The Morning of Spiritual Youth Improved, in the Prospect of Old Age and Its Infirmities: Being a Literal and Spiritual Paraphrase on the Twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes. In a Series of Letters.Church, J. (John)
Religion
The Morning of Spiritual Youth Improved, in the Prospect of Old Age and Its Infirmities: Being a Literal and Spiritual Paraphrase on the Twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes. In a Series of Letters.
Church, J. (John)
Bible. Ecclesiastes -- Commentaries
This is our resting place, as Faith apprehends it in its antiquity, its
freeness, power, complacency, and beneficence: It is truly delightful to
eye the goings forth of this Love, in the ancient settlements, in the
covenant engagements of each Person in the adorable Trinity, in the gift
of Jesus to the Church, in his great work, and wonderful Person, as
God-Man Mediator, in the Gifts of the Spirit, and all his saving
operations upon the soul, testifying of Christ, as putting away sin, as
obeying the Law, as delivering us from going down into the pit, and
making intercession for us. On these topics we, who have the Life and
love of God, are quite at home; especially as the Holy Ghost realizes
them in our hearts; for this we labour in Spirit, to know and enjoy; and
this one point we wish to die to know, and to plunge in this sea of
bliss.—To view the Father’s love, the Son’s dear face, and the Holy
Spirit’s Grace, in Heaven, are objects worth dying for; this is the home,
the place, the state, the mansions of peace, rest, joy, satisfaction, and
pleasure, we hope to get to shortly. This is our long home, eternal as
the throne of God. No foe shall ever enter there. No friend shall ever
depart—they shall go no more out; so shall we be ever with the Lord.
This is our everlasting home, nor will our Lord let us rest short of
this. There may we meet soon, Amen.
But do you ask me, 2ndly. The _way_? It is clearly set forth in the
word, and I hope you have long known it, and highly approved of it, and
been led into it; nor shall you ever finally depart from it. The word of
truth says, I am _the_ way; not _a_ way, but _the_ way. Ah, my dear
Friend, how lamentable that thousands are deluding their souls with this
unscriptural notion, that all the sects, parties, and religious
denominations in the world, are only as so many different ways to one
city. Hence they suppose the Turk, the Pagan, the Papist, the Socinian,
the Arian, the Arminian, and the Antinomian, are all going right, and
some out of all these will be saved as such. Alas, what an error; there
never was but one way to God, to heaven, and to glory, and that is
Christ, as the adorable Mediator; all that reject this will find to their
grief, that _whatever_ way they went it led to the chambers of death; it
led to hell. What a mercy to be satisfied with a precious Saviour, and
to hear the voice of the Word and Spirit pointing to him, saying, _This
is the way_, _walk ye in it_. Christ is the way to the Father, to the
knowledge and enjoyment of his love. By the sacrifice he offered, by his
perfect law-fulfilling Righteousness, by the path he trod as our
fore-runner, by the Door of Hope that he opened, by the way of life he
cast up, and consecrated through the vail of his flesh, by the doctrine
he taught, by the example he set, and by the promise of life and peace.
We are brought into this way by the Holy Spirit of Promise, and kept in
it by the same, with an eye to Jesus, as the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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