Nick Roark's Blog, page 38

“He intends to come and live in it Himself” by C. S. Lewis

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.

He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of— throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.

He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 205.

“It is God alone that makes heaven to be heaven” by Thomas Brooks

“Our propriety reacheth to all that God is, and to all that God hath (Jeremiah 32:38, 42). God is not parted, nor divided, nor distributed among His people, as earthly portions are divided among children in the family; so as one believer hath one part of God, and another believer hath another part of God, and a third another part of God.

Oh no, but every believer hath whole God wholly, he hath all of God for his portion. God is not a believer’s portion in a limited sense, nor in a comparative sense, but in an absolute sense.

God himself is theirs, He is wholly theirs, He is only theirs, He is always theirs. As Christ looks upon the Father, and saith, ‘All thine is mine, and mine is thine,’ (1 Cor. 3:23, John 17:10), that may a saint say, looking upon God as his portion.

He may truly say, O Lord, thou art mine, and all that thou hast; and I am thine, and all that I have.

A saint may look upon God and say, O Lord, not only thy gifts but thy graces are mine, to adorn me and enrich me; and not only thy mercies and thy good things are mine to comfort me, and encourage me, but also thou thyself art mine; and this is my joy and crown of rejoicing.

To be able to say that God is mine, is more than if I were able to say that ten thousand worlds, yea, and as many heavens, are mine; for it is God alone that is the sparkling diamond in the ring of glory.

Heaven would be but a low thing without God, saith Augustine; and Bernard had rather enjoy Christ in a chimney-corner, than to be in heaven without him; and Luther had rather be in hell with Christ, than in heaven without him.

It is God alone that makes heaven to be heaven.”

–Thomas Brooks, “A Matchless Portion,” in The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 2, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1866/1980), 25. Brooks is preaching from Lamentations 3:24.

“He is especially good at binding up a broken heart” by Richard Sibbes

“See the gracious manner of Christ executing His offices of prophet, priest, and king.

As a prophet, He came with blessing in His mouth, ‘Blessed be the poor in spirit,’ (Matthew 5:3) and invited those to come to Him whose hearts suggested most exceptions against themselves, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden,’ (Matthew 11:28). How did His heart of compassion yearn when ‘He saw the people as sheep without a shepherd!’ (Matthew 9:36). He never turned any back again that came unto Him, though some went away of themselves.

He came to die as a priest for his enemies. In the days of His flesh He dictated a form of prayer unto His disciples, and put petitions unto God into their mouths, and His Spirit to intercede in their hearts. And now He makes intercession in heaven for weak Christians, standing between God’s anger and them. And He shed tears for those that shed His blood.

So He is a meek King; He will admit mourners into His presence, a king of poor and afflicted persons: as He hath beams of majesty, so He hath a heart of tender mercies and compassion; ‘a prince of peace,’ (Isaiah 9:6). Why was He ‘tempted, but that He might succour those that are tempted,’ (Hebrews 2:18)? What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a mediator, (1 Timothy 2:5), that took our nature upon Him that He might be  gracious?” He is a physician good at all diseases, especially at binding up a broken heart.”

–Richard Sibbes, “The Bruised Reed,” The Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 1 (ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1639/2001), 1: 45.

“Are you a sheep who knows the shepherd?” by David Gibson

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

“Psalm 23 has become a funeral psalm. But, in fact, it is really a psalm about life. Only one verse out of six speaks about death. The imagery of the psalm is dominated with food, water, rest, security; it’s about going to a banquet where you have perfumed oil poured on your head and you have a cup of wine in your hand, where you have to say to the host, “No, stop, it’s overflowing!”

Psalm 23 is about abundant life. It is more about the happiness of living than the sadness of dying, and all of the happiness is bound up with being able to say that this Lord who is a shepherd is also my shepherd.

There is a famous story about a young shepherd boy in the Scottish Highlands in centuries past. His parents died prematurely, leaving the boy in the care of his grandfather, a shepherd.

The grandson was raised to be a shepherd too, but he was uneducated. He never went to school and he was unable to read.

His grandfather taught him the first five words of Psalm 23 by taking the boy’s left hand and, as he said each word, pointing to a finger. Soon the boy could say the words himself, holding one finger and then the next as he did so: “The—LORD—is—my—shepherd.”

On one occasion when the boy was out in the hills tending the sheep, a terrible blizzard swept in, engulfing the mountains, and the boy and the sheep did not return home.

His grandfather set out to find him, but the brutal winds and blinding snow made that impossible. He knew he would soon lose all sense of direction and so, fearful and heartsore, he returned to spend a long and restless night in his chair.

When at last he was able to search the hills, tragically, he found his grandson frozen to death in the snow. But as he stooped to lift the child, he noticed that the boy’s hands were clasped in a peculiar way.

His right hand firmly gripped the fourth finger of his left hand: “The LORD is my shepherd.”

My calling as a pastor is always to ask people where they are with this shepherd. The members of my congregation are asked all the time by others about their status in relation to something or someone: their relationship status? their employment status?

But the pastor’s job is to ask about flock status: Are you a sheep who knows the shepherd?

If you can say that he is your shepherd, then I want to show you in what follows that you have everything you will ever need.”

–David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 21-23.

“He is my shepherd” by David Gibson

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1)

“Here is the point of this meandering start to our study of Psalm 23: the one whom you need to shepherd you neither needs you nor needs to be shepherded Himself as He gives Himself to shepherd you. He shepherds you from His eternally undiminishing fullness, and He is never the poorer for it.

Look how needy David is in Psalm 23. If the Lord is his shepherd, then he is of course portraying himself as sheep-like in all the things he needs. He requires food, rest, water, guidance, shelter, comfort, housing, helping. You name it, David needs it.

And here is the question Psalm 23 asks: Can you see who gives David all that he needs? It is the God who needs nothing and no one. The one who essentially says to his people: “ ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ Before you were, I was, and after you are no more, I will be. I am the first, I am the last, I am a God outside time before time began.”

So in this psalm, David comes alongside you as you read and puts his strong shepherd crook around your shoulder and pulls you in so that you can hear him tell you that the God of heaven can meet your every need precisely because He is the one who has no need of anything Himself.

This is where the next phrase in Psalm 23:1 (which we will come to in a moment) receives all its meaning: “I shall not want.” Despite my best intentions and my most fervent wishes, I am not the kind of father whose children are able to say, every day, for the rest of their lives, “I shall not want.”

I might love them very much and pray for them always and long for their best, but I am a finite, sinful man with limited resources on every hand. I cannot supply their every need as I shepherd them through life.

But God is not like that with us. It is one thing to have a shepherd, but it is an utterly staggering thing to have as a shepherd the one who is strength itself, who never tires, never slumbers, and who never needs protection Himself.

So here is where we touch the wonder of the fact that this one, a God like this, the Lord, might ever be described as a shepherd. Just consider for a moment: What kind of pictures does the idea of complete and utter self-sufficient, self-existent deity conjure up in your mind? I think you would agree that this aspect of who God is lends itself most naturally to pictures of strength and power.

In John’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). It is a familiar title we know and love, and we are right to see him as the true fulfillment of what it means to call the Lord our shepherd. But in doing so we must remember what Jesus also declared a few chapters earlier in John: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’ ” (John 8:58).

This is an astonishing claim. Jesus took the divine name that God revealed to Moses in the burning bush and he effectively applied it to himself: “I am the LORD.” The Lord Jesus, our good shepherd, is Yahweh himself, which means He is our sufficient shepherd.

I hope you can see new layers of beauty to the simple phrase “The LORD is my shepherd.” It is a portrait to communicate that the One at your side has matchless strength and indescribable power, which He is stooping to lend to your aid.

The self-sufficient God is not the self-absorbed God. The self-existent God is not the self-centered God. Rather—wonder of wonders— the God who is so strong clothes Himself in a picture of the closest tender care for those who are so weak.

It is a way of saying that He puts all the resources of His infinite fullness at the disposal of finite creatures. He is a shepherd. As Martin Luther says:

‘The other names sound somewhat too gloriously and majestically, and bring, as it were, an awe and fear with them, when we hear them uttered. This is the case when Scripture calls God our Lord, King, Creator. This, however, is not the case with the sweet word shepherd. It brings to the godly, when they read it or hear it, as it were, a confidence, a consolation, or security like the word father.’

More than this, He is my shepherd.”

–David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 16–19.

“The Author of so many good things” by Peter Martyr Vermigli

FROM PSALM 19:

“The wondrous power, wisdom, and goodness with which Your nature is most abundantly endowed, O almighty God, everywhere strikes us in the things You have created. Heaven with all its jewels, the change of seasons, the brightness of the stars, and the mighty sun are so many voices and a lesson common to all peoples by which these heralds of Your majesty are celebrated.

Hence we confess that we cannot pretend to have any excuse for our feeble confidence and failing love toward You. The witness of these things really ought to have persuaded us that we should cling inseparably to You alone as the Author of so many good things.

But, alas, spurning these warnings we have followed the desires of our flesh and the unhealthy lucubrations and fantasies of our mind, deserting You, the Creator of all things. Thus have we rightly merited the sufferings that we are enduring.

We have spurned not only the works of nature that draw us to You, but Your Word as well, that is, we have listened to the Holy Scripture and the Gospel of Your Son with cold hearts and with no effect at all.

From the things we should have used to refresh our mind and take in wisdom, light, joy, and uprightness, we have provoked Your wrath against us.

But now, even though for these reasons we seem unworthy of Your mercy, we still pray urgently that You forgive us and that You be unwilling to afflict Your Church on account of our deeds.

Grant that henceforward that Your words may be for us sweeter, not just than honey, but than any human pleasure.

Keep sin far from us and show that You are truly both the protector and redeemer of Your people.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

–Peter Martyr Vermigli, Sacred Prayers Drawn from the Psalms of David, ed. John Patrick Donnelly and Joseph C. McLelland, trans. John Patrick Donnelly, 2nd Edition., vol. 3, The Peter Martyr Library (Kirksville, MO: The Thomas Jefferson University Press; Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc., 1996), 3: 20–21.

“The joy of the saints in heaven shall be a lasting joy, an uninterrupted joy” by Thomas Brooks

“The joy of the saints in heaven shall be a lasting joy, an uninterrupted joy. Here their joy is quickly turned into sorrow, their singing into sighing, their dancing into mourning.

Our joy here is like the husbandman’s joy in harvest, which is soon over, and then we must sow again in tears, before we can reap in joy.

Surely there is no believer but finds that sometimes sin interrupts his joy.

Sometimes Satan disturbs his joy. Sometimes afflictions and sometimes desertions eclipse his joy.

Sometimes the cares of the world, and sometimes the snares of the world, and sometimes the fears of the world, mars our joy.

Sometimes great crosses, sometimes near losses, and sometimes unexpected changes, turns a Christian’s harping into mourning, and his organ into the voice of them that weep.

Surely there is hardly one day in the year, yea, I had almost said one hour in the day, wherein something or other doth not fall in to interrupt a Christian’s joy.

But now in heaven the joy of the saints shall be constant. There shall nothing fall in to disturb or to interrupt their joy: Ps. 16:11, ‘In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand is pleasures for ever more.’

Mark, for quality, there are pleasures; for quantity, fullness; for dignity, at God’s right hand; for eternity, forevermore.

And millions of years multiplied by millions, make not up one minute to this eternity of joy that the saints shall have in heaven!

In heaven there shall be no sin to take away your joy, nor no devil to take away your joy, nor no man to take away your joy: John 16:22, ‘Your joy no man taketh from you.’

The joy of the saints in heaven is never ebbing, but always flowing to all contentment. The joys of heaven never fade, never wither, never die, nor never are lessened nor interrupted.

The joy of the saints in heaven is a constant joy, an everlasting joy, in the root and in the cause, and in the matter of it and in the objects of it. Æterna erit exultatio, quœ bono lœtatur œterno, their joy lasts forever whose objects remains forever.

Isa. 35:10, ‘And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joys upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall fly away.’

In this world not only the joy of hypocrites and the joy of profane persons, but also the joy of the upright, is oftentimes ‘as the crackling of thorns under a pot,’ (Eccles. 7:6) now all on a flame, and as suddenly out again.

But the joy of believers in heaven shall be like the fire on the altar that never went out. (Lev. 6:13)

So when your hearts are sad and sorrowful, oh! then think of these everlasting joys that you shall have in heaven.”

–Thomas Brooks, “The Best Things Reserved Till Last,” The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, Ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 1: 425–426.

“A hell within” by John Calvin

1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

“2 Now are we the sons of God. He comes now to what every one knows and feels himself; for though the ungodly may not entice us to give up our hope, yet our present condition is very short of the glory of God’s children.

For as to our body we are dust and a shadow, and death is always before our eyes; we are also subject to thousand miseries, and the soul is exposed to innumerable evils; so that we find always a hell within us.

The more necessary it is that all our thoughts should be withdrawn from the present view of things, lest the miseries by which we are on every side surrounded and almost overwhelmed, should shake our faith in that felicity which as yet lies hid.

For the Apostle’s meaning is this, that we act very foolishly when we estimate what God has bestowed on us according to the present state of things, but that we ought with undoubting faith to hold to that which does not yet appear.

But we know that when he shall appear. The conditional particle ought to be rendered as an adverb of time, when. But the verb appear means not the same thing as when he used it before.

The Apostle has just said, it does not yet appear what we shall be, because the fruit of our adoption is as yet hid, for in heaven is our felicity, and we are now far away travelling on the earth; for this fading life, constantly exposed to hundred deaths, is far different from that eternal life which belongs to the children of God; for being enclosed as slaves in the prison of our flesh, we are far distant from the full sovereignty of heaven and earth.

But the verb now refers to Christ, when he shall appear; for he teaches the same thing with Paul, in Col. 3:3-4, where he says, ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God: when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.’ For our faith cannot stand otherwise than by looking to the coming of Christ.

The reason why God defers the manifestation of our glory is this, because Christ is not manifested in the power of his kingdom. This, then, is the only way of sustaining our faith, so that we may wait patiently for the life promised to us. As soon as any one turns away the least from Christ, he must necessarily fail.

The word to know, shews the certainty of faith, in order to distinguish it from opinion. Neither simple nor universal knowledge is here intended, but that which every one ought to have for himself, so that he may feel assured that he will be sometime like Christ. Though, then, the manifestation of our glory is connected with the coming of Christ, yet our knowledge of this is well founded.

We shall be like him. He does not understand that we shall be equal to him; for there must be some difference between the head and the members; but we shall be like him, because he will make our vile body conformable to his glorious body, as Paul also teaches us in Phil. 3:21. For the Apostle intended shortly to shew that the final end of our adoption is, that what has in order preceded in Christ, shall at length be completed in us.

The reason that is added may, however, seem inappropriate: for if to see Christ makes us like him, we shall have this in common with the wicked, for they shall also see his glory. To this I reply, that this is to see him as a friend, which will not be the case with the wicked, for they will dread his presence; nay, they will shun God’s presence, and be filled with terror; his glory will so dazzle their eyes, that they will be stupified and confounded.

For we see that Adam, conscious of having done wrong, dreaded the presence of God. And God declared this by Moses, as a general truth as to men, “No man shall see me and live.” (Exod. 33:20) For how can it be otherwise but that God’s majesty, as a consuming fire, will consume us as though we were stubble, so great is the weakness of our flesh.

But as far as the image of God is renewed in us, we have eyes prepared to see God. And now, indeed, God begins to renew in us his own image, but in what a small measure! Except then we be stripped of all the corruption of the flesh, we shall not be able to behold God face to face. And this is also expressed here, as he is.

He does not, indeed, say, that there is no seeing of God now; but as Paul says, “We see now through a glass, darkly.” (1 Cor. 13:12) But he elsewhere makes a difference between this way of living, and the seeing of the eye.

In short, God now presents himself to be seen by us, not such as he is, but such as we can comprehend. Thus is fulfilled what is said by Moses, that we see only as it were his back, (Exod. 33:23) for there is too much brightness in his face.

We must further observe, that the manner which the Apostle mentions is taken from the effect, not from the cause; for he does not teach us, that we shall be like him, because we shall see him; but he hence proves that we shall be partakers of the divine glory, for except our nature were spiritual, and endued with a heavenly and blessed immortality, it could never come so nigh to God: yet the perfection of glory will not be so great in us, that our seeing will enable us to comprehend all that God is; for the distance between us and him will be even then very great.

But when the Apostle says, that we shall see him as he is, he intimates a new and an ineffable manner of seeing him, which we enjoy not now; for as long as we walk by faith, as Paul teaches us, we are absent from him.

And when he appeared to the fathers, it was not in his own essence, but was ever seen under symbols. Hence the majesty of God, now hid, will then only be in itself seen, when the veil of this mortal and corruptible nature shall be removed.

3 And every man that hath this hope He now draws this inference, that the desire for holiness should not grow cold in us, because our happiness has not as yet appeared, for that hope is sufficient; and we know that what is hoped for is as yet hid.

The meaning then is, that though we have not Christ now present before our eyes, yet if we hope in him, it cannot be but that this hope will excite and stimulate us to follow purity, for it leads us straight to Christ, whom we know to be a perfect pattern of purity.”

–John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1855), 204–206. Calvin is commenting on 1 John 3:2-3.

“Smitten with awe” by Athanasius of Alexandria (A.D. 293-373)

“53 And, to mention one proof of the divinity of the Savior, which is indeed exceedingly wonderful: which mere human being or magician or tyrant or king was ever able to take so much upon himself, and to battle against all idolatry and the whole demonical host and all magic and all the wisdom of the Greeks, while they were so strong and still flourishing and captivating all, and at one turn withstand them all, as our Lord, the true Word of God who, invisibly confuting the error of each, alone despoils all of them of all human beings, so that those who worshipped idols now trample upon them, those who were under the spell of magic now burn their books (cf. Acts 19:19), and the wise prefer the interpretation of the Gospels above everything else?

Those whom they worshipped, them they abandon, while the crucified One whom they mocked, Him they worship as Christ, confessing Him to be God. Those called gods by them are driven out by the sign of the cross, while the crucified Savior is proclaimed in all the inhabited world as God and Son of God.

The gods worshipped by the Greeks, are reviled by them as shameful, while those who receive the teaching of Christ lead a more sober life than they. If, then, these and such works are human, let anyone who wishes point out similar things from those before, and persuade us.

But if they appear to be, and are, works not of human beings but of God, why are the unbelievers so impious as not to recognize the Master who wrought them? They are afflicted like one who did not know, from the works of creation, God their creator.

For if they knew His divinity from His power over the universe, they would have known that Christ’s works in the body also are not human but are of the Savior of all, the Word of God. And knowing this, as Paul said, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8).

54 Therefore, just as if someone wishes to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, understands and knows Him from His works, so let one who does not see Christ with his mind learn of Him from the works of His body, and test whether they be human or of God.

And if they be human, let him mock; but if they are known to be not human, but of God, let him not laugh at things that should not be mocked, but let him rather marvel that through such a paltry thing things divine have been manifested to us, and that through death incorruptibility has come to all, and through the incarnation of the Word the universal providence, and its giver and creator, the very Word of God, have been made known.

For He was incarnate that we might be made god (ie. glorified, 2 Peter 1:4); and He manifested Himself through a body that we might perceive the mind of the invisible Father; and He endured the insults of human beings, that we might inherit incorruptibility.

He himself was harmed in no way, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God; but He held and preserved in His own impassibility the suffering human beings, on whose account He endured these things.

And, in short, the achievements of the Savior, effected by His incarnation, are of such a kind and number that if anyone should wish to expound them he would be like those who gaze at the expanse of the sea and wish to count its waves.

For as one cannot take in all the waves with one’s eyes, since those coming on elude the perception of one who tries, so also one who would comprehend all the achievements of Christ in the body is unable to take in the whole, even by reckoning them up, for those that elude his thought are more than he thinks he has grasped.

Therefore it is better not to seek to speak of the whole, of which one cannot even speak of a part, but rather to recall one thing, and leave the whole for you to marvel at.

For all are equally marvelous, and wherever one looks, seeing there the divinity of the Word, one is smitten with awe.”

–Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, ed. John Behr, trans. John Behr, vol. 44a, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 373/2011), 165–167. (53-54)

“A man of holiness hopes for more holiness” by Thomas Brooks

“As a man of holiness believes for more holiness, so a man of holiness hopes for more holiness. (1 John 3:2–4) In every ordinance he hopes for more holiness, and under every providence he hopes for more holiness, and under every mutation and change of his condition he hopes for more holiness. (2 Pet. 3:14)

When he is in prosperity, he hopes that God will make him more zealous, thankful, cheerful, fruitful, and useful. And when he is in adversity, he hopes that God will inflame his love, and raise his faith, and increase his patience, and strengthen his submission, and quiet his heart in a gracious resignation of himself to God.

I dare boldly say that that man was never truly holy, who endeavours not to get up to the highest pitches of holiness. True holiness knows no restrictions nor limitation.

But now counterfeit holiness is either like Hezekiah’s sun, which went backward; or like Joshua’s sun, which stood still; or like Ephraim’s morning cloud, which soon passed away. No rung but the highest rung in Jacob’s ladder will satisfy a holy soul.

True holiness makes a man divinely covetous. Look, as the victorious man can never make conquests enough, nor the ambitious man can never have honour enough, nor the voluptuous man pleasure enough, nor the worldling mammon enough, nor the wanton vain embraces enough, no more can a man of holiness have ever holiness enough in this world.

As the grave and the barren womb are never satisfied, they never say it is enough. (Prov. 30:15, 16). So a holy man, whilst he is this side eternity, he is never satisfied, he can never say that he hath holiness enough.

Where there is real holiness, there is a holy hatred, detestation, and indignation against all ungodliness and wickedness, and that upon holy accounts:  ‘I have refrained my feet from every evil way.’ But why? ‘That I may keep Thy word.’ (Ps. 119:101)

‘Through Thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.’ (Ps. 119:104) The good that he got by divine precepts stirred up his hatred against every false way.

‘Therefore I esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.’ (Ps. 119:128) His high esteem of every precept raised up in him a holy indignation against every evil way.

A holy man knows that all sin strikes at the holiness of God, the glory of God, the nature of God, the being of God, and the law of God, and therefore his heart rises against all.

He looks upon every sin, as the Scribes and Pharisees that accused Christ, and as that Judas that betrayed Christ, and that Pilate that condemned Christ, and those soldiers that scourged Christ, and as those spears that pierced Christ, and therefore his heart cries out for justice upon all.

He looks upon every sin as having a hand in the death of his Saviour, and therefore he cries out, ‘Crucify them all, crucify them all!’

He looks upon every sin as a grieving of the Spirit, as a vexing of the Spirit, and as a quenching of the Spirit, and so nothing will satisfy him but the ruin of them all.

He looks upon every sin as a dishonour to God, as an enemy to Christ, as a wound to the Spirit, as a reproach to the gospel, and as a moth to his holiness, and therefore his heart and his hand is against every sin.”

–Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 4, Ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 4: 108-109.