The Christian life delineated: Christ to be found in the ordinances, with the import and happy effects of finding Him
I. The ordinances are the place where Christ is to be found of poor sinners
1. What are the ordinances? The Divine ordinance of meditation. Christian conference about spiritual matters. Singing of the Lord’s praises. Prayer. The Word. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
2. Confirm this doctrine. The ordinances are by Christ’s own appointment the trysting-places wherein He has promised to be found of those that seek Him. Trysting-places for sinners, where they may be convinced, converted, and regenerated. Trysting-places for saints, where they may receive life more abundantly. They are the places wherein His people seek Him, who know best where He is to be found. They are what the Lord has allowed His people to supply the want of heaven, until they come there.
3. Apply this doctrine. It reproves those who slight attendance on ordinances; those who come to meet some they have worldly business with; who come, but not to find Christ there; who stand in the way of others attending on ordinances. It urges to seek Christ in ordinances. He is well worth the seeking.
II. People may come to ordinances and not find Christ.
1. Reasons on the sinner’s side. Some have no design of finding Christ in ordinances at all. Many are indifferent whether they find Christ or not. Some desire not to see Him at all. Some cannot wait patiently at the gates.
2. Improve this point. Seek Him sincerely and uprightly with all your heart. Seek Him honestly and generously for Himself. Seek Him fervently, humbly, diligently, mournfully. Seek Him till you find.
III. Then do people find christ when, upon a saving discovery of Christ made to their souls, they close with Him by faith.
1. Things in general touching the finding of Christ. There is a twofold finding of Him, initial and progressive. The immediate effect of the former is union, of the other actual communion with Christ. Some things to be observed. Sinners in their natural state have lost God. Man is a seeking creature. There is no satisfying of the soul till it come to God. God is in Christ, and is to be found in Him only.
2. More particularly explain the soul’s finding Christ. The soul savingly discovers and discerns Jesus Christ by a new light let into it. There is a twofold discovery of Him in the gospel, objective and subjective. There are six things the soul sees in Christ: A transcendent excellency. A fulness for the supply of all wants. A suitableness to meet his case and to glorify God. The Wisdom of God in Him. An ability to save. Willingness to save. Upon this discovery of Christ made unto and by the soul, the soul closes with Christ by faith. Such a discovery is not made to the soul till it be hunger-bitten. The nature of the object discovered speaks for itself. And the discovery is always attended with a heart-conquering power.
IV. Sinners finding Christ find life.
1. Unfold that life which sinners find. It is a life of grace, in regeneration. A life of favour with God. A life of new obedience. A life of comfort. And eternal life.
2. What are the qualities of this life? It is a Divine life. A life of the whole man. A pleasant life. A persevering life. A growing life.
3. Confirm this doctrine. The sinner finding Christ finds all things necessary to make him happy. Look to the whole of Christ’s purchase, what He bought for poor sinners with His blood; and the soul finding Christ finds it all, and may say, “It is all mine.” (T. Boston, D. D.)
Wisdom’s rewards
Some man might say, “Why should we watch so much for Wisdom? What shall we get by so much labour? Lest any should refuse and despise Wisdom, as terrified with the mention of so much pains in getting, Wisdom promises large rewards of life and favour from God. Heavy things grow light, when great rewards are propounded. And if any man be inquisitive to know what is that blessedness promised to such as take pains to get Wisdom, she tells them that their diligence in seeking her shall be recompensed in a most copious reward. As if she had said, “They that find Me shall not obtain some vulgar matter of little weight, but an incomparable treasure of all good things--to wit, life, which all men naturally desire, and eternal life, which only God can give, and all that a man can justly desire; and so shall he be fully happy in God’s favour.” (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
Life
The life that is found in Christ, who is our life--the life which, if diligently sought, shall be assuredly found, and which, when found, fills the soul with joy and peace.
I. The advantage of seeking Christ. We seek not only Him personally, but all that is in Him. We seek Him in whom all fulness dwells, and in seeking Him all the fulness that dwells in Him becomes ours. In finding Christ we find happiness, holiness, and heaven; pardon, peace, a quiet conscience, relief from the weary load of sin.
II. What do we find in Christ? Life is the great aim of all sentient beings; to obtain life, and having obtained it, to preserve it. Inquire, by way of contrast, what is gained by that life which is found elsewhere than in Christ? Sometimes life is sought in pleasure, in the world, in the love of things of the world, and in sin. Mistaking the great object of living, and pursuing a career of sin, men find that sin bringeth forth death--death of body and of soul, death for time, and death throughout eternity. There is a more excellent way, a way which has the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. The true life commences here. This life of ours is a pilgrimage. “He that findeth life” finds a life that is clothed with immortality, that revels in eternal day, that climbs unwearied the everlasting hills, that wears the crown of everlasting victory. (Robert Maguire, M. A.)
And shall obtain favour of the Lord.
Sinners interested in Christ obtaining favour of the Lord
I. Show some things supposed in this truth tending to clear the meaning of it.
1. There is a treasure of favour for poor sinners with the Lord. A treasure speaks preciousness, variety, and abundance.
2. This treasure is locked on sinners out of Christ, they have no access to it.
3. The sinner once interested in Christ has free access to the treasure, to bring forth from thence whatever he needs.
4. The sinner, when interested in Christ, will still be needing, while he is in this world.
5. It is the privilege and duty of believers to bring forth and fetch supply for all their wants out of that treasure.
II. Show wherein the soul once interested in Christ shall obtain favour of the Lord.
1. In prosperity. They shall have balancing grace, to make them carry evenly and usefully. Balancing providences; some such mixture of bitterness in their cup as keeps them from miskenning themselves.
2. In personal outward athletics. But they shall be bettered by it; supported under it, and have deliverance in due time.
3. In desertion. They shall never be totally or finally forsaken.
4. In temptation. They shall either be made to keep their ground against the temptation, or at least temptation shall not be allowed to gain a complete victory over them.
5. Even when fallen into sin, the Lord will not leave them, nor cast them off.
6. In time of public calamity. They shall either be hid, or gracious favour shall be mixed with the trouble, or the sting shall be taken out of it.
7. Death. They shall then be freed from sin and freed from trouble.
III. Confirm this doctrine.
1. Sinners have a right to the whole treasure of favour in Christ, in whom they are interested.
2. Jesus Christ is the dispenser of the treasure, the high Steward of the house of heaven.
3. The enjoyment is secured by the covenant of promises.
4. They have each of them a private key to the treasure, and that is faith. Improve this doctrine--
(1) In a way of information;
(2) in a way of encouragement. (T. Boston, D. D.)
What found with wisdom
I. Wisdom may be found. Else these promises were annexed in vain.
II. If wisdom be found, life is found withal.
1. Natural.
2. Spiritual.
3. Eternal life.
III. Not only life, but God’s favour is gotten also by getting wisdom.
1. He shall find favour from God in receiving Him.
2. He shall find favour from God in rewarding him here.
3. He shall find favour from God in preserving him from many dangers.
4. He shall receive favour from God in preferring, or crowning him with eternal glory in heaven.
Use--
1. To confute the doctrine of merits.
2. Seek wisdom earnestly and truly; not faintly and hypocritically, seeing ye look not only for life, but also for God’s favour from thence, which is the very cause of life, and the very life of life itself. (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
The favour of God obtained by wisdom
The intention of this text is to represent a very great blessedness to good men, whether in the present or a future state, annexed to wisdom, or religious virtue, in consequence of their obtaining God’s favour.
I. How great, how substantial and comprehensive a felicity this is. It will be easily allowed, if we consider our most obvious notions of the Deity, as a Being infinitely perfect and all-sufficient, the fountain of life and happiness. We judge of the importance of any person’s favour, and of the security and advantage which may arise to ourselves from it, by his power and capacity. It is impossible that God’s favourites should be unhappy, because He neither wanteth power to effect what His good-will inclineth to, nor wisdom to contrive the best method for their safety and advantage. Though there are objects suitable to the inclinations God hath planted in our nature, yet even supposing them sought after, and enjoyed without sin, they come short of being our true felicity, both in the perfection of degree and in the duration of them. They cannot yield solid contentment and satisfaction to the mind of man, because they are too low in their kind for its high capacity; and they are of a perishing nature; pleasure is but for a season, honour only an empty shadow; nothing can be more variable and uncertain than it is. But the favour of God is a substantial good, and never-failing foundation of hope and spring of comfort; it extendeth to all possible cases, and is a support in the most distressed situation of affairs.
II. Upon what grounds may we expect that, if we find wisdom, we shall obtain favour of the Lord? How can men do anything that is good out of a regard to the Deity, unless they first believe Him to be good, and a lover of virtue? The greatest corruptions of religion and morality have taken their rise from wrong notions of God. But how doth it appear that the wise and virtuous obtain favour of the Lord, since His providence doth not distinguish them by marks of favour, but, by the confession of the sacred writers themselves, they are in as bad a condition with respect to theaffairs of this life as the wicked? This objection hath been advanced against the equity and wisdom of Providence, and as seeming to prove that the affairs of this world are under no intelligent direction, but left to blind chance or necessity; but this is not conclusive against the doctrine of the text for the following reasons:
1. The present state is appointed in the wisdom of God to be a state of discipline and improvement.
2. The sufferings of good men in the present state may be considered as trials, and it is consistent with the favour of God to His servants that He should try them in order to their growth in virtue, and so becoming still more the objects of His favour.
3. We must keep in mind those things promised in the gospel. Two practical reflections.
(1) See what is the noblest end of life, the worthiest of our affections, our choice, and of our most diligent and constant endeavours, that we may attain it.
(2) The way to obtain this end is plainly marked out to us in Scripture, and it is very inexcusable folly and thoughtlessness if we mistake it. (J. Abernethy, M. A.)
