Verilv, if you ^vill make sense and feeling the judge of your estate and condition, you will never have peace nor comfort all your days. Thy estate, O Christian, may be very good, when sense and feeling says it is very bad. That child cannot but be perplexed that thinks his father doth not love him, because he does not always feel liim smooth- in «• and stroking of him. Christians, you must remember that it is one thino- for God to love you, and another thing for God to tell you that he loves you. Your happiness lies in the first, your comfort in tlie second. God hath stopped his ear against the prayers of many a precious soul whom he hath dearly loved.^ The best of men have at times lost that quickening, ravishing, and comforting presence of God that once they have enjoyed. And verily, he that makes sense and carnal reason a judge of his condition, shall be happy and miserable, blessed and cursed, saved and lost, many times in a day, yea, in an hour. The counsel that 1 would give to such a soul that is apt to set up reason in the room of faith is this. Whatsoever tliy estate and condition be, never make sense and feeling the judge of it, but only the word of God. Did ever God appoint carnal reason, sense, and feeling, to be a judge of thy spiritual estate? Surely no. And why, then, wilt thou subject thy soul to
' Sense and reason in spiritual things, savs Luther, is noria hestia, an harmful beast, that will destroy and pull down wliat faith builds up.
» Pa. Ixxx. 4 ; Lara. iii. 34 ; Ps. c.\ix. 25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 150, 159 ; xlii. 6 ; Cant. iii. 1-3 ; lea. liv, 7, 8.
EpH. hi. 8] RICHES OF CHRIST. 95
their judgments? God will judge thee at last by his word: John xii. 48, ' The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day,' Carnal reason is an enemy to faith ; it is still a-crossing and con- tradicting of faith; it fills the mind full of cavils and prejudices, full of pleas and arguments, to keep Christ and the soul asunder, and the soul and the promises asunder, and the soul and peace and comfort asunder. It will never be well with thee so long as thou art swayed by carnal reason, and reliest more upon thy five senses thao the four evano-elists. Remember Job was as famous for his confidence as for his patience : ' Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,' Job xiii. 15. As the body- lives by breathing, so the soul lives by believing, &c.
IV. The duties of strong saints to the weak.
We come now to the last thing propounded, and that is, the duties of strong saints to those that are tueak. I intend at this time to finish this point, and therefore shall not speak everything that might be spoken, being not of their minds that think a man never speaks enough that speaks not all that may be spoken to an argument. I shall, as near as I can, instance in those duties .that are most weighty and worthy. And surely those souls that are serious and conscientious in the discharge of these, cannot, nor will not, be negligent in the dis- charge of the rest. Now there are eleven duties that strong saints are to perform to those that are weak.
And \\ie first is this.
[1.] Those that are strong ought to hear ivith the infirmities of the vjeak.
Rom. XV. 1, ' We then that are strong,' saith the apostle, ' ought to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.' The word that is rendered to bear signifies to bear as pillars do bear the weight and burden of the house ; to bear as porters do bear their burdens, or as the bones do bear the flesh, or rather as parents bear their babes in their arms.
' Bear the infirmities.' Mark, he doth not say the enormities, but the infirmities ; he doth not say the wickedness, but the weakness. The strong ought to bear with the infirmities of the weak. The Lord bears with the weakness of his children. Peter is weak, and sinful through weakness ; he will not let the Lord Jesus wash his feet, John xiii. ; but the Lord Jesus knowing that this was from weakness, and not from wickedness, he passes it over, and notwithstanding his unkind refusal, he washes his feet. Thomas is very weak: ' I will not believe,' says he, ' except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side,' John xx. 25. Now this Christ bears with much tenderness and sweetness, as you may see in ver. 27, ' Then said he to Thomas, Reach hither thy fingers, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.' The Lord Jesus doth, as it were, open his wounds afresh ; he overlooks his weakness. Well, saith he, seeing it is so that thou wilt not believe, I will rather bleed afresh than thou shalt die in thy unbelief So the three disciples that Christ had singled out to watch with him one hour, Mat. xxvi., they shewed a great deal of weakness to be sleeping when their Lord was a-sorrowing, to be snorting when
96 THE UNSEARCHABLE [EPH. III. 8.
their Saviour was sighing, &c. Yet Christ bears this, and carries it sweetly towards them, and excuses their weakness : ver. 41, 'The spirit is willing, l)ut the flesh is weak.' Oh how sweetly doth the Lord carry- it ! Every new man is two men; he hath a contrary principle in him, the flesh and the spirit. The spirit, the noble part, is willing, but the flesh, the ignoble part, is weak and wayward.
Now shall the Lordthus bear with bis weak ones, and shall not strong saints bear also 1 Remember, strong Christians, there was a day when you were as weak as others, as apt to fall as others, as easily conquered ;is others ; and if then the Lord carried it sweetly towards you, let the same spirit be in you towards those that are weak. It will be no grief of heart to you, if in this you act like your Lord and Saviour.
If you do not bear with the infirmities of the weak, who shall ? who will? This wicked world cannot, nor will not. The world will make them transgressors for a word, and watch for their halting ; and there- fore you had need to bear with them so much the more, Isa. xxix. 21, Jer. XX. 10. The world's cruelty should stir up your compassions.
[•2.] Secondly, As it is your duty to hear vjith them, so it is your duty to receive them into coniniunion with you.
Rom. xiv. 1, ' Him that is weak in the faith receive you, but not to doubtful disputations.'
' Him that is weak in the faith receive' that is, him that is not thoroughly persuaded of all things pertaining to Christian liberty, about thino^s indifferent. ' Them that are weak in the faith receive ; ' he doth not say, ' Them that have no faith receive.' For there is no rule for the saints or churches to receive them into communion that have no faith, that have no fellowship with the Father and the Son. But 'him that is weak in the faith,' saith he, ' receive.'
The word that is here rendered receive, signifies to receive into our bosom with charitable aflection. The Greek word signifies three things.