John 21

This is a great way of glorifying God, when we break the Devil's prison, and turn men from the power of Satan to God. 15. We glorify God in a high manner when we suffer for God, and seal the Gospel with our blood (John 21:18-19): When you shall be old, another shall gird you and…

Love is the heart of religion, the fat of the offering. It is the grace which Christ inquires most after (John 21:15). Peter, do you love me?

We may dread God as a judge, but we cannot honor him as a father, till we know he is our God. 2. Get a sincere love to God: A love of appreciation, and a love of complacency to delight in him (John 21:15). Lord, you know I love you.

And after the time of Christ's passion, Peter, and the other Disciples, returned to their ships again, and became fishers for a time. For Christ (John 21) after his resurrection, appeared to them while they were fishing. 2. Question. Whether may a man lawfully seek to be rich, s…

(2) A due valuation of present enjoyments, which is especially required since the coming of Christ in the flesh. (3) A ready application of mind to present duties (John 21:22). (4) Waiting in prayer for what we have not yet received.

We have heard, say they, out of the Law, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (John 12:34), that Christ abideth for ever; whereon they could not understand what he told them about his being lifted up by death. And so the word [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] signifieth to abide, to continue i…

Now some may ask, where was this food? The same Lord that was able to provide a whale to swallow up Jonah, and so to save him: and he that was able to provide a fish for Peter's hook with a piece of twenty pence in the mouth: and to make a little bread and a few fishes to feed s…

Well then, Saints mind your work; do you indeed love God? Christ puts Peter to the question three times (John 21). A deceitful heart is apt to abuse you: ask again and again, Do I indeed love God?

(Job 41:1) Will you draw Leviathan with your hook? (John 21:11) Simon Peter, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, drew a net to land. (Acts 16:19) They caught Paul and Silas ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, and drew them to the market place to the rulers.

Then neither blood, nor the will of man contribute any active influence to the first framing of the new birth; nor can clay divide the glory of regeneration, with the God of grace, who makes all things new. Assertion 2. The soul or its faculties are not destroyed in conversion:…

Peter went forth and the other disciple, and came to the Sepulcher, so (Acts 3:1). Now Peter and John went up together into the temple, at the hour of prayer (John 21:7). The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord, and (John 21:21-22).

There is, therefore, no absurdity in saying, that a miracle, which is related by one, has been passed over by the other two. And we must bear in mind what John says, that, out of the innumerable miracles “which Jesus did,” (John 21:25,) a part only has been selected, which was s…

Matthew 9:27. And while Jesus was departing. The other Evangelists say nothing about these two miracles; for, as we have already said, and as John expressly affirms, (John 21:25,) they did not intend to record every action of Christ, but only to prove, by a brief summary, that h…

whenever it was necessary that the human nature should act separately, according to what was peculiar to itself, in discharging the office of Mediator. There would be no impropriety, therefore in saying that Christ, who knew all things, (John 21:17) was ignorant of something in…

This is the only and proper office of a Bishop. So said Christ to Peter: Feed my sheep (John 21) — that is, the sheep which I commit to you to feed are not yours, but mine. However, these words have been so canvassed and wrested by my Lord the Pope, that he thereby usurps and ex…

And in this Respect the Church is clothed with the Sun, not only by being clothed with his imputed Righteousness, but also by being adorned with his Graces; Romans 13:14. Christ the great Shepherd, is himself a Lamb, and Believers are also Lambs; all the Flock are Lambs; 'John 2…

5. As it is our duty, so it is our advantage to walk under the conviction of Christ's omniscience, and to converse before him with the faith of his beholding what we are doing. 6. It is a good evidence of sincerity, when his omniscience becomes delightsome to us, and when the he…

And besides metaphors, the Scripture uses hyperboles. I shall only instance in that famous one (John 21, last verse): "Many other things Jesus did; which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.…

2 Corinthians 13. 5. Know ye not your own selves? John 21. 15. Simon Son of Jonas, do you love me? and many other Places. Nor is the Nature of Godliness less made known, than the true Doctrines of Religion.

For it is the proper work of the Spirit to make us holy, and he bears the name of the Holy Ghost, and of the spirit of sanctification upon that reason; and therefore where self is the man's god, what room is left to holiness, and to the influences of grace? And where the love of…

And ordinarily it is so in the holy, wise providence of God, that afflictions and troubles increase with age. It is so in an especial manner with ministers of the Gospel; they have many of them a share in the lot of Peter, which our Lord Jesus Christ declared to him (John 21:18)…

It is not said, the Lord turned and frowned upon Peter, though he deserved to be frowned into hell, but the Lord turned and looked upon Peter (Luke 22:61), and that look recovered him into the way to heaven; it was a kind look, and not an angry one. Some days after when Christ a…

At the first trial Peter compared himself with others and vaunted himself above them: 'though all men should forsake you, yet I will not.' But when our Savior afterward came to him and put him directly upon the comparison — 'Simon Peter, do you love me more than these?' (John 21…

Some in their glossing have been so impudent as to add that beside the text. Though Chapter 5:4 he gives that title to Christ alone, and to himself only fellow elder, and here not Prince of the Apostles, but an Apostle, restored and reestablished after his fall, by repentance, a…

In a word, there is in love a sweet constraint, or tying of the heart to all obedience, and duty. The love of God is requisite in ministers, for their preaching of the word, so our Savior to St. Peter (John 21:15): Peter, do you love me? Then feed my lambs.

(Psalm 69:9) The reproaches of them that reproached you, are fallen upon me. Or if they hear God's name rent in pieces, and men dishonor him by their filthy lives, it goes to their hearts; for God and they have but one common interest: Indeed, they prefer God's interest before t…

And other of the saints of God, though they could not plead their exact performance and their full and effectual compliance with the will of God, yet have pleaded their desires (Isaiah 26:8 — the desire of our soul is to your name; Nehemiah 1:11 — we desire to fear your name). A…

But here to God himself, who knows the secrets of the heart. To speak thus of God to God, argues our sincerity, when to God's face we avow our trust and choice, as Peter (John 21:7), Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you, he appeals to God's omniscience; such an ap…

And if Christ had neglected any part of that worship which was then in force, how then did himself say, that it became him to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15)? Besides, many things Jesus did and said (and so did the Apostles) which are not written in the Gospel nor Acts…

Secondly, the interest of God calls for it. Our Lord said to a Peter, in (John 21:15): "Do you love me? — Then feed my lambs." The like may be said to a master, if you do love God, then bring your lambs to serve him.

3. Beware of charging him with partiality. There is an envy on this account, too apt to discover itself; such as was in Peter, when Christ had told him what trials he must encounter, is inquisitive what must befall the beloved Disciple, for which he received a rebuke (John 21:21…

Ministers must not always look for such shines of the prince's favor, they must expect an alarm. Peter a famous preacher, who knew how to cast the net on the right side of the ship; at one sermon he converted three thousand souls, yet neither the divinity of his doctrine, nor th…

There are many things may be instanced in out of the New Testament of which God shows his dislike, which yet in the letter and particularly by name are not forbidden in any of the commands of the Old Testament, as (Romans 1:26) with divers others that might be named; and there a…

Nor does Scripture ever commend Christ's love to us in sealing the Gospel with his blood as the only way to life, or making this the most strong argument to move us to believe in God, and obey Christ, because Christ died for sinners, and rose again to make the Gospel credible an…

A true saint is carried in that chariot, the midst whereof is paved with love, Canticles 3:10. As faith does quicken, so love does sweeten every duty: The sun mellows the fruit, so love mellows the services of religion, and makes them come off with a better relish: A godly man i…

Yet in the meantime that repugnancy abides still in their hearts, that natural sense shuns and dreads those things that it knows to be against it: but the affection of godliness labors even through all those difficulties to the obeying of God's will. This repugnancy the Lord exp…

But the sincere heart even in this case holds out confident and comfortable. When Christ seemed to set himself against Peter, and to call the truth of his profession into question, with that threefold pinching demand, Simon, do you love me? — Peter's faithful heart still held it…

Thus Peter, when Christ lay pressing upon him with that threefold interrogation, Simon, do you love me, thereby renewing the bitter memory of his threefold denial, and in effect saying thus much, How can I think that you who have so often denied me do love me? He yet sustained h…

3. Christ does single out Peter after he rose from the dead, Christ has more discourse with Peter then hee has all with his Disciples else, Joh. 21. Thus you see that Jesus Christ manifests love to those sinners that sinned foully, after they have repented and are sufficiently h…

These are the true and faithful sayings of God. And what weight is to be laid hereon, is declared; John 21. 24. This is that Disciple which testifies of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.

One thing indeed our Savior says, which (had they not been prepossessed with another opinion) does sufficiently intimate that there might be a considerable space of time, between the destruction of Jerusalem and the day of judgment; and this we find only in Saint Luke, chapter 2…

And therefore the promise does not run, If any man have wisdom let him ask it, but if any man want wisdom (James 1:5) so if any man want light, life, want peace, pardon, want Christ and his Spirit, let them ask and the Lord will give, away with your money if you come to these wa…

All the three persons were wronged by sin; yet the wrong was chiefly against the Father, because his manner of working appeared chiefly in creation, from the righteousness of which, man fell by sin. The Father forgives primarily by sovereign authority; the Son of Man Christ Jesu…

Nothing more presses true love, than to have any appearance of suspicion. Christ comes to Peter and asks him, Simon, Son of Jonas, lovest thou me? John 21:15. Peter seems glad of an opportunity to confess him, and his love to him, whom not long since he had denied; and answers r…

'If any man so love the world, the love of the Father is not in him' (1 John 2:15). However much a sincere Christian loves the world, yet still it is in subordination to the love of God (John 21:15). Sincerity can consist with no other love of the world; it will not suffer such…

Christ in you the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Nor are the faculties of the soul and the workings of it, in our conversion destroyed, as some say, as if the Holy Ghost should come in stead of these; for Christ takes down old work, and makes a new building for himself, but th…

2. The spirit of a redeemed one can hardly hate a redeemed one, or be bitter against them; Christ in one saint cannot be cruel to Christ in another saint. 3. Christ cannot lose his love, or cast it away; the love of Christ is powerful for conquering hearts; his chariot is bottom…

Fifthly, the fifth thing is to show that it is the duty of all true Christians to love this unseen Christ. This will appear if you look into (John 21:15-17). Peter was one of the boldest and most forward of all Christ's disciples, but he had been also too self-confident, which w…

So Isaiah 64:6: our best righteousness is as a menstruous rag: so the Priest was to bear holiness in his forehead, to take away the iniquity of their holy offerings (Exodus 28:36-38). And though all other examples should fail, as none of them can fail, that is evident (John 21:1…

Not for ever, but for a time; and that not by vow, but only in affection and disposition of their hearts. For after they had forsaken all, we read, that they came to their nets and boats again (John 21:3). Again, the Apostle Paul speaks of himself and the rest, when he says, Hav…