rejoice in heaven; there are never seen greeting bairns‡ there; God has a napkin to dight§ their faces. It is the laughing, rejoicing people that God destroys. But ye that laugh now (Luke 6:25), (and are so far from tears—that ye mock the mourners of Zion), you may sigh and close the Bible, and say, "Alas! I never shed a tear for Christ; your text is not for me." It may be Christ shall that day make you weep and shed tears for evermore. This sour, laughing world will pass away—there is a day of tears coming on you; "greeting|| and gnashing of teeth." And when a man gnasheth his teeth, one against another, he has no mind of laughing. I would not have your mirth for a world. Be doing; we shall see who will laugh fastest yon day.

Use 2nd. There is an ill coming on this land. Sin is not come to full harvest. Often have I told you of a fan of God's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I have told you often of wrath—wrath from the Lord to come upon Scotland, and yet I bide by my Master's word; it is quickly coming—desolation for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant. Now, my dear people, my joy and crown, seek the Lord and His face; let Him be your fear. "Flee to your stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." Doves, flee to Christ's windows, and save your souls.

Verse 5. "And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write; for these words are true and faithful."

John heareth more of Christ—a sweet speech. Here are three things mentioned—1st, a speaker; 2nd, a speech; 3rd, a direction to keep the speech.

1. A speaker. "He that sat upon the throne."—Who spake the speech is not told, whether an angel or an earthly king, for they sit on thrones also. But it is He of whom it is said (Rev. 4:2), "And behold a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne." John tells not His name, but he thinks so much of Him, that he takes it for granted that there is none worthy to be a King but He, and to sit on a throne but He. The saints measure all the affections of others by their own affections. As, if one speired* at John, "Who is He that sits upon the throne?" he would have answered, "What needs you speir? is there any in heaven or earth, in my estimation, worthy to be a King but He? and to sit on a throne but He? and to take a crown upon His head but He?" The saints set aye Christ alone—they set Him above all. Speak of kings to them; but Christ is out of play. So (Cant. 3:3), the kirk, meeting with "the watchmen," saith, "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" What kenned† the watchman of Him whom her soul loved? for she might have loved a loon, or a harlot, or an idol-god, or the world. But she measureth the watchman by herself. There was none in her mind but Christ; and therefore she needed not to tell them, as she thought. So Mary Magdalene (John 20:15) says to the gardener (as she thought), "Sir, if ye have borne Him hence, tell me where ye have laid Him." She tells not what Him, taking as granted, that what so much possessed her own soul would doubtless equally occupy the thoughts of every other; and none was so much in her mind as Christ. Now, I pray you, let the same mind be in you that was in John and in Mary. Let Christ be to your soul the pearl of the ring. Among all kings, Christ should be made high, and esteemed by us as He—the only He—that is worthy to "sit on a throne." So, in Cant. 5:10, He is to the kirk "the chiefest among ten thousand." Gather all the angels in heaven and earth together; Christ is too good to be their Captain. And, indeed, what is all that sits on a throne? It must be infinitely more in Him. And whatever glory is in the world, is far more in Him. Take all the roses in the earth, and put them all in one, that would be a dainty thing and sight. But what are all these to Christ?—no more than a nettle to the fairest rose. Fie upon the tasteless love of men, that never loveth Jesus Christ, and yet falleth in love with lusts. They love gold, riches, and honour, and put Christ to a backside. Ay, Christ gets not His own among us. We recommend Him not; neither will we match with Him.

2. A speech. "I will make all things new."—This is as much as, all things are old. Sin hath made all things old. They are like a woman groaning in childbirth with pain and vanity, because of our sin (Rom. 8:22). All the creatures are sickened because of sin. Because of our sin, vanity came on the sun, moon, and other creatures. They sigh under this, and pray, in their kind, a malison* and a woe to man, for sin has made us all miserable. The heavens, that are the fairest part of the great web of the world, "wax old as a garment;" the prophet saith they are like an old clout.* The water saith, "Let me drown sinners—they have sinned against my Lord;" the fire saith, "Let me burn them—let me burn Sodom, for they have sinned against my Lord." All things have lost the glory that they got at their first creation. Jesus seeth all things gone wrong, and quite out of order, and man fallen from his Lord. And He did even with the world as the pilot, who, when an unattentive man at the rudder was steering the ship on a sand-bank, stept in quickly and turned her incontinent, or else all would have gone to confusion. So our Lord stept in when the great ship of this world was running on a sand-bed; and when the sun and the moon looked sad-like, and said they would not serve us, He renewed them by His death, made them all laugh on the elect again, and gave them all a suit of new clothes.

Drunkards, Christ gave His blessing on the wine that ye spue on the walls. Ye that dishonour your Maker with your vain apparel, ye know not what it cost Christ our Lord to buy a right to those things that ye abuse in vanity. All that set the world in their hearts, where the Lord should be, forget that Christ bought the world to be their servant, and not to be as their darling and wife that lies in their bosom. Ye that make the earth, and the broad acres of it, your soul's portion, forget that Christ bought the earth, and made it new, to be a footstool, and not a chair for our souls to sit down in. And if Christ has this art to make all things new, come to Him all ye that are old. Oh, ye that have old hearts! come. Christ may get His craft among ye, if ye would come to Him. "He makes all things new." The devil has borrowed your heart for covetousness, and crooked it with the thorny cares of this world, and holed* it, and knocked the bottom out of it. Oh! if ye would put it in Christ's hand, He would put it into His furnace, and melt it again, and by His art bring it out a new heart for Himself to dwell in. Alas! Christ gets not His trade or calling among us. But why are not our old hearts mended? Because we handle them as a foolish mother doth her dawted bairn;† she will not let him go to the school to learn, and why?—because she dow‡ not want him out of her sight. She will therefore never let him do well, but feeds him for the gallows. We dow not give away our souls to Christ, who would fain have, and could easily mend them. But lust, or pride, or covetousness, like the foolish mother, keeps them out of Christ's company; so that we will not let that dear craftsman, who made the earth under our feet and the mountains new, make our old hearts new. Our souls are all hanging in tatters, worn and old with sin, and yet we dow not put them in Christ's hand, that He might make them whole and cleanse them. Fie upon thee, that thy garden, cursed in Adam's day to bring forth nettles and thorns, is blessed again to bring forth fruit in Christ, and thy soul gets not so much of Him as thy yard; it is made new, but thy soul remains old. Oh! bring it to Jesus; He will create in you a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within you. Indeed, Christ may get His craft among ye, if you would go to Him; for it is His trade to "make all things new."

3. A direction to keep the speech. "And He said unto me, Write; for these words are true and faithful."—He bids John write these things about the state of the glorified, and calls them faithful and true. He would not intrust His word to man's memory and conscience—He would have it written. Blasphemous Papists, laugh not at this, nor call the Pope's breast the Bible; here is a warrant for written Scripture. Indeed, it tells us that man's falsehood wore his conscience. Had his conscience been a faithful register, there should have been no need of a written Bible. But now the Lord has lippened* more to dead paper than to a living man's soul. Our conscience, now under sin, had not been a good Bible, because man is ready to run away from his conscience, and because what is written on our conscience (as, that there is a God—a judgment—a heaven—a hell), Satan and sin come in as two false witnesses and blot it out, and write that in the fool's heart that says, "There is no God." And there are many holes in our souls; the word of God comes in and runs out again at back-spouts, except Jesus make our souls waterfast, so that "the word of God may dwell in us plentifully" (Col. 3:16). Are not our hearts compared to a field, wherein the preacher sows the seed, and the black spirits of hell come and gather up Christ's wheat? Oh! but there are many running-out souls; and much need we have of a written Bible. Therefore make much of the written word, and pray God to copy His Bible into your conscience, and write a new book of His doctrine in your hearts, and put it in the conscience as He directs (Jer. 31)

Verse 6. "And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."

Here, also, are three things—1st, a prophecy; 2nd, a description; 3rd, a promise of water.

1. A prophecy. Christ says to John, "It is done."—That is exponed in Rev. 16 and 17. The world is ended. So speaks Christ of the world. The glory of it passeth away in the twinkling of an eye, and Christ crieth to those that have the world in both their arms, "It is done," it is a past thing, there is no more of it. It is but a word to our Lord. He said, "Let all things be," and they were; He will say, "Let all things depart," and they will be at an end. We are beginning with the world as if it would be evermore ours; and our Lord says, in a moment, "Let it be plucked from them," and it is done. It is not for nothing that the taking down of this inn of heaven and earth is touched in so few words—"It is done." For it is an easy thing for the Almighty to take in His own hand the staves that hold up this fair tent, and, when He pulleth it, He garreth* it come down with a tilt. So (Rev. 7:1), four angels are brought in, "holding the four winds of the earth," as if they had the world in their hands, and as if they had it ready to fold up as a sheet. And oh! what a fighting and business do men make to get a clout† of this sheet!—he staring out his eyes—and he setting out his neck, for a piece of this holly‡ clout and sheet, and for a gloib§ of the earth. But (see Rev. 6:14), "The heavens shall depart away like a scroll" of parchment that is rolled together, and the fair stories thereof are like figs; with the shake of the Almighty's arm shall they fall together to the ground. And, what is more, with a touch of the Almighty's hand, or a putt of His little finger, or a blast of His mouth, saying, "It is done," the cupples* of the walls of the house shall come down. Now, I cannot but speak of fools that have their heads full of windmills, and cry it is beginning, "To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant" (Isaiah 56:12), and there is no end of buying and selling. I came not here to bid anybody be unthrifty; but be not like bairns building sandy bourocks† at a burn-side, when presently a speat of water comes and spills all their sport, or a shower chases them in from their play. Men are ever bigging castles in the air. In very deed, we are like bairns holding the water at a river side with their hands. They think (daft‡ things) they hold the water, while in the meantime it runs through their fingers. And what says God of honour, riches, pleasure, lands, fair houses, and sums of money? Even that in a word, "all is done." Ask of them that had the world and broad acres once at will what is to the fore? And what is to the fore§ of so many thousands? What has the world of them but their name? And what if their name be lost too? for what is their name? Ten or eleven letters of the A B C; and for their bodies—howbeit, when they were living, kingdoms would not content them—the clay into which their bodies are dissolved would not now fill a glove. I think that a true and a strange spoken word (Isaiah 40:22), "God sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers." We even creep like grasshoppers up and down the globe of this earth, and cry to men of the vanities of all things, while death comes, like a common thief, without any din or feet, and plucks them away, and there is no more of them; then they say, "It is done." All men must confess it is true that I say; but I think to be dead ere they believe it, and act accordingly, or be brought to hate the world. I think the world is the devil's great herry-water-net,* that has taken thousands and slain them. Ye say ye are sure of it. Then I say ye are a dieted† horse for heaven.

2. The second thing that is in the verse is a description of Christ—"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end."—Our Lord here being to make an offer of the water of life, He first showeth what He is—even the first and the last letter of the alphabet—the Ancient of Days—the Eternal Son of the Eternal God. This teaches us that we may crack‡ more of our old holding, and old charter, than all the world can do. For why? When began Christ to bear a good will to a sinner? Even when He began to be God; and He was God from all eternity. Suppose the sun in the firmament were eternal, the light of it behoved to be eternal; for the light of the sun is as old as the sun. Now love is a beam of life and heat that comes from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness; therefore ever living Christ—ever living love. For love comes not on Christ the day, which was not in Him yesterday. Man's love and a king's love are hunted for very much; and yet they die, and their love dies with them, and often their love dies before themselves. But who seeks Christ's love, that "changes not?" Yea, this a matter of admiration and wonder, that Christ should have thought on us worms of the clay ere ever we were, and that our salvation is as old as evermore—as old as Christ, and Christ is as old as God!

Indeed, if God should begin at any point of time to love sinners, His love would have had a beginning; and if His love had a beginning, Christ Himself would have had a beginning, because love with Him is one with His essence and nature. But it may be said, can the love of God be older than the death of Christ? Answer. Christ's death doth not properly make God a hater or a lover of man; for then both His will should be changeable and His love have a beginning. How then? Christ's death doth only let that God kythe* the fruits of His eternal love out upon us, but after such a way as He thought convenient for His justice; and therefore we are said in Scripture "to be reconciled unto God," and not God to be reconciled unto us. His love is everlasting; because by order of nature it was before the seed, before we had done either good or evil; so that sin could not change God's mind. But only by the order of justice, sin stood in the way to hinder us of life everlasting, which is a fruit of His love. Yea, more, God with that same love in Christ, loveth the elect before and after conversion; and therefore, in feeling any of God's love to us, we have to rejoice in Christ. It is old acquaintance between Him and us. And therefore, as it is folly in man (as Solomon saith) to cast off his old friend, and his father's friend, so let us think it madness to cast off such an old friend as Christ. And under temptations and desertions, let our faith hold fast by this—Alpha and Omega changeth not; the change is in us.

3. The third thing in the words is a promise of the water of life to the thirsty—"I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." (Isaiah 55:1, and John 4:14). Christ at the market-cross cries the well free. Here learn,

1st. The thirsty and hungry souls are meetest for the water of life. What! (ye will say) and are not all thirsty? Yes; all want the life of God, and the sap of grace, and are burnt and withered at the root; but all know not their own want. Here is indeed a special comfort for the weak ones who say, "Oh! I know Christ doth good to believers, to repenters, and to such as love Him; but I dow not, cannot, win to faith and repentance, hope and patience; I have too short an arm to rax* so high." Then, say I, have ye a desire—a hunger—for faith, and repentance, and love? Now, upon your conscience, speak the truth. I trow ye cannot deny it. Then your Lord bids you come—the well is open to you; for hunger and thirst being next to motion, and the two properties that begin first with life, so every one that is new-born is lively, and hath a stomach for meat and drink. "Oh but," say ye, "I am many times, in my soul, at death's door. I have neither faith nor feeling. I am even at this—'God loves me not,' and the well is not ordained for me at these times." Would ye fain be at the well? In my mind ye cannot win away. In the children of God, when at the lowest ebb—even when faith, comfort, joy, love, and disposition to pray is away—is there not a longing for a presence? I speak to the conscience of God's child; lie not. David (Psalm 6), when he thought God spake to him in wrath, was at, "How long, Lord?"—a cutting word. I think he looked like a hungry beast looking over the dyke; he would fain have a mouthful. He was going about to seek a slapp* to break over the dyke of his doubtings. And so it is with God's bairns, under their thirst† for the water of the well of life. See Canticles 3, when the kirk can get no speiring of Christ, and has no smell of Him, and cannot find the print of His foot, yet she is at this, "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" And (chap. 5:8), "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell Him, that I am sick of love." Then let me now tell you weak ones who are Christ's companions, and who it is shall drink with Him, and get their hearts and heads full of the water of life—even the tender Christians that are aye seeking. The bairn in Christ's house that is most cumbersome, and makes most din for his meat, is the best bairn that Christ has. The bairn that is greeting‡ ilk hour of the day for a piece and a drink—we say of such a silly thing, "He would fain love." Aye, the cumbersomer§ that Christ's bairns be, they are welcomer. Na, He loveth the bairns best that have no shame, and are aye crying, "Alas! black hunger, dear Lord Jesus; I am burnt with thirst; oh for an open cold fountain!" Oh, it is a sweet thing aye to be whinging,|| and crying, and seeking about Christ's pantry doors, and to hold aye an eye upon Christ when He goes into the house of wine, into His Father's fair lucky wine-cellar, where there are many wines; and bout¶ in at Christ's back! But, in a word, have ye a good stomach?—much hunger and thirst? Well, ye shall get much satisfaction of grace in Christ. Is there not a time when ye cannot get a presence, and ye have no pith to put up the door and bout in, but ye put it half up and blink* in? Love ye to pray, or desire ye but a desire of prayer? Hold on then; ye are right. The true desire is absolute, and not conditional. Not like the sluggard that would have a crop, upon condition he might have a feather bed to lie on for fear of cold. Even so some would have heaven, upon condition that they might keep their lusts, and take their lusts with them.

Now, who are they that are debarred from Christ's well? Answer. Those who have gotten an ill drink from the devil, full of lusts, pride, and covetousness—full of love of the world. Such are they that have no stomach for Christ. Alas! and woes me! Christ standeth at the well's side, and crieth, "The back of My hand† to you." The Lord Jesus gives such a vomit-drink, that they may grow wholesome and hungry again for Christ; for till then they are never meet for Him.

2nd. But, secondly, hunger is aye seeking through the house; for the belly can hardly play the hypocrite. The natural man is in darkness—he is in a sleep—it it is night with him. He is like a cumbersome bairn greeting in the night for a drink, and crying, "Who will shew me any good?" (Psalm 4:6). And Satan is ready at his elbow with his dishful of the dirty, miry waters of lust to the world; and he drinks till he sweats and tines‡ breath; and tines all sight and desire of Christ, "the Fountain of the Water of Life." It is true this fountain is said to proceed "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Rev. 22:1). But it is all one; for the streams of the water of life proceed from the fountain, Christ. How, then, is the water Christ? Answer. It is Christ-man, dying, and sending out His heart's blood for quenching the thirst of such poor sinners as find the fire of hell at the stomach of their souls, burning them up with the fire of the wrath of God for sin. This is the well: this is why He is called "a fountain of the water of life." A man, burnt with thirst, nothing can quench him; no, not a world of gold is so good as a drink of pure, cold, clean, fountain water. In a word, a soul wakened under sin findeth nothing in the world satisfactory to the soul's appetite but in Christ. Tell me, art thou a thirsty sinner after Christ? Then thy soul is dead sick while ye get Him. Is a man faint, and fatigued, and way-worn? Lay him down on a soft bed, dry the sweat off him, give him a cold refreshing drink. In like manner, ye cannot speak such a word to a soul bursting under sin, as to lay it upon a crucified Christ. Oh, that is a soft bed! His sinful soul being stretched upon the open wounds and warm-flowing blood of Christ. Oh, that is a soft bed! Oh, but a part of Christ's blood is a refreshing, cooling drink to him! A slave of hell to know that he is made a free heir of heaven—oh, that is sweet! Hence it is that those who are wakened with the furies of hell, howbeit they know not yet what Christ is to them, yet this world cannot calm their conscience—because for men that are soul-sick and sin-sick there is no physic but one—only a "drink of the well of life." And because they ken not the gate to this well of life, they, in despair, loup* out of this life into the fire of hell, through the madness of an awakened conscience. A thirsty soul finds two things in Christ, never to be found in all the world or in anything else. 1st. Christ takes off the hardness of sin. None has power to do this but He. All the pardons of sin are in Christ's keeping, and of Christ's making. It is His office to forgive sin. 2nd. They find in Him an influence and abundance of happiness, so as what they sought before in the creature, they find nowhere else but in Him. Then speak to them of gold—it is nothing to Christ. Speak of lands and lordships—a Saviour, and such a Saviour, is, and has another name to a sinner that is awakened.

3rd. The text calls Him "the water of life." We see here there is some water that is rotten and ill-tasted. Will a thirsty man drink of it? He shall not be the better. But the wholesomest water is the running spring; so all that sinners can get beside Christ is standing water. Let them drink in gold, and kingdoms, and lands; these will never be satisfying to a sick soul as He will be. And they who have drunk in these, at death would be content to spue them out again; they lie so heavy upon their stomach. But Christ is the cooling, wholesome spring—"the well of water springing up to eternal life." Now, to make our use of this. Seeing Christ is such a living well of water, how comes it that under the gospel there are so many dry and withered souls? I answer; for God's part, indeed, God has not put an iron lock upon the well of life; but Christ, by His word and sacraments, opens the well in the midst of us, and for seventy years and more in this kingdom the well has been open—Christ and His messengers have been crying to dry souls. But now, for aught we see, He will close the well again. He has been setting out the means of life, and opening the booth-doors to give us freely, even to such as would take it; but He gets no sale. Therefore He must put up His wares and go away, for men are not thirsty for His waters. But one thirsts for court and honour, another for lust and money, and a third for sinful pleasures. There be few stomachs gaping for Christ. They have not a vessel to cast down into the well and take up water. This is a fruitless generation. Oh, we loathe Christ, and Christ loathes us. We need speak no more of the call of the word. All the land—court, king, noblemen, and kirkmen—have spued the waters, by despising grace and contemning the gospel; and in very deed, when we cast in clay and mud in Christ's well, and mix His worship with the poison of the whore's well of Rome, what do we else but provoke the Lord to close the well?

"I will give it freely."—So are all Christ's mercies given of grace. His mercy is for nothing, and of free grace. I grant the well is dear to Christ. God's justice digged it out of His side, and heart, and hands, and feet. The man, Christ, got not this water for nothing; yet He gives it to us for nothing, because He minds not to make a gain of us. We live upon Christ's winning. For know ye that Christ, who redeemed many, did so, by the rule of justice, since "He gave Himself," and has bought all "with His own blood;" so that in this sense Christ was bought to us with blood, else we could not get Him, for He was both the price and the wares. So that, as far as we can see, it was decreed by the Lord, by order of justice, that Christ could not have lived and given to us the waters of life. It was dear water to Him; for in the garden God deserted Him, and blood came out; on the cross God bruised Him, and blood came out; and that is the well we have here. We think we would have something to give to Christ for the water of life—some of our own righteousness—some of our own worthiness; but this is plastered humility, watered* copper. And in doing so we refuse grace, and make grace to be no more grace; for if it be given for any worth in us, then it is no more grace. Let men here see, then, that the kingdom of grace is a good, cheap world, where the best things are gotten for nothing. And therefore, I think in this dear world, where all things go for money, whose court costs expenses, lands are dear, gold is not gotten for nought, and law is dearer than ever it was. Yea, paper and ink are dearer than jewels and gold rings were long syne. Nothing now is bought for nought. Yet Christ for all that will not change His word. All things with Him are given gratis, and ye are welcome when all is done. Here we get no garments for nought, no physic for nought; but Christ gives "white raiment," "eye salve," and all for nought. Sinners say, "Lord, what take Ye for the water of life?" He answers, "Even nothing, and yet welcome." Christ plays not the merchant with His wares: He makes no gain, but cries, The well is free. No, says the Pope—not a drop of it, till ye tell down money. That bloody Beast would sell the water of Rome for gold. As meikle money—as meikle grace and forgiveness. Want ye money? (He swears) Ye shall not come here. Nothing in Rome without money. Fie, fie; the stink of the devil's world. Nay, but Christ is for nothing. Nay, justice giveth money, and officers give money; it is a dear world. But Christ and His word care no more for money than before.†

Verse 7. "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God and he shall be My son."

1. Alway in this book John urgeth "fighting" and "overcoming" for heaven. We wonder much that God will not have poor men go to heaven but by fighting, seeing He might have sent us to heaven by a second heaven. But this is but a thought of men, that would make a new back-gate of their own to heaven. God advised well when He made His causey* to it, and ordained all His saints, yea, His own Son, to go that way. But it is easier for us to complain on God's decree than to obey, and to dispute than believe. Men have too thin skins. For health, they will cut a vein, or let a leg or an arm be cut off for fear of a fester; and yet for "life everlasting" they are so, that they dow not venture a moment's pain.

2. There are excellent promises made to the over-comers—to him that taketh heaven with stroke of sword and blood. For heaven is a besieged city or castle. There are many foes to fight against. Armies of sin with all their armour, and the deceiving and malicious world. The world has Eve's apple in one hand, and fire and sword in the other; and the devil is the captain of the army. Now, here is a prize set, and an offer made to him that overcometh—to him that will mount up by faith and hope, and leap up into Christ's chariot, and betide him life, betide him death, will go through. But they are cowards that take a back-side, and let the devil coup† them in a gutter. But yet to lead men on, here is a promise, "He shall inherit all things." Ye see that the Christians' Captain is a man of a fair rent; "for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours" (1 Cor. 3:21, 22). And to let us see He bides* by the thing He has said, He says again, "All things are yours." Ye see in this world one has a kingdom, as Asa, but wants health, and is sick of his feet; he has not all things. Another, as Samson, had strength of body above any living, yet he had many troubles and wanted his eyes; he had not all things. Oh, the business Adam's sons are at for inheritances! Here a mailen†—there a lairdship—there a new lordship. That they call their all things. I think this is a greedy style, and proud-like lordship or lairdship. Yet, greedy Adam's sons have more greediness here than wit. They run all upon their lordships, that they call the lordship of many things. "Martha, Martha, thou art troubled" (Luke 10:41). Worldlings, ye are aye careful and troubled about this, to be called "My lord" of many things. But we shall see if the text be true.

"I am Alpha and Omega."—Ye will notice that Paul puts in "death" into the rent-roll. I think death an ill mailen; better want it out of the charter. Nay, but death is also a part of the lordship this way (because it is "My lord of all things"), and a coach to glory—Christ Himself being the coachman and driving the horse. Death is the servant. As the wind serveth to bring the seaman home, so death serveth him that hath the new lordship. Death is Christ's ferry-boat to carry the Christian home, for in Christ he sets his foot on death's neck. It is a bridge over the river of hell that he walketh on to heaven; and it is his. The Christian is advanced in Christ's court, and gets the new style to be "My lord of all things," the prince, the duke of all things. Yet I shall get you a lordship far inferior, but much sought for—the lordship of vanity or nothing. "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" He that is rich has nought; "for riches certainly make themselves wings—they fly away as an eagle towards heaven" (Prov. 23:5).

2. Again, if the Christian "inherits all things," the whole world is his, and so he wanteth nothing. (Psalm 89:25), "I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers." Here see how broad Christ's two arms are. His one hand upon all the sea, and His other hand upon the rivers. And that promise is made to Christ as principal cautioner of the covenant; for it is said (verse 26), "He shall cry unto Me, Thou art My Father, My God, and the rock of My salvation." Verse 27, "Also, I will make Him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth," which is exponed of Christ (Heb. 1:6). Again, in Rev. 10:2, He has "His right foot on the sea and His left foot on the earth." Put these two together, and see how wide His arms and legs, or feet, are. They go over the whole world as His inheritance, which He won to Himself, and His heirs after Him, with His blood. Now, Christ got land not to Himself. What! needed He land? and to give His blood for clay? But He won it to us, and took infeftment in the earth, in the name of His friends; so that in Him they inherit "all things."

3. But here one may say, "How is it, then, that the saints are hungry and poor? Answer. It is true, they are not now possessors of all things. But minors' wants*—ye see their interest is in and over all things, yet their tutor lets them go with a toom† purse. He knows the heir is a young one, and cannot keep gold, and therefore he gives him food and raiment for his present necessity, but keeps the lordship till he be able to guide it. Even so Christ is made of God, our Tutor and Purse-Master. It is all one whether our wealth be in our chest-nook or if it be in Christ's purse, to keep till we need it, providing we want not.

Another question and doubt is, "Seeing they are under so many troubles in this life, and have no ease, the saints have not 'all things?' I answer, Yes; I must defend it, and say, if they have the inheritance, they have all things, because the sweet and the comforts of trouble is theirs.

A third question or objection is, The saints have not heaven and glory, at least, in this life, and therefore they have not all things. I answer, 1. The promise is not fulfilled in this life. Yet, when a man has shorn a stock or two of corn, we say he "has got harvest and new corn." So the believer gets joy, hope, faith, assurance of heaven, and the first-fruits of the Spirit. These are a foretaste of the full harvest and new corn. 2. Having God and Christ, the saints have all things. For ye see the great ship draggeth the cock-boat after her, so the great Christ bringeth all things after Him at His back. So I say, having Christ, believers, ye have all things—ye have "the Father and the Spirit, the word, life, and death." Amen.

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