Sermon 11 - I am like a green fir-tree- Hosea 14:8
he is, and what he hopes for, and this will put him in a right temper.
1. What he is: a king, and an heir of heaven, &c. After which he should reason with good Nehemiah, 'Shall such a man as I fly?' shall such a man as I do this? I am redeemed from my sins, and advanced to be a king to rule over my lusts, to be an heir of heaven and eternal happiness in the world to come, to reign with Christ; and shall I do thus and thus? Doth this stand with my new temper, this sin, this filthiness, this base action and thoughts that I am tempted to and encumbered with? Shall such a man as I follow these base actions, ways, and companions? Consider we this well, and then it will breed
Ephraim's resolution, 'What have I any more to do with this base lust?' What hath it to do with me, or I with it? Is this and this action befitting a king, and an heir of heaven, and a new creature? And if a man be in authority, then let him consider what Mordecai said to Esther, 'What if thou be called to the kingdom for such a purpose?'
Esther 4:14. What if thou be called to this place or dignity for this purpose, to reform such and such abuses? Think with thyself, not only in particular what thou art, but in thy place, what if thou be called to reform such abuses: such unsound doctrines; to stand for God and for the truth. This will breed this resolute indignation of Ephraim in us, 'What have I any more to do with idols?' All which is for the manner of Ephraim's indignation: a strong negation of an abominated thing. 'What have I any more to do,' &c. The next, which is the substance and matter abominated—idolatry—must be reserved for some other time.
THE ELEVENTH SERMON
Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir-tree: from me is thy fruit found.—HOS. 14:8.
WE have heard at several times heretofore how graciously God deals with his people, alluring them by many free and gracious promises to his service; the particulars whereof we heard heretofore at large.
This 8th verse hath reference unto that which went before, ver. 3.
There Ephraim renounceth his former idols. 'Asshur shall not save us,' &c.; and here, 'Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols?' Unto which the answer is, 'I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir-tree unto him: from me is thy fruit found.' Now, in that 'Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols?' this in sum is only the first part of the third verse, repeated in another manner: That Ephraim shall and will go on in abominating idols, be constant in his former resolution. Therefore, in that Ephraim shall, by the Spirit of grace, go on in renouncing all false confidence, God sheweth here that Ephraim shall lose nothing by it, for he intends here the continuance of time. 'I have heard him,' and I do hear him, and I will hear him, and respect him, and be like a shady green fir-tree to shade him, causing him also to be abundant in fruit. 'From me is thy fruit found.'
'Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols?' Here we considered the manner of expression, and then the matter itself.
'Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols?'
To come, therefore, to the matter itself specified, idolatry, against which Ephraim's indignation is directed:
'What have I to do with idols?'
In handling whereof we must take in all these four together, that is— 1. False doctrine, which is the foundation of idolatry.
2. Idols themselves; or,
3. Idolatry, which they tend to (for he which hates idols, hates them because he hates idolatry); or, 4. Idolaters; as if he had said, What have I any mere to do with idolatrous doctrines, opinions, or conceits, or with idols framed according to these conceits, or with idolatry or idolaters? For these go together. No man worships idols, but because he is poisoned in his conceits; and idols are forbidden, because idolatry is dangerous; and communion with idolaters is forbidden, because of idolatry. So that the doctrine, idols, idolatry, and communion with them, all these are objects of Ephraim's abomination and indignation.
'Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols?'
It were to misspend precious time, appointed for better uses, to tell you of the abominable distinctions of the papists, of Latria and Dulia,
(n) or to insist upon a discourse of heathenish idolatry; truths, but not so profitable for us to spend time in. Therefore, we will rather come to shew the reasons why Ephraim so abhorreth idolatry, idols, and conceits of all.
1. To begin, in the first place, with idols. When Ephraim is truly converted, he hates them, because idols are abominable to God, unto whom Ephraim is now converted. Ephraim hates idols, for idolatry is spiritual adultery. Religion is, as it were, a conjugal act of marriage; so that a breach in religious worship is a breach of spiritual marriage.
Now, the worshipping of idols being a breach of the conjugal act of marriage betwixt God and the soul, spiritual adultery, it must needs be abominable. For adultery is an abominable, filthy thing; much more spiritual adultery. Therefore, saith Ephraim, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
2. And then again, idolatry frameth base conceits of God. Whereas, on the contrary, we should elevate and raise up our hearts unto him; idolatry pulls him down, and conforms him to our base conceits.
Were it not a wrong to man to make him like a swine, or an ape, or some such ridiculous creature? Who, in this case, would think himself well used? There is not such disproportion betwixt any creature and man as there is betwixt the great God of heaven and earth, and the best creature that can be made to resemble him.
Therefore, it is an abominable abuse and dishonour to the great majesty of God to be represented any kind of way.
3. Again, consider the opposition between any representation of God, and God. They are corruptible things; God is incorruptible. They are visible; God is invisible. They are vain and nothing; God a being of himself, who giveth being unto all things. God is the living God, and the cause of all life. To be brief: the Scripture, to shew God's hatred of them, calleth them dunghill-gods, and Abel, as it is in this book, vanity, nothing, a name to alienate the affections from them, (o)
4. Yea, further, because God is a jealous God, Exod. 34:14, and will not give his glory to another. Ephraim, therefore, as soon as he cometh to know God, he hateth idols; because he knows God, being a jealous God, could not endure them, Isa. 42:8.
Now, idolatry is committed when either we set up false gods in place of the true God, or when we worship the true God in a false manner.
Quest. But now another question may be moved, Whether the papists be idolaters or not? For we live amongst many of them; therefore we cannot be too wary of them.
Ans. The answer is affirmative. They are idolaters, and worse in some sort than the heathen idolaters were. Only change the names of the popish saints which they in popery worship, and the names that the heathen worship, and they will be all one. Now, names be no realities.
How may this be cleared?
First, they give the honour due to God to others, which is idolatry.
The religious worship only due unto God, they give unto other things. Christ, when he said, 'Him only shalt thou serve,' Mat. 4:10, excepted the least divine worship from the creature. The devil, we know, would have had him fall down before him; but Christ's answer is, 'Him only shalt thou serve;' that is, him only shalt thou religiously prostrate thyself unto. So that religious worship is proper to God only. Now, this they give to saints; for they pray to them, which is religious worship.
Obj. But they object, that they pray not directly to them, but to them as mediators, that they may pray to Christ for them.
Ans. 1. First, they raise them above their degree, to make them mediators, and so dethrone Christ of his office of Mediator, at least join copartners with him.
2. But this is not all. They pray directly to saints to help them against several ills, as they have several saints for several evils. Whatsoever they say, who are not ashamed of lying to further their designs, yet their books and writings do testify the contrary.
3. Then again, they vow to saints, as in the form of their vows is seen.
I vow to the Virgin Mary, &c. Now, a vow is a religious act. They vow to saints, and burn incense unto them, erect temples, and set apart days for their worship, and so break all the four commandments of the first table. In a good fashion, it is not unfit to remember them, that their memorial may be kept; but we are not to worship them.
4. And, besides saints, they have other false gods; for their head of the church is an abominable idol, unto whom they ascribe that which is proper unto Christ, to be the head of the church, which hath no influence from him, but all from Christ, the spiritual head thereof.
Therefore the apostle complaineth of such 'who hold not the head,'
&c., Col. 2:19. Those of the Romish Church 'hold not the head,' hold not Christ, because they attribute that to saints and men which is
proper to Christ only. They make the pope judge of all controversies, who must give authority to the word, and determine Scripture to be
Scripture. What a shameful thing is this, to make him judge of the Scriptures, which must judge him at the last day. A pitiful thing it is to see 'a man of sin' go about to judge the righteous law of God, and to determine of that which must ere long determine him unto eternal torments, without particular repentance. Yet, being spiritually drunk, this folly they are given to, that they will be judge of that which must be judge of them. Many ways they make him an idol, ascribing that to him which is proper to Christ.
5. So likewise, they make their sacraments to be idols.
For, 1, they ascribe to the water in baptism power of conferring grace.
Now, grace is God's creature only; for all the creatures in heaven and earth cannot confer the least dram of grace. It is a thing of God's making. Now, to raise an element to confer grace, and them to trust in it, ex opere operato, for the conferring of it, is to make an idol of it.
2. And for the bread. None of all the heathens ever had such an abominable idol as the mass, a breaden god, for they worshipped living creatures, and there is not the worst living creature but it is better than a piece of bread; and yet they worship that, for, by their own confession, if the intention of the priest be not to the action, there is nothing but bread. How may the minds, then, of men be tormented when they may or shall think perhaps the priest hath no such intention, and so are in danger of idolatry. For, saith the psalmist, 'their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god,' &c., Ps. 16:4. So certainly the sorrows and scruples of those that are idolaters shall be multiplied. They cannot but be much tormented in soul sometimes. Coster (p), himself a forward Jesuit, acknowledgeth 'that if, upon the words of consecration, the bread be not turned and transubstantiated into the body of Christ, we are the most abominable idolaters of the world.' But we make the minor and assumption, long since proved by the late worthies of our church*
(q), but there is no such transubstantiating of the bread into the body of Christ. Therefore, by their own consent, they are the most abominable idolaters of the world, worse than the heathen.
3. And in their equalising traditions, which are but the inventions of man's brain, with the Scriptures, they commit idolatry, in that they make their very church an idol. But what should we speak of their church, when they have the pope, who is their church virtually? for what is said of the one may be said of the other. When they come to the issue, the church is nothing but the pope. Whatsoever their church or councils say, he is the whole church. Many ways they are gross idolaters, especially the common people. For though they say they give not Latria, worship to the image, but Dulia, service, but can the common people distinguish, who give worship to all alike? To say we worship not the image, but God before the image, was the heathen's excuse, as we may see in Arnobius (r). Can the common people distinguish? No; for they are ignorant images themselves. In this they are worse than the heathens, because they have more light, and still the more light the more sin. For they have been foretold that the whore of Rome should be the mother of all fornications, the spiritual Babylon, Sodom, and Egypt in regard of idolatry, the mother of all these abominations, Rev. 17:5. Now, for them who have been forewarned hereof, and in so much light still, to continue idolaters, and persist in false worship, is to be worse than the heathens, who had not the like light and warning.
Ques. But what is the reason that they are so impudent and audacious?
Ans. 1. First, to answer with the Scriptures, they are drunk with the whore's cup, Rev. 17:2; and we know a drunken man dares do anything.
2. And then, again, as the psalmist speaks, because those who worship idols become blockish and stupid like unto them, for an idol is a blockish, dead thing, so idolaters are stupid, dead things in a
sort, who are seldom converted, partly because they are drunk, and partly because they are stupid, like the idols they worship, Ps. 115:8.
Use 1. If this be so, as it is too true to the eye of the whole world, then how ought we to bless God, who hath brought us out of this palpable
Egyptian darkness, out of spiritual Sodom, as Lot was out of that Sodom! Gen. 19:17. Oh, we cannot be thankful enough, nor ought we to desire to return to Sodom again, or unto Egypt. Where, then, is place left for neutrality? Those neuters, that will be of neither religion! Is such a disposition from the Spirit of God, which maketh
Ephraim say here, 'What have I any more to do with idols?' Ephraim would not be a neuter. Therefore, what shall we say unto them that present themselves to Masses, in their travels especially? Is this to say with Ephraim, 'What have I any more to do with idols?' We must
'believe with the heart, and confess with the mouth, to salvation,'
Rom. 10:9. If a man might escape with having his heart to Godwards, and his body prostrate, where were confession? In Elias's time, God told him, that there were left seven thousand in Israel, who had not bowed the knee to Baal, that is, who made no bodily prostration, 1 Kings 19:18. Therefore, as the papists do not join with us, so neither ought we with them, if we hold the contrary religion false. In this case we should not present ourselves with them in any service.
Use 2. Again, if this be true, what do we think of reconcilers of religion? A thing impossible, as the apostle sheweth. 'For what communion hath God with Belial? Christ with antichrist?' 2 Cor.
6:14, 15. What communion? The question is a strong negation, as that of Ephraim here. 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
Obj. But some may say, We differ from them only in circumstance.
Ans. We may ask any man who hath his brains in his head, whether idolatry be a circumstance or not? it being clear that they are as great idolaters as the heathens, in many instances. If any affirm that idolatry is a circumstance, there is no disputing with such a one. That
which is the sin, which makes God abhor and desert his own people, is that a circumstance? Is that a circumstance, which is the chief sin against the first table? Granting that they are idolaters, that the pope is 'antichrist,' and Rome to be 'Babylon' (s), and Babylon to be the 'mother of all fornication,' this must needs follow, that there can be no reconciling of these two religions. We may come near them, and become papists, but they will never come near us, to be good
Christians.
Use 3. Again, if this be so, that popery be idolatry, and that we must beware of all idolatry, let us take heed, therefore, that we have nothing to do with them more than we must needs. Converse with them in our callings, we may; because, as an ancient father saith, we be compossessors of the world, and not of religion. We must go out of the world, if we will not have to do with them sometimes in the places where we live; but amity is very dangerous with such. The Scripture runs much upon it. Should we love them whom God hates?
It was Eve's fault, that without a calling she ventured to talk with the serpent. We should therefore shun conversing and parley with them as much as may be. As there were rails set about Mount Sinai, to keep off the people from touching the mountain; so God hath set hedges about the second commandment, to keep us off from offending in it, as it was usual with God in this kind. As, when he would keep them far from murder, he forbade them to kill the dam with the young, Deut. 22:6, and not to seethe a kid in his mother's milk, Exod. 23:19; only to restrain them from murder, that abominable sin. Such precepts the Jews call 'the hedges of the commandments' (t). So for idolatry, the Scripture would have us
'hate the garment spotted with the flesh,' Jude, verse 23; 'to defile the coverings of the images, to account them as a menstruous cloth,' &c,
Isa. 30:22; and 'to have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness,' Eph. 5:11; [and] to hate all monuments of idolatry. As Augustine saith of monuments, 'Any monument moves and stirs up the mind;' so anything that may move or stir us to idolatry, we should abhor, and keep afar off from it.
And therefore the commandments are set down in the highest pitch of the sin, to shew that we should avoid all the degrees under that which leads to so great a breach, and that we should hate all those steps and leadings to the sin itself. We should therefore beware of popish writers, and do with them as was done with the magic books in the Acts, burn them all, lest they corrupt ourselves and others,
Acts 19:19. Learn we this of the papists, who hate our books, burn them, or lock them up safe; yea, hate the very names of Luther and Calvin, much more their books.
In this case it is with the soul of man as with water, that relisheth of that soil through which it runs, if it run through a hot soil, as baths through a sulphury soil, it tastes of that. So the spirit of a man tastes of those authors he runs through. Therefore such who converse much in popish writings, unless ministers who have a calling that way to confute them, are in danger to be ensnared by them.
Use 4. And then, again, if we must hate all idolatry, we must take heed of occasions. Not like some looser Christians, which make no matter of crucifixes. How doth the spirit of Ephraim here agree with such? A crucifix is but a teacher of lies, representing only the outside, and that falsely; for there is no expression in Scripture, what kind of man Christ was. And if there were, yet the apostle sheweth, 'that we must now no more know him any more after the flesh,' 2 Cor. 5:16.
Not as such a man, as tall and fair, &c.; but know him as the Mediator, as king of heaven and earth, avoiding all lewd, base conceits of him. People in this kind are too bold, and run too near popery. A father saith well, 'No man is safe that is near danger.' We are commanded to, 'fly from idolatry,' 1 Cor. 10:14. We must not come near the pit's brink, lest we fall in. Run and fly from it as from a serpent, dally not with the occasions.
But to leave this gross idolatry, to speak of something which more nearly concerneth us, and which we are prone to. Though we hate the gross idolatries, yet there be some we are more nearly addicted to; as,
First of all, there is a proneness in us, in our worship, to conceive false conceptions and ideas of God; and so in place of worshipping
God, we worship an idol of our own brain.
Quest. It may be said, How shall we conceive of God when we worship him?
Ans. 1. First of all, negatively, do not dishonour God in imagining any character of an infinite incomprehensible God, but conceive of him as an infinite essence.
2. And then, conceive not absolutely of God, but of God distinguished in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; or else we conceive an idol. For there are three persons in one common nature; and in our prayers we must not conceive the nature without the persons.
3. In the third place, we must not in our prayers conceive of God, without Christ the Mediator. For even as God was only to be known and spoken to towards the tabernacle; so Christ is the tabernacle now, where God manifests his gracious presence, and will be worshipped in him the Mediator. For God, considered out of Christ, is a 'consuming fire;' without Christ, no converse with God. Let us therefore take Christ along with us, when we go to God. Go to him by God in our nature, our Immanuel; and so we shall conceive of God aright, and not worship an idol of our own brain.
4. Again, there is another thing which is a common abuse among Christians, wherein they come near to idolatry, when they transform
God to be like themselves in their affections, as it is the property of all unregenerate men to do so. Idolatry is so natural, it cannot but transform God to be like itself. As for instance, a man that is not a gracious man, in the pride of his sinful course, thinks that God is like unto him. 'Thou thoughtest that I was like unto thyself; therefore I will come against thee,' &c, Ps. 50:21. As oppressors, and such who grow great by ill courses, they justify thus much. Would God let me
alone if he did not approve of my courses? So they make God like themselves. And so the good fellows of the world, they make God to allow all their dissoluteness, because he lets them alone. So those that are fierce and cruel by nature, who delight in cruelty, vexation, and blood, they transform God, as though he delighted in such things, and make him a God of blood. So others transform God to be all mercy. This is to make God an idol, and as ill as if they transformed him into this and that creature; worse than the heathens, in regard of their light under the gospel; yet this is the disposition of many Christians now-a-days.
Quest. What was the reason why the heathens worshipped Bacchus and Venus, such abominable gods?
Ans. They, to countenance their lusts and drunkenness, deify them: an abominable sin of the heathen, for which God gave them up to other sins. Doth not our sin come near theirs, when we make God to countenance our sin, and cite Scripture for it, as if God can countenance sin in his word? This is to transform God into our own abominable conceits. Those, therefore, who bless themselves in any sinful course, they are guilty of idolatry in the worst kind that may be; for it is as ill to transform God to allow of such courses, as to transform Christ to die for such who go on in their sins without remorse, or to transform him into the likeness of such and such vile creatures.
5. Further, there is another sort of idolatry Christians are subject unto—to set up somewhat in their hearts higher than God. There is no man without grace, but he doth so until his conversion. Nay, when a man is converted, he is prone to this, to idolize and set up something above that which should be in the heart. Hereupon Paul,
Col. 3:5, calleth covetousness, idolatry; because a covetous man placeth those affections upon his own wealth, which should dwell in God: for, 'he saith to the wedge of gold, Thou art my confidence,' Job
31:24, thinking his wealth shall bear him out in any ill cause whatsoever. And then, again, that time which he should spend in
thinking of God and of a better life, he buried those thoughts in his muck and wealth, toiling and moiling in the world, when he should serve God. Thus the covetous man is an idolater.
6. And there are some guilty of idolatry, likewise, in another kind, such as have men's persons too much in admiration, that deify them, especially if they be in great place: such who will offend God before they will offend them; and whereas for God's glory they should deny themselves, they deny themselves, and make themselves fools, for men; and to please them by whom they hope to rise, deny both wit and honesty. This is abominable idolatry, and such are as far from heaven and salvation, as those that fall before an idol, if they repent not. Oh, if these men that study to please men, and deny themselves for them, would be as careful to please God, as they have been to please men, how happy, and what excellent Christians would they be!
As a great man-pleaser in his time said, 'If he had served God as well as he had served his master the king in that time, God had not left him so in his old years'(u).* To set up any man so high in our affections, as for him to deny ourselves, crack our consciences, and do things unlawful, will be misery in the end. 'If I please men,' saith
Paul, 'I am not the servant of Christ,' Gal. 1:10. He meaneth sinful pleasing, for there ought to be service and respect. Due honour must be given unto those who carry God's image, our governors, yea, great respect and honour, and nothing in this kind can be too much; but to go beyond our bounds herein, is to commit idolatry. As the heathen did, when the government of Rome was turned into an empire, some of their emperors were made gods by them after Augustus's time, wherein they could not have devised to have done them greater wrong, for they came most of them to fearful ends (v). It is ill for any man to have God his co-rival; for no greater misery can befall a man, than to be set up in God's room, so to rule a man's honesty, will, and conscience at his pleasure; for God is a jealous God, and will not endure such idolatry.
7. And so, in the next place, they frame Christ an idol, in taking him without his cross. They will be of the true religion; but when they
come to suffer anything, if it be but a frown, a reproach or disgrace, they give out and fall back. Such, they frame to themselves an idol, a false Christ; for the knowledge of Christ is never without the cross, some cross or other, some persecution or other in some kind. 'All who will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution,' 2 Tim. 3:12. A man may live godly, and not suffer persecution; but he that will live godly in Christ, so as he sheweth his nature to be altered, carrying an antipathy against all false courses, and so as the world may conceive that he is such an one, it is impossible that he should live in the world without persecution, because he shall meet with those that are of an opposite disposition. Therefore, to frame a smooth Christ, all comfort, is to frame a false Christ, and a false religion,—to frame an idol that hath no truth in it, that never was, nor never will be to the end of the world.
8. Again, unconverted persons especially are prone to another idolatry, to set up their own wits and wills instead of God's. So as there is not a greater enemy to religion than our own conceits and wills, which will have a model of religion of our own brain, which must stand, let what will come of it. This is the fault especially of great learned persons, who take upon them conceits and apprehensions of things, and then doat upon these brats of their own brain. And so for will, to have our own will in all things; as the speech is, 'My mind to me a kingdom is.' I will have my will, whatsoever come of it. This is idolatry; for whosoever will come to heaven must deny his will. The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial, Mat.
19:21, 24: denial of wit and will, to have no more wit and wisdom, especially in divine things, than God will teach us; and no more will, which is distinct and opposite to Christ's will, but to bring our wills to his in all things. When men will go about great affairs, and set upon things in their own wit and strength, never praying nor depending upon God for a blessing, this is a kind of idolising of parts to work out things by policy, strength, wits, and parts. As that heathen atheist could say, 'Let cowards pray, if they will;' but his success was answerable. So is it not the common atheism of the world? They go about things in confidence of their wit and parts, and
so hope to attain a glorious issue; whereas God, who overthrows Babels, takes delight to confound all their devices. It is his daily practice 'to send the rich empty away, and exalt the humble and meek,' Luke 1:52. Those who set upon things rashly without prayer, as though they were lords of all, and without dependence upon God, promising themselves good success, they make idols of themselves.
As a proud man is an idol, 'he worships himself,' whilst he leans to his own wit, plots, and parts. Carnal men thus idolise themselves.
9. Again, you have some who are none of the worst who commit this great sin of idolatry, by trusting to the outward performances and tasks of religion, thinking that God must needs be bound unto them, when they have done so many tasks, read, and prayed, or heard so many sermons, or done a good deed. But here lieth the spiritual subtlety, in that they set up these things too high, when, if they find not that success they look for, then they inwardly murmur against God; when rather all these things should be done with a spirit of humility and subjection, using them only as means whereupon we expect God's blessing, craving his assistance and strength to do them in a holy and a self-denying manner. When we do otherwise, and trust to the outward tasks and performances we do, we make them idols. And you have many that go along with outward performances who never come to a dram of grace, because they trust to the outward performances, and look not to the life and soul of them, which is the Spirit of God assisting, quickening, strengthening, blessing them. The life of a Christian is a perpetual dependence upon God in the use of means, and not an idolising of them, to be careless when he hath done his task.
10. But a more subtle idolatry than this is of another kind, when we trust too much to the work of grace, and rely not upon God in Christ, in the matter of justification and acceptation to life everlasting, which is a fault, both, 1. Before conversion.
2. After conversion.
First, before conversion. When we think we have not done so much good, and been sufficiently humbled, and therefore that God will not be merciful to us, as if Christ must take us with dowry of good deeds, or else he cannot; whereas all grace is promised upon our entry and coming into the covenant of grace, upon our believing, when we come with empty hearts and hands. 'The poor,' saith Christ, 'receive the gospel; and those that are lost, Christ is sent to save them, and to call in the weary and heavy laden,' Mat. 11:5, 9:13, 11:28.
2. And after conversion. Those that are in the state of grace oftentimes want that comfort in the main point of justification and acceptation to life everlasting, which they should have, because they look into their imperfections, seeing this and that want, and so are swallowed up of discomfort; whereas, if we had all the graces in the world, yet we must live by faith, relying upon the merits of Christ.
For our good works bring us not to heaven, as a cause, but only are helps and comforts to us in our walking to heaven. For if we had all the sins of all men, yet Christ's all-sufficient righteousness is sufficient for to do them all away, if we can go out of ourselves, and cleave to that. Therefore, in trouble of conscience we must not look either to our good or our ill, but to God's infinite mercy, and to the infinite satisfaction of our blessed Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ; there, as it were, losing ourselves, seeing our sins as mountains drowned in the infinite sea of his mercy. The blood of Christ! That will pacify and stay the conscience. Nothing else can give rest to our souls. If we look to our works and to the measure of our sanctification, what saith holy Paul in the like case? 'Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,' Phil. 3:8, even his righteousness and best works. Therefore there is no regard to be had of them in that case. Wherefore when we would speak comfort to a distressed conscience, we must not look to his ill or good, but to the command, 'This is his command, that we believe,' 1 John 3:23. And
look to the all-sufficiency of God in Christ, and the promises, whereby we honour God in giving him the glory of his truth, and depart with comfort. Therefore, though we hate gross idolatry, yet we see there are many ways wherein the soul may be seduced, whereby we may come very near that sin which our soul hateth, by trusting too much to something out of God.
Use 5. If then the case be thus, how shall we come to reform it, for a use of direction, so as to fly from all idolatry, and to say with Ephraim, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
First of all, do but consider God's hatred unto all sorts of idolaters; for he accounts such to hate him, and so accordingly punisheth them.
In the second commandment, those that are given to idolatry in any kind, are such as hate God, which is a horrible thing; and yet, notwithstanding, this is the disposition of all such as are idolaters. So far forth as they are idolaters, they hate God, for the more we know
God, the more we shall hate all idols, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
2. Labour to grow in the sound knowledge of God and of Christ, and of their all-sufficiency. Mark St Paul's method, Col. 2, and in other places, when he would draw us from all outward things, he speaks gloriously of the fulness of Christ, 'In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' Col. 2:9; and, 'In him you are complete.' When he would draw them from 'touch not, taste not, handle not, worshipping of angels, and from counterfeit humility,' Col. 2:21, &c., he labours to dispossess them of these idolatrous conceits, and to possess them of the fulness of Christ. If in him we have fulness, why should we look for any thing out of him? If we be complete in him, if all fulness be in him, why do we seek any thing out of that fulness?
Thus the holy apostle shutteth up his first epistle, 'Babes, keep you from idols,' 1 John 5:21. What is promised there? Christ is eternal life, all is in him; whereupon presently comes this, 'Babes, keep you from idols?' If life and happiness, and all be in Christ, if we be complete in him, and the fulness of all be in him, why should we go
out of him for anything? When God would persuade Abraham to leave all idolatry, Gen. 17:1, and all things else, to depend wholly upon him, what doth he first possess him with? 'I am God allsufficient,' &c. Know God in covenant all-sufficient, and Christ in the fulness of his high perfections as Mediator, in whom is all fulness and life eternal, in whom we are complete; we shall then be so far from going out of him for any thing, as we shall be of the same mind with Ephraim, 'What have I now any more to do with other intercessors and mediators?' what have I to do with will-worship? what need I go to other cursed means, when God is all-sufficient? It is the scope of the new covenant of grace, that we should glory in God only, who hath made Christ unto us 'wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,' 1 Cor. 1:30. And all this, because that whosoever glorieth in him, should not go out of him for any thing. The more we know therefore the fulness of Christ, and God's mercy in him, the more we shall abhor all idolatry, with the kinds and degrees of it.
3. Another help and means to cure this disposition in us is, to know that we are naturally wondrous prone to it in one degree or another.
It is reckoned up, Gal. 5:20, as a work of the flesh; and, naturally, man hath a working fancy, to set up somewhat in his heart and understanding above, and besides God, imaginations to adulterate things. Men live by sense, and imagination is next to sense, so that naturally all men are idolaters before conversion, in one kind or other, and doat so upon their own, that they will not be driven out of themselves unto God in Christ, without a great deal of grace. As men naturally love the child of their own body, so men love the children of their own brain.
Quest. What is the reason that it is so hard to convert a papist?
Ans. Because it is will-worship, a device of their own brain, suiting their natural will and appetite. And what makes them so furious, as all idolaters are cruel: though they be mild of their own nature, yet as idolaters, they are cruel. It is because it is a device of their own brain,
a brat, a child of their own begetting, wherefore they strive to maintain it, because it is their own. Let us therefore conceive thus much, that it is no easy matter to free the soul from idolatry, and all the degrees of this cursed disposition. This will make us beg earnestly the Spirit of God, by which only we shall subdue this idolatrous proud conceit, Rom. 8:5, and lay ourselves open to Christ, to be disposed of as he pleaseth. Beg the Spirit only, whereby we shall mortify the cursed deeds of the flesh, for nature will never subdue nature. The Spirit of God therefore is that which can, and must free us from all dregs and tainture of this cursed disposition, which the Jews were so scourged for, and hardly* driven from.
4. Again, consider God's punishments in this kind. As we see, Rev.
9:20, where the Turk is said to be raised up against all these idolaters, that would not be kept from worshipping the devil and the image of the beast; yet for all this, it is said, 'they did not repent.' And so the Jewish church was still punished with enemies raised up against them for their idolatry. And it is to be expected that the idolatry of these western churches will at length pull down antichrist himself, which must be before the conversion of the Jews. For what hinders their conversion now? The world is full of idolaters, even
Christians; and therefore there must be a confusion of antichrist's idolatrous worship before the conversion of the Jews, who will not return whilst that scandal is in their eye. Therefore, that we may help forward that glorious work, let us labour as much as we can to purge the church of this, in drawing others from idolatry, that we may help to make way for those glorious times a-coming; for this Scripture specially hath relation unto the calling of the Jews, not to be fulfilled till then, when 'Ephraim shall say, What have I now any more to do with idols?' with that for which we have been so plagued for in former times.
5. And withal let us consider this, that the end of all false worship, when it is left, is grief and shame, befooling and shaming of ourselves for it. 'Ephraim at length shall say, What have I any more to do with
idols?' to cherish pride and self-conceit? which, if ever I come to heaven, I must renounce, hating myself for my own pride and folly.
6. And so for idolaters themselves, why should we consort ourselves with these, of whom we shall say one day, What have we any more to do with them? We must be separated from them here, or in hell live with them for ever. What will then be the hell of hell? Mutual cursing of one another. Thy familiarity and acquaintance, thy provocations and allurements, brought me into these torments! If we belong to God, late or soon, there must be these speeches, 'What have I now any more to do with such and such lying vanities?'
Therefore let us not think will-worship a slight matter; for, we see, popery is nothing else but a bundle of man's devices. We see in Scripture, when the dearest friends of Christ came unto him with devices of their own, and good intentions, Christ notwithstanding saw the devil in them. Peter made a great confession, 'Thou art the Son of the living God,' Mat. 16:16, and then he came 'Master, spare thyself,' ver. 22; whereunto Christ replied, 'Get thee behind me,
Satan,' ver. 23. God is never more provoked than when men think to honour him with their own devices; stablishing a false, and neglecting his own true, worship. And there is usually little amendment of these kind of persons, because they carry with them a show of wisdom, as Paul saith, Col. 2:23, and great humility; which things being so carried with a show of some grace and wisdom
(though they be desperate folly in the conclusion), men hardly will part withal. As we see of corporal adultery, few of them are reclaimed, because it hath a bewitching, alluring power; which is most true of the spiritual adulterers. There are few of them reclaimed, until God, by some severe judgment, alter and bring down the proud imagination to serve him as he will be served; so as to say with Ephraim here, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
Well, that we may abhor idolatry the more, consider two or three direct places. 'Who required these things at your hands?' saith God,
Isa. 1:12. When we think to please him with voluntary devised things,
this will strike them dumb then. The things that God requires being so easy and so few, yet we to omit them all, and to devise new things of our own, our reward shall be, 'Who required these things at your hands?' And then again saith God, 'In vain they worship me, teaching for my precepts the devices of men,' Mat. 15:9. See then the vanity of idolaters, who, though they would do nothing in vain, yet do all their will-worship in vain. It is not only idolatry, but obstinate idolatry, the Romish doctrine. 'We would have cured Babel, but she would not be cured,' Jer. 51:9. Is this a light cause of our coming out of Babylon?
Do we leave them for trifles, when they stand guilty of abominable idolatry? You may see here, if so be Ephraim out of holy affection say, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?' what to think and judge of those that would bring God and idols together. If Ephraim had been of the temper that many men now are, he might have said,
'Tush! what need we care for idols, crucifixes, and the like? There is not such a distance betwixt them and us, why may not both religions stand together? This new-fangled niceness is but the distempered devices of some few giddy-headed men, who know not what they would have.' This is the wisdom of many men in our times, who reckon that there is not an eternal, irreconcilable distance between light and darkness, the service of God and that of idols. 'We cannot serve two masters,' saith Christ, Mat. 6:24. Yes, they say, we may serve two masters, Antichrist and Christ, God and Belial. Oh! but what saith Ephraim? 'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
There can be no mixture, you know, where there is abomination.
That church, Rev. 3:15, which was neither hot nor cold, may parallel many now in our times, who are neither hot nor cold, papists nor protestants, but politic atheists, who will be both or neither, whatsoever may best serve and advance their worldly ends. How doth God look upon such? Saith he, 'I will spue them out of my month.' God hates such most of all: 'now I would thou wert either hot or cold.' If this be the affection of God's people toward idols and idolaters, an utter aversation; and shall we think to jumble and mingle contrary things together, to serve God and the devil, Christ and antichrist?
Thus we see what to think of the temper of these men. In lighter matters indeed we may enjoy our own private opinions in some things. As St Paul saith in lesser things, 'If any man be otherwise minded, God shall reveal it unto him,' Phil. 3:15. But when he comes to the point of justification by Christ in God's worship, what saith he?
'If any man be otherwise minded, God shall reveal it?' No. But 'if I, or an angel from heaven, teach otherwise, let him be accursed,' Gal. 1:8.
Now, when men teach another doctrine and worship, joining with gross idolaters in that worship, there we must be of Paul's spirit, 'If I, or an angel from heaven, teach otherwise, let him be accursed.' The Holy Ghost at first appeared in the form and shape of a dove, Mat.
3:16, which is a meek and mild creature, that hath no talons to hurt with. Yet notwithstanding, at another time, he appeared in 'fiery tongues,' Acts 2:3, to shew that the same Spirit that in lesser things maintaineth peace and love, when it is set against any sin, especially against that sin of sins, idolatry, which brings God's vengeance upon kingdoms and states, and roots them out; there the Holy Ghost must appear in fire. That element must be in the hearts of people against sin. That, though to persons that have their slips, and in lesser matters, there must be the spirit of a dove, yet there must be in men the spirit of courage, indignation, abomination, and hatred unto the idolatry of the times, that we may say from our hearts with Ephraim,
'What have I now any more to do with idols?'
Therefore, let us join with those that we shall live for ever with in heaven, and go in the best courses, and we shall never need to fear separation, nor want encouragements to well-doing. Thus shall we neither grieve nor be ashamed to say with Ephraim, 'What have I now any more to do with idols?' At the length the kings of the earth, who adore the whore, they shall come and eat her very flesh, Rev.
17:16. So it will be the end of those that reign in other men's consciences, and in a manner will be accounted gods, that all which is gotten with wrong to God, shall be renounced with grief, shame, and detestation of the persons of those that make idols of others, and will be made idols in the hearts of others; thinking themselves not enough respected, unless they command the conscience. The end of