Hebrews 12

If the Angels rejoiced so at the conversion of the Elect, first, how will they rejoice at their coronation! Secondly, there is the company of the Saints (Hebrews 12:23). The Spirits of just men made perfect.

So death makes all the chains of sin fall off (Acts 12:7). Believers at death are made perfect in holiness (Hebrews 12:23). The spirits of just men made perfect.

Ministers are earthen vessels, but these pitchers have lamps within them to light souls to Heaven. Christ is said to speak to us from Heaven now (Hebrews 12:25), namely by his ministers, as the king speaks by his ambassador. Such as wean themselves from the breast of ordinances,…

Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 12:24), etc. Jesus Christ is the sum and quintessence of the gospel; the wonder of angels; the joy and triumph of saints.

So perhaps you think it is only the minister who speaks to you in the Word, but it is God himself who speaks. Therefore Christ is said (now) to speak to us from Heaven (Hebrews 12:25). How does he speak but by his ministers? as a king speaks by his ambassadors.

Though they are spirits, yet they are servants. God is [in non-Latin alphabet], a super-excellent Spirit, the Father of Spirits (Hebrews 12:9). 2. The soul is a spirit (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Some pray that they may grow rich; but a fruitful heart is better than a full purse. Pray that God will make you grow in grace, though it be by affliction (Hebrews 12:10). The vine grows by pruning.

2. God adopts us to a state of dignity: God makes us heirs of promise; God installs us into honor (Isaiah 43:4): Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable. The adopted are God's treasure (Exodus 19:5), his jewels (Malachi 3:17), his firstborn (Hebrews 12:23).…

Is it any injustice in God to put his gold into the furnace to purify it? Is it any injustice in God by afflicting his people, to make them partakers of his holiness (Hebrews 12:10)? What does more proclaim God's faithfulness, than to take such a course with them as may make the…

If conscience be troubled, they strive to quiet it with their duties; this is not the right way to peace: duties must not be neglected, nor yet idolized. Look up to the blood of sprinkling (Hebrews 12:24). That blood of Christ which pacified God, must pacify conscience; Christ's…

These were stars in their orb, pillars in the temple of God. Let us look on their zeal and courage, and be animated (Hebrews 12:1). Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Quest. How are they happy? Resp. 1. Because they are more holy (Hebrews 12:10). 2. Because they are more in God's favor (Proverbs 3:12).

Before they were proud and impatient, like stubborn children, that would struggle with their parents, but when their obstinate hearts are tamed, and they say as (Micah 7:9): I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him; and as Eli, It is the Lord, l…

God is angry in love; he smites that he may save. God's rod is not a rod of iron to break us, but a fatherly rod to humble us (Hebrews 12:10): He for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Either God will mortify some corruption, or exercise some grace.

It would be sad, if as often as we break covenant with God, he should break covenant with us; but God will not take advantage of every failing, but in anger remember mercy. 2. The first covenant being broken, allowed the sinner no remedy, all doors of hope were shut: but the new…

What is the sending of the Spirit into the world for, but to anoint us with the holy unction (1 John 2:20)? What are all afflictions for, but to make us partakers of God's holiness (Hebrews 12:10)? What are mercies for, but lodestones to draw us to holiness?

David tasted the Word sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb (Psalm 19:10). There is that in Scripture that may breed delight: it shows us the way to riches (Deuteronomy 28:5; Proverbs 3:16), to long life (Psalm 34:12), to a kingdom (Hebrews 12:28). Well then may we count thos…

The inward man is renewed. When God shakes the tree of the body, he is now gathering the fruits of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). Sickness is God's lance to let out the imposthume of sin (Isaiah 27:9).

The good that I would I do not. Sin is compared to a weight (Hebrews 12:1). A man that has weights tied to his legs cannot run so fast: it is like that fish Pliny speaks of, a sea-lamprey, that cleaves to the keel of the ship, and hinders its progress when it is under sail.

It appears they have no love to God, who have no love to his children; they care not for their company; they have a secret disgust and antipathy against them. Hypocrites pretend great reverence to the saints departed, they canonize dead saints, but persecute living: I may say of…

If a man make a will, and settles his estate upon such persons as he names in the will, none else but they can lay claim to the will; so God makes a will and testament, but it is restrained and limited to such as are sanctified, and it is high presumption for any else to lay cla…

1. It is God that speaks to us in his Word; therefore the preaching of the Word is called the breath of his lips (Isaiah 11:4). And Christ is said now to speak to us from Heaven (Hebrews 12:25), as a King speaks in his ambassador. Ministers are but as the pipes and organs; it is…

Fifthly, The Natural Father. The father of the flesh (Hebrews 12:9). Honor your natural father.

We carry Christ's picture in our conversations (1 John 2:6). O let us labor for this soul-purity, without it there is no seeing of God (Hebrews 12:14). What communion has light with darkness?

[illegible], Chrysost. This is a kingdom which cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28). A kingdom where there is unparalleled beauty, unstained honor, unmixed joy; a kingdom where there shall be nothing present, which we could wish were removed, nor nothing absent, which we could wish…

Answ. 1. There is kindness in affliction, in that there is love in it; [illegible], Chrysostom. God's rod and God's love may stand together (Hebrews 12:6). Whom the Lord loves he chastens, whom he pampers above the rest, so Mercer: as Abraham when he lifted up his hand to sacrif…

And such impressions of immediate wrath, as expressions and effects of God's anger, the Holy Ghost may make upon the spirit of his child: for it is a truth that God is angry and wroth with them when they sin, which anger he may make known not only by dumb signs in outward crosse…

Now therefore when the soul is most possessed with displeasure for sin and apprehensions of wrath, then it fears most, and fear works accordingly against that which may displease. Hence the apostle: 'Since our God is a consuming fire' (Hebrews 12:29), 'let us serve God acceptabl…

Second, when this fuel is taken away the fire goes out, and so do people's hearts die when outward things are taken from them. When Nabal thought David might still come and take his goods, his heart died within him. For people live in the creatures, and when those are gone they…

If God uses his children thus, 'Curse God and die,' says Job's wife, as the foolish men and women of the world do. Fourth, pass your sojourning here in fear and serve him with fear (1 Peter 1:17), for 'even our God is a consuming fire' (Hebrews 12). Keep your heart in awe with t…

You may be a child under wrath without being a child of wrath. God as he may afflict you in your estate and body, so he may afflict your spirit — as a Father, for in Hebrews 12:9 he is called 'the Father of spirits.' Ten directions for those who are more deeply troubled and the…

Secondly, this may teach Citizens, in the great, populous and pompous cities of this world, to labor also to be Citizens in heaven; for that is a city also, and the best on earth are but shadows of it. And it may shame them that are drowned in the pleasures and delicacies of ear…

For, as we may read in the History, after he had indeed blessed Jacob, supposing it had been Esau, when Esau came for his blessing with his venison, the Text says, Genesis 27:33, That Isaac was stricken with a marvelous great fear, and said, I have blessed him, and therefore he…

And the reason is rendered, They knew in themselves how that they had in heaven a better and more enduring substance. And our Savior Christ endured the Cross, and despised the shame, for the joy that was set before him, Hebrews 12:1; that is, in consideration of that joy in glor…

This Saint Paul showeth, when he saith, 2 Timothy 3.6, that certain simple women are laden with sin. Behold, sin is that that ladeth us: and the Author to the Hebrews, calleth sin the thing that hangeth on so fast, and presseth us down: (Hebrews 12.1). Therefore if we will be go…

God is termed a Father in respect both of nature and grace. He is a Father in regard of nature (Hebrews 12:9) because he created and governs all things. In this regard he is called the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9), and Adam is called the Son of God (Luke 3:38).

He has God's free spirit (Psalm 51:12), which makes him free and cheerful in his obedience; the will is not compelled but changed; a regenerate person is drawn indeed by the Spirit, but sweetly, as one is drawn into a garden of spices by the fragrancy of their smell; he is drawn…

In the first estate, all afflictions are curses or legal punishments, be they little or great: but to them that are in the second estate and believe in Christ, though the same afflictions remain, yet do they change their condition, and are the actions of a Father serving to be t…

By this counsel of God they are ordained as means of much spiritual good to saints (Isaiah 27:9): 'By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.' Hebrews 12:10: 'But he for our profit.' Romans 8:28: 'All things work together for good.'

1. This soul was by its first creation a spirit, and that in the substance or native kind thereof; and in that respect (considered apart from its union with the body) is in a more special manner allied to God, than all other creatures (but angels) are. You have the pedigree of m…

It was a good observation that one made, the soul grows wise by sitting still and quiet under the rod. And the Apostle calls those excellent fruits which the saints gather from their sanctified afflictions, the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). Lastly, My heart'…

We also ought to be sensible of the stroke God puts upon our dear relations: but yet still we must weep, as if we wept not; that is, we must keep due bounds and moderation in our sorrows, and not be too deeply concerned for these dying short-lived things. To this purpose the Apo…

If you would take this way, even to eye and look to Christ as the author, and finisher of faith, and be in His common for it, through His grace it should go better with you. This is it which the Apostle has, Hebrews 12, where he calls to lay aside every weight, and the sin that…

And therefore remember 1. That although we tell you that works are not properly the condition of the covenant of grace, yet we say that faith and works are never separate in a justified person; sound faith cannot but work, and put on to the study of holiness. 2. We say, although…

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices; for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itsel…

Or what just reason can there be to be dissatisfied with, or to complain of God's giving to, and ordering that for us, whereof we stand in need, and which we cannot want without being considerably prejudiced and worsted by the want? Sixthly, if it be considered, that in all your…

The Lord suffered, and died; the ship was broken and did sink, the soul and body separated, and yet the Godhead remained in a personal union, one with the Manhood, as our soul and body remain together, while we live and subsist as entire persons. Use 1. Christ has suffered much…

Now this perfection which Paul professes he wants, is opposed in verses 13-14 to his pressing toward the garland, For the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 11:40). 3. Perfection, such as we expect in heaven, is in no capacity to receive any further additi…

That seeing of the salvation of God, is neither conversion, nor preparation of a people for Christ. 2. The phrase of seeing God, and the salvation of God, being set down as a powerful fruit of the Gospel, has never in Scripture so low a meaning as is not wanting to natural men,…

A forerunner is a forerunner of followers and of such as stay not long behind, and usually goes before as a harbinger to provide and take up lodgings for them that are to come, and writes the names of those who are to come over the doors of such and such rooms that they may not…