Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 5.djvu/90

84 cepted of God. Grace and love are a more excellent way than removing mountains, or speaking with the tongues of men and angels, 1 Cor. 13. 1, 2. Grace will bring a man to heaven without working miracles, but working miracles will never bring a man to heaven without grace. Observe, That which their heart was upon, in doing these works, and which they confided in, was the wonderfulness of them. Simon Magus wondered at the miracles, (Acts 8. 13.) and therefore would give any money for power to do the like. Observe, They had not many good works to plead: they could not pretend to have done many gracious works of piety and charity; one such would have passed better in their account than many wonderful works, which availed not at all, while they persisted in disobedience. Miracles have now ceased, and with them this plea; but do not carnal hearts still encourage themselves in their groundless hopes, with the like vain supports? They think they shall go to heaven, because they have been of good repute among professors of religion, have kept fasts and given alms, and have been preferred in the church; as if this would atone for their reigning pride, worldliness and sensuality, and want of love to God and man. Bethel is their confidence, (Jer. 48. 13.) they are haughty because of the holy mountain; (Zeph. 3. 11.) and boast that they are the temple of the Lord, Jer. 7. 4. Let us take heed of resting in external privileges and performances, lest we deceive ourselves, and perish eternally as multitudes do, with a lie in our right hand.

3. The rejection of this plea as frivolous. The same that is the Law-Maker, (v. 21.) is here the Judge according to that law, (v. 23.) and he will overrule the plea, will overrule it publicly; he will profess to them with all possible solemnity, as sentence is passed by the Judge, I never knew you, and therefore depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Observe, (1.) Why, and upon what ground, he rejects them and their plea—because they were workers of iniquity. Note, It is possible for men to have a great name for piety, and yet to be workers of iniquity; and those that are so will receive the greater damnation. Secret haunts of sin, kept up under the cloak of a visible profession, wili be the ruin of hypocrites. Living in known sin nullifies men's pretensions, be they ever so specious. (2.) How it is expressed, I never knew you; "I never owned you as my servants, no, not when you prophesied in my name, when you were in the height of your profession, and were most extolled." This intimates, that if he had ever known them, as the Lord knows them that are his, had ever owned them and loved them as his, he would have known them, and owned them, and loved them, to the end: but he never did know them, for he always knew them to be hypocrites, and rotten at heart, as he did Judas, therefore, says he, depart from me. Has Christ need of such guests? When he came in the flesh, he called sinners to him, (ch. 9. 13.) but when he shall come again in glory, he will drive sinners from him. They that would not come to him to be saved, must depart from him to be damned. To depart from Christ is the very hell of hell; it is the foundation of all the misery of the damned, to be cut off from all hope of benefit from Christ and his mediation. Those that go no further in Christ's service than a bare profession, he does not accept, nor will he own them in the great day. See from what a height of hope men may fall into the depth of misery! How they may go to hell, by the gates of heaven! This should be an awakening word to all christians. If a preacher, one that cast out devils, and wrought miracles, be disowned of Christ for working iniquity; what will become of us, if we be found such? And if we be such, we shall certainly be found such. At God's bar, a profession of religion will not bear out any man in the practice and indulgence of sin: therefore let every one that names the name of Christ, depart from all iniquity.

II. He shows, by a parable, that hearing these sayings of Christ will not make us happy, if we do not make conscience of doing them; but that if we hear them and do them, we are blessed in our deed, v. 24—27.

1. The hearers of Christ's word are here divided into two sorts; some that hear, and do what they hear; others that hear, and do not. Christ preached now to a mixed multitude, and he thus separates them one from the other, as he will at the great day, when all nations shall be gathered before him. Christ is still speaking from heaven by his word and Spirit, speaks by ministers, by providences, and of those that hear him there are two sorts.

(1.) Some that hear his sayings and do them: blessed be God that there are any such, though comparatively few. To hear Christ, is not barely to give him the hearing, but to obey him. Note, It highly concerns us all to do what we hear of the sayings of Christ. It is a mercy that we hear his sayings: Blessed are those ears, ch''. 13. 16, 17. But if we practise not what we hear we receive that grace in vain. To do Christ's sayings is conscientiously to abstain from the sins that he forbids, and to perform the duties that he requires. Our thoughts and affections, our words and actions, the temper of our minds, and the tenor of our lives, must be conformable to the gospel of Christ; that is the doing he requires. All the sayings of Christ, not only the laws he has enacted, but the truths he has revealed, must be done by us. They are a light, not only to our eyes, but to our feet, and are designed not only to inform our judgments, but to ''re;;form our hearts and lives: nor do we indeed believe them, if we do not live up to them. Observe, It is not enough to hear Christ's sayings, and understand them, hear them, and remember them, hear them, and talk of them, repeat them, dispute for them; but we must hear, and do them. This do and thou shalt live. Those only that hear, and do, are blessed, (Luke 11. 28. John 13. 17.) and are akin to Christ, ch. 12. 50.

(2.) There are others who hear Christ's sayings and do them not; their religion rests in bare hearing, and goes no further; like children that have the rickets, their heads swell with empty notions, and indigested opinions, but their joints are weak, and they heavy and listless; they neither can stir, nor care to stir, in any good duty; they hear God's words, as if they desired to know his ways, like a people that did righteousness, but they will not do them, Ezek. 33. 30, 31. Isa. 58. 2. Thus they deceive themselves, as Micah, who thought himself happy, because he had a Levite to be his priest, though he had not the Lord to be his God. The seed is sown, but it never comes up; they see their spots in the glass of the word, but wash them not off, Jam. 1. 22, 24. Thus they put a cheat upon their own souls; for it is certain, if our hearing be not the means of our obedience, it will be the aggravation of our disobedience. Those who only hear Christ's sayings, and do them not, sit down in the midway to heaven, and that will never bring them to their journey's end. They are akin to Christ only by the half-blood, and our law allows not such to inherit.

2. These two sorts of hearers are here represented in their true characters, and the state of their case, under the comparison of two builders; one was wise, and built upon a rock, and his building stood in a storm; the other foolish, and built upon the sand, and his building fell.

Now, (1.) The general scope of this parable teaches us that the only way to make sure work for our souls and eternity is, to hear and do the sayings of the Lord Jesus, these sayings of his in this sermon