VeR. 35.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 383
love Christ maintaineth his interest in our souls. The stony ground could not abide the heat of the sun ; the thorny ground was choked with the deceitfulness of riches and voluptuous living. Waters or bribes may carry away some unmortified souls ; but sincere love to Christ will not suffer us to be tempted away from him.
Use 1. Is information. How a christian cometh to be safe in the midst of temptations.
1. It is by Christ's love to us, and ours to him. (1.) His love to us. Once be persuaded that Christ loveth you, then what need you fear ? Nothing that he doth will be grievous to you ; but how shall I bring my heart to this ? His love to sinners is plainly demonstrated in our redemption : Eom. v. 8, ' But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.' But his special love to us is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Kom. V. 5 ; he giveth the effects and the sense. The general love must be apprehended by faith : 1 Johniv. 16, ' We have known and believed the love God hath to us ; ' and improved by serious consideration : Eph. iii. 18, 19, ' That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; ' by taking this way to be po.ssessed of this love ; Prov. viii. 17, ' I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me ; ' and the effects of it sought after. What is every day done more to heal and recover our wounded and self-condemned souls, and to rescue us out of the misery incurred by sin, to appease our griefs and fears ? What power against sin ? What assistance of grace in j-our duties and conflicts ? 2 Cor. xiii. 5, ' Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith ; prove your own selves ; know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates ? ' This is to seek a proof of Christ in you. (2.) For the other, we get it by patience in attiictions, Rom. v. 5 ; by fruitfulness in obedience : John xiv. 21-23, 'He that hath mycommandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. If a man love me, and keep my commandments, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' Converse with God in solemn ordinances : Cant. i. 4, ' Draw me, we will run after thee ; the king brought me into his chamber ; we will be glad, and rejoice in thee ; we will remember thy love more than wine.'
2. Our love to Christ. This must be taken in ; for it is we are assaulted, not Christ ; we are conquerors, not God ; nothing shall divorce us. Chri.st will never forsake a loving soul ; nor will a loving soul easily forsake him ; they have such an esteem of Christ that all things else are but dung and dross, Phil. iii. 8-10. Let deceived souls desire worldly greatness, they can be satisfied with uothing but Christ; nothing can supply his room in their hearts.
384 SERMONS Ul'ON ROMANS VIII. [SeR. XLVI.
SERMON XLVI.
As it is loritten, For thy sake we are killed all the day long ; xoe are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. — Rom. viii. 36, 37.
In the former of these verses the apostle continueth his challenge, and then in the latter giveth the answer from experience. He continueth the challenge, ver. 36, speaking to the last enumerated — ' sword.' Lest he should seem to triumph over a feigned enemy, he showeth how the people of God in all ages are not only subject to divers calamities, but even to death itself. He proveth it by a quotation : P.s. xliv. 2, ' For thy sake we are killed all tlie day long.' The words of the psalm seem to relate to the times of Antiochus, when every day they were in danger of death for religion's sake — ' As it is written, For thy sake,' &c. The answer is written in ver. 37. That in all these things we have had experience, and have found this, that they have no power ' to separate us from the love of Christ.'
In the words considered in themselves observe three things —
1. The greatness of the trial — For thy sake tve are killed all the day long.
2. The absoluteness of their conquest and victory — In all these things we are more than conquerors.
3. The author or cause — Through him that loved us.
First, The greatness of the trial. The calamity of the people of God in those times is, first, literally expressed ; secondly, set forth by a similitude or metaphor.