_Secondly_, It is not only natural for a child to cry, but it must crave
the breast, it cannot live without the breast; therefore Peter makes it
the true trial of a new-born babe; the new-born babe desires the sincere
milk of the Word, that he may grow thereby. If you be born of God, make
it manifest by desiring the breast of God. Do you long for the milk of
promises? A man lives one way when he is in the world, another way when
he is brought unto Jesus Christ; Isa. lxvi., “They shall suck, and be
satisfied.” If you be born again, there is no satisfaction till you get
the milk of God’s word into your souls; Isa. lxvi. 11, “To suck, and be
satisfied with the breasts of consolation.” O what is a promise to a
carnal man; a whorehouse, it may be, is more sweet to him; but if you be
born again, you cannot live without the milk of God’s word. What is a
woman’s breast to a horse? But what is it to a child? There is its
comfort night and day, there is its succour night and day. O how loath
is he it should be taken from him. Minding heavenly things, says a
carnal man, is but vanity; but to a child of God, there is his comfort.
_Thirdly_, A child that is newly born, if it have not other comforts to
keep it warm than it had in its mother’s womb, it dies. It must have
something got for its succour; so Christ had swaddling clothes prepared
for him; so those that are born again, they must have some promise of
Christ to keep them alive. Those that are in a carnal state, they warm
themselves with other things; but those that are born again, they cannot
live without some promise of Christ to keep them alive, as he did to the
poor infant in Ezekiel xvii., “I covered thee with embroidered gold.”
And when women are with child, what fine things will they prepare for
their child! O but what fine things has Christ prepared to wrap all in
that are born again! O what wrappings of gold has Christ prepared for
all that are born again! Women will dress their children, that every one
may see them how fine they are; so he in Ezekiel xvi. 11—“I decked thee
also with ornaments, and I also put bracelets upon thine hands, and a
chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and ear-rings in
thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head;” and, says he in the
13th verse, “thou didst prosper to a kingdom.” This is to set out
nothing in the world but the righteousness of Christ, and the graces of
the Spirit, without which a new-born babe cannot live, unless he have the
golden righteousness of Christ.
_Fourthly_, A child when it is in its mother’s lap, the mother takes
great delight to have that which will he for its comfort; so it is with
God’s children, they shall he kept on his knee; Isaiah lxvi. 11, “They
shall stick and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolation.” Ver.
13, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” There is
a similitude in these things that nobody knows of but those that are born
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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