1 John 5

3. We glorify God by believing (Romans 4:20): Abraham was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Unbelief affronts God, it gives him the lie; he that believes not, makes God a liar (1 John 5:10). So faith brings glory to God, it sets to its seal that God is true (John 3:33).

Clement of Alexandria calls the other graces the daughters of faith. Indeed in heaven love will be the chief grace, but while we are here militant love must give place to faith; love takes possession of glory, but faith gives a title to it; love is the crowning grace in heaven,…

Question: What means shall we use that we may obey? Response. 1. Serious consideration: Consider God's commands are not grievous: He commands nothing unreasonable (1 John 5:3). It is easier to obey the commands of God than sin: The commands of sin are burdensome: Let a man be un…

6. The sixth argument is, A Victoria supra mundum, from a believer's victory over the world. The argument stands thus: he who overcomes the world does persevere in grace; but a believer does overcome the world, therefore he perseveres in grace (1 John 5:4): This is the victory o…

Broad is the way which leads to destruction, and many there be that go in there. The greatest part of the world lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19). Divide the world, says Brerewood, into 31 parts, nineteen parts of it are possessed by Jews and Turks, seven parts by Heathens; so th…

Love to God carries the soul above the love of life; and the fear of death. 7. He who loves God loves his favorites, namely the saints (1 John 5:1). Idem est motus animi in imaginem & rem.

God will shoot all his murdering pieces among idolaters: all the plagues and curses in the book of God shall befall the idolater: the Lord repays him that hates him to his face. Use 2. Let it exhort us all to fly from Romish idolatry; let us not be among God-haters (1 John 5:21)…

If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself. Not to believe God's veracity, is to affront God (1 John 5:10). He that believes not has made God a liar.

1. Hereby error in prayer is prevented: it is not easy to write wrong copy; we cannot easily err having our pattern before us. 2. Hereby mercies requested are obtained; for the Apostle assures us God will hear us when we pray according to his will (1 John 5:14), and surely we pr…

Micah 7:18. Pardoning iniquity, there is Justification; verse 19. He will subdue our iniquities, there is Sanctification. Out of Christ's sides came water and blood (1 John 5:6). Blood, namely Justification, water, namely Sanctification.

Response. For answer to this, I shall prescribe some remedies and antidotes against this sin. 1. Faith (1 John 5:4). This is the victory over the world, even your faith. The root of covetousness is the distrust of God's providence.

Question 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead? Response: Three persons, yet but one God (1 John 5:7). There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

What is the shedding of a tear to a crown? So that God's commands are not grievous (1 John 5:3), our service cannot be so hard as a kingdom is sweet. 2. Branch. See hence the royal bounty of God to his children, that he has prepared a kingdom for them.

God never pardons and justifies a sinner, but he does sanctify him (1 Corinthians 6:11): "but you are justified, but you are sanctified." (1 John 5:6): "This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ." Christ comes to the soul by blood, that denotes remission, and by…

But now thus it is with the Holy Ghost according to the revelation made concerning him in the Scripture. First, He is placed in the same rank and order without any note of difference or distinction as to a distinct interest in the divine nature, that is, as we shall see, persona…

Now the condition is believing: that which the Gospel says, is, that if we ever hope to get pardon of all our sins, and have our person to find acceptance with a holy God, [illegible] and through Jesus Christ, we must believe [illegible] him; and this is so positive and unaltera…

Seventhly, the church is therefore still to perform the duties of love, and care, towards such persons. (1.) In praying for them, that they may be converted from the error of their way (James 5:19, 20; 1 John 5:16). If any man see his brother sin a sin, which is not to death, he…

Q. What is the true way and means of deliverance? A. Only the Lord Jesus Christ (Genesis 3:15; Acts 4:12; 1 John 5:12).

Q. How may it be proved that Christ is God? A. By sundry places of Scripture, wherein he is expresly so called (Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1; Romans 9:5; Philippians 2:6; 1 John 5:20). Q. How else?

Q. How many are the persons in the Godhead? A. They are three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 3:16-17 & 28:19; John 14:16-17 & 15:26; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Galatians 4:6; 1 John 5:7). Q. Whether are these three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost several, a…

And the like he endeavored between Christ's human nature and the divine, though hypostatically united. And likewise 4. 'That God has given us eternal life, and that life is in his Son' — this being the great truth of the gospel, so that a Christian who believes it not makes God…

How? namely, beside the applying of Christ's blood, it brings to memory God's merciful promises in Christ: which stay a man from committing such things as would pollute and defile the heart. And therefore is faith said to be our victory over the world: 1 John 5:4. Because by app…

Who are they which are born of the Spirit? Such men and women as through a Gospel ministry are brought to believe, and manifest by their confession, that Jesus who was crucified, dead, and risen, is the Christ, is born of God (1 John 5:1). For no man can say (that is, confess) t…

For he receives the testimony which God has given of his Son: that God has given us life in his Son, he has set to his seal that God is true (John 3:33). And so he which justifies God, as others that do not receive the testimony, condemn God of lying (1 John 5:10). But we cannot…

May it not rather be, that with Apollos, they were more fully instructed what it was to be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus? No; because there was as vast a difference, according to the distinction I formerly laid down, between the faith and baptism of John and his Disci…

Verse 5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth; supposing that gain is godliness; from such withdraw yourself. Yes, and after a further enquiry, to understand aright the things that are controverted among us; by the good providence of the Almigh…

But with this spiritual love he that loves himself most, that is, does most prize and value the image of God in himself, does most love others in whom it is. And we may know whether we cherish and improve grace in our own hearts, by that love which we have to them in whom it doe…

Take my yoke upon you, says he, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:29, 30). So the Apostle tells us, that his commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). But yet concer…

Therefore by his being come in this place, no one single act is intended, as his advent or coming does usually signify his incarnation only; but the sense of the word is comprehensive of the whole accomplishment of the promise of God in sending him, and his performance of the wo…

It is to signify both these, that such emphatical vehement expressions are used even among men, and both these unbelief is apt to question in God. He that believes not makes God a liar (1 John 5:10). He is a liar who in his promises intends not what his words signify, but has ot…

And they are so expressly the declaration of his purposes, that when God had only purposed to give us eternal life in Christ, he is said to have promised it; namely, before the world began. And this declares the nature of unbelief: he that believes not God, has made him a liar (…

For the mystery thereof was very great. Hence that Apostle which saw it and bare record of it in particular (John 19:34, 35) affirms likewise that he came by water and blood; and not by blood only (1 John 5:6). He came not only to make atonement for us with his blood, that we mi…

And the state which men are thereby brought into, is so called in opposition to the darkness that is in the world without it (1 Peter 2:9). The world without the Gospel is the kingdom of Satan; [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (1 John 5:19). The whole of the world, and all that belon…

Have you [illegible]osed with him? He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son, has not life; for life is in the Son (1 John 5:11, 12). But it comes to none, but to such as receive him.

Some take evil in this place only for the devil, but we may take it more largely for all spiritual enemies. (1 John 5:19) The whole world lies in evil, namely, under the power of sin and Satan. These words (as I have said) are a proof and explanation of the former: for when a ma…

The means then to make ourselves fit is, to seek to be reconciled to God in Christ for our sins past, and withal to endeavor to have an assurance of the free remission and pardon of them all in the blood of Christ. And as touching that part of life which is to come, we must reme…

A man in humbling his soul before God, is not to pray as his affections carry him, and for what he pleases: but all is to be done according to the express word. So as those things which God has commanded us to ask, we are to ask, and those things which he has not commanded us to…

Alexander might give a coward his armor, but he could not give him his courage; but God infuses a spirit of magnanimity into his people, with his armor he conveys strength (2 Corinthians 12:9): My strength is made perfect in weakness. A Christian having on God's armor, and going…

Love to God will be interposing and crossing every carnal motion. 2. By a delight in obedience: (1 John 5:3) This is love, that we keep his Commandments, and his Commandments are not grievous. Nothing is difficult and tedious to him that has any affection to his work.

Now hence I gather that he who is the child of God, truly justified and sanctified, shall never fall wholly and finally from the grace of God. And I conclude on this manner: that which we ask according to the will of God shall be granted — 1 John 5. But this the child of God ask…

This use is threefold: in respect of God, of man, and of ourselves. Works are to be done in respect of God: that his commandments may be obeyed — 1 John 5:12; that his will may be done — 1 Thessalonians 4:3; that we may show ourselves to be obedient children to God our Father —…

So Christ says (Mark 11:24): Whatever you desire when you pray, believe that you shall have it, and it shall be given to you. And Saint John further notes out this particular faith, calling it our assurance that God will give to us whatever we ask according to his will (1 John 5…

Or his who has diligently travelled through it, and made an exact survey of it? My yoke (says our Savior) is easie and my burthen is light (Matthew 11:30), and Saint John attests to the truth of it (1 John 5:3). His commandments are not grievous.

There be but few that seek it, and yet fewer that find it, but fewest of all that enter in at it. But how does all this agree with Matthew 11:30, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light," and 1 John 5:3, "His commandments are not grievous"? I answer.

Though this being rightly grounded is a precious, sweet and comfortable thing; and true faith ought to grow up to this. It is fearful security for any to be at rest without assurance; but yet this assurance is not the proper act of saving, justifying faith; but follows it, as pr…

Oh! The Lord of Heaven and Earth tells you in his Word, that no faith, no salvation: you die for ever, if you get not faith before you die. But believe, and you shall live: you shall have life eternal, and all that pertains to it (1 John 5:12-13). And this is that, that will be…

Pray that God would give them reforming spirits; and for the King, that God would make him another Hezekiah to remove the high places, and to cut off the remnants of Baal, that he may trust in the Lord, and keep close to his Word; and that the Lord would be with him, and prosper…

So in spiritual actions, if we are persuaded that such a sin committed will not make our bodies sick but our souls, we will not do it; if we are persuaded our souls shall fare the better if we do such a thing, this makes us to do it: being persuaded we shall have a recompense of…

So as those things which God has commanded us to ask, we are to ask, and those things which he has not commanded us to ask, we are in no wise to pray for. (1 John 5:14) This is the assurance which we have of him, that if we ask any thing according to his will he hears us. This t…

Some take evil in this place, only for the devil, but we may take it more largely, for all spiritual enemies. 1 John 5:19: The whole world lies in evil, namely, under the power of sin and Satan. These words (as I have said) are a proof and explanation of the former; for when a m…