The third conclusion is, that this government is victorious. The reasons are: —
1. Because Christ hath conquered all in his own person first, and he is God over all, blessed for evermore; and therefore over “sin, death, hell, Satan, the world,” etc., Rom. ix.’’s. And as he hath overcome them in himself, so he overcomes them in our hearts and consciences. We used to say, conscience maketh a man a king or a caitiff, because it is planted in us to judge for
God, either with us or against us. Now if natu- “ral conscience be so forcible, what will it be when besides its own light it hath the light of divine truth put into it? It will undoubtedly prevail, either to make us hold up our heads with boldness, or abase us beneath ourselves. If it subject itself by grace to Christ’s truth, then it boldly overlooks death, hell, judgment, and all spiritual enemies, because then Christ sets up his kingdom in the conscience, and makes it a kind of paradise.
The sharpest conflict which the soul hath is between the conscience and God’s justice: now if the conscience, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, hath prevailed over assaults fetched from the justice of God as now satisfied by Christ, it will prevail over all other opposition whatsoever. 2. We are to encounter with accursed and damned enemies; therefore if they begin to fall before the Spirit in us, they shall fall: if they rise up again, it is to have the greater fall.
3. The Spirit of truth, to whose tuition Christ hath committed his church, and the truth of the Spirit, which is the sceptre of Christ, abide for ever; therefore the soul begotten by the immortal seed of the Spirit, 1 Pet. i. 23, and this truth, must not only live for ever, but likewise prevail over all that oppose it, for both the Word and Spirit are mighty in operation, Heb. iv. 12; and if the ill spirit be never idle in those whom God delivereth up to him, we cannot think that the Holy Spirit will be idle in those whose leading and government is committed to him. No; as he dwelleth in them, so he will drive out all that rise up against him, until he be all in all.
What is spiritual is eternal. Truth is a beam of Christ’s Spirit, both in itself and as it is ingrafted into the soul, therefore it, and the grace, though little, wrought by it, will prevail A little thing in the hand of a giant will do great matters. A little faith strengthened by Christ will work wonders.
4. “To him that hath shall be given,” Matt. xxv. 29; the victory over any corruption or temptation is a pledge of final victory. As Joshua said when he set his foot upon the five kings which he conquered, “Thus God shall do with all our enemies,” Josh. x. 25; heaven is ours already, only we strive till we have full possession,
5. Christ as king brings in a commanding light into the soul, and bows the neck, and softens the iron sinew of the inner man; and where he begins to rule, he rules for ever, “his kingdom hath no end,” Luke i. 33.
6. The end of Christ’s coming was to destroy the works of the devil, both for us and in us; and the end of the resurrection was, as to seal unto us the assurance of his victory; so, I, To quicken our souls from death in sin; 2, To free our souls from such snares and sorrows of spiritual death as accompany the guilt of sin; 3, To raise them up more comfortable, as the sun breaks forth more gloriously out of a thick cloud; 4, To raise us out of particular slips and failings, stronger; 5, To raise us out of all “troublesome and dark conditions of this life; and, 6, At length to raise our bodies out of the dust. For the same power that the Spirit showed in raising Christ, our head, from the sorrows of death, and the lowest degree of his abasement; the same power obtained by the death of Christ from God, now appeased by that sacrifice, will the Spirit show in the church, which is his body, and in every particular member thereof.
And this power is conveyed by faith, whereby, after union with Christ in both his estates of humiliation and exaltation, we see ourselves not only “dead with Christ, but risen and sitting together with him in heavenly places,” Eph. ii.
- Now we, apprehending ourselves to be dead and risen, and thereupon victorious over all our enemies in our head, and apprehending that his scope in all this is to conform us to himself, we are by this faith changed into his likeness, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and so become conquerors over all our spiritual enemies, as he is, by that power which “we derive from him, who is the storehouse of all spiritual strength for all his. Christ at length will have his end in us, and faith resteth assured of it, and this assurance is very operative, stirring us up to join with Christ in his ends.
And so for the church in. general, by Christ it will have its victory: Christ is “that little stone cut out of the mountain without hands, that breaketh in pieces that goodly image,” Dan. ii. 35, that is, all opposite government, until it become “a great mountain, and. filleth the whole earth.” So that the stone that was cut out of the mountain, becomes a mountain itself at length. Who art thou, then, O mountain, that thinkest to stand up against this mountain? All shall lie flat and level before it: he will bring down all mountainous, high, exalted thoughts, and lay the pride of all flesh low. When chaff strives against the wind, stubble against the fire, when the heel kicks against the pricks, when the potsherd strives with the potter, when man strives against God, it is easy to know on which side the victory will go. The winds may toss the ship wherein Christ is, but not overturn it. The waves may dash against the rock, but they do but break themselves against it.