: Consider that every thing thou dost without love is dead and empty. Love is the life of all actions ; as we say of a gift, the love of the giver is better than the gift itself ; not only our performance is nothing without love, but we ourselves are nothing without it. Every acceptable service we do must proceed from this heavenly flame : ' Though we speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, we are like to a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,' 1 Cor. xiii. 1. Have we not much to do and suffer in this life ? And what is it that makes us constant in duty, and carries us through so many oppositions as we meet withal — is it not love ? Doth not love sweeten our hearts, and take away every difficulty in our way to heaven ? Whilst we live here, we must of necessity suffer ill things and go on in well-doing ; neither of which can be performed without love. This rules our whole lives. Beg therefore of God to quicken thee in all cheerful and willing obedience : pray that the Sun of righteousness would enlighten thy heart. We cannot serve God without God, nor have any holy affec- tion, except by his Spirit he work the same in us.
THE PRIVILEGES OF TUE FAITHFUL. 285
NOTES.
(a) P. 256. — ' liUthcr . . . wished all men after him to read his writings warily.' One of many of tlio great Reformer's mode&t self-estimates, found in his Table-Talk. Cf. note uu, Vol. III. page 533.
(b) P. 256. — ' As the apostle St Jude saith, " with both hands the word." ' The verb is (Tayuvl^o/xai, upon which Bengel says, ' Officium duplex pugnare strenue pro fide, contra hostes ; et cedificare se ipsum in fide' ver. 20. Curiously enough he gives as a reference, Neh. iv. 17 (by a misprint handed down through, all the editions of the Gnomon ver. 16), which embodies Sibbes's thought, though it is difficidt to see where he finds it in the word.
(c) P. 2G0 — ' The very heathen could say, that we are then best in soul when we are weakest in body, for then we are most in heavenly resolutions and seeking after God.' Is this another form of the apophthegm, ' Man's extremity is God's oppor- tunity ' ?
(d) P. 270. — ' So long as God sits at the stern and rules all, we may be sure no evil shall betide us that he can hinder.' Cf. John Newton's beautiful letter to Mr Bean. Having been himself formerly a ' seaman,' he often employs nautical phrase- ology with great eflfect. G.
THE CHRISTIAN'S END.
THE CHRISTIAN'S END.
NOTE,
' The Christian's End' was published in 1639, in a thin volume, with a finely engraved portait of Sibbes preiixed. The impression must have been very limited, as it is among the least frequently occurring of his books, and brings a high price. The title-page is given below.* Q-
* THE CHRISTIANS END. Or,
The sweet Soveraignty of Cueist, over his members in life and death. "Wherein is contained the whole scope of the godly Mans life, with divers Rules, Mo- tives and Incouragements, to live and die to I E s u s Christ. Being the substance of five Sermons preached to the Honorable Society of Grayes Inne, by that Learned aud faithfull Minister of Gods Word, Richard Sibbes, D.D. aud sometimes Preacher to that Honorable Societie. 1. Cor. 6. 20. Yee are hought with a price, S^c. Heb. 11. 4. He being dead, yet speaketh.
LONDON,
Printed by Thomas Harper, for Lawrence Chapman, and
are to be sold at his shop at Chancery lane end
next Holborne, 16 3 9.
THE CHRISTIAN'S END.
THE FIEST SEEMON.
None of us livetli to himself, and none of its clleth to himself. For ichether ice live, tee lice unto the Lord ; and ichether we die, ice die unto the Lord : whether we lice therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. — Rom. XIV. 7, 8.
The scope of the chapter in the former part of it, is to discover to the Romans, and in them to us all, how to carry ourselves to others in matters of indifferency. As there is difference of things in the world — some good, some ill, and some of a middle nature — so there are diflerent affections in men. About these things of a middle nature some are strong, and they are prone to despise the weaker, for they know their liberty ; some more weak, and they are prone to censure and complain of them that be strong, as all weakness is full of impatience. Thus it was with the Romans. The strong despised the weaker, as ignorant ; the weaker censured, and in their hearts condemned, the strong, as too adventurous.
The apostle sheweth here an excellent peaceable spirit, hating contention as an evil thing in a church. In a family, when childi-en fall together by the ears, the father taketh up the quarrel, by beating them both. So in a church, while people fall a-contending and breaking the bonds of love, God taketh them in hand. And therefore the apostle taketh them off from this danger by* despising one another, and presseth it by a reason in the fourth verse, drawn,