Nations; and as justly is he, after his coming, their everlasting Delight, since in and by him alone the Lord is pleased to be at peace with us, and out of his fulness to communicate all good unto us. To set forth this preciousness of Christ unto his people, and to quicken their joy in him, was the end of this Sermon; and is indeed the end of all other. We live in changeable and uncomposed times; we see distempers at home, we hear of distresses abroad; the Lord is shaking heaven and earth, churches and states; our eyes and our experience tell us, how mutable are the wills, how inconstant the judgements, how fickle the favours, how sudden the frowns of men, how vain the hopes, how unstable the delights which are drawn out of broken cisterns; how full of dross and dregs the most refined contents of the world are. God alone is true, and every man a liar, either by falseness deluding, or by weakness disappointing those that depended on them. Since, therefore, the life of man doth hardly deserve the name of life, without some solid comfort to support it; and neither men nor angels, much less honours or pleasures, plenty or abundance, can supply us with that comfort; what remains but that we betake ourselves unto that fountain of living water, whence alone it is to be had? that we secure our interest in the Lord Christ, who is faithful, and cannot fail : powerful, and will not forsake, nor expose those that come unto God by him? that so being upon the rock which is higher than ourselves, we may be able, amidst all the tempests and shakings, the delusions and disappointments below, to rejoice in him with a fixed and inconcussible delight, who can bring joy out of sorrow, light out of darkness, and turn all confusions into order and beauty. This that you, and all God's people in city and country, may every where do, is the prayer of Your Honours' most humble servant in the From my Study, June 2, 1655. EDWARD REYNOLDS. JOY IN THE LORD: Opened in a Sermon, preached at St. PAUL'S, May 6, 1655. PHIL. IV. 4. Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice. There is nothing, which the hearts of believers do either more willingly hear, or more difficultly observe, than those precepts which invite them unto joy and gladness; they being on the one hand so suitable to the natural desires, and yet withal, on the other, so dissonant to the miserable condition of sinful man. Had our apostle called on the blessed angels to rejoice, who have neither sin, nor sorrow, nor fear, nor sufferings, nor enemies to annoy them,—it might have seemed far more congruous: but what is it less than a paradox to persuade poor creatures, loaded with guilt, defiled with corruption, clothed with infirmities, assaulted with temptations, hated, persecuted, afflicted by Satan and the world, compassed about with dangers and sorrows, born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, that, notwithstanding all this, they may rejoice, and rejoice alway? But we have a double corrective to all these doubts in the text; one, in the object; another, in the preacher of this joy. The object of it is Christ the Lord, as appears by the same thing twice before-mentioned, cap. iii. 1, 3; the Lord that pardoneth our guilt, subdueth our lusts, healeth our infirmities, rebuketh our temptations, vanquisheth our enemies, sweeteneth our sufferings, heighteneth our consolations above our afflictions, and at last wipeth all tears from our eyes. Here is matter of great joy: may we be satisfied in the truth of it and for that we have the word of an apostle, who gave assurance of it by divine revelation, and by personal experience. He who next to the Lord himself, was, of all his servants, a man of sorrow, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in perils, in deaths. in weariness, in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, in cold, in nakedness; beaten with rods, stoned with stones, shipwrecked at sea, beset at land; he who in the prison, the inner prison, the stocks (a kind of case of prisons one within another) did yet rejoice and sing psalms unto God; (Acts xvi. 24, 25) he it is, who from the Lord calleth upon believers to " rejoice alway." Instead then of a paradox, you have here a paradise,—a tree of life, as joy is called, Prov. xiii. 12. And the servants of God may securely, notwithstanding their sorrow for sin, their sense of sufferings, their certainty of temptations, their conflicts with enemies, their sympathy with brethren, may yet, I say, securely rejoice, and rejoice alway;-they have the Lord to warrant it, they have his apostles to witness it. Let worldlings delight in sensual pleasures; let false apostles delight in carnal worship, and ceremonial privileges; but you, my brethren, have another kind of object to fix your joys upon: "Rejoice in the Lord, and again rejoice, and rejoice alway;"-and that upon the word and credit of an apostle, "I say it; and I say it again." There are many particulars couched in the words; 1. The subject of them, spiritual joy, or a holy exultation of the soul in the Lord, as the most beloved, desired, supreme good, wrought in it by the spirit of grace, rendering Christ, by faith, present unto it; whereby it is not only supported under all afflictions, but enabled to glory in them, and triumph over them. 2. The difficulty of this joy intimated, in that believers are so often invited unto it. 3. The sureness and the greatness of it, noted in the doubling of the words. 4. The stability and perpetuity of it; they may rejoice alway in the midst of their sorest fears and distresses. 5. The object of it, a glorious and replenishing object, "Christ the Lord." 6. The apostolic attestation given unto it, e 2 Cor. i. 23, 27. d Malam mansionem vocabant Antiq. Vid. Dionys. Gothofredi notas in Digest. Tit. Depositi vel contra 1. 7. • Nihil crux sentit in nervo, cùm animus in cælo est. Tertul, ad Martyr. Again, I say, rejoice: I speak it by commission from the mouth of Christ, requiring it; I speak it by the experience of mine own heart, enjoying it in the midst of all my sufferings." So that you have both a mandatum ' and a probatum' for it; "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again, I say, rejoice." But because I love not to mince and crumble the bread of life into too many particulars, I shall therefore comprise all in this one proposition, which I shall make the subject of my present service; That the Lord Jesus is the great, sure, and perpetual joy of his own people. By accident, unto wicked and impenitent sinners, he is a stumbling-block; as wholesome meat is offensive to sick stomachs, and the light of the sun unto distempered eyes: but unto those that believe, he is altogether lovely, precious, and desirable. "Abraham rejoiced" to see his day. (John viii. 56) Mary rejoiced more that he was her Saviour than her son f. (Luke i. 37) Simeon embraced him with anunc dimittis.' (Luke ii. 28) Matthew made a great feast to receive him. (Luke v. 29) Zaccheus entertained him at his house joyfully. (Luke xix. 6) The Eunuch, as soon as he knew him, went on his way rejoicing. (Acts viii. 39) The Jailor, who even now was ready to have killed himself; when Christ was preached unto him, rejoiced and believed. (Acts xvi. 34) Christ is the author of our joy; he calleth it "his joy." (John xv. 11) It is the work and fruit of his spirit; (Gal. v. 22); and he is the object of our joy; it is fixed and terminated on him, as on the most commensurable matter thereof, Phil. iii. 3. There are many things belonging unto the object of a full and complete joy. I. It must be good in itself, and unto us. II. That good must have several qualifications to heighten it to that pitch and proportion, which the joy of the heart may fix on. 1. It must be a good present, in the view and possession of him whom it delighteth: good absent is the object of de f Vid. Iren. 1. 4. cap. 15.-Aug, Tract. 10. in Johannem. Beatior percipiendo fidem Christi quam concipiendo Carnem. Idem, toni. 6. de Sancta Virgin. cap. 3. & Aquin. 1, 2. qu. 31. art. 1. Arist. Rhetor. !. 1. c. 11. sire; good present, of delight. It is true, a man may rejoice at some good that is past", as that he did, at such a time, escape a danger, or receive a benefit; but then the memory makes it, as it were, present, and the fruit of that past good is some way or other still remaining. Also a man may rejoice. in a good to come, as Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's Day, (John viii. 56); and believers rejoice in the hope of glory, Rom. v. 2: but then faith gives a kind of substance to the things so hoped for, Heb. xi. 1; and the virtue and benefit of them is in being, though they themselves be but yet in hope. And so in regard of efficacy, Christ was a lamb, slain from the beginning of the world, though not actually slain, before the fulness of time: so still the most proper ground of delight is fruition, which presupposeth the presence of the thing enjoyed. 2. It must be good precious, which hath some special value belonging unto it. We read of the "joy of the harvest," (Isai. ix. 3); because men reap the precious things of the earth, as they are called. (Deut. xxxiii. 14, 16. Jam. v. 7) It was not an ordinary thing, but a treasure, a pearl of great price, which made the merchant-man sell all that he had, to buy it. (Mat. xiii. 44, 46.) 3. It must be a full good', sufficient and thoroughly proportionable to all the desires and exigencies of him that is delighted with it. Bring the richest pearl to a man under some sore fit of gout or stone, he cries, groans, sweats, is in pain still the object, though good, though precious, yet is not suitable to his present condition: in that case he takes more pleasure in an anodyne medicine, than in a rich jewel: it would be little good news to such man, to tell him that his kidneys or his bladder were full of pearls or diamonds, because there they would not be his treasure, but his torment. k 4. It must be a pure good, without any dregs or dross to abate the sweetness of it. All earthly delights are bitter sweets; wine tainted by the vessel, which brings a loathing b Azorius Moral. 1. 3. c. 10. qu. 10. Habet præteriti doloris secura recordatio delectationem. Cicer. Ep. 1. 5. ep. 12. · Τὸ τέλειον ἀγαθὸν αὐταρκες εἶναι * Εν ῥοιᾷ καὶ dokei. Arist. Ethic. lib. 1. c. 5. Vid. Rhetor. I. 1. c. 6. καλή σαπρὸς κόκκος. Crales apud Laertium. |