WHEREIN THE GLADSOME NEWS THAT THE GOSPEL BRINGS IS DECLARED FROM THE FIVE PARTICULARS REQUISITE TO FILL UP THE JOYFULNESS OF A message; WITH A WORD TO STIR UP OUR BOWELS IN PITYING THOSE THAT never heard ANY OF THIS NEWS.
Nole. The revelation of Christ, and the grace of God through him, is beyond comparison the best news and most joyful tidings that poor sinners can hear. It is such a message that no good news can come before it, nor ill news follow it. No good news can come before it ; no, not from God himself to the creature ; he cannot issue out any blessing to poor sinners, till he hath shewn mercy to their soids in Christ. ' God be merciful to us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us,' Psa. Ixvii. 1.
First, God forgives, then he gives ; till he be merciful to pardon our sins through Christ, he cannot bless, or look kindly on us sinners. All our enjoy- ments are but blessings in bullion, till gospel grace, pardoning mercy, stamp and make them current ; God cannot so much as bear any good will to us, till Christ makes peace for us; ' on earth peace, good will to men,' Luke ii. 14. And what joy can a sinner take, though it were to hear of a kingdom fallen to him, if he may not have it with God's good will.
Again, No ill news can come after the glad tidings of the gospel, where be- lievingly embraced. God's mercy in Christ alters the very property of all evils to the believer. All plagues and judgments that can befall the creature in the world, when baptized in the stream of gospel grace, receive a new name, come on a new errand, and have a new taste on the believer's palate ; as the same water, by running through some mine, gets a strong taste and a healing virtue, which before it had not, Isa. xxxiii. 24 : ' The inhabitant shall not say I am sick; the people that dwell therein shall be pardoned their iniquity.' Observe, he doth not say, ' they shall not be sick;' gospel grace doth not exempt from afflictions; but, ' they shall not say I am sick.' They shall be so ravished with the joy of God's pardoning mercy, that they shall not complain of being sick ; this, or any other cross, is too thin a veil to darken the joy of the other good news. This is so joyful a message which the gospel brings, that God wovdd not have Adam long without it, but opened a crevice to let some beams of tliis light, that is pleasant to behold, into his soul, amazed with the terror of God's presence, without which, as he was turned out of paradise, so had he been turned into hell immediately ; for such the world would have been to his guilty con- science. This is the news God used to tell his people of, on a design to com- fort them and cheer them, when things went worse with them, and their affairs were at the lowest ebb, Isa. vii. 14; Micah v. 5. This is the great secret which God whispers by his Spirit in the ear of those whom he embraces with his special distinguishing love, Luke x. 21 ; 1 Cor. ii. 12 ; so that it is made the sad sign of a soul marked out for hell, to have the ' gospel hid from it,' 2 Cor. iv. 3. To wind up this in a few words, there meet all the properties of a joyful message in the glad tidings of the gospel. Five ingredients are desirable in a message, yea, must all conspire to fill up the joyfulness thereof into a redundancy.
First, ' It must be good ;' none rejoice to hear evil news. Joy is the dilata- tion of the heart, whereby it goes forth to meet and welcome in what it desires; and this must needs be some good. Ill news is sure to find the heart shut against it, and to come before it is welcome.
Secondly, ' It must be some great good,' or else it affects little; affections are moved according to the degrees of good or evil in the object presented. A thing we hear may be so inconsiderable, that it is no great matter how it goes; but if it be good, and great also, and of weighty importance, this causeth pro- portionable pleasure. The greater the bell, the more strength is required to raise it. It must be a great good that raiseth great joy.
Thirdly, ' This great good must immediately concern them that hear i(;' that
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is, they must have propriety in it; for tliough we can rejoice to hear of some great good befalling another, yet it affects most when it is emptied into our own bosom. A sick man doth not feel the joy of another's recovery with the same advantage as he would do his own.