Again, look after growth and strength according to your means: Mat. viii. 10, ' Christ marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel ; ' Mark vi. 6, ' And lie marvelled at their unbelief God proportioneth our trials, not according to what we have de facto, but dejure, according to what we
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might have been. They that have great means, and long experience, and much acquaintance with God, have great temptations.
Lastly, How sad will it be for aged christians to be infants in grace ! 2 Chron. xvii. 3, ' And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David.' That there should be spots and blemishes in those who are stars of the first magnitude, how sad is this !
SERMON III.
I write unto you, fathers, because ye have knoiun him that was from the beginning, &c. — 1 John ii. 13, 14.
The apostle beginneth with the fathers, or grown christians ; he de- scribeth them from their long acquaintance with God in Christ, ' You have known him that was from the beginning.' So that they are fathers with our apostle who are not only experienced in worldly things, but that which is a much greater honour to them, have attained to the saving knowledge of Christ.
Doct. In the distinction of christians, they are fathers who best know him that was from the beginning.
1. Here is the object to be explained, ' Him that was from the be- ginning.'
2. The act, what kind of knowledge it is that constituteth ' fathers.'
3. What is herein proper to fathers, or how this can be any ground of a distinction between them and others ; since all christians are to know Christ, it is indispensably required. And, secondly, babes are also said to know the Father.
I. For the object, ' By him that was from the beginning,' is meant Christ, who is also thus elsewhere described : John i. 1, 2, ' In the be- ginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God : the same was in the beginning with God ; ' 1 John i. 1, ' That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.' This title is given to Christ to note two things (as Zanchy noteth well), that he is from the beginning, quoad virtutem salvificam et quoad personam.
1. As to his office and saving efficacy, so he was the ' Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' as to God's eternal purpose and decree, Rev. xiii. 8.
2. As to his personal subsistence, so ' his goings forth were from everlasting,' Micah v. 2 ; John xvii. 5, ' And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with thee before the world was.' These two are great points, both his eternal generation and his eternal designation to the office of mediator ; and both these are often pressed in scripture, but the first principally by our apostle.
[1.] His eternal designation to the office of mediator is often pressed :
400 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN II. 12-14. [SeR. III.
Titus i. 2 ,' In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began ; ' 2 Tim. i. 9, ' According to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.' This is pressed upon a double account — partly to show the immuta- bility and unchangeableness of his grace ; it is eternal like himself. The terms of it are fixed long before the world was. And partly to obviate both heathenish and Jewish cavils. To them Jesus Christ seemed a new god of a few years standing, whereas both the heathenish and Jewish religion boasted of their antiquity ; whereas indeed all other religions were but novelties, and Christ and his gospel the only true ancient religion, as being the result of God's eternal thoughts.
[2.] The other point, Christ's eternal subsistence ; that our apostle doth much insist upon both in the gospel and this epistle, because of some ancient heretics, Ebion and Cerinthus, with their followers, who denied it in his time, as in our times many now do. Well, then, Christ being from the beginning, signifieth the eternity of the Son of God, which is the great lesson which maketh impression upon fathers. To be from the beginning beareth divers senses ; sometimes it noteth the time of the delivery of the law : 1 John ii. 7, ' I write no new com- mandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning.' Sometimes for the first principles, or erecting or setting up of the gospel-state : Luke i. 2, ' Even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.' Sometimes for the first institution of a thing : Mat. xix. 8, ' But from the beginning it was not so.' The fall is so called, John viii. 44, ' He is a liar from the beginning.' The creation is so called, Gen. i. 1, ' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' But none of these are meant here. It is sometimes put for all eternity ; for it is said, Pro v. viii. 23, ' I was set up from everlast- ing, or ever the earth was.' Christ had not only his proper and per- fect subsistence before the incarnation, but also before the first point of time, wherein God began to create all things.