TH640
Spiritual Warfare
Paper
Three
-
Write
an outline of the book.
-
Write
30 pages interacting with the author’s ideas and giving your
analysis.
A Basic
Outline of The Christian in Complete Armour
Volume
One:
Part
First:
A Sweet and Powerful Encouragement to the Way -page 2
Part
Second
Direction
One-
The Christian Must Be Armed -page 27
Direction
Two-The
Nature of the War and Character of the Assailants
Direction
Three-A
Second Exhortation to Arms & An Argument Encouraging the
Exhortation-page 164
Direction
Four-The
Position to Be maintained in the Fight-page 199
Direction
Five-The
Several Pieces of the Whole Armor of God
First
Piece; The Christian's Spiritual Girdle-page 211
Direction
Six-
The Christian's Breastplate-page 294
Direction
Seven-
The Christian's Spiritual Shoe- page 403
Volume
Two:
Direction
Eight-
4th piece of armor- The Shield of Faith- page 1
Direction
Nine-
5th piece of armor- Helmet of Salvation-page 93
Direction
Ten-
6th piece of armor-Sword of Spirit/Word-page 152
Direction
Eleven-
The Necessary Duty of the Christian as Clothed in the Whole Armor of
God or How Alone the Spiritual Panoply Must Be Kept Furbished-page
223
Direction
Twelve-
The Duty of Every Christian in Complete Armor to Aid by Prayer the
Public Ministers of Christ (cf. Ephesians 6:19-20)
In starting
this 30 page commentary on Gurnall's 'Armor of God' I will stipulate
that initially I wasn't very enthusiastic about the prospect of
slogging through the 1000 pages (approximately) that the author uses
to develop his thesis. He starts with Paul's statement about girding
yourself with truth and putting on the full armor of God to defend
against Satan's attacks, and that girding quote by an author named
Gurnall (gird all) seems a little suspect initially. I wondered if
the author wasn't a little egoistic in his approach or image of
himself as an expository tool of divinity. A good selling point for
girding if your name is Gurnall.
Hereat I am
interpolating a prequel to the start of my commentary on Gurnall's
work. The reason is that I write this quite a while after beginning
the reading of 'Armour of God' and have again changed my opinion
about the nature of Gurnall's work. I will not change what I have
already written, and that forms a history of the problem encountered
for many I would think who read Gurnall today when his language and
settings are very dated. It is not only that they are old or quaint,
its just that many of the situations no longer are experienced by
ordinary people in a sanitized urban environment.
Gurnall has
twelve basic sections as if they were his twelve own verisimilitude
to the twelve disciples. Twelve is a nice number. Number twelve is
the admonition of every Christian in complete armor to pray for an
tithe public ministers, and I suppose Gurnall as author of the twelve
sections must be recognized as a public minister of Christ. I support
a priesthood of believers public ministry in the 21st century so I
differ with Gurnall in that respect (Luther addressed the priesthood
of believer's issue). It is worth noting about the temple of God
criteria for tithing that temple priests were tithed, yet with
abolition of the Temple for Christians when the veil was torn asunder
at crucifixion and with His resurrection the temple of God was
entirely within believers. A priesthood of believers has the temple
of God where the Lord lives within each.
Gurnall's
sentence structure can also be difficult to follow. The sentence are
often long, compound sentences with a preposition disjunct I think
that gives meaning or not to what follows positively or negatively.
One needs to reread the beginning of the sentence sometimes to
determine if he was describing a condition positively or negatively.
I think
Gurnall just wrote about everything he thought about the Bible and
his times and placed it loosely within Paul's Christian armor
paradigm. That's a good armor to defend against calumny of the age at
least, as one sees from page 405 of volume one;
"Had
Christ in his gospel but gratified the cravings of men’s lusts with
a few promises for these things—though he had promised less for
another world—the news would have gone down better with these sots,
who had rather hear one prophecy of wine and strong drink, than [to
hear] preach of heaven itself. Truly, there are but a very few—and
those sufficiently jeered for their pains —that like the message of
the gospel so well as to receive it cordially into their hearts. If
any one does but give entertainment to Christ, and it be known, what
an alarm does it give to all his carnal neighbours! If they do not
presently beset his house, as the Sodomite's did Lot’s, yet do they
set some brand of scorn upon him—yea, make account they have now
reason enough to despise and hate him, how well soever they loved him
before.
O what will
God do with this degenerate age we live in! O England! England! I
fear some sad judgment or other bodes for thee! If such glad tidings
as the gospel brings be rejected, sad news cannot be far off—I
cannot think of less than of a departing gospel. God never made such
settlement of his gospel among any people but he could remove it from
them. He comes but upon liking, and will he stay where he is not
welcome? Who will that hath elsewhere to go? It is high time for the
merchant to pack up and be gone when few or none will buy, nay, when
instead of buying, they will not suffer him to be quiet in his shop,
but throw stones at him, and dirt on his richest commodities. Do we
not see the names of Christ's faithful messengers bleeding at this
day under the reproaches that fly so thick about their ears? Are not
the most precious truths of the gospel almost covered with the mire
and dirt of errors and blasphemies, which men of corrupt minds—set
on work by the devil himself—have raked out of every filthy puddle
and sink of old heretics and thrown on the face of Christ and his
gospel! And where is the hand so kind as to wipe off that which they
have thrown on? the heart so valiant for the truth as to stop these
foul mouths from spitting their venom against Christ and his gospel?
If anything be done of this kind, alas! it is so faintly, that they
gather heart by it."
It is amazing
that Gurnall wrote that about 17th century England. As Dickens said
it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. England's
empire would increase yet England itself would decline and lose its
empire over time, and the United States though not having a formal
empire seems to be a sunset power at its zenith-rather a paradox but
consistent with what Toynbee wrote in His 'Study of History' about
civilization cycles with the Universal phase achieved before the
fall. The U.S.A. may be pursuing a policy of elite's developing a
global plutonomy that will eventually downsize the population after
they are somnafied and willful to be erased...that would be the long
range plan rather than the short term.
I should
reiterate the point that the pre-tribulationists aren't very helpful
at converting the world's people to Christian faith and forward
looking optimism for this world and the next. Even if the population
experiences a managed burn and drops to two billion souls a majority
could still become Christian and the third coming of Christ occur
(his resurrection appearance was the second coming).
I once
sanitized felony files for a state department of corrections in a
non-permanent job. The files were records of cases that had been
closed. One needed to remove staples and other items that would be
problems for the microfilm operator to run the paper through the
machine. The paper files were going to be trashed and the originals
reduced to microfilm. I was prepping the files for microfilming.
So I noticed
the names of the people and the kind of crimes they were convicted
of, though I did not read the files at length (I am a speed reader).
Many of the names were those of celebrities. Society makes it
difficult for people with famous names even if they are not the
original. That's just the way human beings associate things. If one
looks like Clarke Gable they will expect you are rich too and don't
need to work like a regular guy-that would make life difficult. If
your name is that of a famous rock star it might not be helpful. If
your name is {famous author} you might be thought too high,
intellectual or rich or find life challenging especially if you are
not so verbose. One guy named { famous author} was shot through the
heart near a correctional facility by some criminal on parole I
think. I knew a garbage collector at a Texas state office building
named {famous car}. I cannot exaggerate how smelly and noxious the
loading dock area was at 4 a.m. with diesel exhaust from a garbage
truck parked in it with the engine running while it loaded dumpsters.
{Famous car} drove every morning into that environment and inhaled
it-it even bothered one's eyes. It was like a plastic-karma
correction that should follow after people with the same name as the
ultra rich.
Names are
sometimes negatives and sometimes positives in regard to other
meanings of the word. Christopher Walkin starred in 'Dogs of War' and
several other choice roles like a villain in one of the Batman
movies. Hollywood has learned to exploit symbolism too. Perhaps that
was some sort of symbolic Satanic reversal of the author of
'Footprints' life.
Gurnall ends
the second volume with admonishment for Christian duty to pray for
and give (money) to public Christians. That the work Armour of God
concludes with a request for money, following an earlier reference to
Paul as a beggar for his statement of Ephesians in Ephesians 6:19-20
'As for me, that utterance may be given unto me. that I may open my
mouth boldly..." provides some insight for me into the way
Gurnall regarded himself and his career objectives.
There is some
good writing in Gurnall's book though one would need to be a married
monastic living by strict rule to use it well, and one would need to
live without distractions and unplanned interruptions to one's
meditations. it doesn't sound like a bad life to me really, yet it
wouldn't work for sailors very well if on a smaller vessel where
every wave is meaningful and peaceful when not violent yet
distracting from some sorts of academic, spiritual thinking.
Before
continuing on I want to make a substantial quote from page 88. I like
this writing. It takes some of Solomon's paradigm and accentuates it
positively. When Gurnall isn't providing the 96 varieties of prayer
and of faith and countermeasures to the assaults of the enemy upon
the spiritual fortress of the mind where I find it challenging to
follow occasionally, his writing can be good.
From page 88;
"Use First. Is man but frail flesh? Let this humble thee, O man,
in all thy excellency; flesh is but one remove from filth and
corruption. Thy soul is the salt that keeps thee sweet, or else thou
wouldst stink above ground. Is it thy beauty thou pridest in? Flesh
is grass, but beauty is the vanity of this vanity. This goodliness is
like the flower, which lasts not so long as the grass, appears in its
mouth and is gone; yea, like the beauty of the flower, which fades
while the flower stands. How soon will time's plough make furrows in
thy face, yea, one fit of an ague so change thy countenance, as shall
make thy doting lovers afraid to look on thee? Is it strength? Alas,
it is an arm of flesh, which withers oft in the stretching forth. Ere
long thy blood, which is now warm, will freeze in thy veins; thy
spring crowned with May-buds will tread on December's heel; thy
marrow dry in thy bones, thy sinews shrink, thy legs bow under the
weight of thy body; thy eye-strings crack; thy tongue [be] not able
to call for help; yea, thy heart with thy flesh shall fail. And now
thou who art such a giant, take a turn of thou canst in thy chamber,
yea, raise but thy head from thy pillow if thou art able, or call
back thy breath, which is making haste to be gone out of thy
nostrils, never to return more; and darest thou glory in that which
so soon may be prostrate?
Is it wisdom?
The same grave that covers thy body, shall bury all that—the wisdom
of thy flesh I mean—all thy thoughts shall perish, and [thy] goodly
plots come to nothing. Indeed, if a Christian, thy thoughts as such
shall ascend with thee, not one holy breathing of thy soul lost. Is
it thy blood and birth? Whoever thou art, thou art base-born till
born again; the same blood runs in thy veins with the beggar in the
street, Acts 17:26 . All nations there we find made of the same
blood; in two things all are alike, we come in and go out of the
world alike; as one is not made of finer earth, so not resolved into
purer dust."
Gurnall's
approach to the simple analogy of Paul in Ephesians chapter 6 verses
10-18 is sort of like it would be if an ancient Jew took some verse
from the Pentateuch and wrote a 1000 pages of commentary on it. With
so much verbiage it is possible to miss the contextual point of the
scripture itself. There is nothing wrong with all that Rabbinical
commentary if one is living by the law rather than faith,yet if
justification is by faith rather than the law it is not certain that
one should develop a legalistic approach to faith considering all of
the various mental dispositions or permutations and variations of
thought that one might experience as postures of attitude in regard
or belief, unbelief or 50 shades of gray in between.
It is not my
intention to be overly critical of Gurnall's work. yet I believe
people want to be productive and sometimes just relate everything
they can think of on a topic. Composers produce variations on a tone
bar sometimes, and one can elaborate variations and structures with
mathematical complexity forever I suppose returning to the theme, in
this case of salvation, righteousness through the Lord and Faith.
Gurnall is too worried about losing faith and of false faith
sometimes with technical investigations and relations that are
distracting for those that are saved to a certain extent. Peter
denied the Lord of course, yet Jesus had already told him he would do
so, and had also said that Satan could not snatch any Christians from
his hand. The Lord is faster than Satan.
It occurred
to me that Paul may have intended to provide a mnemonic device for
Christians to use as they went through the world. Remembering five
points of Christian armor as they went through the day walking about
the city or village would have been easier than inwardly deliberating
upon innumerable, subtler fine distinctions of varieties of doctrine.
Maybe the five pieces of armor were not intended to be terribly
complex tips-of-the-iceberg of theology kinds of things that would
launch a Christian in some retreat the opportunity to engage in
inward theological debate and investigation. Perhaps the world of
Paul's time was violent and often threatening with few real cures for
medical problems, and life was short. At the time of the French
Revolution the average life span for a Frenchman was 26 years. It was
probably less in the first century A.D. As a Christian with very
different worldly ethics than the overwhelming majority walked
without the usual worldly defenses and devices he or she was not left
defenseless. Instead they could put on the armor of God and look
ahead toward the end of the race where they win the prize of eternal
life with the Lord.
Having just
read Bunyan's 'Holy War' and Brooks's remedies that are two different
styles yet each economically written without fluff or the fatuous
sort of stuffing of issues that I suspect comprises much of Gurnall's
tomes volume one and two, I am a little critically inclined toward
Gurnall.
Armor of God,
volume one, that I opened at random, presented initially what seemed
to be error in a few points. It isn't like imbibing Castor oil or
some unpleasant remedy though, it is just rather theologically sloppy
and stylistically reaching for quantity a little too much. Even
thought the method is less than acute it may become better reading
over time. It is an important topic yet not one that Brooks would
have taken a thousand pages to write. I think Brooks would have got
the work done in maybe 300 pages with a concise order of armor
ensemble assembly.
Even so
Gurnall develops some interesting viewpoints in his work. For
instance says that God is at the bottom of the ladder as well as the
top. I would add that that God in a sense is also the ladder itself
as well as the ground and planet on which it rests. Some sophisticate
might like to imply a Spinozan pantheism in that observation yet its
not a valid criticism. I would venture that if one believes the
Higgs field gives every particle mass that does not mean that
individual particles do not exist as elements in the field or that
the Higgs field is every string, quark lepton or muon. I believe
physicists would call those emergent characteristics from the field.
He compares
Christian action to water in a well that cannot be brought up without
the action of the spirit. So he does maintain a doctrine of grace and
providence acceptable to the reformers. When the King James version
was newly printed it must have been an exciting time in Christendom.
In the first
five pages of volume one Gurnall elaborates a too militarized analogy
of the armor of God. Maybe Gurnall was never in a military yet he
speaks of armies and generals a little more than one would like to
see today. He uses the paradigm of a Roman general returning in
victory to have his parade of victory in Rome and says that the
general could never take his eyes from a courtesan on the street the
entire way. If the victory parade were just 50 feet long it would
have been possible to fix his eyes on her and not remove them. Yet
the parade probable went some distance and unless the courtesan was
jogging along the street beside the chariot she would have quickly
receded into the past. Even so Gurnall says that the general that
could defeat armies was himself defeated by 'a silly woman'.
I hate to
think about modern African theology students reading Gurnall's
accounts of an ancient Rome he never saw in 17th century England.
Like Bunyan he would have been better off writing the secret
histories of the corrupt rulers of his day and how they failed to put
on the armor of God to much better effect. Gurnall's work seems to
improve a little as one moves in it and gets accustomed to his style
of writing. I think many of his examples taken from the world are a
little off and lack the solid foundational logic of the Bible. Yet
his interpretation and treatment of Biblical passages is a bit
worrisome if mildly inaccurate or personalized from his own point of
view too much, and the logic is just not acute. One wants to learn
the right stuff in sound Biblical doctrine rather than ideas and
attitudes inspired by a given circumstantial interpretation of the
Bible.
I appreciate
some of Gurnall's comments such as one must "trust in a
withdrawing God Isa. 50:10" at times. One must trust in the name
of the Lord even if he sees no light and walks in darkness Gurnall
observes. Such opinions are interesting. Yet his idea that one should
wrestle God with prayer in boldness and that some take heaven by
force (of prayer) seems dubiously accurate points constructed from
his ongoing preference for military metaphors. I suppose though that
language must fit the times it is used in, and that subtlety isn't
always appreciated by ordinary social clods of any age. I should say
that I have respect for farmers and don't share an opinion that urban
sophisticates are better sorts of people. On the contrary they may be
environmentally primitives without the sense they could draw even
from nature and living in as natural environment. pave and rave,
pollute and ecosphere loot is more the zeitgeist for perennially
recurrent Nazcar loopiness.
Maybe one day
some modern writer can make a new and improved armor of God kind of
book and use Bill Clinton as an example of how the commander-in-cheap
was defeated by 'that silly woman' or maybe several 'silly women',
and the way the Supreme Court voted for corrupt decisions or how
national Public Radio was a propaganda agency for domestic moral
decay and concentration of wealth and power for plutocracy.
A modern
armor of God presentation would be intellectually challenging to
compose if it were to serve realistic purposes inn today's modern
world. I am not at all confident that Gurnall's version would have
well served people of his own day even, yet I could be wrong about
that.
It is notable
that Paul used economy of writing though one feels that he treated
topic fully. he did not write as if he needed to pad his letters with
chat about Alexander or stories about how few disciples Manny had.
Neither does he inform us much about the inhuman works of Herod the
Great that were the dark underside of his bright and shiny Temple,
Masada and Herodium construction masterpieces. For criticism of
Caesar one must rather rely on the Apostle John's coded Revelation
describing the beast of the Revelation that was Nero.
Well, perhaps
this is enough commentary for day one of my reading. I suppose I will
approach this is something of a journal style with a day by day
commentary-possibly critical, yet Gurnall is tough enough to survive
the commentary being nearly a half millennium dead and safely lined
up for heaven on the resurrection day.
I hope I
don't find much to negatively comment in this journey through the
Armor of God. It isn't Gurnall's fault that he didn't write the books
in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was establishing the new world order
of G.H.W. Bush's vision that would let sin and wealth be centrally
directed on the globe.
Gurnall
mentions that one must get rid of one's most dear and favorite sin
and throw it away. I suppose that I could learn to write in his
effusive style a little, yet it is a temptation that must be avoided
as some sort of sin itself I suppose.
it does bring
me to wonder what my most dear and favorite, beloved sin would be if
I had such a thing. It cannot be anger toward others, or even hate of
the corrupt government that makes justice impossible if or when it
uses its power asymmetrically to economically war on a poor
individual to force him to sell his lem. Hatred is not a pleasure nor
dear or beloved. hatred is not a cool tool of logic and I tend to
vanish it when it is not re-stimulated by the appearance of more
government perfidy broadcast on the satanic airwaves spreading manure
analogously to the world.
So hatred
cannot be a dear pleasurable sin but is instead an unpleasant one
that may cause heart pain. I think that perhaps a better sin prospect
would be entirely imaginary wherein I sky dive from a stolen aircraft
over a skyscraper while the plane on autopilot flies on into the
ocean. On the way down to the top of the 100 story building a burn a
hole in a window with a laser beam filched from a secret government
weapons testing lab, and the release my para-sail in time to fall
into the side window of the penthouse and land standing up. In a few
seconds the beautiful woman held captive by the evil billionaire
plutocrat is captivated by my charm and divulges the location of the
hidden safe with the chip that has code to make the entire world
queer, as well as a billion dollars in cash. I open the safe with
special cracking techniques, grab the woman and a billion dollars in
crisp million dollar bills and jump out the window and open another
para-sail to reach a cigarette boat that will take us to Cuba.
Somewhere in
that imaginary scenario I am sure there are a few hypothetical sins.
Perhaps there is some sort of academic license to conjecture about
what does and doesn't comprise sin, in the abstract, without becoming
a perpetrator of sin. Sins of thought are maybe as bad as sins of
commission. If it is sin to think about adultery or fornication with
some especially seductive, irresistible woman (or courtesan as the
case may be {somewhere there must still be courtesans, perhaps in
politics}), then it may also be sin to think about theft, or property
destruction and so forth.
It might be
that some of the reason that thought can be sin is that thought can
lead to sinful behavior. If one daydreams about cheating the I.R.S.
of taxes as much as one daydreams about earning an average salary
annually, then if one ever did earn an average annual salary one
might possibly cheat the I.R.S. and incur the wrath of bureaucracy
not to mention fuel up Satan's fires of internal combustion of
spirituality that are so destructive to the soul.
Before I
leave the topic of hate-the topic of sin will recur throughout the
books of Gurnall so I am probably not done with that- I would comment
that hate is no more than a rejection of an exteriority (in
existentialist terms). One must hate sin and hate the world's
temptations and love the things of God and the Lord.
Government
today by and for the rich would make hate a crime in-itself and
developed hate as an evil that should be excised from the tool kit of
possible human thoughts. If the government could condition people to
find hate impossible it would be easier to force-feed everyone sin
and hamburger with only 5% meat per serving. It would be easier to
label nationalism as hate of foreigners and a sort of phobia
for-itself. Fo be ya's are conditions to eliminate along with hate
from a citizenry that ought to be as pliable as limp spaghetti to
corporate programming. None should think for themselves, no not one
in the brave new world of sinless feed lot tourism.
Hate as the
rejection of an exteriority is a reasonable subjective thought
status, so long as one can view it with detachment and analytically.
It can be a tool of logic for-itself wherein the individual is
immersed in a social or physical circumstance that requires an
emotional level of response. It is just necessary to keep logical
awareness of the use of hate as a stop-gap response to a challenging
situation.
I have one
example in mind. In 2013 I rowed an inflatable boat-an eight footer,
from Wrangell to Juneau Alaska, a distance of about 150 miles if one
were to travel in a strait line. By the time I had reached the
southern edge of Holkam Bay I had been nearly out of food several
days. The Bay is fairly large and can be difficult to row over. I
planned a tactical crossing from the southern shore.
In 2004 when
I rowed to Juneau I went straight across the Bay entrance after
camping on the southern shore a few days delayed because of bad
weather. The morning I launched the boat it was snowing and the water
was somewhat calm. The waves in the midst of the crossing reached
about 8 feet in height as the wind came up.
An inflatable
boat camp be blown by the wind off course very easily. I risked being
taken by the southern wind down the fairway of Stephens passage.
Since the boat was leaking air from one of the two chambers I had no
interest in delay or being capsized. used the oars to steer the boat
and let the rising wind push it along.
Mid-crossing
an army helicopter passed high overhead and must have seen the boat.
A couple of days later after I made it to the other side a coast
guard helicopter showed up at the camp site and I waved them off not
needing rescue.
Anyway, I
made it to the shore that time, just barely catching the north edge
of the shore, and in 2013 decided to row around an inner part of the
bay being more conservative. This time it was more difficult though
less dangerous.
There are
some islands half way across the bay and somewhat in from the
entrance (it about 3 miles across the bay entrance), and there is a
sand spit that kind of points to them, and on the map there is a
feature called 'whirlpools'. If one had an outboard the whirlpools is
a problem I discovered. It may be very difficult to get through them.
One cannot
approach the sand spit directly from mid-current although along the
shore one can reach it easily I found in 1994. From mid-crossing with
the whirlpool currents being a problem I headed off to the sand spit
and found I couldn't make any progress in that direction either.
Getting to the island through the whirlpools wasn't working either.
It is a strain to row for an hour in this or that direction and get
nowhere in a vain effort to discover how one may travel to where one
wants to go. One develops a hatred of the resistance of the currents
to one's desired course. One develops hatred toward the currents that
won't let one go very far in any direction and that won't allow
access to the islands that at one point are just 200 yards away. Then
the tide changes with larger waves rising and one must still guess
about what way to go and must hate the entire situation to keep one's
adrenalin pumped up and not give up on the rowing.
Even
worse-since before Cape Fanshaw the oarlocks on the zodiac inflatable
were worn out basically and kept working with cut up aluminum cans I
found as detritus on a beach. There was always a strong possibility
that the oars just wouldn't work any more on the journey. Somehow
with hate and prayer I found a way behind one of the islands after
giving up the short, direct course wanted to take. In a few minutes
the fastest current I have encountered took the inflatable as if it
was on a river around the island to the far side closest to the north
shore of Holkam Bay. I camped that night on an island that I had
anchored a sailboat next too for a while in the dark in 2009. It was
a strange experience being without food, eating seaweed and camping
on a shore that I recognized from long ago. It is something like a
time travel experience. I suppose in heaven, where there is no need
to hate any exterior conditions, there may be some experience of time
travel paradoxes though there is not time in the sense that it is
known in the temporal Universe, as a way of experiencing good within
a continuum of the love of God.
I was reading
a book on the nature of poetry and the writer goes over so of the
characteristics of good poetry versus bad-Milton versus Kilmer-that
some critics use to evaluate poetry. He mentioned that the use of
paradoxical language is one device-present in Milton and mostly
absent in Kilmer's 'Trees' that some use. Yet of course poetry cannot
be rated solely in the complexity and subtlety of its method. The
ambient aesthetic satisfaction to the reader is equally important. So
is the sensibility and nature of the insight that a poet provides to
the reader as when, like in a good novel, the reader discovers a
different way to view the world and and insight into the architecture
of the fabric of reality that may not have been within the readers
intellectual content.
The book
regards 17th century metaphysical poets; largely English poets, in
one section. That gives me pause to consider the fact that the 17th
century was a great one for English writers. many of the reformers
wrote in the 17th century. perhaps it was a result of the printing
press and the reformation developing more or less together, yet it
was a great time for some of history's best writers to appear;
Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, Watson, Brooks etc. And they followed
martin Luther, Malanchthon, Erasmus and a host of classical scholars
along with newer ones such as Calvin. Perhaps I am being too critical
with Gurnall, yet he is being contrasted with some of the most
economical and illuminating writers in history, and his technique
stands as a kind of obtuse filter in a line of clear prismatic lenses
letting through the light from the Word of God. it is not that
Gurnall doesn't mean well, it is just that is particular use of the
English language is somehow more bureaucratic as have read so
far-not too far- than the other writers.
There are
some philosophers in the history of Western philosophy that are not
too well known outside professional philosophical circles that were
not terribly influential in their own day and did not write in a way
that would give them some sort of fame throughout history. C.D. Broad
wrote a book called 'The Mind and Its Place in Nature' that is not
often remembered. The last of the scholastics-a theologian named
Duns Scotus, is not often retrieved to contemporary theological
discussions.
Hegel wrote
'Reason in History' and Kant 'A Prolegomena to Any Future
Metaphysics' and Heidegger 'Being and Time' and those sorts of works
will be considered centuries after their composition as example
paradigms for methods of developing intellectual world-views and
paradigmata. The Christian struggle (I would substitute strudel for
struggle in order to avoid the negative connotations of the word made
by the archetype of evil of 1944 yet it would seem silly) to travel
through stages in life's way without detours to sin or accidental
head-on encounters with sin (the irresistible women encounters Ivan
Moneybags) can use some training and pre-conditioning. don't think I
would go too far with mililtary basic training conditioning though as
the military itself is mostly institutionalized sin within a sinful
sin city. The military even in Girnal's day was used for state policy
execution in unjust wars like as not, and too support aims of
territorial expansion, or to repress civil liberty and enforce the
will of tyrants, and occasionally in necessary national or tribal
defense. Paul uses a couple of indirect military allusions, yet his
use of 'armor of God' is itself an alternative spiritual application
of the armor of the material world. Spiritual war is fundamentally
different than material war. Gurnall writes about valor and not being
cowardly a lot at the start of his book, yet the military analogies
contrast rather rudely with Christian virtues of meekness, humility,
patience, long-suffering and faith in the Lord.
Military
virtues differ from spiritual virtues of faith in God. A soldier
might get in to firefights or slaughter vulnerable opposition forces
like fish in a barrel if he can. A soldier should have courage yet
that is a kind of training conditioning one gets within a unit and
peer group of group-think. Criminal gangs, corporations and
bureaucracies have the same sorts of indoctrination with different
respective virtues accentuated for positive feedback and control.
Christians though would disregard the fire and keep focusing upon the
Lord. One can regard Polycarp and Christians thrown to lions in the
Roman Colosseum as examples of disregard of exteriorities that would
challenge them to be just worldly and alter their behavior or faith.
Those Christians certainly had courage to follow through with their
beliefs yet it is a very different sort of resolute courage based on
faith. If one knows that the temporal world is an illusion compared
to the eternal kingdom of God it is easier to go forward with the
ethics required to continue into the kingdom than to deviate because
of fear of temporal threats.
Not to be
flippant here, one finds that Yoda when training young Luke Skywalker
instructed him about not being frightened of his own imaginings and
of other psychological things. I don't recall that Yoda had much to
say about being frightened about exteriorities though-Jedi knights
were supposed to defeat them if they were threats. Christians
alternatively should ignore external spiritual attacks to a certain
extent and let God defeat the wickedness that is the sin-toolkit of
Satan.
Not that
Christians should ignore spiritual dangers such as exist as
exteriorities. There are remedies to external challenges of sin that
can be determined and used to overcome sin. Christians may not always
be able to overcome the temporal world's dangers and threats of one's
interests. Yet the primary interest is in actualizing the will of God
so the sort of things that are dangers are those that detract one
from the spiritual path. perhaps wisdom helps lead one to the right
responses and directions consistent with spiritual progress-a
pilgrim's progress as it were. The Christians dangers are different
than those of a soldier and the responses to and armor from are
different.
Paul's armor
metaphor can only go so far. One doesn't need a Kevlar vest and full
body armor to stop spiritual attacks obviously. One needs the word of
God and the sword of the Holy Spirit to provide the grace to cut
through the Gordian knot of temporality's nexus of sin and webs of
deceit.
Using martial
metaphors for Christian defense brings to mind the entire lexicon of
adjective, adverbs, nouns and verbs to construct a task-force of
defense around the aircraft carrier of the individual Christian that
the Lord sends the Holy Spirit to land on as needed. Like fleet
commander the Lord lives in his own cabin of the heart of the vessel
while the Christian is the boat commander hoping for direction from
the fleet admiral. All of these metaphors are exteriorities to the
serenity of being in the spirit with faith in God.
God is the
only meaningful exteriority. He is the one who created nature and the
Universe, physical laws and forms of being in which Satan's votaries
rampage about liked crazed animals striving for hedonistic purpose.
In the absence of sin all of the created Universe is good, yet
mankind has original sin and the temporal Universe is one in which
consumption of exteriorities to input energy and growth is implicit.
Exteriorities often or perhaps always are others. One has issues in
the social dialectic of ego and philosophy of personal egoism wherein
one fulfills one's desires for exteriority consumption regardless of
the wish of others not to be so consumed. U.S. politics has much of a
disingenuous element of deception about in in which a politician
persuades the public he is for their interest or that his or her
policies are for the good of the people when that is just deception.
The deceits are necessary to consume exteriorities of wealth,
environment and power; redistributing wealth and resource control to
the most rich globally. The politicians must persuade the public that
their way is the only way to prosperity.
Remaining
serene and in the spirit is easier in nature than in artificially
created environments where the entire exteriority is a fabrication
intended to control the user-exteriority. When corporate power
extends outside the franchise store to include the street and
government the public become programmable robot user-units that must
conform or live broke in a tent at some distance ridiculed by the
foreign poor that desire only to be consumer-users in the corporate
environment. Corporate knows and exploits that. Meanwhile God has
constructed and sustains the Universe. Social animals have their day
with sound and fury, strutting about like actors on the global stage,
hams to the last, and some people remain Christian distancing
themselves so far as possible from the planetary indoctrination that
occludes the spirit and the Lord from their ordinary thought.
Christians resist that robbing of their peace and security in the
Lord that is a popular front of aggression today.
Christians
resist the aggression of atheism that seeks to annihilate religion
and replace it with chaos under the control of Supermen and
Superwomen of wealth. It is one thing to argue for religious
tolerance and free thought for all; it is quite another to argue for
atheism and against religion 'freedom from religion' as a new normal.
Such a disposition is confrontational and aggressive-it stimulates
conflict wherever it arises and places millions and even perhaps
billions into the jeopardy of secular war and subjugation to
atheistic dictators and plutocrats. While the atheists dream of world
peace ala John Lennon they structure world conflict in trying to
force the disturbance and reduction of religious faith.
Matters of
conscious and matters of philosophical reflection and religious
conviction are elements of personal liberty in a free society that
should be defended rather than assaulted by thoughtless secular
consumers of exteriorities that wish to consume the total national
religious situation and excrete a pile of atheist futility under
scientific controls.
Certainty
that God exists does create a kind of serenity in knowing that the
absolutely wise and good is in charge of everything ultimately.
However each soul is immersed in a sea of temporal matter tearing him
or her asunder if possible so far as losing sight of the eternal good
God is concerned. it is something of a paradox that God is present
always yet it dimly perceptible at most times as a kind of walk on
player to his show. The pop adventure author Clive Cussler always
writes himself into his book with a one-time appearance in a small
yet critical role. Jesus Christ had a very large role in human
history, yet the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to be just out of the
corner of one's eye, or an ephemeral shadow transiting reality for a
transcendent deity larger than the entirety of the Universe that is
itself something like a will-o-the-wisp apparitious entanglement of
mysterious particle-waves in a mysterious field emanated with
uncertainty from an unknowable meta-set. In the beginning was the
Word.
The temporal
world's reality subjectively overcomes one's own material existence.
It can snatch it in an instant or with long and agonizing cruelty.
The pains and temptations of the world always draw one back from
spiritual concerns to the reality of reality as a temporal fabric in
which the soul is implicitly embedded. The Christian knows that God
has got his 6, and more that his entire mind in its place in nature
are constructions of God. Without God's will that each soul arises to
be and become know one would. No one is a self-cause of their own
being. Even the mind and soul are borrowed in a sense and must be
returned to the Creator of souls eventually for His disposition.
In the second
volume Gurnall continues a piece by piece examination of the armor of
God a Christian should wear in the battle against sin. I thing that
Brooks has much better concision and explanation of the basic
criterion of sin and of remedies to Satan's device than Gurnall. Even
so Gurnall has some interesting writing in going on about the nine
piece ensemble of armor against satanic devices I suppose..
The first 93
pages of the second volume are about just faith as the shield of God
and in the use of faith to repel the 'fiery darts of Satan'. In my
way of thinking thats a lot of prose to remark upon faith in an
overly technical way as if one could inventory the nature and
applications of faith with concision and write about that
exhaustively as if an article was requested by the editors of the
Encyclopedia Britannica on the topic. Perhaps I shouldn't be too
critical of Gurnall on the point. I don't overload my own writing
with scriptural references inevitably-I think that can be a
substitute for theological reasoning although just quoting scripture
without adding some sort of theological point can't do any harm
either.
I am just not
persuaded at all that it is a good idea to approach the issue of
faith from some sort of neo-technical way as if it were
characteristics observable equally for all, nor that such an approach
can provide a good list of various 'flavors' of faith, nor that
anyone would recognize their own faith in Gurnall's categories.
When i was
isolated in Alaska and hungry many years ago I used a small snap trap
to catch squirrels that I'd skin and try to cook. Alaska squirrels
haven't much protein on them and are rather a waste of effort.
Perhaps a little better than mussels on beach rocks, yet not worth it
anyway.
I noticed
that the little critters always stuck their heads in the trap the
same way-and for that matter, mice stick there heads in a trap the
same way most of the time too-rodents being rodents. yet I think that
human psychology is not such an easy to explain item as rodent
behavior. In my humble opinion faith may be deeper and more complex
in its relationships of interiority and exteriority between mind and
God than can be found in the Gurnall exposition. God too enables mind
and mind content too exist in some mysterious way through
pre-destination of its existence, yet to eternal, timeless God all
things are present so the idea of pre-destination as if there was a
temporal time order for God as well as man is dubious, even so mind
content is foreknown to God and so is the presence of faith or not.
Nevertheless faith and the experiences of faith might be written
about in a different way than Gurnall does with equal and some
similar points and cover it rather well. Because of that I think that
Gurnall's method lacks some element of logical rigor that he might
have found with a more discursive style less reliant on developing a
thesis quantitatively.
Gurnall makes
an awful lot of anecdotal examples from the world to illustrate his
ideas about faith of various kinds, and usually with sparse
scriptural references. it seems as if he got an idea for a thesis,
developed an outline and filled in in with sufficient prose writing
to comprise a thousand pages. His approach isn't that of the Summa
Theologica, and it needn't be, yet in comparison to Watson and Brooks
it lacks practical rigor. I am sure that Gurnall was Christian enough
and had true faith yet it is problematic that his books are terribly
effective at bringing a Christian to a brief, concise comprehension
of faith and other facts about being a Christian as the armor of God.
Back in the
day people didn't have too much to read and books were costly. The
development of symbolic logic was centuries away although Leibniz
developed an early version of mathematical logic and didn't publish
it in his life. People and I suppose ministers had much time to read
just one book and might have found Gurnall's methods OK. It was worth
the effort in writing the study yet it does seem a little
opportunistic with far too many anecdotal examples. It is as if I
could put a computer chip in a bald eagle and make it fly a hundred
fifty miles to bring cheap items from Wal-mart here to Wrangell as an
example of faith in the honesty of Wal-mart employees and of the
reliability of eagles with chips. Without a scriptural reference of
support to relate the eagle mission to, is it reasonable to use that
sort of example to prove a Biblical point (as if I had one there)?
It is
possible that the full armor of God might have been a generic or
categorical reference to faith and all things Christian said by the
Lord and the prophets then just a few particular items that may be
enumerated. One might write about such items from numerous approaches
that might be equally valid and even more effective as mnemonics to
help a soul defend against sin and wickedness.
Ephesians
6:11-20 follows chapters 4 and 5 without which a certain amount of
context is lacking. Maybe Paul's writing is just better on the armor
of God point. The armor of God seems like the right clothing for
Christians as ambassadors of God to wear on a mission to the evil of
the age that was then and is still now.
Ephesians
6:10-18
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power
of his might.
11
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil.
12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having
on the breastplate of righteousness;
15
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God:
18
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all
saints;"
Without
the context of chapters four and five the armor of God verses can
easily be given perhaps too much and yet not enough meaning.
Christians have a lot of suffering and challenges in the world that
they may encounter. Paul provides much pastoral elucidation about how
a Christian should live-in-the-world yet not of it. Paul's armor of
God statement is something like that of a pastor reminding the
faithful on Sunday at the conclusion of service that they are about
to enter the mission field. The armor of God is what they should put
on in going about that mission. I believe that Gurnall at least on
the point about faith may get too analytical about it and if a
Christian has it or not-such self-doubts are perhaps not the sort of
thing that people would have such as Paul would be addressing at that
time.
Ephesians
4 "1
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk
worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,2
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one
another in love;
3
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4
There
is
one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your
calling;
5
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6
One God and Father of all, who is
above all, and through all, and in you all.
7
But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of
the gift of Christ.
8
Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity
captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9
(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first
into the lower parts of the earth?
10
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all
heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some,
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ:
13
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ:
14
That we henceforth
be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every
wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and
cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
15
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things,
which is the head, even
Christ:
16
From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
edifying of itself in love.
17
This
I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not
as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
of their heart:
19
Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto
lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20
But ye have not so learned Christ;
21
If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the
truth is in Jesus:
22
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which
is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness.
25
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his
neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27
Neither give place to the devil.
28
Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working
with his
hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that
needeth.
29
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that
which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto
the hearers.
30
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption.
31
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil
speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
I
will provide an example of Gurnall's writing style that makes it
somewhat challenging to follow in an edifying way. Well, it is
edifying basically, yet it is more Gurnall than Biblical. Reading
Gurnall is something of a departure from the clarity of the Bible as
one follows along the somewhat convoluted trails that seem a little
remote at time from scripture.
The
helmet of salvation-just one line in Paul's sixth chapter of
Ephesians, calls Gurnall to issue a vast storm of words generally
about being a Christian in the world and stuffing that into the
helmet of salvation. Following is a quote from pages 148-149;
"Consider
it is possible—I do not mean in the way thou art in, for so it is
as impossible that thou shouldst get to heaven, as it is that God
should be found a liar—but it is possible that thou who art now
without hope, mayest by a timely and vigorous use of the means obtain
a hope of salvation; and certainly a possible hope carries in it a
force of strong argument to endeavour for an actual hope. There is
never a devil in hell so bad but if he had a thousand worlds at his
dispose—and every one better than this we dote on—would exchange
them all for such a may be, yea count it a cheap pennyworth too. It
was but a possibility that brought that heathen king of Nineveh from
his throne to lie grovelling at God’s foot in sackcloth and ashes,
and that king will rise up in judgment against thee if thou dost not
more. For that was a possibility more remote than thine is. It was
spelled out, not from any express promise that dropped from the
preacher to encourage them to humble themselves and turn to the Lord
—for we read of nothing but desolation denounced —but from that
natural theology which was imprinted on their minds. This taught them
to hope that he who is the chief good would not be implacable. But
you have many express promises from God’s faithful lip, that if you
in his tie and way seek unto him, as sure as God is now in heaven,
you shall live there with him in glory. ‘Your heart shall live that
seek God,’ Ps. 69:32 . Yea there are millions of blessed ones now
in heaven experimenting the truth of this word, who once had no more
right to heaven than yourselves now have; and that blissful place is
not yet crowded so full but he can and will make room for you if
indeed you have a mind to go thither. There is one prayer which
Christ made on earth that will keep heaven-gate open for all that
believe on him unto the end of the world. ‘Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their
word,’ John 17:20 . This is good news indeed. Methinks it would
make your souls leap within your breasts, while you sit under the
invitations of the gospel, as the babe once did in Elizabeth’s
womb, upon the virgin Mary’s salutation. Say not then, sinners,
that ministers put you upon impossibilities, and bid you climb a hill
inaccessible, or assault a city that is unconquerable. No; it is the
devil, and thy own unbelieving heart—who together conspire thy
ruin—that tell thee so. And as long as you listen to these
counsellors you are like to do well, are you not?"
Gurnall
finds so many military threats to well being of the Christian and
uses opposite extreme response terms a lot, coward/valor,truth-liar,
craven-faithful etc. as if he took the not lukewarm, but hot or cold
instruction to an extreme in all things with bitter-sweet meats of
things to put on the table of thought in order to serve a hot, rich,
savory stew of insight into the armor of righteousness. In the end he
may be right of course in worrying to death the possibilities of
having his faith hidden behind clouds, fogs and mists of self-deceit
as he pursues sin and that would leave him stranded high and dry when
he lay down to sleep in his grave only to discover a rude awakening
unto sorrow when others are experimenting with happiness in heaven
and he (not really Gurnall but one in the hypothetical position of
being lost in the world and found only upon resurrection to be
destined for perdition) well-set for retirement in eternal hell. The
Gurnall style is just a little distracting.
I
believe that I prefer a more logical, streamlined approach to the
gospel and rely on God's grace for its actualization in life so far
as possible. That works better for me. The power and will of God
transcend interiority and exteriority. One must trust God.
Another example of the style of
Gurnall that seems to contrived, that is not in a disingenuous sense,
rather in just seeming artificial here follows. Quoting from page
380;
"It
is no wonder that he should want matter for his prayer at night, and
trifle in it with impertinences, who did not treasure up what passed
in the day betwixt God and him. Though the minister be not making his
sermon all the week, yet by observing in his other studies what may
be useful for him in that work, he is furnished with many hints that
help him when he goes about it.
Such an advantage the Christian
will find for prayer by laying up the remarkable instances of God’s
providences to him and of his carriage to God again under them; these
will furnish him with necessary materials for the performance. The
bag is filling while the kine are feeding or chewing the cud, and
accordingly yields more plentily when milked at night. Truly thus it
is here. That Christian must needs be most fruitful and plentiful in
his devotions, when he comes to pour out his heart to God in prayer,
that hath been thus filling it all the day with meditations suitable
and helpful to the duty."
It is not plain to me that a
professional, commercial Christian earning a living in a hierarchical
church would benefit from building up items to prayer about all day
before he and his kine milk their intellectual or spiritual banks and
give that up to God in prayer. For some reason I tend to think that
prayer should be more fervent or spontaneous-someone else I read said
that?
I am not a commercial Christian
and support a priesthood of believers reformation of ecclesiastical
order supported and embedded with a number of networking social
structures for attendance, work, loans, emergency services,
counseling and prayer, education and housing. The present structure
seems inefficient, outdated, dwindling and to disregard Luther's
admonishment for a priesthood of believers as the right way for the
church to be. Christians can pray in a number of ways and
circumstances, yet their are probably numerous ways to give tribute
or attention to God, including service I would think. The life of
service of Jesus Christ was a kind of living prayer itself-if prayer
is regarded as consciously trying to implement the will of God as
well as words given to God. For that matter one ought to be able to
intentionally pray without using words at all-just offering an
intentional feeling or awareness unto God.
Getting one's bag full of
spiritual prayer milk is a dated analogy obviously, yet it
illustrates the point that Gurnall writes quite a lot of stuff that
is his own take on things. For 8 stanzas of Ephesians Gurnall wrote a
thousand words of his own detailed manual for operations and that too
technical approach of an individual that wasn't an apostle leaves me
rather cold though I am sure he meant well.
I am not finished with the point
though. Why shouldn't one equally well just pray continuously or try
to be aware of the presence of God continuously rather than saving it
up for a concentrated up-link in the evening? It also makes me wonder
about predestination or pre-determinism involving prayer; has God
pre-destined when and what people will pray about?
In Kenya the Zulu herders would
drink blood from their cattle. I am not sure that ministers as cows
eating grass and chewing their cuds before regurgitating from one of
their stomachs with a prayer connection installed is a good metaphor
today. Cattle in the U.S.A. are moved about from lot to lot and
drugged, fed and slaughtered within two or three years as if they
were plants for harvest. Whenever I ride a bike around the nation I
always sympathize a little with some of the fenced in animals hoping
one could escape and was smart enough to hide out in some deep
brush-moving only at night-so it wouldn't be found until it died of
old age. Of course they never do-they haven't got a prayer.
Gurnall's point of view on the
matters works, yet it is his point of view rather than that of Peter
or Paul's. A thousand pages of Gurnall's point of view is a bit
excessive.
I think I will write my own
brief commentary on the Armour of God in order to contrast it with
Gurnall's.
First,
Paul's paradigm from Ephesians 6"13
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having
on the breastplate of righteousness; 15
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God"
I
believe that to gird means to put on. That is an old English double
meaning of course that probably isn't present in the same way in
Hebrew. Even so a Christian puts on truth that is the gospel of the
Lord. First things first
Secondly
the breastplate of righteousness. If one is in the will of God
following the gospel that is a good, righteous defense against the
main thrust at one's primary center-of-mass target by the enemies of
God.
Shoes
are the third item of armor on the list. I need not point out that
shoes regarded as armor stretch the analogy a little. I suppose shoes
can have metal on them to stop enemy spears or arrows in the feet.
Here I should make an historical aside. In some great battle of Roman
history a legion was in present day Turkey pacifying the Celtic
population. Rather famously they cornered the Celt warriors on a
hill. Celts liked to fight naked, and Roman archers took advantage of
that a little sending flocks of arrows in arching trajectories into
the sky. Though Celts probably had shields to cover the downward
trajectory of the arrows their feet were uncovered an were pinned to
the ground. Though the Celts had pride in their bloody wounds in
battle generally, as they died and were annihilated by the Romans
they might have thought it better to win than to be glorious
sometimes.
Shoes
then can be an item of armor is designed so. Gurnall calls them
spiritual shoes and Paul describes them as shoes preparing the gospel
of peace. I like the idea of spiritual shoes bringing the preparation
of the gospel of peace. With truth of the gospel and righteousness of
grace shoes of spirit bring the preparation of the gospel of peace to
the mission field.
Fourth
is faith. Paul emphasizes faith. Gurnall uses about a 100 pages to
emphasize faith. In reading so much I would tend to forget what it
was that Paul said. Faith in God and in the Lord is the main point.
Faith brings grace and salvation. Amen.
Fifth
is the helmet of salvation. One has a head on one's shoulder in the
temporal world. Salvation and the awareness of salvation brings the
mind content to eternal life with God via the Son. The helmet of
salvation encapsulates the temporal head and its content, quenching
the fiery darts of the wicked; boo-ya!
Sixth
is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. There are two
meanings here that I think are irreducible. One is the gospel of the
Lord. Paul seems to be referring to written words in some way-perhaps
the Quelle source or a general summary of the gospel circulating
amongst churches in his day as well as his letters. verified
communication from Jesus, God and the prophets were referenced here.
That was one meaning. The other reference is to the actual Holy
Spirit;
Genesis
chapter 1; "1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was
light."
The
Gospel according to John chapter 1;"1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.
2
The same was in the beginning with God.
3
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made
that was made.
4
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it
not.
6
¶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John.
7
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all
men
through him might believe.
8
He was not that Light, but was
sent
to bear witness of that Light.
9
That
was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world.
10
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world
knew him not.
11
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons
of God, even
to them that believe on his name:"
"32
And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven
like a dove, and it abode upon him." (Jesus)
From
the Book of Acts chapt 2; "1
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one
accord in one place.
2
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty
wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it
sat upon each of them.
4
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every
nation under heaven.
6
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and
were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own
language.
7
And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold,
are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8
And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia,
and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about
Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the
wonderful works of God.
12
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another,
What meaneth this?
13
Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
14
¶ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and
said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye
that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my
words:
15
For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but
the third hour of the day.
16
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour
out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old
men shall dream dreams:
18
And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those
days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19
And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth
beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
21
And it shall come to pass, that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
So
I think that Paul was referring to the Holy Spirit and the presence
of the Spirit in the world in this era after Pentecost. I will note
that the second coming of Jesus was at the resurrection. If one
doesn't believe that was the second coming of Christ then one must
not belief in the resurrection. When he arrives at the end of the age
of the gentiles-maybe thousands of years from now or next week, that
will be the third coming of Jesus Christ-the final yet renewing act
of Universal history.
The
Christian's Spiritual Shoe
Gurnall
writes about the Christian's spiritual shoe(s) that he is 'to wear in
the field' in the temporal battle against Satan. I think one should
take Gurnall's work as edifying and encouraging writing rather than
as a field training manual (FM) as one might use 'Precious Remedies
to Satan's Devices'. Though Gurnall does have a paradigm of
interpretation for Paul's armor that seems overworked, his writing is
not-it is encouraging even if not exactly well titled.
Yet
the Supreme Court passed forced homosexual marriage upon the United
States and that will probably stimulate many and protracted social
changes such as states vacating marriage and establishing just
contract civil unions for anyone interested while letting religious
marriage go its own way. I believe that is how it is in France.
Otherwise anyone could sue to be free to marry under the liberal and
erroneous interpretation of the constitution, regardless of their
group configuration or number of members of a hypothetical marriage
set. The corruption of secular law is a concern, a rather powerful
one, and Gurnall' writing about being shod with good spiritual ideas
is apropos today. Heaven beyond with God is such a great joy that the
troubles of this world are just not significant. He writes on page
404 of volume one;
"Again,
no ill news can come after the glad tidings of the gospel, where
believingly embraced. God’s mercy in Christ alters the very
property of all evils to the believer. All plagues and judgments that
can befall the creature in the world, when baptized in the stream of
gospel-grace, receive a new name, come on a new errand, and have a
new taste on the believer's palate, as the same water by running
through some mine, gets a tang and a healing virtue, which before it
had not. ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that
dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,’ Isa. 33:24 .
Observe, he doth not say ‘They shall not be sick.’ Gospel grace
doth not exempt from afflictions, but ‘they shall not say, I am
sick.’ they shall be so ravished with the joy of God’s pardoning
mercy, that they shall not complain of being sick. This or any other
cross is too thin a veil to darken the joy of the other good news.
This is so joyful a message which the gospel brings, that God would
not have Adam long without it, but opened a crevice to let some beams
of this light, that is so pleasant to behold, into his soul, amazed
with the terror of God’s presence. As he was turned out of paradise
without it, so he had been turned into hell immediately; for such the
world would have been to his guilty conscience. This is the news God
used to tell his people of, on a design to comfort them and cheer
them, when things went worst with them, and their affairs were at the
lowest ebb, Isa. 7:15; Micah 5:5 . This is the great secret which God
whispers, by his Spirit, in the ear of those only [whom] he embraces
with his special distinguishing love, Luke 10:21; I Cor. 2:12 , so
that it is made the sad sign of a soul marked out for hell, to have
the gospel ‘hid’ from it, II Cor. 4:3 . To wind up this in a few
words, there meet all the properties of a joyful message in the glad
tidings of the gospel."
Gurnall
continues on 404 with; "[The FIVE PROPERTIES of a joyful message
found in the gospel.] Five ingredients are desirable in a message,
yea, must all conspire to fill up the joyfulness thereof into a
redundancy.
First
Property.
A message to be joyful must be good. None rejoice to hear evil news.
Joy is the dilation of the heart, whereby it goes forth to meet and
welcome in what it desires; and this must needs be some good. Ill
news is sure to find the heart shut against it, and to come before it
is welcome.
Second
Property.
It must be some great good, or else it affects little. Affections are
stirred according to the degrees of good or evil in the object
presented. A thing we hear may be so inconsiderable, that it is no
great odds how it goes, but if it be good, and that great also, of
weighty importance, this causeth rejoicing proportionable. The
greater the bell, the more strength is required to raise it. It must
be a great good that raiseth great joy.
Third
Property.
This great good must intimately concern them that hear it. My meaning
is, they must have propriety in it. For though we can rejoice to hear
of some great good befallen another, yet it affects most when it is
emptied into our own bosom. A sick man doth not feel the joy of
another’s recovery with the same advantage as he would do his own.
Fourth
Property.
It would much add to the joyfulness of the news if this were
inauditum or nsperatum—unheard of and unlooked for—when the
tidings steal upon us by way of surprise. The farther our own
ignorance or despair has set us off all thoughts of so great
enjoyment, the more joy it brings with it when we hear the news of
it. The joy of a poor swineherd’s son, who never dreamed of a
crown, would be greater at the news of such a thing conferred on him,
than he whose birth invited him to look for it, yea, promised it him
as his inheritance. Such a one’s heart would but stand level to the
place, and therefore could not be so ravished with it, as another,
who lay so far below such a preferment.
Fifth
Property.
To fill up the joy of all these, it is most necessary that the news
be true and certain, else all the joy soon leaks out. What great joy
would it afford to hear of a kingdom befallen to a man, and the next
day or month to hear all crossed again and prove false? Now, in the
glad tidings of the gospel, all these do most happily meet together,
to wind up the joy of the believing soul to the highest pin that the
strings of his affections can possibly bear.
1.
The news which the gospel hath in its mouth to tell us poor sinners
is good. It speaks promises, and they are significations of some good
intended by God for poor sinners. The law, that brings ill news to
town. Threatenings are the lingua vernacula legis —the native
language of the law. It can speak no other language to sinners but
denunciations of evil to come upon them; but the gospel smiles on
poor sinners, and plains the wrinkles that sit on the law’s brow,
by proclaiming promises.
2.
The news the gospel brings is as great as good. It was that the angel
said, ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy,’ Luke 2:10 . Great
joy it must needs be, because it is all joy. The Lord Christ brings
such news in his gospel as that he left nothing for any after him to
add to it. If there be any good wanting in the tidings of the gospel,
we find it elsewhere than in God, for in the covenant of the gospel
he gives himself through Christ to the believing soul.
Surely
the apostle’s argument will hold: ‘All things are yours and ye
are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,’ I Cor. 3:22, 23 . The
gospel lays our pipes close to the fountain of goodness itself; and
he, sure, must have all, that is united to him that hath that is all.
Can any good news come to the glorified saints which heaven doth not
afford them? In the gospel we have news of that glory. ‘Jesus
Christ, hath brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel,’ II Tim. 1:10 . The sun in the firmament discovers only the
lower world; absignat cælum dum revelat terram—O it hides heaven
from us, while it shows the earth to us! But the gospel enlightens
both at once— ‘Godliness hath the promise of the life that is
now, and of that which is to come,’ I Tim. 4:8 .
3.
The gospel doth not tell us news we are little concerned in—not
what God has done for angels, but for us. ‘Unto you,’ saith the
angel, ‘is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.’ If charity made
angels rejoice for our happiness, surely then, the benefit which is
paid into our nature by it, gives a further pleasure to our joy at
the hearing of it. It were strange that the messenger who only brings
the news of some great empire to be devolved on a person should sing,
and the prince to whom it falls should not be glad. And, as the
gospel’s glad tidings belong to man's nature, not to angels; so in
particular, to thee, poor soul, whoever thou art, that embracest
Christ in the arms of thy faith. A prince is a common good to all his
kingdom —every subject, though never so mean, hath a part in
him—and so is Christ to all believers. The promises are so laid
that, like a well-drawn picture, they look on all that look on them
by an eye of faith. The gospel’s joy is thy joy, that hast but
faith to receive it.
4.
The glad tidings of the gospel were unheard of and unlooked for by
the sons of men. Such news it brings as never could have entered into
the heart of man to conceive, till God unlocked the cabinet of his
own good pleasure, and revealed the counsel of his will, wherein this
mysterious price of love to fallen man lay hid far enough from the
prying eye of the most quick- sighted angel in heaven, much more from
man himself, who could read in his own guilty conscience within, and
spell from the covenant without, now broken by him, nothing but his
certain doom and damnation. So that the first gospel-sermon preached
by God himself to Adam, anticipated all thoughts of such a thing
intended to him. O who but one that hath really felt the terrors of
an approaching hell in his despairing soul, can conceive how joyous
the tidings of gospel mercy is to a poor soul, dwelling amidst the
black thoughts of despair, and bordering on the very marches of the
region of utter darkness! Story tells us of a nobleman of our nation,
in King Henry VIII.’s reign, to whom a pardon was sent a few hours
before he should have been beheaded, which, being not at all expected
by him, did so transport him that he died for joy. And if the vessel
of our nature be so weakly hooped that the wine of such an inferior
joy breaks it, how then could it possibly be able to bear the full
joy of the gospel tidings, which doth as far exceed this as the mercy
of God doth the mercy of a mortal man, and as the deliverance from an
eternal death in hell doth a deliverance from a temporary death,
which is gone before the pain can well be felt?
5.
The glad tidings of the gospel are certainly true. It is no flying
report, cried up today, and liked to be crossed tomorrow—not news
that is in every one’s mouth, but none can tell whence it came, and
who is the author of it; we have it from a good hand —God himself,
to whom it is impossible to lie. He from heaven voucheth it—‘This
is my beloved Son: hear him,’ Luke 9:35 . What were all those
miracles which Christ wrought but ratifications of the truth of the
gospel? Those wretches that denied the truth of Christ’s doctrine,
were forced many times to acknowledge the divinity of his miracles,
which is a pretty piece of nonsense, and declares the absurdity of
their unbelief to all the world. The miracles were to the gospel as
seals are to a writing. They could not deny God to be in the
miracles, and yet they could not see him in the doctrine! As if God
would set his seal to an untruth! Here, Christians, is that which
fills up the joy of this good news the gospel brings—that we may
lay our lives upon the truth of it. It will never deceive any that
lay the weight of their confidence on it. ‘This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners,’ I Tim. 1:15 . This bridge which the
gospel lays over the gulf of God's wrath, for poor sinners to pass
from their sins into the favour of God here, and [into the] kingdom
of God hereafter, is supported with no other arches than the wisdom,
power, mercy, and faithfulness of God; so that the believing soul
needs not fear, till it sees these bow or break. It is called the
‘everlasting gospel,’ Rev. 14:6 . When heaven and earth go to
wreck, not the least iota or tittle of any promise of the gospel
shall be buried in their ruins. ‘The word of the Lord endureth for
ever; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you,’
I Peter 1:25 ."-end quote
To
a certain extent people don't really understand how messed up they
are inn regard to sin and God. Gurnall helps explain that point
around page 416 in writing about the meaning of the gospel. He has
made a very important theological point at that page and it brought
me to think a little more about the crucifixion and a couple of
related issues.
Jesus
had told Peter that he would deny him thrice before the cock crowed
and of course he did. Yet Peter almost necessarily had to in order
not to have some sort of pride. Pride Gurnall explains is very deadly
for a Christian and for human beings generally because they have
nothing to be proud about in regard to God. God hates sin and all
people are sinners with original and subsequent sin, thus God hates
people because of their sin though he would in theory love them if
they had no sin.
In
the Old Testament God seems to count some faith and following divine
commands as righteousness here and there, yet the prophets and people
that were in some way acceptable to God had some sort of dispensation
that has since tightened up. People can only be saved through faith
in Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice was the proximal, necessary
act enabling humans of faith to be saved and their sin debt relieved.
If
Peter was ashamed of his denials of the Lord the night of the trail
and morning of the crucifixion he certainly made up for that later in
being senior elder of the Church at Jerusalem for a time. Though
people speculate that he made it to Rome and was crucified there
nothing is said of his being Pope. In the chaos of the tribulation of
the a.d. 60's the churches were well served with independent local
leaders.
The
crucifixion of the Lord ended the Temple worship era. God had lived
in the temple in a way. It was the place specially appointed by him
through David to be a place were he could live instead of in a tent.
God had a kind of Yurt or tent where the ark of the covenant was kept
before the Temple was built. When Jesus was crucified and resurrected
the old Temple was destroyed along with living by the old laws
primarily. The new temple was the body of believers individually and
corporately. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you and God had
told Jeremiah that his laws would one day be written on the hearts
and minds of believers. That all came together with the death and
resurrection of the Lord where the laws of God are written on the
hearts and the spirit of God lives.
With
the end of the Temple at Jerusalem era the tithing of temple priests
ended to. martin Luther believed in a priesthood of believers yet the
formalities of a modern church structure of an egalitarian priesthood
of all Christians with perhaps beginner, intermediate and elder ranks
have never been worked out. Instead people follow the old Temple
priesthood hierarchical style not only in catholic churches but also
in Protestant..
I
think that Peter-Cepheus as the rock was told by Jesus that he would
be the rock on which the church was built was treated by the Lord as
might an intelligent first-responder direct one person individually
in a crowd to go get help, in order to actually get someone to move.
Peter was the first of billions of Christians to be an elder in the
new priesthood of believers that are all Christians. Billions more
would follow yet there is no recognizable or commensurate church
structure existing for them to act out their lives as serving
Christians.
the
catholic church easily misunderstood the situation of peter and
thought he was the first of a new hierarchical church structure
rather like that of the old Temple era although with a professional
class eventually emerging rather than annually serving amateurs. In
that respect even the tribe of Levites was a more egalitarian
priesthood than todays Christian churches.
Pride
is a deadly sin for human beings because they cannot do anything at
all to pay their sin debt to God and are entirely reliant upon the
Lord for that payment. Paul really meant it when he said that all are
saved through grace that none might have pride. Pride is a deception
to anyone-especially for a Christian in regard to his status for
eternity. If he or she goes to heaven with their debts forgiven it
isn't through any sort of merit at all. People are dust and to dust
they return, except then follows a judgment and the unsaved have an
eternity in hell unable to pay off their sin debt. Pride may bring
billions to make the wrong temporal choices especially involving
failing to accept the Lord as their savior from sin and sin debt.
So
with modern computers and telecommunications it ought to be really
easy to work out the creation of a priesthood of believers church
structure and support networking with appropriate skill levels,
rolls, attendance record transferred globally and on-line with skill
levels reached. It is remarkable that people don't put any effort
into what seems to me to be an obvious right reform.
Then
of course people also misunderstand eschatology and think that Jesus
is coming for a second time after a tribulation, when the reverse
order has already occurred in the first century; Jesus was crucified,
and was resurrected to appear in his second coming followed 30-40
years later by a tribulation in which Jerusalem was destroyed and
Peter and Paul with thousands of others martyred.
Jesus
will appear a third time at the end of the age of the gentiles when
the world will be at a majority of Christians status. I don't think
anyone can tell what circumstances will precede that well enough to
forecast exactly when it will be. Maybe world plutocrats will bring
the world population to crash down to 2 billion so the rich can have
a sustainable world economy to live in comfort in. They may just
decide have decided that sustaining more than the 1% isn't
practical. Maybe survivors will populate the moon and Mars and the
inner solar system will have ten billion people living someday that
will preponderantly become Christians and then Jesus will arrive. It
is hard to predict the future when only general prophetic parameters
were provided.
I
think I will quote Gurnall on his brilliant piece of theology of the
Christian condition.
Lengthy
Quote of a Pretty Strong Theology Point
Quote
from Vol. 1 page 416-417; "[Particular reasons why God adopts
the method of reconciliation by the gospel]
Reason
First.
God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ,
that he might give the deepest testimony of his perfect hatred to sin
in that very act wherein he expresseth the highest love and mercy to
sinners. no act of mercy and love like that of pardoning sin. To
receive a reconciled sinner into heaven is not so great an advance as
to take a rebel into a state of favour and reconciliation. The terms
here are infinitely wider. There is reason to expect the one, none to
look for the other. It is pure mercy to pardon, but truth, being
pardoned, to save, Micah 7:19, 20. Well, when God puts forth this
very act, he will have the creature see his hatred to sin written
upon the face of that love he shows to the sinner.
And
truly this was but needful, if we consider how hard it is for our
corrupt hearts to conceive of God's mercy without some dishonorable
reflection upon his holiness. 'I kept silence,' saith God, Ps. 50-21.
And what inference doth the wicked draw from thence? 'Thou thouhtest
that I was altogether such an one as thyself,' that is, 'thou
thoughtest I liked sin as well as thyself.' Now if so plain and easy
a text as God's forbearing mercy be wrested, and a false gloss, so
repugnant, not only to the end of God therein, but to the holy nature
of God imposed, how much more subject is forgiving mercy-that is so
far superlative to that, and infinitely more luscious to the sinner's
palate-to be abused? Some men gaze so long on this pleasing object
that they are not willing to look off, and see any other attribute of
God. Now in this way of reconciling himself to sinners by Christ, he
hath given such an argument to convince sinners that he is an
implacable hater of sin, as hath not its fellow. it is true, every
threat in the Bible tells us that sin finds no favor in God's heart;
the guilty consciences of me, that hunt them home, and follow them
into their own bosoms, continually yelling and crying damnation in
their ears; the remarkable judgments which now and then take hold of
sinners in this world; and much more the furnace which is heating for
them in another world show abundantly how hot and burning God's heart
within him in wrath against sin. but, when we see him run upon his
Son, and lay the envenomed knife of his wrath to his throat, yea,
thrust it into his very heart, and there let it stick-for all the
supplications and prayers which in his bitter agonies he offered up
to his Father, 'with strong crying and tears'-without the least
sparing of him, till he had forced his life, in a throng of sad
groans and sighs, out of his body, and therewith paid justice the
full debt, which he had, as man's surety, undertaken to
discharge-this, this I say, doth give us a greater advantage to
conceive of God's hatred to sin, than if we could stand in a place to
see what entertainment the damned find in hell, and at once behold
all the torments they endure. Alas! their backs are not broad enough
to bear the whole weight of God's wrath at once-it being infinite and
they finite, which, if they could, we would not find them lying in
that prison for non-payment. But behold one here who had the whole
curse of sin at once upon his back. Indeed their sufferings are
infinite extensive-extensively, because everlasting; but his were
infinite intensive- intensively. He paid in one sum what they shall
be ever paying, and yet never come to the last farthing of. 'The
chastisement of our peace was upon him,' Isa. 53-5, 'the Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all,' ver. 6. Or [as it is in the
margin], 'he hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in him,' The
whole curse met in him, as all streams do in the sea-a virtual
collection of all the threatenings denounced against sin, and all
laid on him. And now, take but one step more, and consider in how
near relation Christ stood to God, as also the infinite and
unspeakable love with which this relation was filled, and mutually
endeared on each hand, and this at the very same time when he
ascended the stage for this bloody tragedy to be acted on him in;
and, I think, that you are at the highest stair the word of God can
lead you to ascend by, into the meditation of this subject.
Should
you see a father that has but one only son, and can have no more,
make him his mittimus to prison; come into court himself, and sit
judge upon his life; and with his own lips pass sentence of death
upon him, and order that it be executed with the most exquisite
torments that may be, yea, go to the place himself, and with his own
eyes, and those not full of water, as mourning for his death, but
full of fire and fury- yea, a countenance in every way so set as
might tell all that see it, the man took pleasure in his child's
death;-should you see this, you would say, Surely he bitterly hates
his son, or the sin his son hath committed. This you see in God the
Father towards his Son. It was he, more than men or devils, that
procured his death. Christ took notice of this, that the warrant for
his death had his Father's hand and seal to it. 'Shall I not drink of
the cup my Father gave me?' Yea, he stands by and rejoiceth in it.
His blood was the wine that made glad the heart of God-'it pleased
the Lord to bruise him,' Isa. 53:10 When God corrects a saint he doth
it, in a manner, unwillingly; but when Christ suffers, it pleaseth
him; and not this from want of love in his heart to Christ, nor that
any disobedience in Christ had hardened his father's against him -
for he never displeased him-but from that hatred he had to sin, and
from zeal to exalt his mercy towards sinners, by satisfying his
justice on his Son.
Reason
Second.
God effected our peace by Christ, that he might for ever hide pride
from his saints’ eyes. Pride was the stone on which both angels and
men stumbled and fell. In man’s recovery, therefore, he will roll
that stone, as far as may be, out of the way—he will lay that knife
aside with which man did himself the mischief. And that he may do
this, he transacts the whole business by Christ for them. Man’s
project was to cut off the entail of his obedience to God, and set up
for himself as a free and absolute prince without holding upon his
Maker. A strange plot! for to effect this he must first have thrown
away that being which God gave him, and, by self-creation—if such a
thing had been possible — have bestowed a new one upon himself;
then, indeed, and not till then, he might have had his will. But
alas! his pride to be what he could not lost him what he had, and
still might have, enjoyed. Yet how foolish soever it now appears and
infeasible, that was the plot pride had sprung into man’s heart.
Now, God, to preserve his children from all future assaults and
batteries of hell at this door, chose such a way of reconciling and
saving them, that, when the prince of the world comes to tempt them
to pride, he should find nothing in them to give the least
countenance or colour to such a motion; so that, of all sins, pride
is such a one as we may wonder how it should grow, for it hath no
other root to bear it up but what is found in man's dreaming fancy or
imagination. It grows, as sometimes we shall see a mushroom or moss,
among stones, where little or no soil is for its root to take hold
of. God, in this gospel way reconciling sinners by Christ, makes him
fetch all from without doors. Wilt thou, poor soul, have peace with
God? Thou must not have it from thine own penance for thy sins. ‘The
chastisement of our peace was upon him;,’ Isa. 53:5 . O know thou
art not thy own peacemaker! That is Christ’s name, who did that
work: ‘for he is our peace, who hath made both one,’ Eph. 2:14
—Jew and Gentile one with God, and one with one another. Wouldst
thou be righteous? Then thou must not appear before God in thy own
clothes. It is another’s righteousness, not thy own, that is
provided for thee. ‘Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I
righteousness,’ Isa. 45:24 . In a word, wouldst thou ever have a
right in heaven’s glory? Thy penny is not good silver to purchase
it with. The price must not come out of thy purse, but Christ’s
heart; and therefore, as it is called the ‘purchased possession,’
in regard of Christ —because he obtained it for us with a great
sum, not ‘silver and gold,’ but his ‘precious blood’— so
‘an inheritance’ in regard of us, because it descends upon us as
freely as the father’s estate on his child, Eph. 1:14 . And why all
this, but that the ‘lofty looks’ of man may be ‘humbled,’ and
the ‘haughtiness of man’ should be ‘bowed down, and the Lord
alone exalted’ in the day of our salvation?
The
manna is expounded by Christ himself in a type of him: ‘The bread
of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the
world,’ John 6:33. Now observe wherefore God chose that way of
feeding them in the wilderness: ‘Who fed thee in the wilderness
with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,’
Deut. 8:16 . But wherein lay this great humbling of them? Were they
not shrewdly humbled think you, to be fed with such a dainty dish,
which had God for its cook, and is called ‘angels’ food’ for
its delicacy? Ps. 78:25 —such, that if they needed any repast,
might well suit their table. I answer, it was not the meanness of the
fare, but the manner of having it, which God intended should humble
them. Man is proud, and loves to be his own provider, and not stand
to another’s allowance. The same feast sent in by the charity and
bounty of another, will not go down so well with his high stomach as
when it is provided at his own cost and charges; he had rather have
the honour of keeping his own house, though mean, than to live higher
upon the alms and allowance of another’s charity. This made them
wish themselves at their onions in their own gardens in Egypt, and
their flesh-pots there, which though they were grosser diet, they
liked better, because bought with their own penny."
