JaS. V. 15.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 4.55
&c. Faith is the fountain of prayer, and prayer should be nothing else but faith exercised ; none can come to Christ rightly but such as are persuaded to be the better for him ; all worship is founded in good thoughts of God. We have no reason to doubt ; we always find a better Avelcome with him than we can expect ; therefore, in all your addresses to God, pray in faith ; that is, either magnifying his power by counter- balancing the difficulty, or magnifying his love, by referring the success to his pleasure.
Ohs. 3. Prayers made in faith are usually heard and answered; Christ is so delighted with it that he can deny it nothing : Mat. xv, 28, ' 0 woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto thee as thou wilt.' Christ speaketh there as if a believer did obtain as much as he can wish for.
Ohs. 4. The efficacy of faith in the use of means is not from its own merits, but from God's power and grace. The apostle saith, ' Faith saveth;' but addeth, 'The Lord shall raise him up.' Faith is but the instrument ; it is a grace that hath no merit in itself ; it is the empty hand of the soul, and deputed to such high services because it looketh for all from God. The Papists look upon it as an act in us ; and because reason will suggest that it is not of worth enough and sufficient for such high effects, they piece it up with works, which, they say, give it a value and a merit.
Ohs. 5. That sins are often the cause of sicknesses ; we may thank ourselves for our diseases. The rabbins say, that when Adam tasted the forbidden fruit, his head ached. Certainly there was the rise and root of man's misery : 1 Cor. xi. 30, ' For this cause many are sick and weak,' &c. The body is often the instrument of sins, and there- fore the object of diseases ; the plague and sore of the heart causeth that of the body. It is very notable that Christ in all his cures pointeth at the root of the disease : Mat. ix. 2, ' Be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee.' It would have been an ineffectual cure with- out a pardon ; while sin remaineth, you carry the matter of the disease about you. So John v. 14, ' Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.' Obedience is the best physic ; while sin remaineth, the distemper may be stopped, but not cured ; it will break out in a worse sore and scab. The prophet Isaiah saith of Christ, Isa. liii. 4, ' He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ;' the meaning is, the punishment of our sins : so St Peter applieth it, 1 Peter ii. 24 : ' He bare our sins in his own body on the tree,' which is the express reading of the Septuagint ; but now Matthew applieth it to Christ's cure of sicknesses. Mat. viii. 17, * That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet. He took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.' How shall we reconcile those places ? I answer thus — In taking away sickness, which is the efiect, Christ would represent taking away sin, which is the cause ; Christ's act in taking away sick- ness was a type of taking away sin. Now Matthew applieth that to the sign, which did more properly agree to the truth itself or thing signified ; for you may observe, for the clearing of this and other scriptures, that as the patriarchs, in theu' actions and in what they did, were types of Christ ; so Christ's own actions were in a manner types of what he himself would do more principally. As casting out of devils signified the spiritual dispossessing of Satan, and therefore
456 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. V. IG.
there happened so many possessions in Christ's time ; so the curing' of blindness, the cjivini; of spiritual sight, and taking away of sick- nesses, the pardoning of sins, ^\'oll, then, if sin be the cause of sick- ness, if we would preserve or recover health, let us avoid sin: Exod. XV. 26, ' If thou wilt hearken unto me, I will bring none of these diseases upon thee,' &c. ; otherwise you may, as that woman, spend your whole estate upon the physicians, and yet the cause continue. You shall see, Deut. xxviii. 21, 22, sin is threatened with the consump- tion, fever, and inllanimation ; usually the disease answereth the sin, the distempered heats of lust are puuislied l)y an inflammation: Asa put the prophet in the stocks, and he himself was diseased in his feet, 2 Chron. xvi. 1), with ver. 12. There w^ere times when God did more visibly plague disobedience, as in the times of the law ; when dispen- sations were more corporal, diseases were a i)art of God's coercive discipline. However now and then God useth the like dispensations ; sinners are met with according to the kind of their offence, though many I confess are left to be taken out by their own rust, and, like chimneys, are let alone so long foul till at length they be fired. But how many adulterers liave we seen going up and down like walking spittles ? How many beastly epicures, whose skins have been set a- fire by their own riot and surguedry, &c. ?