Use 3. You that are men of courage, and might, and success, stout of heart and strong of hand, be watchful over yourselves, lest you should in any thing be engaged against the Lord. The ways of the
THE DIVINE POWEE OF THE GOSPEL. 2] 7
Lord are your locks; — step but out of them, they will be cut, and you will become like other men, and be made a prey and a mocking to the uncircumcised that are round about. These eminencies you have from God are eminent temptations to undertakings against God, if not seasoned with grace and watchfulness. Ah ! how many baits have Satan and the world suited to these qualifications ! Samson shook himself, and went out, saying, " I will do as at other times;" but he knew not that the Lord was departed from him. You may think, when you are walking in paths of your own, that you will do as at other times; but if your strength be departed away, what will be the end? Use 4. Our last use should be of instruction in respect of God ; that you may see both what he can do and trust him, and consider what he hath done and bless him. For the first ; — weapons of all sorts, men of all sorts, judgments of all sorts, are at his command and disposal : see it in this psalm. And for what he hath done ; — if there be any virtue in the presence of Christ in his ordinances, — if any worth in the gospel, — if any sweetness in carrying on the work of Christ's revenge against Babylon, — if any happiness in the establishment of the peace and liberty of a poor nation, purchased with so much blood and so long a contest, — if any content in the disappointment of the predictions and threats of God's enemies and his people's, — if any refreshment to our bowels that our necks are yet kept from the yoke of lawless lust, fury, and tyranny, — if any sweetness in a hope that a poor, distressed handful in Ireland may yet be relieved, — if any joy that God hath given yet another testimony of his pre- sence amongst us, — if it be any way valuable that the instruments of our deliverance be not made the scorned object of men's revengeful violence, — if any happiness that the authority under which we enjoy all these mercies is not swallowed up,— is it not all in the womb of this deliverance? And who is he that hath given it into our bosom?
SERMON XVII.1
THE DIVINE POWER OF THE GOSPEL.
" For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." —Rom. i. 16.
The preceding verses of this chapter contain a declaration of the person who wrote this epistle, the apostolical authority wherewith it 1 This sermon was preached May 19, 1670.
218 THE PI VINE POWER OF THE GOSPEL.
was wrote, and a gracious salutation of thern to whom it was wrote. This verse makes an entrance upon the main subject-matter designed to be treated on in the whole epistle; so that it is the centre of this glorious part of the Scripture, wherein the first general part of it doth issue, and whereon the remaining part depends.
The church at Rome was planted some while before ; but it is altogether uncertain by whom. The wisdom of God foreseeing what abuses would be made of the foundation of that church, hath hid it quite from us. There is nothing in Scripture, nothing in anti- quity to intimate by whom the faith was there first preached. Pro- bably it was by some believers of the Circumcision ; whence those disputes arose and contentions about the observation of Judaical ceremonies, which the apostle handles and determines, chap, xiv., xv. of this epistle. Hearing of their faith, our apostle — upon whom, as he saith, " was the care of all the churches," and to whom " the minis- try of the Uncircumcision was in an especial manner committed," Gal. ii. 7, 8 — writes this epistle to them, to instruct them in the mystery of the gospel, and confirm them in the faith thereof, and in the worship of God required therein.
To give weight to what he wrote, and commend it to their consi- deration, he acquaints them with that love and care he had for them, answerable to his duty, from whence it did proceed ; telling them, verses 14, 15, that " he was debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So that as much as in him was, he was ready to preach the gospel to them that were at Rome also." And hereby he prevented a prejudice and jealousy that might possess their minds, and answers an objection they might make to him about his writing. For they might say in themselves, ■ • What makes him, a stranger, at so great a distance, interpose in our concerns? Doth he not 'stretch himself beyond his measure/ or ' boast himself in another man's line?'" — which he affirms in another place he did not; for he was charged with such things. His zeal carrying him out to act for the gospel in a peculiar manner, he was charged to " exceed his measure," and " boast in another man's line." To obviate this, he tells them, " No ; I do nothing but what becomes an honest man, discharging a debt the Lord Jesus Christ hath laid upon me by virtue of my call to my office, and my susception of it. 1 1 am debtor to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; to the wise, and to the unwise/ I am called," saith he, " to preach the gospel to all sorts of people under heaven ; my commission is to ' go into all the world, arid preach the gospel to every creature/ " Mark xvi. 15, — that is, as expounded, Matt, xxviii. 19, " to all nations," persons of all nations, — " as I have opportunity." Our Lord Jesus Christ, out of his love and care unto them whom he had redeemed with Iris blood, that