1 Timothy 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. I. The salvation of sinners was the main design of Christ's coming into the world. II. God often makes the chiefest sinners objects of His choicest mercy. For the last, that God doth so, observe — 1. God hath formerly made invitations to such. See what a black generation they were (Isaiah 50.) by the scroll of their sins. They were rebels, and rebels against Him that had nursed them: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me" (ver. 2). He comes to charge them "laden with iniquity" (ver. 4). They had been incorrigible under judgments. "Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more " (ver. 5). 2. God hath given examples of it in Scripture. Manasseh is an eminent example of this doctrine. His story (2 Chronicles 23.) represents him as a black devil, if all the aggravations of his sins be considered. (1) It was against knowledge. He had a pious education under a religious father. An education usually leaves some tinctures and impressions of religion. (2) His place and station: a king. Sins of kings are like their robes, more scarlet and crimson than the sins of a peasant. Their example usually, infects their subjects. (3) Restoration of idolatry. (4) Affronting God to His very face. He sets up his idols, as it were, to nose God, and built altars in the house of the Lord, and in the two courts of His temple, whereof God had said He would have His name there for ever (vers. 4, 5, 7). (5) Murder. Perhaps of his children, which he caused to pass through the fire as an offering to his idol (ver. 6); it may be it was only for purification. "Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other" (2 Kings 21:16). (6) Covenant with the devil. He used enchantments and witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit (ver. 6). (7) His other men's sins. He did not only lead the people by his example, but compelled them by his commands: "So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen God had rooted out" (2 Chronicles 23. 9), to make room for them. Hereby he contracted the guilt of the whole nation upon himself. (8) Obstinacy against admonitions: "God spake to him and his people, but they would not hearken, or alter their course" (2 Kings 21:10). (9) Continuance in it. He ascended the throne young, at twelve years old (ver. 1). It is uncertain how long he continued in this sin. 3. It was Christ's employment in the world to court and gain such kind of creatures. The first thing He did, while in the manger, was to snatch some of the devil's prophets out of his service, and take them into His own (Matthew 2:1), some of the Magi, who were astrologers and idolaters. To call sinners to repentance, was the errand of His coming. And He usually delighted to choose such that had not the least pretence to merit (Mark 2:17): Matthew, a publican; Zaccheus, an extortioner, store of that generation of men and harlots, and very little company besides. He chose His attendants out of the devil's rabble; and He was more Jesus, a Saviour, among this sort of trash, than among all other sorts of people, for all His design was to get clients out of hell itself. What was that woman that He must needs go out of His way to convert? A harlot (John 4:18), an idolater; for the Samaritans had a mixed worship, a linsey-woolsey religion, and, upon that account, were hateful to the Jews. What was that Canaanitish woman who had so powerful a faith infused? One sprung of a cursed stock, hateful to God, rooted out of the pleasant land, a dog, not a child; she comes a dog, but returns a child. 4. The commission Christ gave to His apostles was to this purpose. He bids them proclaim the promise free to all: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). All the world; every creature. He put no difference between men in this respect, though you meet with them in the likeness of beasts and devils, never so wicked, never so abominable. This commission is set out by the parable of a king commanding his servants to fetch the maimed, halt, and blind, with their wounds, sores, and infirmities about them (Luke 14:21, 23). 5. The practice of the Spirit after Christ's ascension to lay hold of such persons. (1) Some out of the worst families in the world; one out of Herod's (Acts 13:1), "Now there were in the Church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." It is likely to this intent the Holy Ghost takes particular notice of the place of Manaen's education, when the families where the rest named with him were bred up are not mentioned. Some rude and rough stones were taken out of Nero's palace. Yet some of this monster's servants became saints (Philippians 4:22): "All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household." To hear of saints in Nero's family is as great a prodigy as to hear of saints in hell. (2) Some of the worst vices. The Ephesians were as bad as any, such that Paul calls darkness itself (Ephesians 5:8). Great idolaters. The temple of Diana, adored and resorted to by all Asia and the whole world, was in that city (Acts 19:27). Take a view of another corporation, of Corinth, of as filthy persons as ever you heard of, "such were some of you" (1 Corinthians 6:11). Well, then, how many flinty rocks has God dissolved into a stream of tears I Great sins are made preparations by God to some men's conversion; not in their own nature (that is impossible), but by the wise disposal of God, which Mr. Burgess illustrates thus: as a child whose coat is but a little dirty has it not presently washed; but when he comes to fall over head and ears in the mire, it is taken off, and washed immediately. So when a wicked man falls into some grievous sin, which his conscience frowns upon him and lashes him for, he looks out for a shelter, which in all his peaceable wickedness he never did. III. Why God chooses the greatest sinners, and lets His elect run on so far in sin before He turns them. 1. There is a passive disposition in the greatest sinners, more than in moral or superstitious men, to see their need; because they have not any self-righteousness to boast of. This self-righteous temper is like an external heat got into a body, which produceth an hectic fever, and is not easily perceived till it be incurable; and naturally it is a harder matter to part with self-righteousness than to part with gross sins, for that is more deeply rooted upon the stock of self-love, a principle which departs not from us without our very nature; it hath more arguments to plead for it, it hath a natural conscience, a patron of it; whereas a great sinner stands speechless at reproofs, and a faithful monitor has a good second and correspondent of natural conscience within a man's own breast. Just as travellers that have loitered away their time in an alehouse, being sensible how the darkness of the night creeps upon them, spur on, and outstrip those that were many miles on their way, and get to their stage before them; so these publicans and harlots, which were at a great distance from heaven, arrived there before those, who like the young man, were not far off from it. As metals of the noblest substance are hardest to be polished, so men of the most generous, natural, and moral endowments are with more difficulty argued into a state of Christianity than those of more drossy conversations. 2. To show the insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, that men may not fall down and idolize their own wit and power. Two things are certain in nature:(1) Natural inclinations never change, but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron while that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature; water cannot but moisten, fire cannot but burn; so likewise the corrupt nature of man, being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents; and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man's own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel. (2) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature hath placed it in. A spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason, nor a man make himself an angel. It is Christ's conclusion, "How can you, being evil, speak good things?" (Matthew 12:33, 34). Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures than a viper can cashier his poison. Now, though this I have said be true, yet there is nothing man does more affect in the world than a self-sufficiency and an independency upon any other power but his own. This temper is as much riveted in his nature as any other false principle whatsoever; for man does derive it from his first parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature. If a putrefied rotten carcase should be brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world that we are unable to do anything of ourselves at first towards our recovery without a superior principle. The evidence of which will appear if we consider — 1. Man's subjection under sin. He is "sold under sin" (Romans 7:14), and brought into captivity to "the law of sin " (ver. 23); law of sin, that sin seems to have a legal authority over him; and man is not only a slave to one sin, but divers(Titus 1:3), "serving divers lusts." 2. Man's affection to them. Pie doth not only serve them, but he serves them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure (Titus 3:3). They were all pleasures as well as lusts, friends as well as lords. Will any man leave his voluptuousness, and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? No piece of dirty muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one; nor a man that is born blind give himself eyes. IV. God's regard for His own glory. 1. The glory of His patience. We wonder, when we see a notorious sinner, how God can let His thunders still lie by Him, and His sword rust in His sheath. "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man" (Hosea 11:9). If a man did inherit all the meekness of all the angels and all the men that ever were in the world, he could not be able to bear with patience the extravagances and injuries done in the world the space of one day; for none but a God, i.e., one infinitely longsuffering, can bear with them. Not a sin passed in the world before the coming of Christ in the flesh but was a commendatory letter of God's forbearance, "To declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God" (Romans 3:25). And not a sin passed before the coming of Christ into the soul but gives the same testimony, and bears the same record. "Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him" (ver. 16). This was Christ's end in letting him run so far, that He might show forth not a few mites, grains, or ounces of patience, but all longsuffering, longsuffering without measure, or weight, by wholesale; and this as a pattern to all ages of the world; ὑποτύπωσιυ, for a type: a type is but a shadow in respect of the substance. To show that all the ages of the world should not waste that patience, whereof He had then manifested but a pattern. A pattern, we know, is less than the whole piece of cloth from whence it is cut; and as an essay is but a short taste of a man's skill, and doth not discover all his art, as the first miracle Christ wrought, of turning water into wine, as a sample of what power He had, was less than those miracles which succeeded; and the first miracle God wrought in Egypt, in turning Aaron's rod into a serpent, was but a sample of His power which would produce greater wonders; so this patience to Paul was but a little essay of His meekness, a little patience cut off from the whole piece, which should always be dealing out to some sinners or other, and would never be cut wholly out till the world had left being. This sample or pattern was but of the extent of a few years; for Paul was but young, the Scripture terms him a young man (Acts 7:58), about thirty-six years of age, yet he calls it all longsuffering. Ah, Paul! some since have experienced more of this patience; in some it has reached not only to thirty, but forty, fifty, or sixty years. 2. Grace. It is partly for the admiration of this grace that God intends the day of judgment. It is a strange place: "When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day" (2 Thessalonians 1:10). It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence (Proverbs 19:11), i.e. it is a manifestation of a property which is an honour to him to be known to have. If it be thus an honour to pass by an offence simply, then the greater the offence is, and the more the offences are which he passeth by, the greater must the glory needs be, because it is a manifestation of such a quality in greater strength and vigour. So it must argue a more exceeding grace in God to remit many and great sins in man, than to forgive only some few and lesser offences. (1) Fulness of His grace. He shews hereby that there is more grace in Him than there can be sin in us or the whole world. That grace should rise in its tide higher than sin, and bear it down before it, just as the rolling tide of the sea riseth higher than the streams of the river, and beats them back with all their mud and filth. It was mercy in God to create us; it is abundant mercy to make any new creatures, after they had forfeited their happiness (1 Peter 1:3). (2) Freeness of grace. None can entertain an imagination that Christ should be a debtor to sin, unless in vengeance, much less a debtor to the worst of sinners. But if Christ should only take persons of moral and natural excellencies, men might suspect that Christ were some way or other engaged to them, and that the gift of salvation were limited to the endowments of nature, and the good exercise and use of a man's own will. Therefore it is frequently God's method in Scripture, just before the offer of pardon, to sum up the sinner's debts, with their aggravations; to convince them of their insolvency to satisfy so large a score, and also to manifest the freeness and vastness of His grace (Isaiah 43:22-24). It is so free, that the mercy we abuse, the Name we have profaned, the Name of which we have deserved wrath, opens its mouth with pleas for us (Ezekiel 36:21). Not for their sakes. It should be wholly free; for He repeats their profaning of His name four times. This name He would sanctify, i.e., glorify. How? In cleansing them from their filthiness (ver. 25). His name, while it pleads for them, mentions their demerits, that grace might appear to be grace indeed, and triumph in its own freeness. (3) Extent of His grace. The mercy of God is called His riches, and exceeding riches of grace. He pardons iniquities for His name's sake; and who can spell all the letters of His name, and turn over all the leaves in the book of mercy? Who shall say to His grace, as He does to the sea, Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further? His exchequer is never empty; "Keeps mercy for thousands" (Exodus 34:7), in a readiness to deal it upon thousand millions of sins as well as millions of persons. He hath a cleansing virtue and a pardoning grace for all iniquities and transgressions (Jeremiah 33:8). (4) Compassion of His grace. The formal nature of mercy is tenderness, and the natural effect of it is relief. The more miserable the object, the more compassionate human mercy is, and the more forward to assist. Now that mercy which in man is a quality in God is a nature. How would the infinite tenderness of His nature be discovered, if there were no objects to draw it forth? Now the greater the disease, the greater is that compassion discovered to be wherewith God is so fully stored. (5) Sincerity anal pleasure of His grace. Ordinary pardon proceeds from His delight in mercy; "Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He retaineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy" (Micah 7:18). If He were not sincere, He would never change the heart of an enemy, and shew kindness to him in the very act of enmity; for the first act of grace upon us is quite against our wills. It is so much His delight, that it is called by the very name of His glory; "The glory of the Lord shall follow thee" (Isaiah 58:8): i.e. the mercy of the Lord shall follow them at the very heels. Christ does not care for staying where He has not opportunities to do great cures, suitable to the vastness of His power (Mark 6:5). 3. Power. The Scriptures make conversion a most wonderful work, and resemble it to creation, and the resurrection of Christ from the dead, etc. What vast power must that be that can change a black cloud into a glorious sun? This and more doth God do in conversion. He doth not only take smooth pieces of the softest matter, but the ruggedest timber full of knots, to plane and show both His strength and art upon. 4. Wisdom. A new creature is a curious piece of Divine art, fashioned by God's wisdom to set for the praise of the framer, as a poem is, by a man's reason and fancy, to publish the wit and parts of the composer. It is a great skill of an artificer, with a mixture of a few sands and ashes, by his breath to blow up such a clear and diaphanous body as glass, and frame several vessels of it for several uses. It is not barely his breath that does it, for other men have breath as well as he; but it is breath managed by art. And is it not a marvellous skill in God to make a miry soul so pure and crystalline on a sudden, to endue an irrational creature with a Divine nature, and by a powerful word to frame so beautiful a model as a new creature is! The more intricate and knotty any business is, the more eminent is a man's ability in effecting it. This wisdom appears — (1) In the subjects He chooseth. We will go no further than the example in our text. Our apostle seems to be a man full of heat and zeal. I say, to turn these affections and excellencies to run in a heavenly channel, and to guide this natural passion and heat for the service and advancement of that interest which before he endeavoured to destroy, and for the propagation of that gospel which before he persecuted, is an effect of a wonderful wisdom; as it is a rider's skill to order the mettle of a headstrong horse for his own use to carry him on his journey. (2) This wisdom appears in the time. As man's wisdom consists as well in timing his actions as contriving the models of them, so doth God's. He lays hold of the fittest opportunities to bring His wonderful providences upon the stage. His timing of His grace was excellent in the conversion of Paul. (a) In respect of Himself. There could not be a fitter time to glorify His grace than when Paul was almost got to the length of his chain; almost to the sin against the Holy Ghost. Christ suffered him to run to the brink of hell before He laid hold upon him. (b) In respect of others. Behold the nature of this lion changed, just as he was going to fasten upon his prey. And was it not a fit time, when the devil hoped to rout the Christians by him, when the high priests assured themselves success from this man's passionate zeal, when the Church travailed with throws of fear of him? (3) This wisdom appears to keep up the credit of Christ's death. The great excellence of Christ's sacrifice, wherein it transcends the sacrifices under the law, is because it perfectly makes an atonement for all sins; it first satisfies God, and then calms the conscience, which they could not do (Hebrews 10:1, 2), for there was a conscience of sin after their sacrifices. Not a light, but a great transgression. Now, if Christ's death be not satisfactory for great debts, Christ must be too weak to perform what God intended by Him, and so infinite wisdom was frustrate of its intention, which cannot, nor ought not, to be imagined. Now, therefore, God takes the greatest sinners, to show — (a) First, the value of this sacrifice. If God should only entertain men of a lighter guilt, Christ's death would be suspected to be too low a ransom for monstrous enormities. (b) The virtue of this sacrifice. He is a "priest for ever" (Hebrews 7:17); and therefore the virtue as well as the value of His sacrifice remains for ever: He hath "obtained an eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12), i.e., a redemption of an eternal efficacy. And those who were stung all over, as well as those who are bitten but in one part, may, by a believing look upon Him, draw virtue from Him as diffusive as their sin. Now the new conversion of men of extraordinary guilt proclaims to the world, that the fountain of His blood is inexhaustible; that the virtue of it is not spent and drained, though so much hath been drawn out of it for these five thousand years and upwards, for the cleansing of sins past before His coming, and sins since His death. (4) For the fruitfulness of this grace in the converts themselves. The most rugged souls prove most eminent in grace upon their conversion, as the most orient diamonds in India, which are naturally more rough, are most sparkling when cut and smoothed. V. The fruits of converting grace, etc. 1. A sense of the sovereignty of grace in conversion, will first increase thankfulness. Converts only are fit to shew forth the praises of Christ (1 Peter 2:9). But suppose a man had been all his lifetime like a mole under ground, and had never seen so much as the light of a candle, and had a view of that weak light at a distance, how would he admire it, when he compares it with his former darkness? But if he should be brought further, to behold the moon with her train of stars, his amazement would increase with the light. But let this person behold the sun, be touched with its warm beams, and enjoy the pleasure of seeing those rarities which the sun discovers, he will bless himself, adore it, and embrace that person who led him to enjoy such a benefit. And the blackness of that darkness he sat in before, will endear the present splendour to him, swell up such a spring-tide of astonishment, as that there shall be no more spirit in him. God lets men sit long in the shadow of death, and run to the utmost of sin, before He stops them, that their danger may enhance their deliverance. 2. Love and affection. The fire of grace cannot be stifled, but will break out in glory to God. God permits a man's sin to abound, that His love after pardon may abound too (Luke 7:47). 3. Service and obedience. Such will endeavour to redeem the time, because their former days have been so evil, and recover those advantages of service which they lost by a course of sin. They will labour that the largeness of their sin may be answered by an extension of their zeal. 4. Humility and self-emptiness. As no apostle was so God-magnifying, so none was so self-vilifying as Paul. Though he was the greatest apostle, yet he accounts himself less than the least of all saints (Ephesians 3:8). 5. Bewailing of sin, and self-abhorrence for it. 6. Faith and dependence. (1) At present, in the instant of the first act of faith. Great sins make us appear in the court of jurisdiction, with a naked faith, when we have nothing to merit it, but much to deserve the contrary (Romans 4:5). The more ungodly, the more elevated is that faith which lays hold on God. (2) In following occasions. Pardoning such great sins, and converting such great sinners, is the best credential letter Christ brings with Him from heaven. Men naturally would scarce believe for His own sake, but for His work's sake they would, because they are more led by sense than faith. For every great conversion is as a sea-mark to guide others into a safe harbour. As when a physician comes into a house where many are sick, and cures one that is desperate, it is an encouragement to the rest to rely upon his skill. If men believe not in Christ after the sight of such standing miracles, it is an aggravation of their impenitence, as much as any miracle Christ wrought upon the earth was of the Jew's obstinacy, and does put as black a dye upon it "Ye, when you had seen it, repented not afterward, that you might believe Him" (Matthew 21:32). Further, such conversions evidence that God's commands are practicable, that His yoke is not burdensome. 1. First, the doctrine manifests the power of the gospel. God gains a reputation to the gospel and the power of Christianity, that can in a moment change persons from beasts to men, from serpents to saints. 2. Groundlessness of despair. Despair not of others, when thou dost reflect upon thy own crimes, and considerest that God never dealt with a baser heart in the world than thine was. Comfort of this subject: If God has made thee of a great sinner the object of His mercy, thou mayest be assured of — (1) Continuance of His love. He pardoned thee when thou hadst an enemy, will He leave thee now thou art His friend? (2) Supplies of His grace. Thou hadst a rich present of His grace sent thee when thou couldst not pray for it, and will He not much more give thee whatsoever is needful when thou tallest upon Him? A wise builder does not begin a work when he is not able to finish it. God considered, before He began with thee, what charge thou wouldst stand him in, both of merit in Christ and grace in thee; so that the grace He hath given thee is not only a mercy to thee, but an obligation on Himself since His credit is engaged to complete it. (3) Strength against corruptions. Can molehills stand against him who has levelled mountains? Can a few clouds withstand the melting force of the sun, which has dissolved those black mists that overspread the face of the heavens? No more can the remainders of thy corruption bear head against His power, which has thrown down the great hills of the sins of thy natural condition, and has dissolved the thick fogs of thy unregeneraey. 1. To those that God hath dealt so with. (1) Glorify God for His grace. (2) Admiration is all the glory you can give to God for His grace, seeing you can add nothing to His essential glory. 2. Often call to mind thy former sin. It hath been the custom of the saints of God formerly. When Matthew reckons up the twelve apos Parallel Verses KJV: This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. |
    |