Sermon 15: Then Came She and Worshipped Him, Saying, Lord Help Me

Christ had denied her to be His, but she will not deny that Christ is hers; see how a believer is to carry himself toward Christ deserting, frowning. Christ first answered her not one word. 2. He gave an answer, but to the disciples, not to the woman; O dreadful, Christ refuses to give her one word, that may go between her, and Hell, and despair. 3. The answer that he gives, is sadder and heavier than no answer; it's as much as, Woman, I have nothing to do with you; I quit my part of you; yet she is patient. 2. She believes. 3. She waits on a better answer. 4. She continues in praying. 5. Her love is not abated, she comes and adores. 6. She acknowledges her own misery: Lord help me; and puts Christ as God in his own room to be adored. 7. She takes Christ aright up, and sees the temptation to be a temptation. 8. She runs to Christ; she came nearer to him, and runs not from him; she claims to Christ, though Christ had cast her off.

1. Patient submission to God under desertion is sweet: what though I saw no reason why I cry and shout, and God answers not. 1. His comforts and his answers are his own free graces; he may do with his own, what he thinks good, and grace is no debt: Hear O Lord for your own sake (Daniel 9:19). 2. Infinite Sovereignty may lay silence upon all hearts; good Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:15): What shall I say? He has spoken to me, and himself has done it: it is an act of heaven, I bear it with silence.

2. She believes (Isaiah 50:11). There's a high and noble commandment laid upon the sad spirit: He that walks in darkness, and sees no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. 2. Fill the field with faith, double or frequent acts of faith (Psalm 22:1): My God, my God; why have you forsaken me? Two faiths are a double breastwork against the forts of Hell.

3. In the greatest extremity believe, even as David in the borders of Hell (Psalm 23:4): Indeed though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; it's a litote, I will believe good. It's a cold and a dark shadow to walk at death's right side (Job 13:15): Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. See Stephen dying and believing both at once, Christ's very dead body and his grave in a sort believing (Psalm 16:9): My flesh also shall rest in hope. How sweet to take faith's back-bond, subscribed by God's own hand into the cold grave with you, as Christ did (verse 10): You will not leave my soul in grave. 4. Faith says, sense is a liar — fancy, sense, the flesh will say (Job 16:13): His archers compassed me round about, he cleaves my reins asunder, and does not spare, and pours out my gall on the ground. But faith says (verse 19): I have a friend in Heaven; also now my witness is in heaven (Job 19:11). Sense makes a lie of God: He has also kindled his wrath against me, and takes me for his enemy. No, Job, you are the friend of God: see how his faith comes above the water (verse 25): I know that my friend by blood, or my Redeemer lives, etc. 3. She waits on in hope, and took not the first nor second answer: hope is long-breathed, and at midnight [reconstructed: prophesies] good of God (Micah 7:9): Though I fall, I shall rise again (Jonah 2:4). Then I said, I am cast out of your sight, yet I will look toward your holy Temple. There's a seed of heaven in hope (Job 13): when God did hide his face from him (verse 24), yet (verse 16): He also shall be my salvation. There is a negative, and over-clouded hope in the soul at the saddest time; the believer dares not say Christ will never come again: if he says it, it's in hot blood, and in haste, and he will take his word again (Isaiah 8:17).

4. She continues in praying: she cried, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me; she has no answer; she cries again, while the disciples are troubled with her shouts. She gets a worse answer than no answer, yet she comes and prays; we know the holy willfulness of Jacob (Genesis 32:26): I will not let you go till you bless me. Rain calms the stormy wind; to vent out words in a sad time, is the way of God's children (Psalm 88:7): Your wrath lies hard upon me. 9. My eye mourns by reason of my affliction: and what then? Lord I have called daily upon you, I have stretched out my hands to you (Psalm 22:2). Christ in the borders of Hell prayed, and prayed again, and died praying.

5. She has still love to Christ, and is not put from the duty of adoring (1 Peter 1:8): Whom having not seen, yet you love. The deserted soul sees little, there must be love to Christ, where there is 1. faith in the dark; faith is with child of love. 2. Where the believer is willing, that his pain, and his hell, may be matter of praising of God (Psalm 77:13): Who is so great a God as our God: the church was then deserted, as the Psalm makes clear.

6. She puts Christ in his chair of state, and adores him: the deserted soul says, be what I will, he is Jehovah the Lord; confession is good in saddest desertion (Job 7:20): I have sinned, what shall I do to you, O preserver of man? (Lamentations 1:17) The seed of Jacob is in a hard case before God, and under wrath (verse 12, 13, 14). Yet (verse 16): The Lord is righteous for I have sinned. This makes the soul charitable of God, however sad the dispensation be.

7. She sees it is a trial, as is clear by her instant pursuing after Christ, after many repulses: It's great mercy that God comes not behind backs, and strikes not in the dark (Psalm 77:10). And I said, this is my infirmity; he gathers his scattered thoughts, and takes himself in the temptation: It's mercy 1. To see the temptation in the face; some lie under a dumb and a deaf temptation, that wants all the five senses: Cain is murdered in the dark at midnight with the temptation, and he knows not what it means: 2. God's immediate hand is more to be looked at, than any other temptation: 3. Hence the conscience is timorous and traverses its ways under the trial; when a night traveler dare not trust the ground he walks on, he is in a sad condition; he is under two evils, and has neither comfort nor confidence (Isaiah 50). He that walks in darkness, and has no light (but some glimmering of starlight, or half moon under the earth, and knows not the ground he walks in) — let him trust in the name of the Lord.

8. She runs not away from Christ under desertion: But 1. She comes to him — it's a question what deserted souls shall do in that case: See 2. that you run not from Christ; it was a desertion that Saul was under, and a sad one we read of, but he makes [reconstructed: confession] of his condition to the Devil, a sad word (1 Samuel 28:15). I am sore distressed, there's a heavy and lamentable reason given, why the Philistines make war against me: Why? That is not much, they make war always against the people of God; no, but here is the marrow and the soul of all vengeance, God is departed from me: Why? Foolish man, what avails it you to tell the Devil God is departed from you; Judas was under a total desertion; he went not to Christ, but to the murderers of Christ to open his wound: I have sinned — Fool, say that to the Saviour of sinners, the Church deserted (Song of Solomon 1 and 5) betakes herself to Christ, and searches him out, Saw you him whom my soul loves? It's a bad token, when men conceiving themselves to be in calamity, make lies and policy their refuge.

Objection. But it is a greater sin to go to Christ, being in a state of sin: What have I to do to go to him whom I have offended so highly? Answer. To run from Christ under desertion, is two deaths. 1. Desertion is one, and if real, the saddest hell out of hell. 2. To flee from Christ and life is another death; now to come to him, though he should kill you for your presumption, is but one death, and a little one in comparison of the other, and one little death is rather to be chosen, than two great deaths. 2. Consider how living a death it is to be killed doing a duty, and aiming to flee in to Christ; better die by Christ's own hand (if so it must be) than by another: and better be buried, and lie dead at his feet, than to run away from him in a heavy desertion: if the believer must die, it's better his grave to be made under the Throne, and under the feet of Jesus Christ, than to die in a state of strangeness, and alienation from Christ, not daring to come near him: all the deserted ones that we read of did flee in to himself (Psalm 34; Psalm 88; Psalm 39; Job 13:15; Isaiah 38). 2. It's good to claim him as your God, though he should deny you, and creep into him, though he should throw you out of his sight: Better kiss the sword that kills you, and be slain with his own hand, than cast away your confidence.

25. But she came and worshipped.] A heavier temptation cannot befall a soul tender of Christ's love, than to cry to God, and not be answered, and to cry and receive a flat and downright renouncing of the poor supplicant; yet this does not thrust her from a duty, she comes and worships, and prays. It's a blessed mark when a temptation thrusts not a soul from a duty: and 1. when the danger and sad trial is seen, it's good to go on. Christ knew before, he should suffer, and when they would apprehend him, yet he went to the garden to spend a piece of the night in prayer. It was told Paul by Agabus, if he went to Jerusalem the Jews should bind him, and deliver him to the Gentiles; it was his duty to go, there he professes he will go (Acts 21:13). What mean you to weep, and break my heart, I am ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of Jesus: dying could not thrust him from a duty. Esther ran the hazard of death to go in to the King: yet conscience of a duty calling, she goes on in faith; If I perish, I perish. 2. In the act of suffering: Christ on the Cross prays, and converts the Thief: Paul, with an iron chain upon his body, preaches Christ before Agrippa and his enemies, and preaching Christ was the crime: Paul and Silas with bloody soldiers must sing Psalms in the stocks. 3. Indefinitely, after the trial, and when the temptation is on, yet the Saints go on (Psalm 44:17). All this is come on us, there is the temptation: the duty, Yet we have not forgotten you, neither dealt falsely in your Covenant (Psalm 119:23). Princes did speak against me, there is a temptation: yet here is a duty: But your servant did meditate on your Statutes, verse 81. My soul faints for your salvation, but I hope in your Word, verse 110. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I erred not from your Precepts, verse 157. Many are my persecutors, and my enemies, yet do I not decline from your Testimonies (Psalm 109:3). They fought against me without cause, verse 4. For my love they were my adversaries, but I gave myself to prayer.

1. It's a sign of a sweet, humbled servant, who can take a blow, and yet go about his Master's service; and when a soul can pass through fire and water to be at a duty; for then the conscience of the duty has more prevailing power to act obedience, than the salt and bitterness of the temptation has force to subdue and vanquish the Spirit; it's like Grace has the day, and better of Corruption. 2. It argues a soul well watched and kept from the incursion of a house sin, and a home-bred corruption: for the temptation sets on the nearest corruption, as fire kindles the nearest powder, and dry timber; and so goes along (Psalm 18:18): They prevented me in the day of my calamity: verse 23, I was upright before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity. The Devil has a friend within us; now there be degrees of friends, some nearer of blood than others; the man's own predominant is the dearer friend to Satan, than any other sin; if pride be the predominant, it is so Satan's first-born, he agents his business by pride. 3. So it may argue, that the soul steeled and fortified with grace, takes occasion from the sinfulness of the temptation, and the edge of it, to be more zealous and active in duties. David scoffed at by Michal, said, I'll be more vile yet: so (Psalm 22:7), All that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head: verse 8, He trusted in the Lord, etc. See here a heavy temptation, but his faith digs deeper, to the first experience of God's goodness: verse 9, But you are he that took me out of the womb, etc. As the Church mocked with this, Sing us one of the songs of Zion (Psalm 137), raises a higher esteem of Zion, because Zion's songs are scoffed at: verse 5, Let them mock Zion as they will. But if I forget Zion, then verse 6, I pray God my tongue may cleave to the roof of my mouth. So the Thief hearing Christ blasphemed, and railed on by his fellow, does take more boldness to extoll him as a King; Lord, remember me, when you come to your Kingdom. Grace appears the more gracious and active that it has an adversary; contraries in nature, as fire and water, put forth their greatest strength, when they actually conflict together.

Use 1. Antinomians turn grace into a temptation, and then cast off all duties, as Christ has pardoned all sin, his righteousness imputed, is mine: what do you speak to me of Law-duties? The way that cries down duties and sanctification, is not the way of grace; grace is an innocent thing, and will not take men off from duties, grace destroys not obedience: Christ has made faith a friend to the Law; the death of Christ destroys not grace's activity in duties. It's true, grace trusted in, becomes our self, not grace; and self cannot storm heaven, and take Christ by violence; grace, though near of kindred to Christ, as it is received in us, is but a creature, and so may be made an idol, when we trust in it, and seek not Christ first, and before created grace: but believing and doing are blood-friends (John 11:26).

Use 2. This would be heeded, that in difficulties and straits, we keep from wicked ways, and being tempted, that we strive to come near the forerunner's way: it was peculiar to Christ to be angry, and not to sin: to be like us, in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:14), with this difference, Christ was tempted, but cannot sin: the saints tempted, but dare not sin. The Law of God honeyed with the love of Christ, has a Majesty and power to keep from sin: So Christ made under the Law for us (Isaiah 53:7), was oppressed, he was afflicted — oppression will make a sinful man mad — but it could not work upon Christ: He was oppressed, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter. So all Christ's followers did; they are tempted, but grace puts a power of tenderness on them. Joseph tempted, says (Genesis 39:9), How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God. David is reproached by Shimei, but he dares not avenge himself. Job heavily, as any man, tempted, yet (Job 1:22), In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. I deny not, but the temptation does sometimes obtain half a consent: Nabal tempted David, so that he resolved to be avenged. 2. It will leave a stain and a crook behind it in some, for their whole life: Peter shall be all his life known to be one that once forswore his Lord. But this is fearful, when men both create temptations, by defending a bad cause — as holy men may have an unholy cause — and then can find no way to carry it out, but by crooked policy, and calumnies. We are now pursued by Malignants with an unjust war: to embrace peace upon any dishonorable terms to Christ, is to desert a duty for fear of a temptation. On the other side, to refuse an offer of peace, because many innocent persons have been killed, is also a yielding to a temptation; for by war we kill many more innocent ones, and it's against the Lord's counsel (Psalm 34:14), Seek peace: that is, as much as we are not to be patients only, but agents, even when we are wronged, in seeking peace. But what if peace flee from me? I confess, that is a temptation, then says the Lord, follow after it; the word [illegible] in Hebrew (Hebrews 12:14), the Syrochaldaic is [illegible]: run after peace: compel peace, and force it, as men follow an enemy (Romans 14:19), [illegible] Let us pursue after things of peace.

Use 3. See the sweet use of faith under a sad temptation; faith traffics with Christ and heaven in the dark, upon plain trust and credit, without seeing any surety or pawn (John 20:29), Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And the reason is, because faith is sinewed and boned with spiritual courage; so as to keep a barred city against hell, yea, and to stand under impossibilities; and here's a weak woman, though not as a woman, yet as a believer, standing out against him, who is (Isaiah 9:6), The mighty God, the father of ages, the Prince of peace. Faith only stands out, and overcomes the sword, the world, and all afflictions (1 John 5:4), This is our victory, whereby one man overcomes the great and vast world.