VOL. II. s
274 THE NINTH SERMON. [MaT. XXVII. 4G.
By a wonderful exchange he taketh our evil things upon himself, that he might bestow his good things upon us, and took from us misery that he might convey to us felicity.
APPLICATION.
First, by way of information.
1. How different are they from the spirit of Christ that can brook God's absence without any remorse or complaint ? Christ cried with a loud voice, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' These go on securely, never observe God's accesses and recesses ; when the comforts of his Spirit, and the communications of his grace are wholly suspended and M'ithholdcn from them, they never lay it to heart. {Stupid and insensible creatures ! It is all one to them whether God go or come, whether he manifest himself propitious to them or his face be hidden from them. They take up with the vain delights of the present world. Micah showed more respect to his idols than they do to God : Judges xviii. 24, ' Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more ? and do you ask, "What aileth thee ? ' When God is gone they are not troubled. The Christians wept when Paul said, ' Ye shall bee my face no more,' Acts xx. 25 ; and will ye not mourn and lament your loss when God hideth his face and shutteth up himself in a veil and cloud of displeasure ? Much of serious Christianity lies in an observation of God's coming and going, and a suitable carriage, Mat. ix. 15. A serious Christian will be affected with the loss of comfort and quickening, and lament after a withdrawn God.
2. It informeth us of the grievousness of sin. It is no easy matter to reconcile sinneis to God ; it cost Christ a life of sorrows, and after- wards a painful and an accursed death, and in that death, loss of actual comfort, and an amazing sense of the wrath of God. We make a mock of sin — jest and sport away our souls, but Christ found it hard work to save them and recover them to God. When you make sin a light matter, you slight the sufferings of Christ ; oh, therefore, take heed you do not break with God for every trifle !
3. The greatness of our obligation to Christ, who omitted no kind of sufferings which might conduce to the expiation of sin. He ex- changed his heaven for a kind of hell to do you good ; the fulness of the godhead dwelt in him bodily, and therefore he had a heaven upon earth. If one could say, Anima justi cahcm est, because heaven is begun there in peace of ccuscience and joy in the Holy Ghost. How was it with Christ ? This heaven he wanted for a while, felt no com- fort, yea, he was amazed at the sense of God's wrath due to sinners ; therefore it was said in the type of him, ' The pains of hell got hold upon me,' Ps. cxvi. 3. Oh ! let this excite us to love Christ, that you may count nothing too dear for him.
4. The infinitencss of God's mercy, who appointed such a degree of Christ 8 sufferings, as in it he gives us the gi'eatest ground of hopes to invite us the more to submit to his terms. There is nothing standeth in the way but our own impenitence and unbelief Now God is so amply satisfied, shall we deprive ourselves of eternal blessedness? This is the worst cruelty and hatred to our own souls.
EoM. I. 29, 30.] THE TENTH SERMON. 275
SERMON X.
Whisperers, backbiters. — Kom. I., part of the 29th and 30th verses.
The context showeth how corrupt and miserable man's nature is with- out Christ. His heart was first withdrawn from God, and then became a sink of loathsome sins and vices ; therefore the apostle telleth us how after men were false to God, how little they were true to themselves, whether considered singly and apart, or as to commerce and society : singly and apart, defiling themselves with uncleanness of all sons ; as to commerce and human society, full of malice and contention, which sometimes goeth as far as blood ; at other times showeth itself in false- ness and baseness of disposition, generally in self-love and detraction from others.
Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the sorest. When God leaveth mankind to its own degeneracy and corruption, and one great branch of this corruption is detraction, which venteth itself either by whispering or backbiting. So it is in the text, ' Whisperers, back- biters,' These two words agree that they both wound the fame of our neighbour, and they both do it behind his back or in his absence. But they differ — (1.) In that whispering doth it secretly and closely, but backbiting openly — the one being privy, the other open defamation, and are like theft and rapine ; what theft and robbing are to our goods, the same are whispering and backbiting to our good names. (2.) Whispering tendeth to breed strife among our friends, or to disgrace us to some who are well conceited of us ; but backbiting to our general disgrace before all the world, or amongst whomsoever. The one seeketh to deprive us of the good-will of our friends, the other to destroy our service. But however they agree and differ, they are often conjoined in scripture : 2 Cor. xii. 20, ' 1 fear lest when I come among you I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not; lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults." The apostle foresaw it as too probable that neither of them would be much pleased with their meeting together : nor he with the Corinthians, when he should find them corrupted with partialities and divisions; nor the Corinthians with him, when he should be forced to inflict censures upon them for their factions and emulations, too much bewrayed by their backbitings and whisperings against each other. So here in the text they are con- joined, ' whisperers, backbiters,' when the apostle speaketh of the reign- ing sins among the Gentiles.