Solus Christus Reformed Baptist Church

Notwithstanding this double fence of God's command and preventive afflictions, yet sin is too hard for the best of men; their corruptions carry them through all to sin. And when it is so, not only does the Spirit work internally, but Providence also works externally in order to subdue them. The ways of sin are not only made bitter to them by the remorse of conscience, but by those afflictive rods upon the outward man, with which God also follows it.

I think that John in this passage meant, and we will consider him as meaning, something more— namely, he would have us know that we personally have eternal life by having us know that we do personally believe in Jesus. It is one thing to know that every believer has eternal life; but it is quite another thing to know that I am a believer so as to have eternal life myself. I have read of one who fell into the water, and as he was sinking he saw a rainbow in the sky above him. "Ah," thought he, "God has made a covenant not to destroy the earth with a flood, and yet it is no comfort to me, for I fear I shall be drowned." The largest provisions of grace avail us nothing unless we have a personal interest in them. It is true that every believer has eternal life, but what if I am not a believer?

My present business is, to exhort others unto the contemplation of it, though it be but a little, a very little, a small portion of it, that I can conceive; and less than that very little that I can express. Yet may it be my duty to excite not only myself, but others also, unto due inquiries after it; unto which end I offer the things ensuing. 1. Labour that your minds may continually be fitted and prepared for such heavenly contemplations.

Legh Richmond was born at Liverpool, on January 29, 1772, where his father, Dr. Henry Richmond, practiced as a physician; his mother was an estimable woman, of superior mind and acquirements. To the extent of her religious knowledge, she taught him, and she especially encouraged him in reading the Scriptures. Thus was laid the foundation of those clear views of Divine truth which afterwards distinguished him as a minister of Christ. Richmond wrote, The Dairyman's Daughter," which is narrated and uploaded here on this site.

He it is in whom our nature, which was debased as low as hell by apostasy from God, is exalted above the whole creation. Our nature, in the original constitution of it, in the persons of our first parents, was crowned with honour and dignity. The image of God, wherein it was made, and the dominion over the lower world wherewith it was intrusted, made it the seat of excellence, of beauty, and of glory.

If we were heartily devoted to our work, it would be done more vigorously, and more seriously, than it is by the most of us. How few ministers do preach with all their might, or speak about everlasting joys and everlasting torments in such a manner as may make men believe that they are in good earnest! It would make a man's heart ache, to see a company of dead, drowsy sinners sitting under a minister, and not hear a word that is likely to quicken or awaken them.

All light into, all perceptions of this glory, all experience of its power, was, amongst the most, lost in the world. I intend, in all these instances the time of the papal apostasy. Those who had the conduct of religion could discern no glory in these things, nor obtain any experience of their power. Be the worship what it will, they can see no glory in it, nor did it give any satisfaction to their minds; for having no light to discern its glory, they could have no experience of its power and efficacy.

It is the great plea of the {Catholic Church} at this day, in behalf of their transubstantiation, that, if we reject their oral or carnal manducation of the flesh of Christ and drinking of his blood, there cannot be assigned a way of participation of Christ, in the receiving of him in this sacrament, distinct from that which is done in the preaching of the word. But hereby, as we shall see, they only declare their ignorance of this heavenly mystery. But of this blessed, intimate communion with Christ, and participation of him in the divine institution of worship, believers have experience unto their satisfaction and ineffable joy.

Whereas a head is to be present with the body, or it cannot subsist, the inquiry is, How the Lord Christ is so present with his church! And the Scripture hath left no pretense for any hesitation herein; for he is so by his Spirit and his word, by which he communicates all the powers and virtues of a head unto it continually. His promises of this way and manner of his presence unto the church are multiplied; and thereon doth the being, life, use, and continuance of the church depend. Where Christ is not present by his Spirit and word, there is no church; and those who pretend so to be, are the synagogues of Satan.

From the standpoint of the redeemed, the punishment of the wicked is an act of unspeakable mercy. How dreadful would it be if the present order of things, when the children of God are obliged to live in the midst of the children of the Devil, should continue forever! Heaven would at once cease to be Heaven, if the ears of the saints still heard the blasphemous and filthy language of the reprobate. What a mercy that in Heaven, "Nothing evil will be allowed to enter—no one who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life!" (Revelation 21:27)

Oh what a constant companion, what a tyrannical commander, what a sly and subtle insinuating enemy, is this sin of pride! It goes with men to the draper, the mercer, the tailor: it chooseth them their cloth, their trimming, and their fashion. Fewer ministers would ruffle it out in the fashion in hair and habit, if it were not for the command of this tyrannous vice. And I would that this were all, or the worst. But, alas! how frequently doth it go with us to our study, and there sit with us and do our work!

One of the most flagrant sins of our age, is that of irreverence—the failure to ascribe the glory which is due to the august majesty of God. Men limit the power and activities of the Lord in their degrading concepts of His being and character. Originally, man was made in the image and likeness of God—but today we are asked to believe in a god who is made in the image and likeness of man! The Creator is reduced to the level of the creature! His omniscience is called into question, His omnipotency is no longer believed in, and His absolute sovereignty is flatly denied. Men claim to be the architects of their own fortunes and the determiners of their own destiny. They know not that their lives are at the disposal of the Divine Determiner. They know not they have no more power to thwart His secret decrees—than a worm has to resist the tread of an elephant!

How can the sinner be held responsible for the doing of what he is unable to do? And how can he be justly condemned for not doing what he could not do? As a creature the natural man is responsible to love, obey, and serve God; as a sinner he is responsible to repent and believe the Gospel. But at the outset we are confronted with the fact that natural man is unable to love and serve God, and that the sinner, of himself,

3.  How is it possible for God to decree that men should commit certain sins, hold them responsible in the committal of them, and adjudge them guilty because they committed them? Let us now consider the extreme case of Judas. We hold that it is clear from Scripture that God decreed from all eternity that Judas should betray the Lord Jesus.

As the heir of the promise, Isaac remains with his father Abraham, while Ishmael is forming camps of his own in the wilderness.

All the whole gracious name of God, every title that he hath given himself, every ascription of honour unto himself that he hath owned, is confirmed unto us (unto as many as believe) in Jesus Christ. For as he hath declared unto us the whole name of God, John 17:6, so not this or that promise of God, but all the promises of God are in him yea and amen.

Abraham's two sons are declared by Paul to be the types of two races of men, who are much alike, and yet widely differ. They are unlike in their origin. They were both sons of Abraham; but Ishmael, the child of Hagar, was the offspring of Abraham upon ordinary conditions: he was born after the flesh. Isaac, the son of Sarah, was not born by the strength of nature; for his father was more than a hundred years old, and his mother was long past age. He was given to his parents by the Lord, and was born according to the promise through faith. This is a serious distinction, and it marks off the true child of God from him who is only so by profession. The promise lies at the bottom of the distinction, and the power which goes to accomplish the promise creates and maintains the difference. Hence the promise, which is our inheritance, is also our test and touchstone.

It is evident that God, by the prescription of a worship unto sinners, doth fully declare that there is forgiveness with him for them; for,— (1.) He manifests thereby that he is willing to receive a new revenue of glory from them. This, as we have proved, is the end of worship. This he would never have done but with a design of accepting and rewarding his creatures; for do we think that he will be beholding unto them?

The giving and establishing of the new covenant another evidence of forgiveness with God—The oath of God engaged in the confirmation thereof. Notwithstanding the blessed constitution of the first covenant, yet there was no provision for the pardon of sin, no room or place for forgiveness in it; but on supposition that man sinned, he was in that covenant left remediless. God had not in it revealed that there was any such thing as forgiveness with him; nor had any sinner the least hope or grounds of expectation from thence of any such thing in him. Die he must, and perish, and that without remedy or recovery. "Now," saith God, "this must not be. Mercy, goodness, grace, require another state of things.

The redeemed have all from the grace of God. It was of mere grace that God gave us his only-begotten Son. The grace is great in proportion to the excellency of what is given. The gift was infinitely precious, because it was of a person infinitely worthy, a person of infinite glory; and also because it was of a person infinitely near and dear to God. The grace is great in proportion to the benefit we have given us in him. The benefit is doubly infinite, in that in him we have deliverance from an infinite, because an eternal, misery, and do also receive eternal joy and glory. The grace in bestowing this gift is great in proportion to our unworthiness to whom it is given; instead of deserving such a gift, we merited infinitely ill of God's hands.

In the sanctification of believers, the Holy Ghost doth work in them, in their whole souls, their minds, wills, and affections, a gracious, supernatural habit, principle, and disposition of living unto God; wherein the substance or essence, the life and being, of holiness doth consist. This is that spirit which is born of the Spirit, that new creature, that new and divine nature which is wrought in them, and whereof they are made partakers.

From Volume Three on the Holy Spirit - 1674 2. There is yet another part or effect of our sanctification by the Holy Ghost, which consisteth in and is called mortification of sin. As what we have already insisted on concerneth the improvement and practice of the principle of grace, wherewithal believers are endued; so what we now propose concerneth the weakening, impairing, and destroying of the contrary principle of sin, in its root and fruits, in its principle and actings.

This is taken from the Christian in Completer Armor

Afflictions have in them some token of God's displeasure against sin, which those who are exercised by them are led by the consideration of unto a fresh view of the vileness of it; for although afflictions are an effect of love, yet it is of love mixed with care to obviate and prevent distempers. Whatever they are else, they are always chastisements; and correction respects faults.

Whereas the spring and fountain of all the pollution of sin lies in the depravation of the faculties of our natures, which ensued on the loss of the image of God, he renews them again by his grace, Tit. iii. 5. Our want of due answering unto the holiness of God, as represented in the law, and exemplified in our hearts originally, is a principal part and universal cause of our whole pollution and defilement by sin.

Charles Bridges on Psalm 119, from C. H. Spurgeon's Commenting. "Worth its weight in gold. Albeit that the work is neither learned nor very original we prize it for its surpassing grace and unction."

It is our deep conviction that the vital question most requiring to be raised today is this: Is man a totally and thoroughly depraved creature by nature? Does he enter the world completely ruined and helpless, spiritually blind and dead in trespasses and sins? According as is our answer to that question, so will be our views on many others. It is on the basis of this dark background that the whole Bible proceeds.

Man is not now as God made him. He has lost the crown and glory of his creation, and has plunged himself into an awful gulf of sin and misery. By his own perversity he has wrecked himself and placed a consequence of woe on his posterity. He is a ruined creature as the result of his apostasy from God.

This work of sanctification differs from that of regeneration, as on other accounts, so especially on that of the manner of their being wrought. The work of regeneration is instantaneous, consisting in one single creating act. Hence it is not capable of degrees in any subject. No one is more or less regenerate than another; everyone in the world is absolutely so, or not so, and that equally, although there are degrees in their state on other reasons. But this work of sanctification is progressive, and admits of degrees. One may be more sanctified and more holy than another, who is yet truly sanctified and truly holy.

Chapter One of Book 4 Volume 3 of John Owen's Works. It is holiness that keeps up a sense of peace with God, and prevents those spiritual breaches which the remainders of our enmity would occasion. Hence God, as the author of our peace, is the author of our holiness. God, even God himself, the God of peace, doth sanctify us. How this is done immediately by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of love and peace, and wherein the nature of this work consists.

All creatures serve man, by the providential order of God, with the best they have. As we, by God's appointment, receive from creatures the best they can give, ought we not with a free will render to God the best we can offer? The beasts give us their best fat, the trees their best fruit, the sun its best light, the fountains their best streams: shall God order us the best from creatures, and we put him off with the worst from ourselves

The doctrine of God's sovereignty, as it is unfolded in the Scriptures, affords an exalted view of the Divine perfections. It maintains His rights as a Creator. It insists that "to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him" (1 Corinthians 8:6). It declares that His rights are those of the "potter" who forms and fashions the "clay" into vessels of whatever type and for whatever use He may please. Its testimony is, "You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created" (Revelation 4:11). It argues that none has any right to "reply" against God, and that the only befitting attitude for the creature to take is one of reverent submission before Him. Thus the apprehension of the absolute supremacy of God is of great practical importance, for unless we have a proper regard to His high sovereignty He will never be honored in our thoughts of Him; nor will He have His proper place in our hearts and lives.

Without the heart it is no worship; it is a stage-play, an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us; a hypocrite, in the notion of the word, is a stage-player. We may as well say a man may believe with his body as worship God only with his body. Faith is a great ingredient in worship, and it is 'with the heart man believes unto righteousness,' Rom. 10:10. We may be truly said to worship God, though we lack perfection, but we cannot be said to worship him if we lack sincerity.

Where there is a spiritual sense of truth, of the good and evil that is in doctrines, from an inward experience of what is so good, and from thence an aversation unto the contrary, and this obtained by reason of a habit or an habitual frame of heart, there is strength, there is steadfastness and assurance. This is the teaching of the unction, which will not, which cannot, deceive. Hence many of old and of late that could not dispute could yet die for the truth.

This is an encouragement in general unto believers. We have, as I hope, upon unquestionable grounds, evinced that there is forgiveness with God; which is the hinge on which turneth the issue of our eternal condition. Now this is like himself; such as becomes him; that answers the infinite perfections of his nature; that is exercised and given forth by him as God. We are apt to narrow and straiten it by our unbelief, and to render it unbecoming of him.

What shall we now say? Do we think that God hath forgiveness only for this or that individual person? No man questions but that all these were pardoned. Was it by virtue of any especial personal privilege that was peculiar unto them? Whence should any such privilege arise, seeing by nature they were no better than others, nor would have been so personally had not they been delivered from sin, and prepared for obedience by grace, mercy, and pardon? Wherefore, they all obtained forgiveness by virtue of the covenant, from the forgiveness which is with God.