4. The devil hath been conquered, and is conquered in part by these spiritual young men. The apostle speaketh of such as are strong, and had the word of God abiding in their hearts. They are not such weak young men as Kehoboam, whom every company and every temptation doth carry away ; but strong christians, who are victorious and over- come ; as Joseph : Gen. xxxix. 9, ' How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ? ' There are some the word of God doth only flash in their minds, but doth not abide in them ; over them the devil prevaileth : ' The evil one catcheth away the good seed sown in their heart,' Mat. xiii. 19. But in those on whom the word hath made so deep an impression that it cannot be rooted out, these overcome the evil one : 1 John v. 18, ' He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and the evil one toucheth him not.' These use all care and diligence that the devil gets no hold on them, that he doth not touch them with a deadly wound ; these young men in Christ have gotten a victory over Satan, which is the greatest fortitude.
5. Though the final conquest be hereafter, yet it is sure and near : Bom. xvi. 20, ' The God of peace shall tread Satan under your feet shortly.' There will a time of triumph come, when he that is a soldier now shall then be a conqueror. Tread him under your feet, set your feet upon the necks of these kings, as Joshua. He will not only tread Satan to pieces, but under your feet.
Use. If this be the age of conquests, let us not count it strange. There are many wise reasons why God permits it, for his own glory, and to discover the riches of his grace.
SERMON VI.
I write unto you, little children, because ye have hnovm the Father, &c. — 1 John ii. 13, 14.
We come now to the lowest rank of christians, and they are ' little children,' or the babes in Christ : their property is that they ' have known the Father.' It is spoken with allusion to little children in a
428 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN II. 12-14. [SEE. YL
natural consideration, who know their parents if they know nothing else, and cry after them, and frame themselves to call them by their names, though imperfectly, and with a stammering tongue ; so these spiritual little children hang upon their Father, whatever they are ignorant of. These babes are driven by their necessity to seek a father in heaven, and show their owning of God in that relation, more by their desires and childlike impressions than by any actual and full- grown confidence. But the other, the aged, own God as their Father by a more abundant persuasion of his love, and not only by choice, but by sense.
We must distinguish these christians from others, and first from the two former sorts mentioned, then from the carnal.
1. They differ from the fathers in two things — (1.) The object known ; (2.) The degree of knowledge.
[1.] The object is diversified, ' Him that was from the beginning,' and ' the Father.' It is one thing to know God as a creator, another thing to know him as a father. The more old or grown christian takes him up under another notion than the babes do. Nothing more needful for children than to have a father, to whom they may repair in all their wants, and who may take care for them ; accordingly they own God as a father.
[2.] The act, ' You have known the Father.' This knowledge is an initial knowledge ; the act of knowledge is attributed to the fathers and the little children, but yet there is a difference in the degree.
(1.) Little children have but a taste of God's fatherly love : 1 Peter ii. 3, ' If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.' The fathers had a deeper draught and longer experience, by which they are more confirmed in the sense of their adoption: 1 John iii. 1, ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ! ' But these babes have but some general and obvious apprehensions of God's being a merciful father in Christ ; the one are skilled in the first principles of Christianity, the other are versed in the deeper mysteries of godliness.
(2.) These little children know God as a father, because they have never yet been put upon exercise and occasions to question his love ; but when they are tried with afflictions, or conflict with temptations, they are filled with doubts and fears. It is one of the weaknesses incident to this age, that they must be set on the lap, and dandled with comforts ; for young children are not as yet acquainted with the rod and the frown of a father : Heb. xii. 5, ' And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as children.' As soon as they meet with any trouble inward or outward, they fall into heavy damps and discouragements, fearing that all their commerce with God was but a shadow and a dream ; whereas the fathers or aged christians have tried him in all conditions, and can look upon him as a father when he smileth and when he frowns, and know that he is the God of the valleys as well as the hills and mountains, and that his love doth not alter with their condition ; as Christ said, ' My God,' when he was upon the cross and forsaken.