Legislation to permit assisted dying is due to be debated in the House of Commons again. When the bill’s supporters reach an impasse with their arguments from everyone’s supposed autonomy to decide for themselves that their life should be ended, they appeal instead to compassion. They insist that they are motivated by kindness and that the most compassionate response to people’s suffering or perceived loss of dignity is to assist them to die. This directly contradicts the moral imperative to preserve human life. Condensed within the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is the twin principle that it is morally wrong to murder and morally right to preserve our own and our neighbour’s life. This means that when people are in need, we should take steps to alleviate their suffering and allow them to live a fuller life. Assisting someone to end their life is fundamentally a non-compassionate response. In the following abridged extract from his commentary on the ten commandments, Thomas Watson explains.

Life is the most precious thing, and God has set the sixth commandment as a fence about it, to preserve it. “Thou shalt not kill” (Exod. 20:13). He made a statute which has never to this day been repealed, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. 9:6). In the Old Testament, if someone killed another unawares, he was permitted to take sanctuary; but if he killed him willingly, then, even if he fled to the sanctuary, the holiness of the place would not defend him (Exod. 21:14).

Ways of committing this sin

There are various ways in which we may be said to murder someone.

With the hand. This is how Joab killed Abner and Amasa (2 Sam. 20:10).

By plotting their death. Though Jezebel did not lay her own hands on Naboth, yet she contrived his death, and caused two false witnesses to swear against him, she was the murderer (1 Kings 21:9–10).

By poison. The wife of the Roman emperor Commodes tried to kill her husband by poisoning the wine he drank. So, many kill little children by medicines that cause their death.

By having the intention to kill. When Saul made David go against the Philistines, he intended for the Philistine to kill him (1 Sam. 18:17). Here was intended murder, and in God’s account it was as bad as actual murder.

By consenting to someone’s death. Saul consented to the death of Stephen (Acts 22:20). Someone who gives consent is accessory to the murder.

By not hindering someone’s death when it is in our power. Pilate knew that Christ was innocent, but did not hinder His death; therefore he was guilty. Washing his hands in water could not wash away the guilt of Christ’s blood.

By unmercifulness. This includes taking away what is necessary for the support of life, even including the tools by which someone gets their living: “No man shall take the upper or the nether millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man’s life” (Deut. 24:6). It also includes not helping him when he is ready to perish. You may be the death of another by not relieving him, just as much as by committing violence against him. If you don’t feed someone who is starving, you kill him.

Factors which make the sin worse

When blood is shed causelessly. A bee will not sting unless provoked, but many, when not provoked, will take away the life of another. This makes the sin of blood more bloody. The less provocation to a sin the greater the sin.

To shed the blood of a close relative aggravates the murder, and dyes it of a deeper crimson. For a son to kill his father is horrid. Parricides are monsters in nature. The Roman philosopher Cicero said, “He who takes away his father’s life, commits many sins in one;” he is not guilty of murder only, but of disobedience, ingratitude, and diabolical cruelty. “He who striketh his father or mother, shall be surely put to death” (Exod. 21:15).

To shed the blood of any righteous person aggravates the sin. Hereby justice is perverted. Such a person, being innocent, is unworthy of death. In the sense that a saint is a public blessing, who lies in the breach to turn away wrath, so to destroy him is to pull down the pillars of a nation. He is precious to God (Psa 116:15). He is a member of Christ’s body; therefore what injury is offered to him is done to God himself (Acts 9:4).

It should be for a lamentation that this land is defiled with blood (Num. 35:33). How common is this sin in this boasting age! England’s sins are written in letters of blood. Some make no more of killing people than sheep. “In thy skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents” (Jer. 2:34), or in Hebrew, “in thy wings,” alluding to birds of prey, which stain their wings with the blood of other birds. May not the Lord justly take up a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because “blood toucheth blood (Hos. 4:2)? There are wholesale murders.

What should increase our lamentation is that not only man’s blood is shed among us, but Christ’s blood. Profane, flagitious sinners are said to “crucify the Son of God afresh” (Heb. 6:6). They swear by his blood, and so, as it were, make His wounds bleed afresh. They crucify Him in His members; “Why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). And if it was in their power, if Christ was alive on earth today, they would nail Him to the cross again.

Aspects of its sinfulness

To deter everyone from having their hands defiled with blood, consider what a sin murder is.

It is a God-affronting sin. It is a breach of His commandment. It is a wrong done to His own image (Gen. 9:6), and will God endure to be confronted like this by proud dust?

It is a crying sin. Three sins in Scripture are said to cry, oppression (Psa. 12:5), sodomy (Gen. 18:21), and bloodshed. Bloodshed cries so loud that it drowns out all the other cries. Abel’s blood had as many tongues as drops, to cry aloud for vengeance (Gen. 4:10).

It is a diabolical sin. The devil was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). By saying to our first parents, “Ye shall not die,” the devil brought death into the world.

It is a sin which procures God’s wrath (2 Kings 24:4). It procures both temporal judgements (Psa. 55:23) and eternal judgements (Rev. 21:8). Those who have their hands full of blood must undergo the wrath of God. Here is fire mingled with blood, and this fire is inextinguishable (Mark 9:44). Time will not finish it, tears will not quench it.

The kindness of preserving life

The positive duty implied in the sixth commandment is that we should do all the good we can to others, to preserve their life.

We should comfort them in their sorrows, relieve them in their wants, and, like the good Samaritan, pour wine and oil into their wounds. “I was a father to the poor” (Job 29:16); “The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me” (v.13).

It is a great means of preserving the life of another to relieve him when he is ready to perish. When there was a great dearth in Rome, Pompey provided corn for its relief. When the mariners were afraid to sail there in a tempest, he said, “It is not necessary that we should live, but it is necessary that Rome be relieved.” Grace makes the heart tender, it causes sympathy and charity. It melts the heart in contrition towards God, and in compassion towards others. “He has dispersed, he has given to the poor” (Psa. 29:9).

This commandment implies that we should be so far from ruining others that we should do all we can to preserve their lives. When you see the picture of death drawn in their faces, minister to their necessities. Be temporal saviours to then. Draw them out of the waters of affliction with a silver cord of charity.

To persuade you to this, let me lay before you some arguments.

Acts of charity are evidences of grace, both the grace of faith (James 2:18) and the grace of love. Love loves mercy; it is a noble bountiful grace.

To seek to meet the needs of others is not left to our choice, but is an incumbent duty. “Charge them that are rich in this world that they do good; that they be rich in good works” (1 Tim. 6:17–18). This is not only a counsel, but a charge.

Given that God supplies our wants, shall we not supply the wants of others? Will we suck in mercy like sponges, and not dispense it out to others?

We resemble God when we do good to others. It is our excellence to be like God. “Godliness is Godlikeness.” “Thou art good” (there is His essential goodness), “doest good” (there is His communicative goodness) (Psa. 119:68). The more helpful we are to others, the more like we are to God. We cannot be like God in omniscience, or in working miracles; but we may be like him in doing works of mercy.

God remembers all our deeds of charity, and is pleased to accept them from us (Heb. 6:10). The chief butler may forget Joseph’s kindness, but the Lord will not forget any kindness we show to his people (Matt. 25:35).

Hardheartedness to others in misery reproaches the gospel. When people’s hearts are like pieces of rock, and you may as well extract oil out of flint, as the golden oil of charity out of them, they unchristianise themselves. Unmercifulness is the sin of the heathen (Rom. 1:31). It eclipses the glory of the gospel. Does the gospel teach uncharitableness? Does it not bid us, “draw out thy soul to the hungry”? (Isa. 58:10). “These things I will that thou affirm, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works” (Tit. 3:8). While you fail to relieve those who are in want, you walk in opposition to the gospel; you cause it to be evil spoken of, and lay it open to the censure of others.

You lose nothing by relieving those in need. The Shunammite woman was kind to the prophet, and she received kindness from him another way (2 Kings 4:35). Those who pour out the golden oil of compassion to others shall have the golden oil of salvation by God poured out to them; for a cup of cold water they shall have rivers of pleasure. An estate may be imparted without being impaired.

To do good to those in need keeps up the good reputation of Christianity. Works of mercy adorn the gospel, as the fruit adorns the tree. When our light “so shines that others see our good works,” it glorifies God, puts a crown on religion, and silences the lips of gainsayers. Basil says that nothing rendered the true religion more famous in the primitive times, and made more proselytes to it, than the bounty and charity of Christians.

Evil accrues to those who fail to preserve the lives of others, or help them in their necessities. God often sends a secret moth into their estate. “There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty” (Prov. 11:24). “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard” (Prov. 21:13). “He shall have judgement without mercy, that has showed no mercy” (James 2:13). Dives denied Lazarus a crumb of bread, and Dives was denied a drop of water. ‘Depart from me, ye cursed; for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat.’ Matt 15: 41. Christ says not, ‘Ye took away my meat;’ but ‘Ye gave me no meat;’ ye did not feed my members, therefore ‘depart from me.’

By all this, be ready to distribute to the necessities of others. This is included in the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Not only shalt thou not destroy another’s life, but thou shalt preserve it by ministering to his necessities.

In fact, it is also implied that we should endeavour to preserve the souls of others. We should counsel them about their souls, set life and death before them, and help them to heaven. In the law of Moses, if one met his neighbour’s ox going astray, he must bring it back again (Exod. 23:4). Much more, if we see our neighbour’s soul going astray, we should use all means to bring him back to God by repentance.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

God sends preachers to announce the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ and to warn people of the dangers of their sin. The message that God wants us to hear is both clear and extremely important. So why don’t people listen? The Covenanting preacher John Welch identifies faults on the side of both the preacher and the hearer. Preachers may get frustrated that their hard work bears such little fruit, while hearers may get frustrated when preachers don’t come across as if they themselves grasp the magnitude of their responsibility. Not only hearers but also preachers can forget that the preaching of the cross, which seems such foolishness, both as to method and content, is after all both the wisdom of God and the power of God.

Why people should listen to their pastors

First, the things they preach are absolutely necessary. It is necessary that you are converted and saved, that you turn, and turn for real, that you embrace Jesus Christ, as He is offered in the gospel, etc. This is how you are to be saved, or else lie in your sins and be eternally damned, and sentenced to everlasting torment. Is not the damnation of immortal soul a thing of weight and momentousness? Therefore, is it any wonder that ministers use all arguments to persuade you to do these things, seeing they are so absolutely necessary that, without doing them, all the world cannot save you from hell and eternal ruin.

Second, they are not only absolutely necessary, but of immediate necessity. They must be done without delay. Now or never! There is no repentance after death, and the longer they are delayed, the more difficult they become.

Third, there are great advantages to doing this. O the advantage of gaining even one soul to Christ! The advantage of confirming and establishing one soul in the moment of temptation! It is worth all the painstaking efforts a minister can make, even if he was to labour all his days. Not to speak of the advantages that come to the soul, and accrue to God’s glory!

Where preachers go wrong

Although there are so many reasons why ministers should make it their work to persuade people, yet we find it is a work that doesn’t thrive very well in their hands. I shall give you some reasons for this, starting with reasons to do with the ministers whose work it is.

Preachers contradict their own message

Perhaps, although by their words they persuade people to these things, yet their own practice says the opposite. They preach up God and holiness in words, but “in deeds they deny them.”

This kind of preaching will neither profit folk nor persuade them. There is plenty of this kind of preaching in these days we live in. They tell us to believe, repent, be holy, but then look and see what their own life and practice tells you.

Preachers don’t take their message seriously

There are many ministers whose lives and behaviours may be neither scandalous nor profane, yet they are not as serious as the matter requires. They do not urge or persuade folk with the ardency and seriousness that matters of such absolute necessity require. Our words come through such cool and drooping lips that they practically freeze in our mouths, and can we then imagine that our preaching will do good or profit others? We deliver our words with such a slow spirit of indifference that it seems it’s something that could be done or not done just as we please.

Preachers don’t target the heart

Though sometimes ministers may be somewhat serious and fervent in their work, yet they never lay close siege to the heart. Instead, they handle matters generally and generically. They will tell you that you should repent, but they never tell you what you are to repent of, nor the necessity of it, for example. Where sin is not particularly reproved, nor duty warmly pressed and recommended as a thing of absolute necessity, it will be a long time before that kind of preaching takes effect on the heart.

Where hearers go wrong

Hearers don’t really believe

A great reason why the work doesn’t thrive is the ignorance and unbelief of the hearers. They don’t know the things that we are persuading them of. Nor do they really believe what is preached to them. When we tell them of communion with God, heaven, eternal life, etc, they know nothing about any of these things. When we tell them of the necessity of conversion — that they must be converted or they will be condemned — they do not believe that. If we tell them that hell is opening its mouth to receive them, that wrath is abiding on them, and that there is no escaping but by turning to God in and through Jesus Christ, they don’t believe that either.

Hearers don’t really see

Another obstruction is that the things we speak of and persuade you of are far out of sight. Heaven, which we tell our hearers to seek, is out of view. Hell, which we tell them to beware of, is far out of sight.

The consequences are inevitable

Another reason comes from the providence of God. This work has such little success in our hands because God has taken away the blessing. He has withdrawn His gracious and comforting presence. Time was, when the arm of the Almighty went along with the preaching of the Word, but now the blessing, power, and efficacy of the gospel is taken away. On us is accomplished that word, “The Word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that hear it” (Heb. 4:2).

What kind of hearer are you?

Now I come to a short word of application. I shall divide all who hear me into the following four or five categories.

Complete strangers to God

Some are altogether strangers to God. “Without God, without Christ, being aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise.” I imagine that there are not a few in this category here, who are still strangers to God and living in darkness. Numbers of you have lived under the sound of the gospel and are still in your natural state. You used to be ignorant atheists before, and that’s what you still are.

What I would say to you is that my reason for coming to you today is so that you would now look around you, and consider your ways. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:3). This thing is what the Lord wants you to do. Consider what you are, and what you are doing. Consider what state you are in by nature, and where you will end up, if you continue in the same state. Consider your ways, and turn to the Lord, and live. Seek that the Lord would turn you to Himself. But if you don’t turn, make ready for hell, the place where all torment and woe meet, and a hotter hell than the hell of Sodom. You are heading for torment, an intolerable torment worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

My exhortation to you is, Don’t spend a moment longer in that dangerous condition! Death, hell and damnation are upon you, and all the world, and for that matter, all the angels in heaven, cannot save you from it, while you live in that condition. Without delay, flee out of it to Jesus Christ! Don’t wait a moment longer, for if you die in that condition, all the world cannot save you from hell and destruction.

The half-hearted

Another category of folk here are those who have had some resolutions in the past, and have been half persuaded to reform their ways. They have been almost persuaded to be Christians, but never fully persuaded. You have never come to the point. You remain just where you were.

Well, the thing I would say to you is, either make a thorough work of it. Be thorough in the business, and be persuaded. Otherwise, persuade yourselves (and I, in the name of the Lord, persuade you) that it shall make your case worse, and less hopeful than the case of pagans.

Those who have cooled off

Another sort of folk is those who were once zealous and forward in religion, but now they have turned cold, and fallen from their first love.

A word to you who once appeared hot and zealous for God, and have now turned stone cold. Consider your ways, before it is too late. If you give way to such backsliding courses, your case may at length become desperate. What I want to say to you is, “Remember from whence thou art fallen, repent, and do thy first works.”

Grumblers

Another sort of folk is a company of poor murmuring people. They keep on entertaining hard thoughts of God. What I have to say to you is, Have better thoughts of God! Otherwise you can be sure He will make something crop up in your way that will make you have different thoughts of Him.

The godly

I will say this one word to those who are really godly: Fight it out, friends! Run the Christian race set before you. Run, and run with patience — you will come to the end of it shortly. Be faithful to Him who has called you. Don’t let the world, or your own corrupt hearts, make you flinch from it.

Let me give you some motivations to urge you to steadfastness and constancy in your Christian course.

Because of its uniqueness

Hold on to your way because it has four properties that no other way has.

It is a pleasant way. “All wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”

Of all possible ways, this is the only sure and safe way.

It is an honourable way. Much credit and dignity follow on it. It is the most creditable way you’ve ever gone in.

And it is a blessed way. It has the blessing attached to it. It has the promise both of this life, and of that which is to come. Happy, blessed, is the one who walks in it. As the psalmist says, “Blessed is every one that fears the Lord, and walketh in his ways.”

Because of its destination

Hold on your way, believers, because it ends in glory. Do not faint, for it is the way that all the worthies have gone in, the ones who have gone before you. The whole cloud of witnesses and sufferers for Christ who are now triumphing in heaven have gone in the same way before you, and they have all been landed safe on the confines of Immanuel’s land, and so freed from all their difficulties. Indeed, it’s likely you will also meet with opposition and crosses in the way, but blessed is the one who wrestles and runs it out. “Blessed is he that endures unto the end, for the same shall be saved.”

May the Lord Himself persuade you to this!

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Once people have turned up for a service, preachers have a responsibility to deliver a message which is worth their while hearing. Faced with an assembly of perishing souls on their way to eternity, what can preachers say that won’t just be a wasted opportunity and leave people no better than before? The leading Covenanting preacher John Welch of Irongray (c.1624–1681) was alive to the urgency of the preacher’s task. He caught the note of gravity weighing down Paul’s description of his labours. Labouring consciously under the eye of God, Paul tried to ‘persuade’ his hearers, not of trivial things or of mere moral imperatives or of his own importance, but of things that should really matter to them considering the judgment seat of Christ is ahead of him and them. In the following extract John Welch identifies twelve things which a preacher must aim to persuade his congregation of. If people remain unpersuaded, it shouldn’t be because their pastor never mentioned these things, or never indicated how essential they were.

I defy anyone who gets a sight of his need of Christ, and of the excellence that is in Him, and of the recompense of the reward that is laid up for those who love and serve Him, to be a sluggard about his duty, or continue in the neglect of duty.

Paul resolved that his work would be “to persuade men.” What is it that ministers are to persuade people of? The details are not set down in the text, for then it would have run to a great length, so Paul speaks only in general terms. But I find these twelve things mentioned in Scripture, that we as ministers have a commission to persuade you of.

Turn to God

We are to persuade people to be convinced of sin, and converted to Jesus Christ. We are to persuade the ungodly and profane to turn and live, warning them that if they will not turn, they must burn for ever. “Turn ye, and live! Why will ye die, O house of Israel?” That is one thing we are to persuade you of, that Christ is standing at the door and knocking, and He will take it badly if you refuse to open to Him.

It is a great thing to persuade you of the necessity of conversion, or the new birth, and that unless you are holy, you will never be happy. This is the work of both prophets and apostles. Jeremiah cries, “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jer. 3:22). Ezekiel says the same, “Turn ye, turn ye and live, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11). Solomon makes this his work also. “Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets: Turn ye at my reproof” (Prov. 1:30, 23). Jesus Christ Himself makes this His work. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” So did His apostles after Him.

We are to tell and persuade you to set about the work of faith and repentance (Isa. 1:2; Joel 2:12). We have to persuade you to turn to God, and to warn you of your danger if you don’t. This presupposes that every man and woman has their back to God. We come to you who are still strangers to God, and strangers to His Son Jesus Christ, and strangers to the Holy Spirit and the grace of repentance.

What considerations might persuade you?

1. Consider that if you will not turn, you will die without grace, faith, repentance, etc. Turn, and you will live, but if not, “ye shall surely die in your iniquities.”
2. Consider that if you turn to Him, we assure you in His name, all will be well with you. We tell you, He has a fatted calf for you, robes to put on you — He has all that can make you happy. Friends, you will have a life of it here, and eternal life hereafter.
3. Consider that Christ is in good earnest with you. You’ll wrong yourselves, if you don’t accept the offer. In fact, you will perish eternally.

Turn for real

The second thing we are to persuade people to do is to turn in reality. It is not any old sort of turning that will do. Not every kind of turning has the everlasting advantage. Therefore, the Lord commissions His servants to tell you to make the thing sure, so that you don’t deceive yourselves about your turning. You must turn, and turn with all your heart and soul. Set about a thorough repentance.

Embrace Jesus Christ

The third thing that preachers have to persuade folk to do is to embrace Jesus Christ as He is offered to them in the gospel. We are to persuade you to unite with Him, as He has offered Himself to you. This was the work of Isaiah the prophet, Paul the apostle, and indeed of Christ Himself. “I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.” That is, take Him for a king, prophet, and priest, as He is offered to you.

To persuade you to this, take the following considerations.

1. What will you do, if you don’t do this? Don’t you think the day will come when you will wish you had done it? The day will surely come when you will wish you had taken Him up on His offer, even at its worst.
2. The terms are easy — so easy that it’s only, “Come and drink.” “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye unto the waters; and he that hath no money, come, buy and eat, without money and without price.” Drink and drink fully. Can you want larger terms than these, “He that is athirst, let him come, and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely”?
3. Nothing is so acceptable and well-pleasing to God as this. You’ll make many a sad heart by refusing Him, whereas if you receive Him, it will be well-pleasing to many. It will be the most acceptable thing you ever did, for you will please God, angels, and saints. You will only displease Satan and the wicked. Put these two in the balance. Do the one, and please God, angels and saints; do the other, and you only displease the devil and wicked men, and I don’t know if you owe them anything else.
4. Consider the disadvantages of refusing Christ, and the advantages of receiving Him. I can tell you, everyone will have their work cut out to get right at death, but some will have more to do than others. I’ll tell you who will have the least to do — those who have been most forward in giving a testimony for the cause of Jesus Christ. They have an open door in heaven to see Jesus.
5. Your sin and guilt are great, and so your punishment will also be great, and all the more so, because you have sinned against the remedy provided, and against mercy. Do you think those who have done so will be thought worthy? No, “of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy of, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing?” He that despised Moses’ law, you know, died without mercy; and will you escape? I would not be in the place of those refuse Christ for ten thousand worlds.

Get to know God

Fourthly, it is part of our duty as ministers to urge you to make your acquaintance with Jesus Christ. Eliphaz sent the message to Job, “Acquaint now thyself with God, and be at peace; thereby good shall come to thee” (Job 22:21). Acquaint yourselves with His mind in His Word, and receive the law from His mouth. Lay it up in your hearts, labour for wisdom, and with all your getting, get understanding. Ignorance and unbelief are the destruction of fools; therefore it is the minister’s work to press them to get acquainted with God. “Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me” (Isa. 27:5).

If you knew the necessity of being acquainted with God, there would be no need to press or persuade you. When you must meet with Him after death, the business depends on you knowing Him now.

Give yourself up to God

The fifth thing is to persuade people to devote themselves wholly to God by a covenant relationship, without reservation. This is what Paul professes in verse 15. Those who live should not henceforth “live unto themselves, but unto him …”

The thing we are to persuade you of is to make a real resignation of yourselves, and all you have, to Him, so that He may have the command of you, your relations, and all you have, and even your life also, when he calls for them — so that you may say, “I am not my own; my children, my means, etc, and my very life, if He calls for it, are not my own.” Resign it all to God in a full, free and absolute way. You are engaged to do it by the tie of creation, because you are His creatures. But there is also the tie of redemption, or redeeming love, and this is the strongest tie of all.

Be a Christian

Paul persuaded Agrippa “almost” to be a Christian. The great thing we have to do is to persuade you not only almost, but altogether, to be a Christian

Obey all God’s commandments

The seventh thing we have a commission to persuade you of is obedience to all God’s commands. This sums up the whole duty which God requires of man. God requires universal obedience to His revealed will. “Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments” (Psa. 119:6).

Be faithful to Jesus

The eighth thing is to persuade you to be faithful to Jesus Christ — faithful to His Word, His covenant, His cause, interest, and despised truths.

Expect a cross to carry

Ninthly, be cheerful under the cross of Christ. The Word says, “Ye shall also reign with him.” That is a fair allowance for suffering.

Make God your delight

Tenthly, be persuaded not only to do duty under necessity, or by constraint, but make it your delight to serve God. His commands are so far from being grievous that they should be our delight. And yet, do not trust in duty.

Be holy in all your life

The eleventh thing to persuade you of is holiness “in all manner of life and conversation.” Be holy in your eating and drinking, your conversations, your buying and selling, and in the whole of your life.

Be clear about Christ’s cause

The last thing we are to persuade men and women to do is to be resolved about the cause of Christ and religion. Do not halt between two opinions. This was what Elijah persuaded the people of Israel of, when he said, “If the Lord be God, follow him, and if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). Ministers should press people to be positive and resolute about the cause of Christ. Christ Himself, when He saw a great multitude following, turned about and said, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” Christ wants folk to be resolute in what they are doing.

In this respect, ministers must tell them to beware of loving the world too much. They must, rather, hate it, and count it unprofitable. There is a good reason for this, because the world is an enemy to religion. Many times, it spoils communion with God and His coming to them, and is a source of many a falling out between Him and His people.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Christians, separated as they are from one another across a variety of denominations and splinter groups, nevertheless generally agree that more unity would be a good thing. While we value the spiritual oneness we have in Christ irrespective of different labels and groupings, Scripture is clear that this spiritual oneness should be reflected in visible oneness. We have to concede that divisions in the church not only harm our gospel witness to the world, they also hinder everyone’s spiritual progress and, even worse, disregard God’s requirement that His people should be one. So why does disunity persist? In a recent publication, James Durham identifies eight things that act as temptations to excuse or justify our ongoing separation from our brothers and sisters. James Durham’s work on church divisions is newly available in a fresh edition from Reformation Heritage Books, The Scandal of Church Divisions: Healing the Wounds of Schism.

When people are tempted to perpetuate divisions, what are the various factors which might make the temptation stronger and harder to resist, especially for ministers and elders?

Zeal for God Masking the Desire for a Reputation

Once people are invested in a cause, and their own reputation is at stake for taking sides, then their heatedness and tenaciousness can express itself under other appearances, perhaps under cover of zeal for God’s honor, or respect for the reputation of the ministry and the ordinances. It may not seem to be any personal credit or respect that motivates them but zeal and respect for the Master, as is insinuated when the disciples sought to be avenged by fire from heaven on the place that would not receive Christ (Luke 9:54), and also when they forbade some to cast out devils, even in Christ’s name, because they thought it was not for Christ’s honor (Luke 9:49).

Firm Conviction of the Rightness of Their Cause

The temptation to persist in a division is often accompanied with great confidence about the justness and equity of their own side and about the unreasonableness of their adversaries. There may be in part some good ground for this, where the controversy is some doubtful, disputable thing. How great confidence both Job and his friends had in their debate! Both sides frequently express the desire that God would decide the matter (confident that God would take their side), when in reality God did not fully approve of either of them in either matter or manner. Sometimes also there may be a persuasion which one side finds very satisfying, when yet it is not from God. This was likely how it was on both sides in Galatia, even when they were biting and devouring one another (Gal. 5:8). For we often find in experience that once a disputable thing has been argued about over a period of time, it will become palpably clear and altogether necessary to those who have argued for it. Commitment to the cause bribes the light and perverts even the wisdom of the just. Hence we see that the longer someone argues for something, the more confident they become about it, because his own arguments secretly prevail more with himself than reasons proposed by any others to the contrary can.

Believing the Matter to Be Necessary and Important

There is a strength in the temptation to continue in a division when the matter under dispute is not only thought to be just but also necessary and of great importance.

Circumstantial truths are presented as necessary

A question over the most circumstantial truth (if we may speak so) can be regarded as necessary and a thing that cannot be quit. Even those on the side of the error will talk up the controversy as if it were a high point of Christianity. Among the early church fathers, those who maintained the millenarian opinion, and Christ’s personal reign, thought it a point of high concernment. Justin Martyr even said that anyone who thinks differently is no Christian. In later, popish writers, we see how strenuously they argue for the necessity of things like holy anointing oil. The apparent weightiness of such things gives people the impression that they are foundational points of Christianity.

Claims about the good of the church are inflated

If the dispute is over a matter of fact or a question of government, people think it is so important for the good of the church that they cannot back down without being accessory to the corruption and hurt of the church, or complicit in undermining the church’s authority. Hence the faults and consequences of the other side are so often exaggerated, and canons and constitutions are alleged to be broken, as we may see (among other instances) in the debate between Rome and Constantinople over who should have precedence before Antichrist was revealed, one claiming to have the support of an act of the Council of Nicea, the other an act of the Council of Chalcedon, and Rome claiming to have Saint Peter on their side, and the good of the universal church.

Faults on the other side are exaggerated

If it is a dispute about personalities, such as who is to be acknowledged bishop or minister, or who has been lawfully ordained or deposed, etc., then those on the other side are conceived to be notoriously heinous, and those on the side they support are believed to be incomparably gifted and eminent. No wonder, then, that they make their point so vehemently, because they believe that so much of the good or evil of the church depends on the admission of these men to office and the rejection of the others. This flows inadvertently from the former differences, because when one side are confident that they themselves are right on such an important point, they necessarily must think that those on the other side are wrong and unspiritual. The hotter the opposition grows, the more they think each other the more inexcusably obstinate.

By this they are also disposed to hear and receive reports and misinformation about their opponents. They end up honestly believing that they are outrageously wrong in every possible way, including in their motives and intentions. The differences that arose first between Luther and Karlstadt, and afterward between Luther and his followers on the one side, and Zwingli, Calvin, and others on the other side, fully demonstrate this. How little these beginnings were at first! And yet even the smallest differences were exaggerated, and the persons on either side were misrepresented, even before these differences came to the height which they did. We may observe also that making such mistakes about people and their actions, and the bitterness that follows, is most ordinarily discernible to be on the side where, in all conscience and fairness, there is least to be said in its defense.

Believing You Have Pure Motives

Add to these factors people’s conviction that their motives are honest and sincere. They are not aiming for any goal that is actually corrupt, nor do they entertain or approve any palpable dissimulation in their professions. But as they have some confidence of the rightness of their side, so they may regard it as a testimony to their sincerity of heart to maintain their cause. Great strength in the temptation to continue division lies here. For when you believe in your own sincerity and integrity, and, it may be, you have access to God, and liberty to pray, even in reference to such things, it is not easy to stop yourself in that way. And yet it cannot be thought but that among the instances of such divisions as we have given, people on both sides had an honest end and aim and did pray and had access in prayer. Indeed, there is no question but that many of them on both sides would go to heaven with such differences, for they continued zealous in their divisions, even to death. Nor should we find this strange, for the best know only in part and are liable to make mistakes, and their zeal and sincerity are squared according to their knowledge. It was such zeal (that is, not according to knowledge) that made Paul and others, with a kind of sincerity, persecute the church; therefore, proportionally, there may be zeal and sincerity in lesser things when there is ignorance of them.

Fear of Losing Face by Relenting

Committing yourself to taking sides strengthens the temptation to perpetuate the division, because by backing down afterward, it leaves you open to criticism for being so hasty to start with, and your ministry loses impact in other ways, and your followers, who possibly may be more tenacious and zealous than yourself, may be irritated and provoked. These things then look more damaging, even to the work of the gospel, than continuing divided. It is written of Luther that in discussion with Melanchthon and others toward the end of his life, he acknowledged to them that he had been too vehement and peremptory in his writings on the Lord’s Supper. When they urged him then to publish something to this effect, he replied that he was afraid to do so in case it would diminish the authority and weight of other controversies he had appeared in for God, so he declined to do it, although he did allow Melanchthon, after his death, to do about it as he thought fit.

Fear of Losing Credibility in Other Areas

Sometimes also, the temptation to continue in a division is strengthened by fear of bringing bad consequences on those who side with them. For example, if they make too many concessions in such and such particulars for union, they might make themselves and their cause odious to others who possibly had more respectful thoughts of them because of the stance they took in such things. Luther is said to have given this as a main reason why he kept up the difference over the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and would not unite with Calvin and others over it. Calvin’s views were generally more hated than Luther’s theory of consubstantiation, and Luther was afraid that uniting would leave the princes and others more open to malice and hatred.

Looking at the Failings of the Other Side

It strengthens the temptation to continue a division when people do not look at the difference simply in itself but comparatively with respect to the principles and behavior of their opponents. By considering things that are displeasing in them and their way, they are made the more tenacious and brought to justify themselves the more. Hence it is in such divisions that the great stress of debates lies in aspersions and accusations, recriminations and counter-recriminations, as if the only vindicating argument was, “The other side are wrong in so many things about their behavior, therefore our way must be right,” or, “therefore we have good reason to divide from them.” Almost necessarily, such recriminations are used in debates where the matter is not of such momentousness and clarity, as in the debates we have mentioned between Jerome and Rufinus, where there was no dispute on either side but recriminations on both. The same thing can be seen in the accusations of the Donatists.

Expecting the Other Side to Concede First

In such differences also, each side is ready to think that the other should and will concede to them and will not risk division on so little a thing. Hence, many have been drawn on to division from small beginnings, which they would not have yielded to if they had known what the consequences would be, or if they had not expected that the other side would have yielded. When this expectation is not met, their commitment to their own side becomes stronger, and the division more irreconcilable. It was remarked of Victor that he would not have been so peremptory in the controversy about when to hold Easter, if he had not assumed that the other side would have yielded.

For a more extended discussion on the theme of church unity, a recommended resource is James Durham’s insightful and practical book, The Scandal of Church Divisions: Healing the Wounds of Schism, published by Reformation Heritage Books.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Few things are as devastating in the experience of a congregation as a trusted pastor or minister turning out to be guilty of sins which completely disqualify them from the office and invite the contempt of even the world. That one cheated on his wife, that one hit his wife, that one turned to drink, that one interfered with children, that one took advantage of a disabled member of the congregation, that one got involved with young men, that one became addicted to gambling, and all of it was while they continued preaching, soaked up other people’s respect, and made out to everyone that they were godly, faithful ministers. Reeling and bruised congregations wonder what their minister’s reputed doctrinal purity is worth now, or his conservative approach to various topical issues, or his vocal commitment to denominational distinctives. None of these things ever provide any guarantee against catastrophic moral failure, or any comfort in the wake of the exposure of shameful wrongdoing. We realise, too late perhaps, that we were distracted by something secondary, such as gifts or personality, and overlooked the primary qualification of character. But Jesus remains the one shepherd and bishop of our souls. When under-shepherds turn out to be wolves, Jesus remains the good shepherd. In a discussion of Jesus’ teaching on the good shepherd, George Hutcheson points out the various contrasts between Christ and the “thief” and the “hireling” in John 10:10–12. Looking at Jesus allows us to take comfort and remain settled in the gospel in spite of the betrayals of hirelings. It also equips to be better able to identify and exclude from pastoral office those whose character does not match His. Hutcheson explains in the following updated extract.

The good shepherd’s work is gifting, not robbing

Christ declares in John 10:10 that He is the true shepherd, firstly in opposition to those whom He call “thieves and robbers.” Either they make out themselves to be the Messiah, or they run unsent and bring in false doctrine. These he declares to be enemies and not shepherds, who come only to harm the flock. By contrast, His errand is to give them life, and that in great abundance.

False teachers and seducers make so many attractive claims, and plausible appearances, that the evil of their way is not soon seen. That is why we must make sure to inculcate what it is that the thief comes to do.

Whatever attractive claims these seducers make, and however much people are taken with them, yet in reality they have come for the hurt of the flock. This is how it will turn out, and be seen, in the end. “The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” — that is the whole aim of their work. And this meets with the blind charity of at least some in the flock, who are not so much afraid of being hurt by their errors as they are expecting to get good by their displays of piety.

These false teachers are really nothing but “thieves,” both from the point of view that they only make a prey of souls, taking them away from Christ, stealing away their food in order to give them poison, betraying Christ of His glory, and tricking them out of their happiness; and also from the fact that they do all this in a clandestine and indirect way.

However happy the deluded souls may think themselves, when they have been made a prey to seducers, and deluded with their insinuations, yet all this leads only to their destruction, and to their eternal ruin, if mercy does not prevent it. These thieves are “robbers,” (v. 8), who come to kill and to destroy, as much as to steal.

But Christ is a shepherd who is be so far from destroying His flock that He gives them life, even to those of them who are dead. “I am come that they might have life.”

Christ’s great goal in coming to the world is to purchase and confer life on His own elect. Whatever way He deals with them, yet it is all directed towards giving them life. When they think it is otherwise, that is their own mistake. For Christ not only intends life, but “more abundant life” to His flock.

What does “life more abundant” mean?

• Although He gave life to His people before His incarnation, yet He lets it out more abundantly since, to show the difference between the light of the now risen sun of righteousness, and the light that His people had from Him before.
• He gives not only the kind of life that will simply supply the basic needs of His people, but such a super-abounding measure of life as testifies to His fullness, and completely refreshes them.
• Having conferred this abundant life on them in conversion, He will make it grow more and more while they are on earth (1 Thess. 4:1).
• All this life that they enjoy here is but a drop, in comparison of that abundance of life that is reserved for His people in glory.

The good shepherd serves the sheep, not himself

Christ also declares Himself to be the true shepherd in opposition to “hirelings.” These “hired hands” have a lawful calling, and do not come to kill the sheep with false doctrine, but do preach truth; yet they are unfaithful in the carrying out their responsibilities. In verse 11 Christ declares what He is in opposition to these: “I am the good shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep.”

How to identify a good shepherd

These properties of a shepherd, strictly speaking, belong properly and only to Christ. By these characteristics He is distinguished not only from hirelings or seducers, but also from the true ministers who are sent out in His name. But we must also consider that He approves of lawful under-shepherds under Himself, and contrasts Himself here only to hirelings. So, beside the consideration of what is unique to Him, or requires a unique consideration in Him, we may look to these properties as they are taken in a broader sense. In this broader sense, some of these properties do belong also to His faithful servants, in their measure and proportion, and by them they are distinguished from hirelings and false teachers.

One important doctrine to grasp here is that whatever hirelings or seducers infest the church, yet the elect do not lack a shepherd. Christ does employ servants under Him, yet He does not hand over His responsibility for His people, but remains still the “chief shepherd and overseer” to them, to care for them, and supply them with food by His own appointed means. In both these respects, “I am the shepherd,” He says (see 1 Peter 5:4).

Christ eminently deserves the title of a “good shepherd.” He is infinite in knowledge, to discern all the necessities of His flock. He is infinite in pity and wisdom, to deal tenderly with them (see Isaiah 40:11).

Good and faithful shepherds put the good of their flock ahead of even their own life. And as Christ not only gives life to his sheep, but His own life for them, so His faithful servants should not “account their life dear,” but worth nothing unless they fulfil their ministry, and bear testimony to the truth (Acts 20:24). Christ propounds it in general terms that the character of a true shepherd is that he “giveth his life for the sheep,” to indicate that though this was eminently and uniquely true of Him, as the Saviour of His people, yet His servants must be resolved to lay down their lives, not to expiate sin, but in the service of the church’s faith.

How to identify a hireling

By contrast, Christ identifies what hirelings are. Thinking only of their own gain, and having no interest in nor affection to the sheep, as soon as they catch sight of any danger, whether from seducers or persecutors, they desert their stations and expose the flock to danger (v. 12). From the fact that they flee in this way, Christ concludes that they are “hirelings, and care not for the flock” (v. 13).

It is not enough that someone has an external lawful calling to the ministry, and that they are don’t preach error, unless also they are faithful and single-minded in carrying out their responsibilities. Hirelings, just as much as thieves and robbers, are named by Christ as opposite to the shepherd. They must make the chief goal of their calling to honour God and seek the good of souls.

The sheep are all Christ’s own, by reason of His purchase of them, and lordship over them. Consequently, every true pastor will count Christ’s sheep dear to him, as precious as if they were his own, simply because they are Christ’s. Those who do not respect them in this way prove themselves to be nothing but hirelings. “He careth not for the sheep” (v. 13).

They also show themselves to be hirelings when, in a time of trial, they look more to their own situation, then to the welfare of the flock, and when, to avoid trouble, they desert the flock. The hireling “seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth.” Some may have more light than others, and foresee trials better than others, and yet lack the courage to stay at their post. Those who lack integrity follow Christ and duty only as long as they think it compatible with their own ends.

Wolves in the church catch some of the sheep by error, some by persecution, some by scattering and dividing them and depriving them of mutual fellowship and participation in the gatherings of the church. Although this is all the wolf’s fault, yet it is also put on the hireling’s account, because he opens a gap for the wolf to get in, and exposes the sheep as a prey, and weakens them, by his example in shirking trouble, his withholding from them the encouragement of the truth, and his lack of courage in maintaining the truth.

Anyone who puts their own commodity and convenience ahead of the welfare of the flock, and deserts their duty when the flock is in danger, only prove themselves to be mercenaries and hirelings.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Every pastor, following Paul, aspires to be able to present believers “perfect in Christ Jesus,” or complete and mature, and “comforted” or encouraged in their hearts, through their labours in preaching and teaching (Colossians 1:28–29; 2:1–2). But in a situation where Christians are divided into different denominations and splinter groups, doesn’t this seem hopelessly idealistic? Or at best something that can only be possible on an individual level and not for Christian congregations or the church as a whole? The London preacher John Howe (1630–1705) had to confront the fact that the animosities and divisions among believers in the 1680s were likely to bring the Christian witness to ruin. In a sermon tackling this, Howe notes that in the epistle to the Colossians, Paul speaks of the role of both love and faith in bringing about this maturing and encouragement. After explaining the comfort that comes from Christian love (Nine Ways to Comfort Believers’ Hearts), in the following updated extract Howe now turns to the crucial importance of our shared faith in healing division and bringing comfort and confirmation within the Christian church. Pastors have a responsibility to lead their people in ways that promote the oneness of the Christian body as a whole, as well as within their own local congregations and denominations. When it comes to the faith we confess, Howe encourages us to start by focusing on what we have in common, rather than finding reasons to persist in division.

Why is Paul working towards comfort?

Paul’s aim in Colossians 2:2 is that believers’ hearts “might be comforted,” or encouraged.

In the preceding verses we see that the avowed design of Paul’s preaching, warning and teaching in all wisdom was that he would “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28). Whereas various arts and endeavours were used to adulterate the Christian religion, and pervert men from the simplicity of it, Paul wanted to lose none, but to his very uttermost make it possible for them all to be presented “perfect in Christ Jesus” at last. This means that they would be all entire, complete, and persevering Christians to the end.

It was for this that he “laboured,” “striving,” according to “his working, which wrought in him mightily” (1:29). All his labour, and the strivings of his soul, were acted by divine power, and by a Spirit greater than his own, and they aimed at this goal.

He tells them too how fervent these strivings of his were. “I wish if only you knew what an agony I endure! how great this my conflict is for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh!” And for what? “That their hearts might be comforted” (Col. 2:2), meaning manifestly the same as he has just said, that they would be complete and confirmed Christians to the last.

How does Paul expect to achieve comfort?

The means which the apostle conceives would be most effectually conducive to this blessed purpose are two, mutual love to one another, and a clear, certain, efficacious faith of the gospel. Let us for now consider this faith.

Why is a shared faith so important?

Although the word “faith” is not used in this verse, yet it is described in such a way that it may easily be understood — both what it is, and how necessary it is for this purpose.

Faith is described here as “the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.”

By this faith, (1) our understandings are duly enlightened, so that our minds will rightly grasp the doctrine of the gospel. We see distinctly the meaning and purpose of this mysterious revelation of God in Christ, and we are fully assured of the truth of it.

By this faith, again (2), our hearts are overcome in such a way that we receive the gospel practically and vitally. We acknowledge and receive it, and resign, entrust, and subject ourselves to God in Christ revealed in it.

How does a shared faith contribute to comfort?

How vastly important this is towards our hearts being established, confirmed, fortified and united! and towards our being jointly preserved in our Christian state! We can see its importance in the following ways.

We see the value of the gospel we share

If we had this faith, we would grasp that the things in which we are to unite are truly great. Union is not like to be firm and lasting, if at its centre is a trifle. The faith in which we unite must be something that is of itself apt to attract and hold our hearts strongly to it. Excessive earnestness in attempting a union in external formalities, which have no value or goodness in themselves, when the difficulty involved is so great, and the advantage so little, would be utterly hopeless and insignificant! But “the mystery of God, even of the Father, and of Christ,” how potently and constantly attractive it would be if rightly understood and acknowledged! Here, we should understand, is our life and our all.

We see our small differences in their rightful place

By this faith we would realise that, in comparison, all other things are little. And so our differences about little things would languish and vanish. We would not only know, but consider, and feelingly grasp, that we agree in far greater things than we differ in. Then we would be more strongly inclined to hold together by the things in which we agree, than to contend with one another about the things in which we differ.

Our unitedness has powerful effects

Our religion would revive, and become a living and powerful thing, and consequently more pleasing to God, and awe-inspiring to others.

The favour of God

God is not pleased with the stench of carcases, or with dead displays of religion replacing the living substance. If we were united in the faith we would not be deprived of God’s presence, for we can count on it that He will leave us when we give Him only insipid formalities.

We already know from history what happens to Christianity when Christians manifestly divert from minding the great things of religion to absorbing themselves very busily in little trifling circumstances, or to pursuing worldly advantages and delights.

The attention of others

Then Christianity would make more of an impression on people, even to put some sense of awe on them. Those who are tempted to despise the faint, languid appearances of an impotent, inefficacious, spiritless religion are well able to discern a majesty in the kind which is visibly living, powerful, and productive of suitable fruits.

Think of how the Christian church went into a gradual decline for the 300 years between Constantine and Phocas. Don’t we see there cause both to lament the sin and folly of men, and adore the righteous severity of God? As Christians grew gradually to be loose, wanton, and sensual, and their leaders became contentious, luxurious, covetous, proud, ambitious, and domineering, so the Christian church gradually became forsaken of the divine presence. Just at the time when Boniface obtained from Phocas the title of “Universal Bishop” (in defiance of the severe sentence of his predecessor, Gregory the Great), up sprang the dreadful delusion of Muhammad. It spread itself thorough Asia, Africa, and too considerable a part of Europe, to the extent that where Christians were previously twenty or thirty to one, there was now scarce one Christian to twenty or thirty Muslims, or grosser pagans. And between the Muslim infatuation, and the Popish tyranny, what has Christendom become! when by the one, the very name is lost; and by the other, little else is left but the name!

Our resolve will be strengthened

We will be enabled most resolvedly to suffer, when we are called to it — when it is for the great things of the gospel (the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ), understood and acknowledged clearly and with assurance. A faith like this will not be without its pleasant relishes.

It is an uncomfortable thing to suffer either for the mere spiritless, uncertain, impotent notions and opinions of religion, or for unenlivened outward forms — things that we never felt to do us good, in which we never tasted sweetness, or felt power — that we were really nothing ever the better for.

But who will hesitate at suffering for things as great as the heart of the gospel, which you have clearly understood, which you are fully assured of, and which you have acknowledged in practice, and embraced, so as to feel the energy and power of them, and enjoy their delicious sweetness in your soul! And even if by such suffering you yourself perish from off this earth, your religion lives! And is indeed spread all the more in the present age, and propagated to the generations to come. This is how seminal and fruitful the blood of martyrs is!

The clearer the gospel, the firmer the unity

This faith has the tendency to produce the best, firmest, and most lasting union among Christians (and consequently the preservation of the Christian interest) even when the “mystery” of the gospel is considered only in general terms. So this tendency would be seen all the more distinctly if we consider the more eminent and remarkable parts of it, especially the mystery of the person of the Redeemer.

• The Redeemer!
• The Emmanuel, God uniting Himself with the nature of man.
• His office, as the reconciler of God and man to each other.
• His death, as a propitiatory sacrifice to slay all enmity.
• His victory and conquest over it, on which is founded His universal empire over all.
• His triumphant entrance into heaven, where He is to collect all who ever loved, trusted and obeyed Him, to dwell and be conversant together in His eternal love and praises.
• How directly do all these tend to endear and bind the hearts and souls of Christians to God, and Him, and one another, in everlasting bonds!

What can we do about this?

What now remains but that we lament the decay of these two principles of love and faith, and, to our uttermost, endeavour the revival of them.

Lament

How visible the decay of faith and love is! and how destructive to the common Christian interest! It used to be a common saying, “See how these Christians love one another! They don’t even refuse to die for each other!” Now it might as well be, “How they hate! It looks like they’ll die by the hands of one another!”

And what a cloudy, wavering, uncertain, lank, spiritless thing the faith of Christians in this age has become! How little are the ascertaining grounds of it understood, or even attempted to be understood! How few make it their business to see things with their own eyes, to believe, and be sure that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God! How far are we from the riches of the full assurance of understanding! How little practical effect and influence has the faith of the majority! How little it indicates of an acknowledgment of the mystery of God! How very ineffectual it is!

Attempt

Let us endeavour the revival of these principles. We need no human laws to be our warrant for this practice of loving one another, and cleaving with a more grounded, lively faith to God and His Christ. Here is no place for scruples of conscience.

As to this love. What if others don’t do their bit to make it mutual? What! Shall we only love those who love us, and be fair to those who are fair to us, and salute those who salute us? Do not even the publicans the same? (Matt. 5:47).

As to this faith. Let us endeavour that our faith would be more thoroughly deep-rooted, so that it may be more lively and fruitful. In the following verses, Paul testifies of his joy for what he understood there was of it among the Colossian Christians (Col. 2:5), and exhorts them to keep going in this way (Col. 2:6–7). What! Do we have to pause the exercise and improvement of our faith in the great mysteries of the gospel till everyone else agrees on the same thing?

Let us do our own part, so that we may be able to say, “It was not my fault.” “If the Christian community moulders, decays, becomes enfeebled, broken, dispirited, ruined, this ruin can’t be laid to my account.”

For a more extended discussion on the theme of church unity, a recommended resource is James Durham’s work, The Scandal of Church Divisions, published by Reformation Heritage Books.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from home. When God brings people into His family, their home becomes heaven instead of earth, and they keep longing to get home. Instead of being a child of their time, beholden to the culture and values of this world, the believer can’t help showing by their tastes and mannerisms and colloquialisms that they belong somewhere else. Their thoughts turn frequently to their Father in heaven, their Elder Brother preparing their place there, and their Comforter preparing them for their place. As citizens of a better place, they walk and talk, eat, sleep and breathe heavenly. In the following updated extract, James Durham gives six characteristics of the lifestyle or “conversation” of those who are citizens of heaven.

I would like to show you how a Christian may be said to have (and should have) his “conversation” or “citizenship” in heaven.

Our heart is in heaven

First, in respect of the inward holy frame and divine set of his heart. The Christian should be heavenly in that. Free from those distempering passions that the people of this world are subjected to (even enslaved to and harried with), the Christian should not have his affections dragging along on the earth, nor his delights or desires taken up with things that are earthly. Instead he should be mortified to and weaned from all those things.

Unlike those who are on all occasions tossed up and down with their moods and with every wind of temptation, the Christian should be so calm, composed and sober, settled and fixed in a heavenly frame of spirit that words of reproach would not much trouble him, nor crosses and afflictions much disquiet him. He should have such composure and sedateness of spirit that he would be much above the levity and unstayedness that worldly people are under the power of, and he should endeavour to be purged from those impure mixtures of self-interests that reign in the worldly.

Our work is in heaven

Secondly, in respect of our work, as Christians we should and may have our “conversation” in heaven, when we are much in the exercise of those graces, and in the practice of those duties, that we will be occupied with in heaven.

We are to be much in love to God, taken up with delighting in Him.

We are to be much in communion with God, holily impatient when we don’t have Him, or have to live without His company.

We are to be much in the study and searching out of His perfections.

We are to be studying to have the heart fixed, as if it was a pillar in His house, and not to go out from Him.

We are to be much in admiring and adoring the free grace and love of God, and to be in a holy manner ravished with the contemplation of these.

We are to be much in the work of prayer, and much in the work of praise, saying, “Worthy is the Lamb to receive glory, honour, dominion, etc,” joining with the four beasts and four and twenty elders, saying, “Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!”

We are to be much in prizing and valuing God, in setting out and commending Him.

We are to be in all duties willing and cheerful, doing God’s will cheerfully and with alacrity.

We are to be much in longing for the sabbath, to converse more closely with him, longing often for privacy and quiet opportunities to pour out our hearts before Him.

And we are to do all this with holy coveting to do it better, praying that his will may be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.

Our distinctive character is from heaven

Thirdly, believers may be said to have their “conversation” (and you are called to have yours) in heaven in respect of a heavenly walk, and as having a heavenly impression on all your lifestyle — to be walking as it were in heaven, and as if “Holiness to the Lord” were written on your foreheads.

This is a very comprehensive point, which includes things like the following.

(1) The heart is fixed in meditating on God and His law, on spiritual and heavenly things. There is a sublime and divine strain of mind, which does not debase itself to pursue vanities, but keeps in a close and constant pursuit after communion with God and conformity to Him. As David says, “When I awake I am still with thee” (Psalm 139), labouring to leave the heart and mind in heaven when you lie down, and seeking to find it there when you rise.

(2) Your affections, love, desires and delights are in heaven, or heavenly.

(3) Your words savour of heaven, “ministering grace to the hearers.” You endeavour to have your words weighty and grave when you are commending God and His grace.

(4) Your hearing of the Word, and your praying, carry much of a heavenly stamp and impression on them. You hear, as if God were speaking to you directly from heaven, and you pray, as if you were actually before His throne.

(5) In your everyday life, as in eating and drinking, and relaxing, and following your lawful callings and employments, even the most menial and laborious of them, you have a different end in view than the people of the world do, for you make your main end to glorify God. And your heavenly and divine way of going about these things is the kind of way that may be convicting, edifying and attractive to onlookers. You are not predominantly influenced by selfish whims, plans or interests, looking only, or mainly, to what may please or profit yourselves, but levelling all at the glory of God, and the edification and good of others, as well as your own.

Our business is in heaven

Fourthly, we may be said to have our “conversation” in heaven, when we have a holy commerce and trading (as it were) with heaven, the way a man may trade in France or Spain. To have converse in heaven is spiritually to trade there — to have faith and hope exercised in and about heaven, to send many prayers and desires to heaven, as so many empty vessels, and to be in the lively and longing expectation that they will return full and richly laden — and to make many visits to heaven.

It means to be busy in all these, neither seldom, nor transiently, and only by fits and starts, but frequently and with more persistence. Even if they should sometimes return either with seeming loss, or with very little gain, yet you keep up the trade and traffic, seeking to make up our loss by a new voyage there (for not everyone makes profit equally quickly).

Our residence is in heaven

Fifthly, we may be said to converse in heaven, by our abiding (as it were) in heaven. This is one of the highest steps of a heavenly “conversation.” How it is that a believer, while on earth, can abide in heaven?

1. By having your heart in heaven, where your treasure is. For, as the Lord says, “where a man’s treasure is, there his heart is.” The man, as it were, dwells there, and if at any time he moves away a little, he leaves the most of his stock there, and leaves his heart as an overseer. So, though the Christian is discoursing, buying, selling, eating, drinking, etc., yet in all these, his heart may and ought in some way to be in heaven.

2. By having your faith in heaven, and, as it were, never coming out of it.

3. By having your love in heaven, folding your two arms around the Lamb and Him that sits on the throne, holily reluctant to have them loosed from those sweet soul-solacing and soul-satisfying embraces.

4. By having your hope in heaven. This is “an anchor cast within the veil,” and makes the soul safe and sure amidst the greatest tempests of outward trouble, as a ship rides safely when she has cast anchor on firm ground, so that there is no fear she will drive.

When these four — the heart, faith, hope, and love — are in heaven, we may say that your best half is in heaven. Your tethering stake is loosed, and much of your tabernacle taken down, and in a good measure you are fit, ready and ripe for your dissolution and for heaven. In this sense you are called and obliged to “have your conversation in heaven.”

Our enjoyments are in heaven

Sixthly, a believer’s “conversation” is in heaven when his contentment, delight and satisfaction are in heaven — when all that you desire, all that you delight in, all that your soul feeds on, and all that you are comforted with, is in heaven. You don’t have a good day, or even a comfortable good hour, except what is given you from heaven.

This is not only to be abiding with God but to be delighting in God — having the peace of God that passes understanding guarding the heart, and His love shed abroad in it, and having all that sustains life coming from heaven. As it says in Colossians 3:3, “our life is hid with Christ in God.” The believer is affected with nothing, feeds on nothing, and is satisfied with nothing so much as with what comes from heaven. He wakes, he sleeps, he rests there.

This is to live in heaven, and to be heavenly in our conversation. This is what you are called and obliged to. As believers you are of different nature to others, and as believers you are called to a different, more divine frame of soul in your work and walk, in your thoughts and words, in your outward duties, and your inward graces, in your commerce and trading, in your contentment, delight, and satisfaction — to be heavenly in it all.

Why is it so difficult to be heavenly?

Does anyone here say, “This is a very hard task!”

I answer, first, Can it be hard to be in heaven? No, it’s the definition of easiness, for Christ’s yoke is easy and His burden is light, and to the extent that our conversation is in heaven, to that extent we have true spiritual rest and repose of soul. It is what we leave behind in the world that makes the difficulty to get our spirits hauled up to heaven, and to be kept there. The difficulty is here, but the more our heart and the mind are there, we have really the more ease.

Second, I ask, will you shift, deny or decline a duty, because it’s difficult and hard? Certainly it’s hard to corrupt nature, yet notwithstanding all the difficulty of it, the Apostle Paul with his fellows and followers managed it to a good degree, and we too may attain it through grace, according to our own capacity. Is not this the way to heaven which our Lord calls “strait,” and which “only few find”? And yet, if we would only give it a try in good earnest, we would find it to be not so very strait or unpassable as we imagine it to be. We would find it accompanied with such delight as would much sweeten any hardness in it, and we would get an insight into the heavenly mysteries, and a look at our names written in heaven and in the Lamb’s book of life, and we wouldn’t lack one hour’s feeding on and being solaced by these delights for all the delights of the men of this world. Since it’s only hard to corruption, it should be something we endeavour and pursue all the harder.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

Being isolated and feeling a lack of connection with others is widely recognised as a major problem of our times. By nature humans need relationships and social interaction, and as well as lacking something it is actually harmful to be friendless and alone. This also holds true of believers. In His grace, God “sets the solitary in families,” taking a personal interest in each yet drawing each into a family, a fellowship, a community defined by relationship with Jesus Christ. Sin separates and divides, but those who have union and communion with Jesus (in His grace, death, life) are supposed to have union and communion with each other (in each other’s gifts and graces). Self-interest, mutual suspicion and a constant sense of needing to protect yourself from criticism are hallmarks of an assortment of sinners, the opposite of what we should see in a community of saints. Instead, God gives His people to each other to serve and support each other, bring out the best in each other and help each other make progress towards glory. In the following updated extract, Westminster Assembly member Jeremiah Burroughs pleads with believers not to spoil their fellowship. Urging us, “Take heed of the kind of things which will hinder the good you may have in communion with the saints,” he identifies six things that hinder fellowship.

Going it alone

The first thing that I would forewarn Christians against is the sullenness of spirit that makes them love solitariness rather than communion. This exists amongst many who have true grace.

Sometimes it comes from abundance of pride, for they think that if they come among others, they shall expose their own weakness, and rather than risking this, they will deprive themselves of all that good which they might have.

But consider how unfaithfully you deal with God when you act like this. God has given you a talent, and you are not to wrap it up in a napkin, but to use it for God.

Consider, too, how it wrongs the church, for your gifts are not your own, but the church is to participate in them, and therefore you are to use them for their good.

Again (remembering that the communion of the saints is one of God’s ordinances), consider how you do much wrong to the ordinance of God, when you prefer to indulge your own grievances ahead of His ordinance. In Hosea 4, God threatens it as a judgement that He will “feed his people as a lamb in a large place” (Hos. 4:16), that is, scatter them from the fold, so that they have to go one by one, like a lamb bleating alone in the wild wilderness. Take heed you do not bring this on yourselves.

Again, there is a great deal of danger in this solitariness of spirit.

For one thing, spiritual dryness and barrenness of spirit will increase. It is only justice on God’s part to deprive people of gifts, when they do not have hearts make a good use of the gifts that He has given them.

Then, you will be ready to run into error, and strange delusions. If you observe the workings of your hearts, you have strange opinions of things, and think you are sure of them, until you come among other people, and then although you could not see the weakness of your opinions, others quickly can. Whereas if you refuse to come amongst them, but stick rigidly to your opinions, you run into errors.

Again, you will be vulnerable to the temptations of Satan. Immoderate solitariness is joined with immoderate melancholy, and this is the workshop the devil ordinarily uses to forge his temptations in. It is a great evil to keep the devil’s temptations close. Therefore come into communion with the saints!

Making it all about you

Secondly, when you do come into communion with the brethren, take heed of pride. The pride which sometimes keeps us away from communion is also a great hindrance to the benefit of communion.

You know how round things only adjoin with other objects at one point, but when you take flat things, they join each other in every point. It’s the same with us. Hearts swollen with pride cannot join with others, except in such tiny details as serve their turn. But if we have plain hearts, we will embrace each other in all things. Blow up a balloon with air, and when you touch it or handle it, it floats away. But when it is pricked, it falls, and then you may handle it easily. So hearts that are swollen with pride will not get as close to their fellows as low humble hearts will.

A swollen limb is fit for nothing, but all the other members of the body must serve it. Like when someone has a gouty leg — all the other members of the body must tend to it, but it is unfit to be serviceable to any. It’s the same with a proud heart — it expects every one to attend to it, but when it comes to be serviceable to anyone else, it is unfit.

Forgetting the wide expanse of grace

Thirdly, take heed of envying at the gifts and graces of one another. The wicked ones of the world envy one another, because the good they think of as their ultimate goal is so constricted that if one gets very much of it, everyone else must have less.

But the godly don’t need to be constricted like this! Their good is in God, and they have plenty space to spread themselves out in it freely and satisfy themselves. If people are riding or sailing in a narrow passage, they envy the one that is sailing ahead of them, because he is hindering them, but in the sea they don’t even think of them, because they have plenty space for themselves to sail. So, in Christians who place their happiness in God, where there is plenty room, there should not be envy.

Being over-sensitive

Fourthly, take heed of being petulant and irritable, obstinate and difficult to deal with, too easily flying into a temper. All things like this darken communion. By contrast, it is the meek spirit which is fit for communion. Moses suffered much for communion with God’s people, and indeed he was fit both to get good and to do good by communion, for he was the meekest man on earth.

Only looking for what you can get

Fifthly, take heed of self-ends in communion — making self-interest your main aim. When people are so scheming as to revolve around their own goals, and don’t even seem to aim at spiritual things, this hinders the sweetness of communion. Though people like this may manage things for a while so as not to be discerned, yet in the end they will be seen for what they are, only looking out for number one, and all will be shy of them. If you want to have genuinely sweet communion, labour for open hearts to one another, so that you may trust one another.

Failing to look ahead

Sixthly, labour to use the fellowship you enjoy now in such a way that every time you do enjoy it, it will make your heart spring, putting you in mind of the blessed communion you shall have later on with God and His people in heaven. Think like this: “If we find so much joy in enjoying communion with God’s people here, how much joy there will be in the communion our souls shall have in heaven, when we shall not only have communion with a few of God’s servants, but with all of them, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets and apostles!”

The Roman scholar Cicero spoke of the happiness of his death, “O famous day, when I shall go from this rout of people, and go and converse with those famous men!” But for us, brethren, we can think that, through God’s mercy, we have communion with God’s people here already, and also shall in the future enjoy communion with the saints of God for ever!

What isn’t worth enduring in order to reach this?! If it were only the enjoying of communion with Moses alone, it would be worth all you have endured! Therefore comfort yourselves for the present in what you already have, and let your hearts be raised in hope of better things afterwards, when you shall have them perfect.

For now, we rejoice that we are with God’s people if they are so much as conferring about any thing to do with God and Christ. But hereafter, we shall see nothing but God in His saints! We shall see the full glory of God shining in them — even the very bodies of the saints shall shine more glorious than the sun, and how glorious their souls shall be then!

Then there shall be no more danger of fallings out, or headstrong, quarrelsome behaviour — no more jealousies and suspicions. Instead we shall see the image of God perfectly in them, and we shall have perfect love to rejoice as much in the salvation of any as in your own salvation. Then we shall be with them in all holy exercises.

It is good to be with God’s people to do everyday business with them, but better to be with them to pray with them, to receive the sacraments with them, etc — the better the activity, the better it is to be with them. If so, then, what will it be like to enjoy perfect communion with them, and to be always in holy exercises with them, always singing praises to the Lamb, and giving glory to Him that sits on the throne for evermore, blessing God for the great mystery of the gospel?

Therefore make a good use of your communion here, so as not only to put you in mind of your communion hereafter, but to prepare and fit your souls for it.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

It’s the state of our hearts that tells whether we are saved or not. But only God knows for sure what our hearts are like. When someone is being assessed for whether or not they should be accepted as a church member, it is essential that they know it’s their heart that counts. But the church can’t make a decision on membership based on investigating their heart — only by looking at humanly observable information. Pastors and elders have the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards in belief and practice among church members, but they are not required to pass judgment on people’s hearts for the purpose of granting or withholding church membership. When a popular English preacher published a piece arguing the opposite, the Covenanter James Wood (d.1664), Professor of Theology at St Andrews University responded with his own pamphlet. In the following updated extract, Wood explains the careful distinctions we must make in order that those with responsibility for overseeing church membership will be able to carry out their work with integrity.

What is required for someone to meet the qualifications to be a member of the visible church? There is a difference of opinion between us and the independent brethren. They say that people must be truly converted in God’s eyes, as far as others who are converted are able to discern.

This seems resolve the matter into ‘the judgement of charity.’ Yet this does not sufficiently to salvage the situation, for technically it expresses only the means by which persons with the necessary qualification (i.e., they are truly converted) are to be identified, rather than expressing anything about the objective qualification of the matter of a visible church.

Different senses of “required”

For membership of a visible church, the term “required” has a double sense. It could either mean (a) what is incumbent on an individual himself by way of duty before God, or it could mean (b) what is requisite in him by way of qualification in the outward church court (i.e., the basis on which the church may and ought to admit him to the external communion of the church).

In the first sense, I confess that none are qualified for membership of a visible church except those who are (not only so far as the most spiritual people can discern or judge, but also in reality) true converts and believers. It is every individual’s duty, in professing Christianity and adjoining himself to the church of Christ, to believe with his heart as he professes with his mouth. Otherwise he is not approved, not allowed, by God.

But I believe it’s another thing to enquire what is required in the second sense.

Visible vs invisible

For consider that this controversy is not about the members of the mystical, invisible church, i.e., the church according to its inward state, but about the members of the visible church, as such, i.e., the church according to its external state.

The mystical, i.e., the invisible church, i.e., the church according to its inward state, is the society of those people who have been effectually called into saving communion with Christ. To them belong, in the intention and purpose of God, all the promises of spiritual blessings pertaining to life and salvation.

The visible church, i.e., the church considered according to its external state, is the society of people who profess true Christian faith and religion, for communion in the outward exercises of the worship and ordinances of God.

The work of admitting members into the invisible church belongs to God. He does this by the working of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling and ingrafting people into Christ.

The work of admitting members into the visible church is committed to the pastors and overseers of the church. They are men, and so do not see the inward constitution and condition of people’s hearts. So, in carrying out this work, they must look at things which are obvious to the senses. This is how it comes about that someone may be in admitted as a member of the visible church in an orderly and lawful way, even though that person is not a member of the invisible church.

“The right to” vs “the use of” visible church ordinances

We are to distinguish membership of the visible church in actu primo, and in actu secundo. I must beg your permission to use these Latin terms, and I’ll now explain what I mean by them.

By the actus primus of visible church membership, I mean the state and condition of a person which means that now he is not to be looked on by the church, pastors or professing believers, as ‘outside’ — not as a stranger and alien, but as a brother (1 Cor. 5:11–12). Consequently, that person may and ought to be (a) overseen, cared for, and fed by the pastors and elders of the church, as a part of the flock, and (b) interacted with in duties of Christian fellowship by church members according to their and his capacity.

The actus secundus of visible church membership is the actual enjoyment and use of church privileges, ordinances, and acts of outward Christian fellowship.

This distinction is necessary. For it is certain that someone may be actually a member of the visible church in actu primo, and yet not actually enjoy the use and exercise of all and every church privilege and ordinance to which church membership gives him a right.

This is because, in order to get the benefit of the actual exercise of some privilege and ordinance, a special condition may be required, which perhaps somebody may lack through some physical incapacity, or some moral defect.

For example, under the Old Testament, persons who were undoubted members of the visible church of Israel might nevertheless for some ceremonial pollution (such as an issue of blood, or touching a dead body, etc.). be debarred from the public assemblies of the church and the sacrifices for a time, until they were cleansed from the pollution.

So also, someone who is an acknowledged member of the visible church may be overtaken with a fault that causes reproach and stumbling, and submits himself to church discipline. He may be kept from the actual exercise and use of some ordinances, until the fault is sufficiently removed, yet still, as is acknowledged on all hands, he continues a church member in actu primo. Again, it has constantly been held by orthodox theologians (until Anabaptists arose), that children who are born in the Christian church are, even while under the years of discretion, members of the visible church, even though they are not capable of the actual use and exercise of all church privileges and ordinances.

Therefore, it is one thing to enquire what is requisite to constitute someone capable of church membership in actu primo; and another to enquire what is requisite to make someone immediately capable of the actual use and exercise of all and every church privilege and ordinance to which church membership entitles him.

God’s judgment vs church judgment

We must differentiate between (a) what is required of someone by way of duty in God’s judgment, in order that he may join himself to church communion, and participate in ordinances in such a manner as is necessary for his own salvation, and approving himself to God; and (b) what is required of him by way of qualification in the judgment of the church, in order that the church may in a lawful and orderly way admit him to their external communion, and thereafter respect, account, and deal with him as amongst these that are ‘within.’

The reason for this distinction is clear, because the duty of an individual that wants to join himself into the communion of the church in a way that is requisite for salvation, and for approving himself in it to God, without a doubt reaches the inward man (its frame and acting) formally and directly. But the qualification requisite in the church court, on which the church is to proceed in admitting or acknowledging people church members, consists (formally and directly, at least) only in something which is outward and apparent to other people.

Adherent holiness vs inherent holiness

There is a holiness which is relative and adherent, and a holiness which is absolute and inherent.

Relative and adherent holiness consists in a thing being separated from a common use and dedicated to some holy use or end. In this sense, even the stones which the temple was built out of are called ‘stones of holiness’ (Lam. 4:1). Likewise the children born of at least one parent who is a believer, i.e., someone who professes the Christian religion, are called holy, because they are included in the covenant made with and embraced by the parents for themselves and theirs, and so are to be esteemed as among Christians separated from profane people, and dedicated to God (1 Cor. 7:14).

Absolute or inherent holiness consists in the qualities or actions of a person which are agreeable to the law of God.

Inward vs external holiness

Again, holiness is either inward and true, or external.

Inward holiness consists in the inward renovation of the soul — faith, hope, love and other supernatural habits and their acts.

External holiness consists in making a profession of the true and orthodox religion, and a lifestyle which is ordered according to the rule of God’s commands, as far as can be known, and as far as is competent to human weakness (i.e., without bringing reproach on Christ or causing stumbling to others, or, at least, without contumacy and obstinacy in relation to such faults). It also includes in it that relative/adherent holiness just mentioned.

It is worthy diligent observation here, that when we say the church is ‘a society of visible saints,’ this itself may be understood in a double sense. The epithet ‘visible’ may either be taken as signifying not so much the form itself as the manifestation of it before other people. If we take it in that description, ‘visible saints’ are those who, by outward, manifest and evident signs and tokens, are perceived and acknowledged to be endued with true inward holiness and the grace of regeneration.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU

From time to time in the experience of the Christian church, it becomes extremely dangerous to gather with other believers for worship. This kind of threat surely sharpens our minds as to the purpose and benefit of assembling for worship. In his opening remarks to a sermon preached in 1671, the Covenanter Michael Bruce (1635–1693) confronts his hearers with the risks of attending his preaching in order that they would confront their own motivations for being there. How can it be for anything trivial? Bruce’s point in the following updated extract poses its own challenge to preachers to ensure that what they preach is worthwhile for people to turn out for, while hearers are reminded to look beyond their current circumstances — whether church attendance is currently dangerous or cost-free — to the great spiritual realities which should dominate our thinking and living. 

The risks

From the fact that you’re here, it would seem that you are convinced it is good for you to seek the Lord in His own ordinance. Your coming here to hear His Word, at such risk to yourself in a time like this, weighs more with you than any danger you may be in of suffering for it. Your coming here presupposes that it’s better for you to come and take the risk of suffering than to stay away, however safe and free from suffering you would be.

Truly, I think that if you are not of this mind, you are fools to come here. You poor soul, to come here in a time like this, when you may find by experience that doing so may cost you the loss of all things that are dear to you in the world, and yet you do not see that there is something you can have which is worth the risk of losing all these things! I say you must be a fool if you don’t see this, and risk the suffering without having anything in mind to compensate for it.

God forbid that any of you would be saying in your heart, “If it looks like I have to suffer for this, I’ve got a way to get myself free from suffering.” What sort of way is that? “Oh, the last time I begged mercy and I confessed I’d done wrong and I promised never to do it again, and that’s how I’ll get off with it again.” Well, when all is said and done, you have made a fool’s bargain. You come here at hazard to yourself, and plan to sin in order to avoid the hazard. That is much worse than what you fear losing.

Therefore, so that you don’t come here like fools, but like wise folk, I beseech you to consider why you come, and either come for something or don’t come at all.

The reasons

Will you tell me, then, why you’ve come? Christ had a question for the people who flocked to John, “What went ye out into the wilderness for to see?” So I ask, “What did you come here for, poor body, can you tell?” Do you have any errand that you came here for?

Maybe you have many errands, but I’ll tell you one that you should come for, and that should conclude the rest (and if you haven’t come for this, I fear you’ll get nothing). The great errand you should come for, is for God.

What is you are seeking, poor thing? Are you seeking light in darkness, light for dark cases? Are you seeking to be established in this time of wavering? Or for mastery over your lusts, or reparation to decayed grace, or the decayed work of God within you? Are you seeking that? Then seek God, and if you get God you will get all the rest in Him. For then you are seeking rightly, and such a seeker is welcome. I can tell you something more than, “Seeker, you will find,” and that is, “You will find all this, and God too, for He never said (and never will say) to any of the house of Jacob, ‘Seek ye me in vain”.”

Take that word, “He that seeks shall find,” and bring your hearts when you are seeking, for those who seek with all their heart shall find. Bring it back from its gadding about, and bring it with you.

The realities

Make sure that you’re not coming only to seek a preaching and see a preacher, and hear him speak. Seek what you should seek, and do not beguile yourself by seeking the wind, for (with reverence to His ordinances, and with respect to His ministers), ordinances and ministers are only wind. Even if you had the ablest minster of the gospel, you will be beguiled, if your expectation is of man. Therefore, never mind us, and don’t go about to burden and wrong the ordinance of God, or your ministers, by hanging your dependence on instruments who can do no good to their own souls, far less to yours.

If only you would come saying, “Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God!” For in vain is salvation waited for from the hills and from the mountains.

You would do well to pray to Him for a word, and send up your cries through sense of need to Him who is able to supply, and is as willing as He is able, i.e., to Him who has promised to supply our need, and is faithful and righteous to perform.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU