VEK. 1, 2.] SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. 455
coverings of smaller value, as the ark had of badgers' skins. There may be little splendour to the eye, yet much beauty within ; even the beauty of our God may be upon them. The people of God are not to be judged by their outside, but by this inward glory. The world will not believe that such mean creatures can be the sons of God.
(2.) The life which floweth thence is hidden : Col. iii. 3, ' Our life is hid with Christ in God ; ' like the sap of the tree, which is not seen though the fruit appear.
(3.) Their comforts are spiritual, known by feeling rather than by report and imagination : ' The peace of God, which passeth all under- standing, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ.' It is not learning, but spiritual experience will tell us what this is : Eev. ii. 17, ' To him that overeometh I will give to eat of the hidden manna.' It is the heart of the godly that knoweth and feeleth these comforts : ' A stranger intermeddleth not with their joy.' The party that hath them feeleth them, but the bystander knoweth them not.
(4.) The protection and supplies of God's providence ; it is a secret, it is a mystery, and a riddle to the world, that must have all under the view of sense : Ps. xxxi. 20, ' Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence, from the pride of men and the strife of tongues ; ' and so are said to ' dwell in the secret of the Most High,' Ps. xci. 1. Again ' the secret of the Lord is upon their tabernacle ; ' meaning God's pro- tection and providence. This is the special favour of God, which the world knoweth not of, whereby God dwelleth with his people, and doth maintain and prosper them, nobody knoweth how ; but there is a secret and insensible blessing on them, as, on the contrary, there is an insen- sible curse like a moth, that is sufficient to blast the fairest enjoyments of the wicked. God, to provide for his children, can put a very great blessing in a little means.
[2.] Because it is hidden : Col. iii. 3, ' Your life is hid with Christ in God ; ' not only in point of security, as maintained by an invisible power, but hidden in point of obscurity ; there is a veil upon it.
(1.) The spiritual life is hidden under the veil of the natural life : Gal. ii. 20, ' The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.' They live in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. It is a life within a life. The spiritual life is nothing else but the natural life sublimated, and overruled to nobler and higher ends. The children of God eat, and drink, and sleep, and marry and give in marriage, as others do ; they have not divested themselves of the in- terests and concernments of flesh and blood, but all these things are governed by grace, and carried on to high and eternal ends. But that grace which overruleth this life is not seen. We can see men move and breathe, and hear them discourse, but we see not the vital principle. We hear the clock strike, but the springs and wheels are out of sight. So are the inward motions of the soul, and the principles by which they are moved and stirred.
(2.) Another veil is that of afflictions and outward meanness and abasement: ' The world was not worthy of them,' yet they ' wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins.' Who would think so much worth should lie hid under a base outside ? Would any man judge these to be highest in the favour of God, or heirs of glory ? The glory was
456 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. [SER. II.
darkened and obscured by a base outside : ' God bath chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of a kingdom.' So miser- ably poor, and yet in such a high relation to God, that they should have most of God's heart who feel his hand so heavy and smart upon them, and have so little of this world's good things : Ps. Ixviii. 13, ' Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.' Sometimes God darkeneth all their outward glory, maketh them as scullions in the kitchen, yet in the meantime beautified with grace, and enriched with the evidences of his love ; those that shall be at length advanced to eternal glory may long lie in a sad, black, destitute, and despised con- dition.
(3.) Another veil is reproach and calumnies : 2 Cor. vi. 8, ' As de- ceivers, and yet true ; ' that is, counted in the world a company of dis- semblers, and yet the sincere servants and children of God : ' And judged according to men in the flesh, when they live to God in the spirit.' Keproach is the soil and dung whereby God maketh his heritage fruitful ; but the devil intendeth it for their destruction and extirpa- tion. Satan is first a liar and then a murderer ; as they would invest the christians with bear-skins, and then bait them as bears ; and the world doth it to keep up their prejudices, and will not search, because they have a mind to hate.