:

1

at last. The gofpel is as uncertain as your life; God hath made no fuch fettlement of it, but that he may at pleasure remove it, and will certainly do so, if we thus trifle under it; 'tis but a candlestick, tho' a golden one, Rev. ii. 5. and that you all know is a moveable thing; and not only your life, and the means of your eternal life, I mean the gospel, are uncertain things; but even the motions and strivings of the Spirit with your fouls are as uncertain as either. " Work out your own " salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh " in you both to will and to do of his good pleafure," Phil. ii. 12, 13. That God now works with you, is matter of great encouragement to your work: but that he works at his own pleafure, as a free arbitrary agent, who can cease when he pleases, and never give but one knock at your hearts more, should make you work with fear and trembling.

9. Think what a fearful aggravation it will be, both of your fin and mifery, to perish in the fight and presence of an offered remedy; to fink into hell betwixt the outstretched arms of a compaffionate Redeemer, that would have gathered you, but you would not.

Heathens, yea devils will upbraid you in hell for fuch unaccountable folly and defperate madness: heathens will fay, Alas, we had but the dim moon-light of nature, which did indeed discover fin, but not Christ the remedy. Ah, had your preachers and your bibles been fent among us, how gladly would we have embraced them! surely faith God to Ezekiel, "had I fent " thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee," Ezek. iii. 5, 6, Matth. xi. 21. The very devils will upbraid you; O if God had fent a Mediator in our nature, we had never rejected him as you have done; but he took not on him the nature of angels.

10. Lastly, How clear as well as fure, will your condemnation be in the great day, against whom such a cloud of witnesses will appear! O how manifeft will the righteoufness of God be! men and angels shall applaud the fentence, and your own confciences shall acknowledge the equity of it. You that are Christless now, will be speechless then, Matth. xxii. 11. * Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, I perfuade men," 2 Cor. v. 11. as one that trembles to think of being summoned as a witness against any of your fouls. O that I might be your rejoicing, and you mine in the day of our Lord Jefus Chrift.

"

REV. iii. 20. Behold [I] stand at the door, &c.

HAVING, in the former fermon, pondered Chrift's folemn

preface to his earnest fuit; the next thing that comes under our confideration, is the perfon folliciting, and pleading for admiffion into the hearts of finners, which is Chrift himself.

Behold [I] ftand. The only difficulty here is rightly to apprehend the manner of Christ's prefence in gospel admini strations: for it is manifeft the person of Christ was at this time in, heaven; his bodily presence was removed from this lower world above fixty years before this epistle was written to the Laodiceans. John's banishment into Patmos is by Eufe bius, out of Irenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus, placed in the fourteenth year of the emperor Domitian, and under his fe cond perfecution, which was about the ninety-feventh year from the birth of Chrift.

Yet here he faith, Behold I stand; not my meflengers and ministers only, but I by my spiritual prefence among you, I your fovereign Lord and owner, who have all right and authority by creation and redemption to poffess and difpose of your souls; it is I that stand at the door and knock, I by my Spirit, folliciting and moving by the miniftry of men. You fee none but men; but believe it, I am really and truly, though spiritually and invisibly, present in all those admini strations; all those knocks, motions, and follicitations, are truly mine, they are my acts, and I own them, and so I would have you conceive and apprehend them. Hence the fecond note is this,

Doct. 2. That Jesus Christ is truly prefent with men in his ordinances, and hath to do with them, and they with him; though he be not visible to their carnal eyes. Thus runs the promife: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," Mat. xviii. 20. The middle place was the feat of the president in the Jewish affemblies, where he might equally hear and be heard of all. So will I be in the midst of the affemblies of the faithful, met together in my name and authority, to blels, guide, and protect them. Hence the church is called the place of his feet, Ifaiah xvi. 13. a manifest allufion to the ark, called God's footstool, Pfalm xcix. 5. And agreeably here unto, Christ is faid to walk among the feven golden candle

sticks, Rev. ii. 1. There are the spiritual walks of Christ, there his converses and communion with men: and this prefence of Christ was not the peculiar privilege of the first churches, but is common to all the churches of the faints to the end of the world, as appears by that glorious promise so comfortably extended to the church from first to last; " Lo, I am "with you always to the end of the world," Mat. xxii. ult. This promise is the ground and reason of all our faith, and expectations of benefit from ordinances; and the subjects of it are not here confidered personally but officially, to you, and all that fucceed you in the fame work and office; not to you only as extraordinary, but to all the succeeding ordinary standing officers in my church. As for the apostles, neither their perfons nor extraordinary office was to continue long, but this promise was to continue to the end of the world.

Nor is this promise made absolutely, but conditionally; the connection of the promise with the command, enforces this qualified sense; as 2 Chron. xv. 2. "The Lord is with you, " whilft you are with him." Ignorant, idle, unqualified perfons cannot claim the benefit of this gracious grant.

Once more, this promise is made to every hour and minute of time. I am with you, all the days, as it is in the Greek text; in dark and dangerous, as well as peaceable and encouraging days: and it is closed up with a folemn Amen, So be it, or, So it shall be.

To open this point distinctly, we are to confider that there is a three-fold presence of Chrift.

1. Corporeal.

2. Represented.

3. Spiritual.

1. There is a corporeal prefence of Christ, which the church once enjoyed on earth, when he went in and out amongst his people, Acts i. 21. when their eyes faw him, and their hands handled him, 1 John i. 1. This presence was a fingular consolation to the disciples, and therefore they were greatly dejected when it was to be removed from them. But after redemption-work was finisned on earth, this bodily prefence was no longer neceffary to be continued in this world, but more expedient to be removed to heaven, John xvi. 7. as indeed it was, and must there abide until the time of the reftitution of all things, Acts iii. 21. And in this respect he tells the disciples, John xvi. 28. " I leave the world, and go to my Father."

2. There is a represented presence of Christ in ordinances. As the perfon of a king is represented in another country by his Ambassadors, so is Christ in this world by his minifters: VOL. IV,

Hhh

1

1

We then are ambassadors for God; as tho' God did befeech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to "God," 2 Cor. v. 20. Christ is about other work for us in heaven, but we stand in his stead on earth. And this speaks the great dignity of the ministerial office; whatever abuses or contempts are cast on them, they reflect upon Christ: "He " that despiseth you, despiseth me," Luke x. 16. It alfo teacheth us whence the validity of gospel-administration is; Christ ratifies and confirms them with his own authority. It also inftructs us how wise, spiritual, and holy ministers should be, who reprefent Christ to the world. A drunkard, a perfe cutor, a fenfual worldling, is but an ill representative of the blessed and holy Jesus.

3. Besides, and above the two former, there is a spiritual prefence of Christ in the churches, and ordinances; and this prefence of Chrift by his spirit, who is his Vicegerent, is to be confidered as that from which all gospel-ordinances derive,

1. Their beauty and glory.
2. Their power and efficacy.
3. Their awful folemnity.

4. Their continuance and stability.

1. From the prefence of Christ by his Spirit, the ordinances and churches derive their beauty and glory: "To fee thy pow. "er and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the fanctuary," Pfal. xxvii. 4. Look as the beauty of the body is a refult from the foul that animates it; and when the foul is gone, the beauty of the body is gone also; fo the beauty and glory of all ordi. nances comes and goes with the Spirit of Chrift, which is the very foul of them. The churches are indeed golden candlesticks, but the candlestick hath no light but what the candle gives it; hence that magnificent description of the new temple is closed up in this expression, "The name of that city shall be, The "Lord is there," Ezek. xlviii. ult.

2. From this spiritual presence of Christ, all gospel-ordinances derive all that power and efficacy which is by them exerted upon the fouls of men, either in their conversion or edification. This power is not inherent in them, nor do they act as natural, neceffary agents, but as instituted means, which are fuc cessful, or unfuccessful according as Christ by his spirit co-operates with them: "He that plants is nothing, neither he that "watereth, but God that giveth the increase," 1 Cor. iii. 7. That is, they are nothing to the purpose, nothing to the accomplishment of mens salvation, without the concurrence of the Spirit of Chrift, For when the apostle makes himself and Apollos,

t

a

with all other ministers, nothing, we must understand him speaking not absolutely, but comparatively, and relatively; they are necessary in their places, and sufficient in their kind, for what they are appointed to, else it would be a reflection upon the wisdom of God that instituted them: But singly in themselves, and disjunctively confidered, they are nothing; as a trumpet or, wind-instrument is nothing, as to its end and use, except breath be inspired into it, and that breath modulated by the art and skill of the inspirer; like Ezekiel's wheels that move not but as the Spirit that was in them moved, and dir cted their motions. If ordinances wrought upon fouls naturally, and neceffarily, as the fire burneth, then they could not fail of success upon all that come under them: But it is with them as with the waters of the pool at Bethesda, whose healing virtue was only found at that season when the angel descended and troubled them.

3. This spiritual presence of Christ gives the ordinances of the gospel that awful folemnity which is due, upon that account, to them. The prefence of Christ in them commands reverence from all that are about him. "God is greatly to be feared in "the assemblies of his faints, and to be had in reverence of all "that are round about him:" hence is that folemn caution or threatening, Lev. xxvi. 23, 24. "If you walk contrary unto

me, then will I also walk contrary unto you." The Hebrew word in that text signifies to walk rashly, or at an adventure with God, fine perfona discrimine, without confidering with whom we have to do, and what an awful majesty we stand before. And the punishment is suitable to the sin; I also will walk at an adventure with you, making no discrimination in my judgments betwixt your persons and the perfons of the worst of men. O that this were duely confidered by all that have to do with God in gospel-institutions!

4. It is the spiritual prefence of Christ in his churches and ordinances that gives them their continuance and stability: whenever the Spirit of Christ departs from them, it will not be long before they depart from us; or if they should not, their continuance will be little to our advantage. When the glory of the LORD dismounted from betwixt the cherubims, when that sad voice was heard in the temple, migremus hinc, Let us go hence, how foon was both city and temple made a defolation! and truly Christ's presence is not so fixed to any place, or any ordinances, but the sins of the people may banish it away, Rev. ii. 5. Who will tarry in any place longer than he is welcome, if he have any where else to go?