CHAPTER IV. An exhortation unto friendship with God
thereupon the worker of love in us, upon that account God's free love is at once exalted and magnified, and our hearts quickened and inflamed with love to him again.
CHAPTER IV
An exhortation unto friendship with God, from the considerations how great, excellent, and kind a friend he from eternity hath been, and perpetually, and for ever is to us.
My exhortation now shall be unto those that are reconciled, and become (in respect to their states) friends to God already. You see your high calling, brethren; you have the honour to be called, as Abraham was, the friends of God. You are entered into a covenant of friendship with God, make something of it; and indeed it is the scope even of that place also, 2 Cor. 5, 'Be ye reconciled to God.' For he speaks unto the Corinthians who already believed, and were converted and reconciled: but be you, even you, reconciled more, for even you have need of it, and at the best your friendship is but imperfect; and as you 'know but in part,' so you love but in part. As Christ says to his disciples, 'Except ye be converted,' Mat. 18:3, so say
I, 'Except ye be reconciled,' that is, except you more and more renew your covenants with God, 'ye cannot be saved': And besides, you make many breaches with God; and though the covenant through his grace and goodness notwithstanding holds, yet you had need to make those breaches up again. Amantium ira amoris redintegratio est, and reconciliation is but the renewing of love.
Consider that those who are perfect enemies and rebels to God, whilst they are in that estate, do but their kind; but you know what it is to offend God, and how it grieves him, his Spirit hath at times set it upon your hearts, how unkindly he takes any sin from you. You have
felt in part what it cost him to reconcile you, and have tasted how good the Lord is, and you have a principle of love in you which needs but stirring up. Consider what Solomon says, Prov. 18:24, 'A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly; and there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.' It is the law of friendship, you see, to answer it with friendship again, mutuis officiis vivitur.
And besides, the sweetness that is found in reciprocal friendship, loyally and sacredly maintained and kept up, it should move you.
God will find a sweet savour in you, and you again will have pleasure in communion with him. Friendship is the sweetest, and of all comforts the greatest; therefore Solomon, though he were a king, and had the sum of all delights, yet he would have one in an especial manner be his friend, 1 Kings 4:5. And God, though he need no comfort nor happiness to be added to him, ye he would have friends to delight himself in, and that should delight in him. It was this that moved him, and therefore that the comfort of his love and yours be not much of it lost or impaired, demean yourselves as friends. It is
Christ's own argument in his last sermon to his disciples, in which he treats them, and admires them by his sacred name of friends, John
15:13–15; and amongst other arguments he useth this in exhorting them to obedience: 'So my joy shall be in you, and your joy shall be full,' verses 10, 11. There will be mutual and reciprocal joy and delights in the intercourses of it. You will add to Christ's joy, whose joy is yet full; and to be sure yours, which is imperfect, will be made full by it. As we use to say, if people do not mean to love, let them never marry; so if men do not set themselves to walk with God, let them renounce this sweet and obliging relation of being friends to him. Especially this is to be done, if a man find one who is a friend indeed; so says Solomon in that place, 'There is a Friend is nearer than a brother,' that will do more for thee than one that cometh out of the same loins. And therefore Moses, Deut. 13:6, seems to prefer
the love of some friends to that of some wives. 'If thy wife,' says he 'entice thee, yea, if thy friend who is as thine own soul.' Now, to such a friend, if you meet with him (says Solomon), 'shew yourself friendly.' And truly as faith, so friendship is rare on earth. It is hard to find a good piece of stuff indeed to make a friend of.
I have two things, therefore, which will make up the measure of this my exhortation full. 1. What a friend God is, and hath been, and will be unto you; and, 2. Wherein you are to express friendship again unto him. You find them both in that exhortation of Christ, what a friend he was, John 15:13, 'Greater love than this hath no man, to lay down his life for his friend.' And from thence he presseth this on them, 'If ye be my friends, do what I command you.'
(1.) Consider, first, that God hath been your ancient friend, even from everlasting. The older friends are, the more we ought to prize them. We esteem of an old servant, but especially of an old friend.
Therefore, saith Solomon, 'thine own friend and thy father's friend, forsake not,' Prov. 27:10. That is, leave not one who hath been an old friend to thee, and thy family before thee. Now God hath been thy
Friend and Father from everlasting, therefore forsake him not; he hath loved thee ever since he loved himself. Now if one had loved another ever since himself was, how would this endear him! God hath done this.
(2.) He is such a friend as never had his thoughts off from us. There is not a moment in which he hath not loved us, and had his thoughts upon us. Other friends sometimes think and speak of you, but not always; 'But God withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous,' Job
36:7; and Cant. 8:6. We are said to be 'set as a seal upon his hand,' so as he continually looks upon us. It is an allusion to that type, Exod.
28, wherein Israel is engraven, first, upon two stones placed upon
the high priest (Christ's) shoulders and arms, ver. 11, 12, then on a breastplate, or (as it is there interpreted) upon his heart, ver. 29.
Upon his arms, to shew his power is engaged; upon his heart, to shew that his love is; and placed visibly on both for a memorial: Isa.
49:15, 16, 'Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me.' Jerusalem, the type of his elect, her walls are continually before him. And in the like type,
Deut. 11:12, they are termed a land (for selection of people) 'which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes or the Lord thy God are always upon it.' Therefore David also saith, 'How many are thy thoughts to us-ward! They cannot be numbered.' If a king casteth but a glance upon a man, and thinks of his suit and business, he counts it a great favour. What is it then for the great God never to have had his eye off thee to do thee good? And think with yourselves, what, and how old are your thoughts towards him? They are but of yesterday. Your friendship began but the other day, but his hath been from everlasting.
(3.) As it is from everlasting, so to everlasting. The one is called 'choosing us from the beginning,' Eph. 1:4. The other is called loving us to the end: 'Whom he loved, he loved to the end,' John 13:1. For a couple to have been twenty years married, and to hold out in loving, how great a wonder is it amongst the sons of men, especially when many unkindnesses have passed!
(4.) The first moment he took up as much love as he hath ever since had, or can manifest to eternity. This is high, brethren, if ye consider it. God loves not as man, as he is not as man that repents of his loving; not as man that begins to love a little, that hath a velleity at first, an affection stirring, and having his heart inclined, is drawn on
to do what at first he meant not to do. No; but all the grace and favour which in time is bestowed on us, was given us in one lump from eternity, and all to eternity is but the manifestation of it: 2 Tim.
1:9, 10, 'The grace which was given us before the world began; but now is made manifest in Christ, who hath brought immortality to light.' And so that immortality serves but to manifest, or bring to light the grace which was given at the first, or (as it is 1 Cor. 2:9),
'which was then prepared for them that love him.' So as all that is done since, is but a show love hath prepared to entertain you with, and is set out with new inventions and studied ways to take your hearts. And therefore the very giving Christ is termed but the 'commending,' that is, the setting out his love, Rom. 5:8. And John in plainer terms says, 'In this was the love of God manifest,' 1 John 4:7,
8. The love in solido, in bullion, was all (the whole mass of it) in his heart before. And all he doth to eternity is but the coming of it, stamping this or that particular mercy, and so paying it forth unto us: Ps. 138:8, 'The mercy of the Lord is for ever. The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.' The connection of those words is this, that God having beforehand set down with himself what he would do for him, his mercy which was for ever was but a perfecting, a limning out that happiness love did conceive the idea of, and that perfect from everlasting. And because an eternity of time was required to this vast work, therefore it is he adds, 'Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever;' for so much time to perfect what concerns me (a poor atom placed in the eye, or because of thy love) will take thee up. And will not this affect your hearts, that have any love in you to him, or hopes, or pursuits after such a love?
(5.) Consider what his love hath caused him to do for thee. He first gave thee a paradise; but that was not good enough. He prepares heaven, not as that which thou wert worthy of from thine original, but which he thought meet to bestow, to shew how great a God he is:
Heb. 2:11, 'He was not ashamed to be called their God, for he prepared for them a city.' Yea, he was not contented with the ordinary direct means of loving; but, as those that are vast and lavish in entertainments, he must have uncouth artificial ways to love such as are extraordinary. To love us only the plain direct and downright way, and to give us heaven the first day, as he did the angels that never sinned, this was too low, too mean. His love must have meanders, windings, difficulties, yea, much water to encounter it, and so endanger the quenching of it; all this to commend the greatness and transcendency of it. 'Love is as strong as death;' and 'much water cannot quench it,' Cant. 8:6. And Rom. 5:8, 'In this God commends his love, that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' So says St Paul. And Christ, that was to perform it, knew what he did lay down: 'Greater love than this hath no man, that he lays his life down for his friends,' John 15:13. And yet, O dear Redeemer, at how low a price dost thou set thy love, whilst thou enterest into comparative suppositions of one man (a mortal, sinful man) dying for another! 'Greater love than this hath no man;' and in that supposition art fain to put in this too, as the highest elevation of man's love in supposition, 'to lay down his life for his friends,' to be sure not for his enemies. But yet because there could be no higher supposition made, he is therefore fain to represent his love to us hereby. Paul makes the supposition thus: Rom. 5:7, 'For a righteous man will one die? yet peradventure for a good man,' that is, one eminently and publicly useful to such a proportion as his life, as it is said of David's, is worth ten thousand of other men, 'a man would even dare to die.' Well, let all these qualifications meet, and when they do, it is yet but a 'scarcely,' but a peradventure, that any would be found to die for such an one. It is but a supposition of one that is otherwise weary of life; and yet if he comes to the point, he will shrink at it; therefore it is added, 'to dare to die;' it is so great an evil.
But to do it not for friends, but enemies; and to this end, to make
them friends, when he could have created new ones cheaper, and enough of them; yet to die for ungodly sinners, enemies (as Paul exaggerates our case and condition there), and for him to die that had such a life to lay down, is an admirable instance of extraordinary love. For a mere man, a sinful man, to die (the case which both Christ and Paul do put), is but to give up a game that must be lost a little after, to restore a forteiture, a debt that must be paid; but 'my life'
(saith Christ with an emphasis), 'none can take from me,' John 10:18, 'I lay it down of myself.' Let me say it (which he hints there), his
Father could not take it, but that himself consented to it; for 'his Father had given him to have life in himself,' John 5:26. And will ye know the value of that life he laid down? It is the dignity of the person gives the worth to the life. You have it, and you cannot have more said, 1 John 3:16, 'Hereby we perceive the love of God, that he laid down his life.' Well, thus dear it cost Christ, who was God. And was this nothing to God the Father too, think ye? Was it nothing for God to see one that was God, of the same nature, and his fellow, so debased? As it moves man to see any of their nature despised, so it moved God to see God the Son, God equal with him, to lay down his life; it touched the Godhead in common, as in the three persons. But for a Father to give and offer up his Son, is a love above our thoughts to conceive, or our words to express. Your father Abraham, though he had too big an heart to weep for it (you see no tears in his eyes, nor mention of them when he was about to do it), yet he knew full well what it was to offer up a son, an only son. To be sure God knew it, and measured it by his own heart to his own Son, out of the sense of which God uttered those words to Abraham, 'Now I know thou fearest me, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me,' Gen. 22:12. And was not God's Son's life proportionably dear to him, inasmuch as he is his Father by a more substantial and transcendent generation? 'My God, my God' (says Christ, Mat.
27:46), why hast thou forsaken me?' thou who art in so special a
respect my God and my Father (see Eph. 1:3). And he speaks thus, bowing it would strike and affect his soul. And yet he speaks but the half of what God did in it, and yet in that consider how he parted with, yea, forsook an old friend, a bosom friend; and how Christ also forsook father and mother for his wife, the church, Eph. 5:25. And do you think God to be so insensible, or impassible, or without natural affection to such a Son, as that all those speeches should be but rhetorical figures, and feignings of a sorrowful part? When, as you have it inculcated 1 John 4:9, 10, 'In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' And you have the same also in Rom. 8:32,
'He that spared not his son, but delivered him up for us all.' Yea, further, think with yourselves, that his father was himself obliged to be the inflicter of his own justice, to bruise and break him, 'when he made his soul an offering for sin,' Isa. 53:10; for no creature could strike strokes hard enough to satisfy for sin. He laid the wood of the sacrifice, viz., our sins, about his soul, for 'he laid upon him the iniquities of us all,' and he blew the fire too. All earthly bellows would themselves have been burnt, at least not been able to have made the furnace hot enough; yea, his wrath against sin was the fire. Think but with yourselves if his mother Mary must have been the crucifier of him, and must have knocked in every nail with her feeble trembling hands (whilst at every stroke a sword is said to have 'pierced through her soul'), what excess of sorrow would have oppressed her! But now, even what man did against him is said to be by God the Father's own hand and counsel. And yet to what end was all this grief and loss? I might say it, and could defend it, it might have been spared. God in his prerogative could have saved sinners without it. That outcry of Christ cries thus loud in mine ears, 'Let this cup pass; all things are possible to thee.' In which prayer we must suppose it entered not
into Christ's heart to desire the elect might not be saved when he uttered it; and yet supposeth it consistent with that cup's passing from him. But love was set upon it to have our salvation thus, and no otherwise transacted. If justice might have permitted it, and have let that dismal cup pass and slip, yet love was engaged and resolved to manifest itself this way rather; and the more possible another way might have been, the more should love be commended in taking this,
'that when we were sinners, Christ died for us.' It was an extravagancy, a superabundancy of love, love's device, an invention of love, that knew not how to shew love enough. And, my brethren, these are not notions or ideas, these are the greatest realities and existences, which are only to be understood with our hearts, and not by our understandings; for 'the love of God' and Christ 'passeth understanding,' Eph. 3:19, and so is not taken in, but by the immediate impress of the Holy Ghost, who is the 'shedder of this love of God abroad into our hearts' (not so much into our understandings), as the apostle speaks.
(6.) I come next to God's dealings and dispensations towards us; and herein all the ways of God are ways of love and friendship; he is never but doing us good: Ps. 25, 'All his ways are mercy and truth.'
He is never out of the road of fulfilling one promise or truth, or of bestowing one mercy or other. In his very afflicting he fulfils a promise: 'In very faithfulness hast thou chastised me,' Ps. 119. And faithfulness is the performance of some trust or promise out of love.
(7.) All he doth he doth freely for us, and thinks not much at it. A man must hold pace with other friends, and do one kindness for another. But says God, Hos. 14:4, 'I will love thee freely, and heal thy backslidings.' And he will (says Zephaniah, chap. 3:17) 'rest in his love.' He is glad, and rejoiceth to do his people a kindness: Jer. 32:41,
'I will rejoice over them to do them good, with my whole heart and
my whole soul.' In James 1:5 it is said, 'he giveth freely and upbraids not;' the word is ἁπλῶς, that is, simply or singly, that is, for no other end than to give, for who can recompense him? So true liberality, even in us, is termed ἁπλότης, 2 Cor. 8:2. He doth it merely to do good, rejoicing in so doing; and therefore when he hath done upbraids not, and doth not use to say, I have given thee thus and thus. Often in case of great provocations indeed thou mayest hear of him, as David did, but it was but to melt his heart (2 Sam. 12:8), but otherwise he is silent; whereas other friends will be ever and anon twitting you with kindnesses.
(8.) His inward valuation and real esteem of you is answerable to, and more than his outward kindnesses; and really to do so is the greatest attractive of friendship. He prizeth you above all the world:
Isa. 43:3, 4. 'I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.' And he gave real testimony of this in giving his Son, which was more than a thousand worlds: Mat. 10:30 and Luke 12:7,
Even your very hairs are all numbered'—the hair, which is the meanest, unvaluablest appurtenance of man, and which in a proverb the Latins express as a thing of no value, ne pili æstimo, as we say, I value it not a straw. Things of worth use only to be numbered, and things that are not are said to be nullius numeri. David made it a great occasion of God's love to him, that 'all his members were written in God's book,' Ps. 139:16. But Christ descends to our very hairs; and not your hair in the comb, the bush of them, but every one, the smallest, all are numbered; how much more our persons.
(9.) Other friends will be ashamed of you when you fall into disgrace and poverty, though they knew you never so well before: Prov. 19:7,
'All the brethren of the poor do hate him; how much more his friends
that go afar off from him?' But the great God is so far from being ashamed of us, that he takes his denomination from us, and takes us into his style; witness that expression, 'the God of Abraham,' &c. to which that of Heb. 11:16 refers.
(10.) In all afflictions he will stand thy friend. When thou art in greatest trials and distresses, then he will shew himself most to be a friend, which indeed is the time for the trial of a friend: Prov. 17:17,
'A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity.' That is the special season that a man hath use of a friend for. 'In time of adversity' (saith Job, chap. 6:14) 'a man would have pity from his friend.' But usually it falls out (as Solomon says, Prov. 19:7), 'A man follows them with words, and they are wanting to him.' But then will the Lord own thee most especially, if thou followest him with words, with prayers, and seekest earnestly unto him. Therefore David (Ps.
31:7) says, 'Thou hast known my soul in adversity.' And David speaks it out of the sense of his love, that he did it then most, when others would not know him nor regard him. And whereas other friends may be absent, and not able to help thee or advise thee, 'he is a present help in trouble,' Ps. 46:1. Yea, there are cases wherein all thy friends in the world, if present, could stand thee in no stead, but would be miserable comforters, as in case of scandal, &c., and then will God break in and own thee. Yea, further it is said, Ps. 41:3, that 'he makes our bed in our sickness.' It is put to express the highest tenderness in distress, a condescending to do the meanest office, a readiness to supply all wants and deficiencies; and in that he says, he will make all thy bed, it imports utmost and universal diligence and care in that which is committed to servants of the lowest rank. He will as a friend sit by thy bedside, lay thy pillow for thee, make thy bed easy; that is, make a distressed condition comfortable, fetch thee anything, take care of everything, apply himself so to thee that thou shalt then say, thou art in ease in the midst of trouble.
(11.) God will not cast thee off when thou art old, and wantest strength to serve him; but (as it is in Jer. 3:14) he then remembers the kindness and pains taken in thy youth. David prays, Ps. 71:9,
'Cast me not off in time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.' You know God's answer, long before he prayed it and since, is repeated with five negatives to assure us of it, 'I will never, at no band, upon no occasion, leave thee, or forsake thee.'
(12.) Other friends, for an ill turn, will forget all former good turns and kindnesses done, though never so many; but God on the contrary will forget all thy sins, and remember them no more (Isa.
43:25); but not one good deed or office of love, no, not one good thought from the first to the last, shall be forgotten, but it sticks in him, and takes deep impression. Those things thou hast forgotten, at the latter day he will remember them, and that to requite them.
Every cup of cold water shall have a reward: 'God is not forgetful of your labour of love to his name,' Heb. 6:10.
(13.) Yea, when thou art dead he will remember thee and thine.
Other friends bury their friendship in the graves of the deceased, but God not only will take care of thy very bones, Ps. 34:20, but remember thee in thy seed, as David did Jonathan's posterity. Thus he remembered Abraham's seed for their father's sake: 'The seed of Abraham my friend,' says he, Isa. 41:8; and so he remembered
David's seed, 1 Kings 11:34; and Rom. 11, 'They are beloved' (and it is gospel) 'for their fathers' sake.'
(14.) Lastly, Whatsoever he hath thou shalt have part of it; nay, all he hath thou shalt inherit, Rev. 21:7. God himself can have but all things, and thou shalt have all that he hath, John 17:24 and John
12:24. Christ speaks with an heart, as if his own single personal glory would do him no good unless we should be with him and have part of